How To Display the Find All Files Dialog Box

MORE INFORMATION

The Find All Files dialog box allows you to search for a specific file by it's name, modification date, file type, size, or contents. You can launch this dialog box from your Visual Basic program by using the ShellExecute Windows API function with the Find operation specifier.

The results of the search operation will be displayed in the Find All Files dialog box.

The next section shows you how to create a sample project that uses the ShellExecute function to display the Find All Files dialog box.

Create the Sample Project

1. Start a new Standard EXE project in Visual Basic. Form1 is created by default.
2. Add a Command Button, a Drive ListBox, and a Directory ListBox to the form.
3. Copy the following code to the Code window of Form1:

         Private Declare Function ShellExecute Lib "shell32.dll" _
               Alias "ShellExecuteA" _
               (ByVal hwnd As Long, _
               ByVal lpOperation As String, _
               ByVal lpFile As String, _
               ByVal lpParameters As String, _
               ByVal lpDirectory As String, _
               ByVal nShowCmd As Long) As Long
   
         Private Const SW_SHOWNORMAL = 1
         Private Const SW_SHOWMINIMIZED = 2
         Private Const SW_SHOWMAXIMIZED = 3
         Private Const SW_SHOW = 5
         Private Const SW_MINIMIZE = 6
         Private Const SW_SHOWMINNOACTIVE = 7
         Private Const SW_SHOWNA = 8
         Private Const SW_RESTORE = 9
         Private Const SW_SHOWDEFAULT = 10
   
         Private Sub Command1_Click()
            Call ShellExecute(Me.hwnd, _
                              "find", _
                              Dir1.Path, _
                              vbNullString, _
                              vbNullString, _
                              SW_SHOWNORMAL)
         End Sub
   
         Private Sub Drive1_Change()
            Dir1.Path = Drive1.Drive
         End Sub
   
         Private Sub Form_Load()
            Command1.Caption = "Search Selected Path"
         End Sub
   
   						

4. On the Run menu, click Start or press the F5 key to start the program. Select a drive and a path within the drive and click Search Selected Path. The Find All Files dialog box appears ready to search the specified path.