Searching for Extensionless Files in Windows 7

Solution 1:

According to MSDN, the nothing character is []. So press F3 and enter ext:[].

Solution 2:

As @surfasb points out the [] can be used to represent 'nothing', and you can use it with the ext: filter.

You can then use that in combination with the type: filter and tell it to NOT show file folders:

ext:[] type:NOT"file folder"

Solution 3:

I was facing this issue today on Windows 8 and have noticed it on previously on Windows 7 as well. I finally found a way to do this right and I hope this answer helps the original posters and others who come here via google searches.

Typically for normal as well as advanced power searches I used Nirsoft SearchMyFiles and stopped using Windows Search.

But, for some reason I was having trouble getting it to find files without any extensions. I figured the same bug was there in this app as well.

But, I was wrong and apparently Nir Softer has redesigned his wild card & regular expression engine from scratch; as per this little gem I found posted on the page in "Versions History" section:

• Version 2.40:
  • SearchMyFiles now uses an internal wildcard parser instead of basing the search result on the wildcard parser of Windows. This change solves an annoying bug caused by Windows wildcard parser: In previous versions, SearchMyFiles sometimes returned incorrect results, because Windows also matches the wildcard with the short filename (8.3 DOS format).
  • Notice: The new wildcard parser may cause some compatibility issues, for example: When you scanned using . wildcard with Windows parser, it returned all files, including files without extension. With the new SearchMyFiles wildcard parser, . returns only files with extension. In order to return all files, you should use * instead of .
  • When loading old config files, SearchMyFiles automatically converts all . wildcards to *
  • The new wildcard parser has some advantages, for example: if you search for ..., you'll get all files with 3 dot characters or more. With Windows wildcard parser in previous versions, you simply got the list of all files.
  • You can now exclude files by using wildcards list. You have to select this option from the combo-box, because the default option is to exclude files by extension.
  • You can now specify environment strings in the 'Base Folders' and 'Excluded Folders' fields (For example: %AppData% )

So to find files without extensions don't use these:

*.* or *.

Just use a simple:

* 

For example :

Files Wildcard: *
Subfolders Wildcard: *

Note: Please don't go by the wild cards shown in the 'old' screenshot posted above.