How to search a hard drive for a directory name using DOS

Question

Is there a way to find a file on the C: of a computer , using a DOS command, without having to CD to the root of the C: drive? I would like to do it using the DIR and the FINDSTR command only.

Ultimately, my goal is to search for a file and then store the parent directory name in a ENV variable without changing directories and hopefully without creating a temp file.

Is writing a small console app out of the question? Also, what should it do if your search finds multiple files with the same name?

Jeffrey L Whitledge · Accepted Answer · 2010-03-01 22:05:18Z

up vote1down voteaccepted

This gets the complete file name with directory in a useable form.

dir C:\FILENAME.EXT /s /b

answered Mar 1 '10 at 22:05

Jeffrey L Whitledge
22.5k42457

	yes indeed. thats it. i didn't realize the /b option did that. thanks, thats what I needed. – djangofan Mar 1 '10 at 23:03
	actual command I used was: dir c:\dirname /s /b /AD – djangofan Mar 1 '10 at 23:11
	@djangofan, /b just lists the results in `bare format`. See `dir /?`. It is not required. The answer should indicate this. – Matthew Doucette Feb 16 '12 at 16:40

score 4 · Answer 2

Have a look at How to find a file in MS-DOS.

dir *bob*.* /s

도스 dir /s 파일 폴더 찾기...펌

How to search a hard drive for a directory name using DOS

3 Answers