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Windows Search question
11-11-2014, 03:42 AM
Here's a query for Windows7 that I hope someone will know the answer to, because I can find no solution on Google -- It's almost like no one has ever asked this before.
How can I use Windows 7 Search to look for all MP3 files in which the title or artist fields on the "Details" tab are empty? Can I do this at all? I know that entering 'title:""' in the search prompt doesn't do what I want -- it seems to match everything instead of nothing. Anyone have an answer?
Thanks.
-- Bob
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Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
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Try .mp3 as your search term, then once it's finished loading the results, sort the search by type (if it isn't sorted already), then look up the MP3 files.
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In *nix, this would be easy - search for anything that does not have one or more characters in the field. Does Win7 Search have a "not equal to" option?
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
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Actually, just a couple minutes after I posted this I figured out the way to do it. My problem was I was fixated on the search tool. I didn't need it. I went to my Music directory, put it in Details view, and then added the fields I wanted to check as columns in the display. Then I sorted the columns as needed. Easy.
Now if I could just figure out why a dozen or so of my MP3s won't take any ID3 info. Filetyping tools confirm they're real MP3s (and not, say, mislabeled WAV files), but won't explain why they're untaggable.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
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You could do what I do. I use Winamp to add stuff like that. I get the file info, then manually type it into the id3 format I want, then select the option to copy it into the other format, and then save it. After that, it works fine.
---
Those who fear the darkness have never seen what the light can do.
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I use Winamp as my primary player for MP3, I'll have to try that on the recalcitrant files. I'm just used to using an MP3 ripper on YouTube videos these days and then opening up the properties window for the file that results.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
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I'd use Winamp's Ripper myself for some CDs... if they still had access to GraceNote's album DB. I'm too lazy to enter the information manually, especially for my TV Theme Song CDs which have 65 tracks each. Windows Media Player won't do more than 50 tracks and it picks the weirdest ones to decide to skip over in the list.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''
-- James Nicoll
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VLC can happily do it. There's a lot that VLC can do, that very few people ever do with it.
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