Quick Fix: “Find in Files” Button is Disabled

Okay, so this is a pretty simple one.  Perhaps I should have figured it out way, way faster than I did, and perhaps nobody else will ever have trouble with this, but I never promised to be helpful.  Or did I?

Anyway, here’s a pretty common scenario (around here, at least):

1. Fire up Visual Studio 2010.
2. Hit CTRL + SHIFT + F to bring up the Find and Replace dialog in “Find In Files” mode.
3. Type a keyword that will bring up the area in your project you want to work with.
4. Hit Enter.
5. Wait.
6. Finally notice that nothing is happening.
7. Hit Enter again.
8. And again.
9. Mumble “What the hell…?”
10. Reach for your mouse.
11. Notice the “Final All” button is disabled.
12. Say “What the hell?” a bit louder.
13. Click the button anyway.  (Nothing happens.)
14. Stare at monitor with angry / confused expression.

Here’s the problem: in Visual Studio 2010, the “Find All” button isn’t enabled until you’ve opened a text file of some description.  Once this happens, it will stay enabled until you close Visual Studio, even if you don’t have any documents open.  Yeah, it’s a bug.

Here’s a workaround:

1. Open any text document (code file, XML file, whatever).
2. Hit CTRL + SHIFT + F to re-open the Find and Replace dialog.

If you’re looking for a quick keyboard fix, try CTRL + N, ENTER, CTRL + SHIFT + F, CTRL + F4.

And please, if this helps you, leave a comment and let me know.  I’d really like to hear that I’m not the only person this bothers.