Visual Studio "Find in Files" does not work

Following worked for me . Visual Studio-->Windows-->Reset Window Panel. The resizing of the visual studio made it to hide the option.

This is obviously a way late answer but I did get here while looking for a solution to a somewhat similar issue and I'd like to share the fix which eventually worked:

Make sure you clear the "Look at these file types:" box from whitespaces which will prevent the search from running properly.

I think I recognize this wellknown, longstanding bug:

• https://web.archive.org/web/20100617142305/http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/105511/find-in-files-says-no-files-were-found-to-look-in-find-was-stopped

The workaround mentioned there worked for me when I had this problem

I found a tip to try pressing Ctrl + ScrollLock to fix it, and it worked.

I think most people report success with the (Ctrl-)Break key, but some say (Ctrl-)ScrollLock worked instead

Like many other problems where VS simply stops to work properly, deleting the solutions .vs (located in the solution directory) seems to be a 'valid option'.

CAUTION: this will cause you to loose:

• breakpoints
• tabs / open documents
• currently set build configuration
• other non-vital information

... along with a lot of wrongly cached information that VS successfully managed to pile up leading to wrong find results.

I do this regularily when i encounter extreme lags even in debug-startups.