Use Find As You Type Search In Visual Studio 2005

To start using this feature, just hit Ctrl + i once, and you will see the cursor change to an arrow with binoculars. At this point, you can just start typing, and Visual Studio will automatically start finding.

It’s tough to show this off in a screenshot, but here’s the basic idea:

To start an “Incremental Search” you just hit Ctrl + i, but there’s more keys that work with this:

Ctrl + i – Start Incremental Search \ Find Next Instance Ctrl + Shift + i – Find Previous Instance Esc – Cancel Search Backspace – Works just like you’d expect.

This is a heck of a lot more quick than using the normal file search dialog.