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.

Answer 1

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

dir C:\FILENAME.EXT /s /b

Answer 2

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

dir *bob*.* /s 

See also List of DOS commands

Answer 3

c:> findstr /s /i *.ext REM finds in drive c: every file called *.ext containing (case insensitive)