Windows Search
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I've not encountered a more useless piece of bloat than Windows Search. I have never found anything I was looking for using it. I wanted to search for any and all files with XYZ anywhere in the name, so I tried Windows Search, and it found nothing, zilch. So I opened a DOS box and did dir *XYZ*.* /s and it came up with about 25 matches in 1/1000th the time it took Windows Search to say it found nothing. This is the kind of thing that makes me want to chuck the PC off the balcony.
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I've not encountered a more useless piece of bloat than Windows Search. I have never found anything I was looking for using it. I wanted to search for any and all files with XYZ anywhere in the name, so I tried Windows Search, and it found nothing, zilch. So I opened a DOS box and did dir *XYZ*.* /s and it came up with about 25 matches in 1/1000th the time it took Windows Search to say it found nothing. This is the kind of thing that makes me want to chuck the PC off the balcony.
Richard Andrew x64 wrote:
I have never found anything I was looking for using it.
Windows search kind of works when you know how it works and either change the index or how you ask to get results, you shouldn't have to do this! Plus, you can't trust the results as it quite often misses results!
Richard Andrew x64 wrote:
So I opened a DOS box and did dir *XYZ*.* /s and it came up with about 25 matches in 1/1000th the time it took Windows Search to say it found nothing.
Same here, I use DOS or Visual Studio - always finds what I want.
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Richard Andrew x64 wrote:
I have never found anything I was looking for using it.
Windows search kind of works when you know how it works and either change the index or how you ask to get results, you shouldn't have to do this! Plus, you can't trust the results as it quite often misses results!
Richard Andrew x64 wrote:
So I opened a DOS box and did dir *XYZ*.* /s and it came up with about 25 matches in 1/1000th the time it took Windows Search to say it found nothing.
Same here, I use DOS or Visual Studio - always finds what I want.
same here, windows search.... don't find the file that i know is there..... Agent Ransack... finds more files than I thought was there. job done.
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I've not encountered a more useless piece of bloat than Windows Search. I have never found anything I was looking for using it. I wanted to search for any and all files with XYZ anywhere in the name, so I tried Windows Search, and it found nothing, zilch. So I opened a DOS box and did dir *XYZ*.* /s and it came up with about 25 matches in 1/1000th the time it took Windows Search to say it found nothing. This is the kind of thing that makes me want to chuck the PC off the balcony.
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I've not encountered a more useless piece of bloat than Windows Search. I have never found anything I was looking for using it. I wanted to search for any and all files with XYZ anywhere in the name, so I tried Windows Search, and it found nothing, zilch. So I opened a DOS box and did dir *XYZ*.* /s and it came up with about 25 matches in 1/1000th the time it took Windows Search to say it found nothing. This is the kind of thing that makes me want to chuck the PC off the balcony.
If all you need to do is find files (not search for content) then you really need the "Everything" search tool from voidtools: http://www.voidtools.com/[^]. There's also a portable version, if you don't want to have to install the app. The app is insanely fast when indexing the entire disk (took a couple of minutes on my system, to index 548.809 objects), yet the index file is tiny (2.68Mb). Searches are also near instantaneous (just typed "xyz" into the search box and found 50 (!) files with "xyz" in the name - and the search finished practically at the instant I typed the last letter :-) I've been using Everything for nearly 2 years now, and can't imagine life without it! HTH, John
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I've not encountered a more useless piece of bloat than Windows Search. I have never found anything I was looking for using it. I wanted to search for any and all files with XYZ anywhere in the name, so I tried Windows Search, and it found nothing, zilch. So I opened a DOS box and did dir *XYZ*.* /s and it came up with about 25 matches in 1/1000th the time it took Windows Search to say it found nothing. This is the kind of thing that makes me want to chuck the PC off the balcony.
I use
attrib /s *XYZ*and it is as fast asdir. Purpose ofattribis different, but it finds searched files. If you want to display folders useattrib /s /d *XYZ* -
I've not encountered a more useless piece of bloat than Windows Search. I have never found anything I was looking for using it. I wanted to search for any and all files with XYZ anywhere in the name, so I tried Windows Search, and it found nothing, zilch. So I opened a DOS box and did dir *XYZ*.* /s and it came up with about 25 matches in 1/1000th the time it took Windows Search to say it found nothing. This is the kind of thing that makes me want to chuck the PC off the balcony.
I always use the "Search Companion" when using windows search... I agree windows search sucks !
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same here, windows search.... don't find the file that i know is there..... Agent Ransack... finds more files than I thought was there. job done.
Agent Ransack was nice until Win7 when it lost the ability to integrate into Windows Exploror's right-click menu. Now I use Super Finder XT. It would be interesting to get the inside scoop on why MS thinks it has improved Windows Search when it clearly fails 99% of the time.
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I've not encountered a more useless piece of bloat than Windows Search. I have never found anything I was looking for using it. I wanted to search for any and all files with XYZ anywhere in the name, so I tried Windows Search, and it found nothing, zilch. So I opened a DOS box and did dir *XYZ*.* /s and it came up with about 25 matches in 1/1000th the time it took Windows Search to say it found nothing. This is the kind of thing that makes me want to chuck the PC off the balcony.
Bring Back Windows Search. Windows XP had a search option in the start menu that worked. When they moved it to the top right of the directory window with Windows Vista and Windows 7 it stooped working. Dose it still search all drives? No. Dose it search down all directories from the root directory? No. Only search for files in the displayed directory window and no sub-directories. Why? Dose it search for text in a file? No. And why dose it remove the displayed directory list of files and directories with the results of its search? Because they think it should be displayed in the same window. "indexing", what's that? There are no options when entering text as there was with search in Windows XP. I expect there must be some hidden menu in a directory windows menu as there is now no search window. At least we can still search using the Disc Operating System.
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I've not encountered a more useless piece of bloat than Windows Search. I have never found anything I was looking for using it. I wanted to search for any and all files with XYZ anywhere in the name, so I tried Windows Search, and it found nothing, zilch. So I opened a DOS box and did dir *XYZ*.* /s and it came up with about 25 matches in 1/1000th the time it took Windows Search to say it found nothing. This is the kind of thing that makes me want to chuck the PC off the balcony.
Agree. I don't know why there isn't someone at M$ who isn't in charge of making sure that stupid broken limping scrod like this is not ever ever released. I actually sometime use Visual Studio's Find in Files when I need to find stuff. Works pretty good, and you can also use regular expressions ... err... I mean IRRegular Expressions, as they do not use the standard regex syntax the rest of the world uses. (Another thing the VP in Charge of Suppressing Limping Scrod should have caught out). [Edit - I just did a search and replace of an IP address in over 2000 files using Visual Studio, and it worked like a charm.] YS
modified on Monday, October 4, 2010 6:47 PM
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I've not encountered a more useless piece of bloat than Windows Search. I have never found anything I was looking for using it. I wanted to search for any and all files with XYZ anywhere in the name, so I tried Windows Search, and it found nothing, zilch. So I opened a DOS box and did dir *XYZ*.* /s and it came up with about 25 matches in 1/1000th the time it took Windows Search to say it found nothing. This is the kind of thing that makes me want to chuck the PC off the balcony.
I beleive it still has search companion somewhere available if you want to search for all files.
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I've not encountered a more useless piece of bloat than Windows Search. I have never found anything I was looking for using it. I wanted to search for any and all files with XYZ anywhere in the name, so I tried Windows Search, and it found nothing, zilch. So I opened a DOS box and did dir *XYZ*.* /s and it came up with about 25 matches in 1/1000th the time it took Windows Search to say it found nothing. This is the kind of thing that makes me want to chuck the PC off the balcony.
Once everything was in RAM from the windows "search", any search would be fast.. DOS or windows. Windows "search" ignores directories with certain magical names and files with names ending in certain magical strings, no matter what you tell it to do. This is probably why the DOS search found what the windows search couldn't. I just look at this kid of stupidiy as Microsoft's Programmer Job Security Initiative -- correcting Microsoft's stupidity = job security for bunches of us. FYI, just be glad you're not running Windows 7 -- they lobotomized search to the point it is pretty much useless. PJSI for the Cygwin team, I guess :)
patbob
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I've not encountered a more useless piece of bloat than Windows Search. I have never found anything I was looking for using it. I wanted to search for any and all files with XYZ anywhere in the name, so I tried Windows Search, and it found nothing, zilch. So I opened a DOS box and did dir *XYZ*.* /s and it came up with about 25 matches in 1/1000th the time it took Windows Search to say it found nothing. This is the kind of thing that makes me want to chuck the PC off the balcony.
I rely on Windows Desktop Search, or something similar. I have thousands of e-mails and hundreds of documents that I would never be able to locate speedily without some form of indexed search. WDS v3 does have some nasty limitations to do with index options, but v4 is much better. Except that it keeps disappearing every time I reboot my (virtual) XP machine! I tried Google Search but didn't like the way it insisted on including web search results along with the desktop results! I also tried Coveo but, if you so much as breathe on the computer, it stops indexing! Currently, I'm trying out X1[^]. $50 to buy, but you're given a 14 day eval. So far, I'm impressed.
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Agent Ransack was nice until Win7 when it lost the ability to integrate into Windows Exploror's right-click menu. Now I use Super Finder XT. It would be interesting to get the inside scoop on why MS thinks it has improved Windows Search when it clearly fails 99% of the time.
I'm on win7 x64 and got the right click menues :)
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I'm on win7 x64 and got the right click menues :)
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What did you do different? I've installed it at home and work, both Win7-64 Pro, and Agent Ransack does not show up.
I don't remember, but I would have clicked 'customise' for the install option if it was there, and it was probably an option in there. i.e. not on by default any more. Just had a look, I can 1- open agent ransack 2- click tools 3- click shel integration 4- select add 'agent ransack...' to a folders context menu options. try that.
