micky wrote:
In alt.windows7.general, on Sat, 16 Mar 2019 16:07:29 +0000, "J. P.
Gilliver (John)" wrote:

They're different purposes: Everything works on filenames, Agent Ransack
on file contents. I don't think Everything - because of the way it
works, which I don't understand, but it's something to do with NTFS, I
think - _does_ hammer the disc. I use it mostly - but not exclusively -
when I want to ask myself "have I already downloaded a file with x
[often a serial number] in its name".

I have Ransack but don't it because I really don't look for text in a
file. (But it was good to learn what the word ransack meant. I thought
it just meant to tear everyhing up. I didn't know it meant for the
purpose of finding something.

One should read the help file or whatever for Everything. It is capable
of a lot. For example, if there were a file with the same anme as
John's email address above, C:\ jp 55 uk would be a way to search for
it. It's more powerful than that, but I can't recall all that it can
do.

Not only does Agent Ransack search the content of files,
but, it will engage all your CPU cores while doing it.
If you do a content search on an SSD, it can keep the
bus interface on the SSD very busy.

Agent Ransack does nothing in advance. You pay the same price
for each search. The only "improvement" from one search to
another, comes from the System Read Cache, which improves
the I/O rates on repeated searches you might carry out.

Everything.exe caches filenames, dates, sizes. In the index
file. It does not index content, or read file content that
I know of.

Windows Search indexes everything, content, filename,
date, size, and keeps it in a gigabyte-sized database.
It only does content indexing on things it understands.
Text files are easy. Many other file types defy
analysis (try and find a text string in a movie file).
File types with "providers", it is the "provider"
that pulls the text string out of the text file.
Windows Search doesn't "inherently" know how to
carry out some sort of forensic exam. It needs
a lot of help from other pieces of software
(i.e. a piece of software "per type").

Paul