Why is search so brain dead these days?

On 2020-06-23 6:38 p.m., Mayayana wrote:
"Ken Blake" wrote

| Much the same for me. I'll just add one other reason: I know Windows
| very well, and I don't want to discard the knowledge I have and start
| all over again learning something new.
|
| That's also a reason I don't run Linux.

Yes. That's a big factor. It's sad and frustrating to know
that all those years of acclimating and learning will be
lost, for no good reason. But with Windows, at least, it
lasts a long time. I'm still writing software in VB6 that
will run on virtually any currently running Windows machine
with no special support files needed. That's over 20 years of
compatibility. Mac and Linux? More like 2 years. Some
Linux versions are out of support after 12-18 months. It's
nuts. There's no system for standardizing libraries. On
Windows, if an API call worked in Win95 I can trust it to
work in Win10.



LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

"Alan Baker" wrote

| Yes. That's a big factor. It's sad and frustrating to know
| that all those years of acclimating and learning will be
| lost, for no good reason. But with Windows, at least, it
| lasts a long time. I'm still writing software in VB6 that
| will run on virtually any currently running Windows machine
| with no special support files needed. That's over 20 years of
| compatibility. Mac and Linux? More like 2 years. Some
| Linux versions are out of support after 12-18 months. It's
| nuts. There's no system for standardizing libraries. On
| Windows, if an API call worked in Win95 I can trust it to
| work in Win10.
|
| LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

That's the other nice thing about Windows: The keyboards
"just work". I've never had one take off on its own like some
kind of alphabet machine gun.

In article , Mayayana
wrote:


| Much the same for me. I'll just add one other reason: I know Windows
| very well, and I don't want to discard the knowledge I have and start
| all over again learning something new.
|
| That's also a reason I don't run Linux.

Yes. That's a big factor. It's sad and frustrating to know
that all those years of acclimating and learning will be
lost, for no good reason.

it's not lost. the concepts are the same and many apps exist on both
(office, firefox, etc.). a few details might be a little different but
it's relatively minor.

But with Windows, at least, it
lasts a long time. I'm still writing software in VB6 that
will run on virtually any currently running Windows machine
with no special support files needed. That's over 20 years of
compatibility. Mac and Linux? More like 2 years. Some
Linux versions are out of support after 12-18 months. It's
nuts.

it's also completely wrong.

apps normally continue to work for *much* more than 2 years.

5-10 years is typical, sometimes 20 years or even longer, depending on
the app.

There's no system for standardizing libraries.

yes there is.

On
Windows, if an API call worked in Win95 I can trust it to
work in Win10.

not all of them. there's also a lot of new apis for functionality that
did not exist in win95.

In article , Frank Slootweg
wrote:

(Like so many AppleSeeds, he thinks "Wintel" and
Mac are locked in mortal combat.) Or maybe that's an
excuse to extend his endless thirst for argument.

Yes, they seem to feel the need to prove the alleged superiority of
their tools and to attack anything else.

nope.

what they do is correct the numerous false statements (sometimes wildly
so) made by those who have little to no experience with macs, iphones
or any other apple product.

each platform has advantages and disadvantages. no single product is
best for everything. pick the best tool for the job.

As you said, there is no such thing as 'Wintel' people. We just use
Windows. If it works, great. If it doesn't work, not so great and we
will be the first to complain, etc. about it. These groups are the very
proof of that.

wintel is a term that appeared long ago, not used much anymore (if at
all) and has absolutely nothing to do with apple.

Contrary to what some Apple fanbois believe, I don't 'hate' Apple at
all. Their products just don't run the software I need/want and aren't
in the price range [1] I'm willing to pay.

such as?

Macs, Chromebooks and Linux just aren't an option for me, period.

nobody said you had to switch. use whatever is best for what you need
to do.

[1] Not using the - plain English - term 'expensive', to (try to? :-))
preempt another rant from one of them.

macs being more expensive is one of the many myths that is simply wrong.

On 2020-06-24 7:49 a.m., Mayayana wrote:
"Alan Baker" wrote

| Yes. That's a big factor. It's sad and frustrating to know
| that all those years of acclimating and learning will be
| lost, for no good reason. But with Windows, at least, it
| lasts a long time. I'm still writing software in VB6 that
| will run on virtually any currently running Windows machine
| with no special support files needed. That's over 20 years of
| compatibility. Mac and Linux? More like 2 years. Some
| Linux versions are out of support after 12-18 months. It's
| nuts. There's no system for standardizing libraries. On
| Windows, if an API call worked in Win95 I can trust it to
| work in Win10.
|
| LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

That's the other nice thing about Windows: The keyboards
"just work". I've never had one take off on its own like some
kind of alphabet machine gun.



Or a demented woodpecker.

Rene

On Mon, 22 Jun 2020 12:08:00 -0500, philo wrote:

On 6/22/20 11:42 AM, philo wrote:
On 6/22/20 9:15 AM, Ken Blake wrote:
On 6/21/2020 10:04 AM, philo wrote:
On 6/21/20 11:01 AM, Paul wrote:
philo wrote:

Thanks for the info.
As one who recently did a search that found close to nothing, I am
happy with the much improved results using the free version of
Agent Ransack.



Ransack : 52 hits in ten minutes

*From Explorer, after one hour , four hits...search nowhere near
complete



I just did a file search with Search Everything. It found all the
matching files on three physical drives in less than one second.


I use Agent Ransack only for finding text within files. For file name
searches, Search Everything is *much* faster.




WOW. Going to try is ASAP


Thanks!





Found even more files almost instantly


Just sent them a $10 donation

Is it called "Everything" or "Search Everything"

wrote:
On Mon, 22 Jun 2020 12:08:00 -0500, philo wrote:

On 6/22/20 11:42 AM, philo wrote:
On 6/22/20 9:15 AM, Ken Blake wrote:
On 6/21/2020 10:04 AM, philo wrote:
On 6/21/20 11:01 AM, Paul wrote:
philo wrote:

Thanks for the info.
As one who recently did a search that found close to nothing, I am
happy with the much improved results using the free version of
Agent Ransack.


Ransack : 52 hits in ten minutes

From Explorer, after one hour , four hits...search nowhere near
complete


I just did a file search with Search Everything. It found all the
matching files on three physical drives in less than one second.


I use Agent Ransack only for finding text within files. For file name
searches, Search Everything is *much* faster.



WOW. Going to try is ASAP


Thanks!




Found even more files almost instantly


Just sent them a $10 donation

Is it called "Everything" or "Search Everything"


This is typically the site we're referring to.

https://www.voidtools.com/

Now, if someone else steals the name, and uses it to
bootstrap their own little effort, well, that makes
it very difficult to sort them all out.

Paul

On 2020-06-24 5:49 a.m., Mayayana wrote:
"Alan Baker" wrote

| Yes. That's a big factor. It's sad and frustrating to know
| that all those years of acclimating and learning will be
| lost, for no good reason. But with Windows, at least, it
| lasts a long time. I'm still writing software in VB6 that
| will run on virtually any currently running Windows machine
| with no special support files needed. That's over 20 years of
| compatibility. Mac and Linux? More like 2 years. Some
| Linux versions are out of support after 12-18 months. It's
| nuts. There's no system for standardizing libraries. On
| Windows, if an API call worked in Win95 I can trust it to
| work in Win10.
|
| LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

That's the other nice thing about Windows: The keyboards
"just work". I've never had one take off on its own like some
kind of alphabet machine gun.



Dude... ...please.

You want me to take you seriously when you claim that Windows has some
sort of monopoly on standardizing libraries?

Yousuf Khan wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:

Well, that means you used 3rd party search tools under DOS. Why are
you averse to using 3rd party search tools under Windows?

I've already said I use Agent Ransack, but that doesn't integrate into
Explorer quite as much as the Windows Search does.

Nope, 3rd party tools don't get to alter the UI of Windows/File
Explorer. However, they can add context menu entries. I use
Everything, and it has "system integration" which means it adds a
right-click context menu entry for Everything to let me decide from
where to search down the folder tree. Doesn't Ransack also give you a
context menu entry for it?

https://help.mythicsoft.com/agentran...n_settings.htm

With Windows Search, you get a search box element in File Explorer's
window. With 3rd party search tools, you get a context menu entry. One
has a UI Integration. The others have a shell integration.

Ransack also let you intercept the search hotkey (Ctrl+F) to initiate a
search using Ransack instead of focusing the cursor in the Search box in
File Explorer.

Also right at the beginning I said this is not just a criticism of
just Windows Search, but just modern searchers in general. Sometimes,
you just want to do a search of just a few files within a single
directory, as a filter, and it's completely useless when the search
doesn't find the files that you absolutely know are in there already!

Windows Search lets you specify a base folder under which to search.
Both Agent Ransack and Everything let you search from a base folder, and
those are very likely to find all files in all [sub]folders (unless you
get very tricky on hiding files, like using a kernel-mode file I/O
stacked driver that hides folders or filetypes).

Even if you don't right-click on a folder to start a search from there
using Ransack or Everything, you can still specify a folder in the
search criteria to search under. I'm pretty sure if I dig into the
command syntax for Windows Search that it will also let you specify a
base folder from which to start searching.

Agent Ransack (renamed to FileLocator Lite) does not have a service to
do background indexing as does Everything. When you load Ransack,
you're starting a wholly new and brute force search. The first time you
search, Ransack does a brute force search, but it builds a filename
cache. The 2nd time, and thereafter, that you use the same session of
Ransack, the filename searches are very quick. When you exit Ransack,
you lose the cache, and it gets rebuilt on the 1st search, but can't be
used by the 1st search because the cache doesn't exist yet. Everything
uses a service to do background indexing. When you load the Everything
UI and do a search, it is very quick on every search, even the 1st
search, because the indexing was already done before.

Ransack: Slow on 1st search while building cache.
Fast on subsequent searches by using the cache.

Everything: Fast on all searches, even 1st one, by using service to
build indexing database.

Both let you search the content of files. In Everything, you find it in
a submenu. For both, searching within files is a brute force method:
the found files are opened and each gets read to parse the text looking
for a match on your search criteria. Windows Search has an option to
index on filenames, but also on content; however, that is a very slow
index operation.

You could configure Everything not to install and use its indexing
service. Then it would function like Ransack by doing a brute force
search the 1st time while building a cache for subsequent searches
within the same session of the program. That would also make them
comparable for portable use.

"David E. Ross" wrote:

On 6/21/2020 9:39 AM, VanguardLH wrote:
Yousuf Khan wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:

Yousuf Khan wrote:

I'm referring mainly to Windows search, but this applies to a lot of
other search algorithms all over the place and on the Internet too.
In the olden days, search was very efficient and somewhat intuitive.
For example, let's say you try to do a search for "virtual" and
expect you might find something like VirtualBox, VirtualPC, whatever.
But for some reason, the current Windows search cannot find these.

Perhaps you did not configure Windows Search to include the C:\Program
Files and C:\Program Files (x86) folders (and their subfolders), or add
whatever folders contain the "virtual"-named files you expect to find.

No, everything is included.

By default, not everything is included under the system drive (normally
the C: drive), like the C:\Windows folder. Although I've included more
subfolders, I don't include everything under the C: drive.

If the files you were looking for were .exe filetypes, is the .exe
filetype included as one of those that Windows Search hunts for (the
Indexing Options - Advanced - Filetypes tab)? Are any locations
listed as exclusions?

When you view the Indexing Options dialog, does it say "Indexing in
progress"? How long does it take when you Rebuild the index database,
or does it hang? I've read where a corrupted file can hang the
indexing, so run "chkdsk c: /r". Did you include temp and download
folders in the target locations? Those could have changing files at the
time of indexing. Unfinished files are, by definition, considered
corrupted and can hang the indexing.

Do you use MS Outlook as your e-mail client? If so, is it configured to
incorporate Windows Search? If you use POP accounts, a PST file could
be corrupt, especially if the message store was allowed to exceed the
maximum size of the .pst file, so you have to run scanpst.exe to repair.
If you don't want to scan your e-mails using Windows Search, and the
regular (inbuilt) search within Outlook is sufficient for you to find
e-mails in its message stores, deselect Outlook as a target in Indexing
Options.

Did you check the state of the Windows Search service? Should be
startup = Automatic and status = Running.

A lot of search links in Windows rely on using the Bing service. Users
have found they can get empty search results until they disable the Bing
integration with Windows Search. I disabled Bing integration soon after
I did a fresh install of Windows 10. I don't remember if I did the
regedit hack or used a tweaker.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\Search
Data item: BingSearchEnabled (if not present, create DWORD 32bit)
Data value: 1 = enabled, 0 = disabled.

Windows Search will then only return local search results, and not
attempt to connect out to Microsoft's Bing service.

Windows Search has a troubleshooter (although I've found them to rarely
fix a problem): Settings - Update & Security - Troubleshoot, scroll
down to "Find and fix other problems" section, and select the "search
and indexing" option. For the problem, select "Files don't appear in
search results".

With "Hide protected operating system files" ENABLED, the Everything
search application lists 201,728 objects (folders and files) in
C:\Windows. This includes 5,471 .exe files, 296 .dat files, and 35,451
.dll files. It even shows the contents of C:\Windows\system32\boot.

I was not talking about configuring how Windows/File Explorer displays
files. I was talking about configuring the Indexing service regarding
what filetypes it will include, what locations (folders) are selected
for inclusion, and which locations are in its exclude list.

"David E. Ross" wrote:

I suggest that NO ONE reply to Alan Baker or anyone else touting Apple
products. Such posts are OFF TOPIC in this newsgroup.

He admitted to being a Mac prosyletizing troll here. Why? Oh, gee,
golly, because there are Windows prosyletizers in his favorite
newsgroups, so he figures on tit-for-tat here. Aw, poor guy has trolls
in his favorites, so he pukes in other newsgroups for inane retaliation.
Some dog **** in his yard, so he's going to squat elsewhere to **** in
their yards whether they're the culprit or not. He's also too lazy or
too ignorant to build a kill-file blacklist to get a view of Usenet with
which he is comfortable.

Pretty easy to filter him out.

On 6/24/2020 5:20 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
"David E. Ross" wrote:

On 6/21/2020 9:39 AM, VanguardLH wrote:
Yousuf Khan wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:

Yousuf Khan wrote:

I'm referring mainly to Windows search, but this applies to a lot of
other search algorithms all over the place and on the Internet too.
In the olden days, search was very efficient and somewhat intuitive.
For example, let's say you try to do a search for "virtual" and
expect you might find something like VirtualBox, VirtualPC, whatever.
But for some reason, the current Windows search cannot find these.

Perhaps you did not configure Windows Search to include the C:\Program
Files and C:\Program Files (x86) folders (and their subfolders), or add
whatever folders contain the "virtual"-named files you expect to find.

No, everything is included.

By default, not everything is included under the system drive (normally
the C: drive), like the C:\Windows folder. Although I've included more
subfolders, I don't include everything under the C: drive.

If the files you were looking for were .exe filetypes, is the .exe
filetype included as one of those that Windows Search hunts for (the
Indexing Options - Advanced - Filetypes tab)? Are any locations
listed as exclusions?

When you view the Indexing Options dialog, does it say "Indexing in
progress"? How long does it take when you Rebuild the index database,
or does it hang? I've read where a corrupted file can hang the
indexing, so run "chkdsk c: /r". Did you include temp and download
folders in the target locations? Those could have changing files at the
time of indexing. Unfinished files are, by definition, considered
corrupted and can hang the indexing.

Do you use MS Outlook as your e-mail client? If so, is it configured to
incorporate Windows Search? If you use POP accounts, a PST file could
be corrupt, especially if the message store was allowed to exceed the
maximum size of the .pst file, so you have to run scanpst.exe to repair.
If you don't want to scan your e-mails using Windows Search, and the
regular (inbuilt) search within Outlook is sufficient for you to find
e-mails in its message stores, deselect Outlook as a target in Indexing
Options.

Did you check the state of the Windows Search service? Should be
startup = Automatic and status = Running.

A lot of search links in Windows rely on using the Bing service. Users
have found they can get empty search results until they disable the Bing
integration with Windows Search. I disabled Bing integration soon after
I did a fresh install of Windows 10. I don't remember if I did the
regedit hack or used a tweaker.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\Search
Data item: BingSearchEnabled (if not present, create DWORD 32bit)
Data value: 1 = enabled, 0 = disabled.

Windows Search will then only return local search results, and not
attempt to connect out to Microsoft's Bing service.

Windows Search has a troubleshooter (although I've found them to rarely
fix a problem): Settings - Update & Security - Troubleshoot, scroll
down to "Find and fix other problems" section, and select the "search
and indexing" option. For the problem, select "Files don't appear in
search results".

With "Hide protected operating system files" ENABLED, the Everything
search application lists 201,728 objects (folders and files) in
C:\Windows. This includes 5,471 .exe files, 296 .dat files, and 35,451
.dll files. It even shows the contents of C:\Windows\system32\boot.

I was not talking about configuring how Windows/File Explorer displays
files. I was talking about configuring the Indexing service regarding
what filetypes it will include, what locations (folders) are selected
for inclusion, and which locations are in its exclude list.


I was noting that Everything does indeed search within C:\Windows.

--
David E. Ross
http://www.rossde.com/

Trump claims he is the "law and order" President. Then, he
breaks the law by using copyrighted music at his rallies
without permission from the copyright owners.

On 6/24/2020 8:19 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
Yousuf wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:

Well, that means you used 3rd party search tools under DOS. Why are
you averse to using 3rd party search tools under Windows?
I've already said I use Agent Ransack, but that doesn't integrate into
Explorer quite as much as the Windows Search does.
Nope, 3rd party tools don't get to alter the UI of Windows/File
Explorer. However, they can add context menu entries. I use
Everything, and it has "system integration" which means it adds a
right-click context menu entry for Everything to let me decide from
where to search down the folder tree. Doesn't Ransack also give you a
context menu entry for it?

https://help.mythicsoft.com/agentran...n_settings.htm

With Windows Search, you get a search box element in File Explorer's
window. With 3rd party search tools, you get a context menu entry. One
has a UI Integration. The others have a shell integration.

Ransack also let you intercept the search hotkey (Ctrl+F) to initiate a
search using Ransack instead of focusing the cursor in the Search box in
File Explorer.

You see, the vast majority of times that I need to use search is not
when I'm actually in a Windows Explorer window (which I'm rarely in),
but when I'm doing file opens and saves from a file dialog box in any
other program. The open and save dialog box is basically an Explorer
window, and the context menu stuff doesn't work in those file dialog
boxes. So you're limited to using the basic Windows Search in there.

Yousuf Khan

On 2020-06-25 10:58 a.m., Yousuf Khan wrote:
On 6/24/2020 8:19 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
Yousuf Â* wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:

Well, that means you used 3rd party search tools under DOS.Â* Why are
you averse to using 3rd party search tools under Windows?
I've already said I use Agent Ransack, but that doesn't integrate into
Explorer quite as much as the Windows Search does.
Nope, 3rd party tools don't get to alter the UI of Windows/File
Explorer.Â* However, they can add context menu entries.Â* I use
Everything, and it has "system integration" which means it adds a
right-click context menu entry for Everything to let me decide from
where to search down the folder tree.Â* Doesn't Ransack also give you a
context menu entry for it?

https://help.mythicsoft.com/agentran...n_settings.htm


With Windows Search, you get a search box element in File Explorer's
window.Â* With 3rd party search tools, you get a context menu entry.Â* One
has a UI Integration.Â* The others have a shell integration.

Ransack also let you intercept the search hotkey (Ctrl+F) to initiate a
search using Ransack instead of focusing the cursor in the Search box in
File Explorer.

You see, the vast majority of times that I need to use search is not
when I'm actually in a Windows Explorer window (which I'm rarely in),
but when I'm doing file opens and saves from a file dialog box in any
other program. The open and save dialog box is basically an Explorer
window, and the context menu stuff doesn't work in those file dialog
boxes. So you're limited to using the basic Windows Search in there.

Just another reason that I prefer the built-in facility of Spotlight on
Mac...

:-)

Yousuf Khan wrote:
On 6/24/2020 8:19 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
Yousuf wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:

Well, that means you used 3rd party search tools under DOS. Why are
you averse to using 3rd party search tools under Windows?
I've already said I use Agent Ransack, but that doesn't integrate into
Explorer quite as much as the Windows Search does.
Nope, 3rd party tools don't get to alter the UI of Windows/File
Explorer. However, they can add context menu entries. I use
Everything, and it has "system integration" which means it adds a
right-click context menu entry for Everything to let me decide from
where to search down the folder tree. Doesn't Ransack also give you a
context menu entry for it?

https://help.mythicsoft.com/agentran...n_settings.htm

With Windows Search, you get a search box element in File Explorer's
window. With 3rd party search tools, you get a context menu entry. One
has a UI Integration. The others have a shell integration.

Ransack also let you intercept the search hotkey (Ctrl+F) to initiate a
search using Ransack instead of focusing the cursor in the Search box in
File Explorer.

You see, the vast majority of times that I need to use search is not
when I'm actually in a Windows Explorer window (which I'm rarely in),
but when I'm doing file opens and saves from a file dialog box in any
other program. The open and save dialog box is basically an Explorer
window, and the context menu stuff doesn't work in those file dialog
boxes. So you're limited to using the basic Windows Search in there.

I assume your mean *extra* context menu stuff, i.e. tools which are
added to the default (right-click) context menu.

If so, are you sure these extra tools do not work in the context menu
of a file dialog box?

I do not have many such tools, but I did a quick test and if I do a
'Save as...' in Chrome, the context menu in the 'Save as' popup offers
'Share with Skype' (probably not a good example), '7-zip' and 'Convert
to PDF in Foxit PhantomPDF'. For other items, it offers things like VLC
and Google Drive.

So if the context menu of a file dialog box shows *these* third-party
tools, why shouldn't it show the mentioned third-party *search* tools?