Why is search so brain dead these days?

Yousuf Khan wrote:
On 6/22/2020 3:30 PM, philo wrote:
On 6/21/20 3:08 PM, Yousuf Khan wrote:
On 6/21/2020 10:42 AM, philo wrote:
Ransack : 52 hits in ten minutes

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

LOL! What exactly did you get it to search for?

Yousuf Khan


I just put in my daughter's name , got some photos and text documents

So now that you've tried Search Everything too, how many of the files
did each one find and how fast? Talking about WSrc vs. Ransack vs. SE?
Did they all find everything but at different speeds?

Yousuf Khan

What you should discover, is they don't.

Try some wildcard-style searches, and get a file count
that way.

Everything.exe for example, should not be able to list
the contents of System Volume Information. But if you
have Windows 10 Bash (WSL) installed, the LXSS files won't
be included in the index. Whether that's "to be expected"
by nature of whether it's an overlay file system, who
knows.

In any case, checking Windows utilities for the ability
to list all contents will show none of them is perfect,
but some are more acceptable than others.

Even Linux is no longer "allowed" to visit everywhere.
I can get into System Volume Information from Linux.
("Look but don't touch! Don't even checksum the files.").
Anything stamped with one of the new reparse points,
those are "custom" file system features, and Linux will
pretend there was some other sort of error when asked
to visit there.

In Windows, as Admin, you can try

compact /compactOS:never

in an attempt to remove some of the reparse points
(the ones representing compression). That will give you
a bit more access, but not access to everything.

Paul

Alan Baker wrote:
On 2020-06-22 1:07 p.m., Frank Slootweg wrote:
Alan Baker wrote:
On 2020-06-22 10:48 a.m., Frank Slootweg wrote:
Alan Baker wrote:
On 2020-06-21 12:48 p.m., Frank Slootweg wrote:
Alan Baker wrote:
On 2020-06-20 9:19 p.m., Paul wrote:
[...]
Again. I didn't miss anyting.

On the contrary, I picked up the erroneous claim that:

"because it indexes, it's going to hook the journal"

That's simply not true.

You use quotes, but you seem to refer to this - differently worded -
sentence:

[Rewind:]

Well, anything that "indexes", generally hooks the NTFS journal.

For the NTFS case (on Windows), it *is* true.

Nope. Indexing need not pay the slightest attention to the journal.
Doing so may not be as efficient, but there is no NECESSITY to use the
journal to create an index.

Sigh! Of course there is no *necessity*, otherwise one could not - for
example - index a FAT file system. But Paul said *"generally"* and I
said "For the NTFS case (on Windows), it *is* true.", i.e. I confirmed
what Paul said.

But it isn't always true...

...or at least there is no reasonable way you can know if it is true in
every case of search applications for Windows.

However in your made-up quote you removed both "generally" and "NTFS".
So you misrepresented the context and argued based on that
misrepresentation. Are you sure you aren't one of nospam's socks!? :-(

Sorry, but I didn't make up that quote. I did snip it for brevity and
clarity, but the sentence didn't include "generally" or "NTFS":

'And because it indexes, it's going to hook the journal (this doesn't
seem that hard to do, seeing as many have succeeded at it). '

Ah, I see, two slightly different quotes, both from Paul.

It would have been nice if you would have given the_complete/more
context or/and the Message-ID.

Anyway, I searched for it and it's from:

Message-ID:

quote

Well, anything that "indexes", generally hooks the NTFS journal.

The MythicSoftware tools, there are two of them. Agent Ransack
is free and brute force (it's intended as a teaser, to
get you to buy the other one). File Locator Pro is their for-sale product,
and as far as I know, it indexes. And because it indexes, it's
going to hook the journal (this doesn't seem that hard to do,
seeing as many have succeeded at it).

/quote

I think you're reading this without attention to the full context. The
context is two MythicSoftware tools, Agent Ransack and File Locator Pro.
Paul explains that Agent Ransack uses brute force and that AFAHK, File
Locator Pro indexes and *then* says:

quote
And because it indexes, it's
going to hook the journal (this doesn't seem that hard to do,
seeing as many have succeeded at it).
/quote

I.e. Paul says what *File Locator Pro* does. He does *not* say that
*all* indexing software does that or *has* to do that.

So (IMO) you're reading too much into this and (IMO) misinterpret what
Paul wrote.

That insists on a correlation between indexing and the journal that
doesn't exist.

Nope. Paul did not state nor imply that.

Read it as many times as you need until you understand that there is no
"because". You can have an index without hooking into the journal.
That's just a fact.

Yes, that's obviously true, but - *in context* - that's not what Paul
said or implied.

Hope you realize by now that taking something out of context, often -
and even nearly always - leads to incorrect conclusions/assumptions/
whatever.

So I have to ask again: Are you sure you aren't one of nospam's
socks!? :-(

Anyway, if you want to argue this further, take it up with Paul.

EOD.

"Frank Slootweg" wrote


| I.e. Paul says what *File Locator Pro* does. He does
| *not* say that
| *all* indexing software does that or *has* to do that.

Indeed. I'm using Agent Ransack on FAT32. It's amazingly
fast. But even if it were NTFS that would make little
difference. The journal function only records file changes.
It's not a database of file content.

There is also an indexing
service on XP, but I keep it disabled, since I don't use XP
search and like to minimize unnecessary disk activity.

Searching only for file names is so incredibly fast that
none of this really matters. Maybe it's slower on 30 GB Win7
when people don't have the sense to leave out winsxs when
they're looking for their baby photos, but it's very fast, even
on FAT32. For the average person who's even slightly
organized, these tools are entirely adequate. If I were doing
something like searching 3 TB all day in a commercial scenario,
I'd want to explore other options. (The driver API? Perl? I don't
know.) But for typical Windows search, done by people who
have some concept of how to make folders and use a filesystem,
the issue of indexing and journaling seems an irrelevant factor.

I'm not familiar with how file tracking works on FAT32, but
it surely has something similar to journaling. It doesn't track
changes but it does have to track file properties and locations.
The last modieifed time and so on are available for all files
on FAT32.
The changes are not actually of any value for searching. So
even without journaling or indexing, it's going to benefit from
the Windows filesystem functionality with API functions
like FindFirstFile.

AR is so fast that I have to wonder whether it might even
be doing direct disk reads, but there's no sign of a driver in
the install, so apparently it's just using Win32 API.

| So I have to ask again: Are you sure you aren't one of nospam's
| socks!? :-(
|

Yes, but look who keeps arguing with him.

Alan Baker
has even proclaimed that he's only here to be a
dimwitted irritant. He apparently has some kind of
grudge about a Windows person who was showing
up in a Mac group, so he decided to take revenge.
(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.

On 6/22/2020 11:59 AM, philo wrote:
On 6/22/20 12:49 PM, Ken Blake wrote:
On 6/22/2020 9:42 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

Â*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!


You're welcome. Glad to help.





I am very happy!


Great! Glad to hear it.


--
Ken

On 6/22/2020 12:03 PM, philo wrote:
On 6/21/20 12:36 PM, David E. Ross wrote:
On 6/21/2020 9:01 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 had to use a registry setting on a *clean* 2004 install, to
get the search to Index properly!

Behavior like that has apparently been around since the year 2015.

Paul


In the Programs and Features window, I selected "Turn Windowsfeatures on
or off". In the Windows Features window, I then uncheck the checkboxes
for Indexing Service and Windows Search. I also removed Search from
Start.

I only use Everything and Agent Ransack. I found that only disabling
the Indexing Service still resulted in some indexing as I opened some
folders. This would delay responing when I selected an item in such
folders.




Glad there are 3rd party utilities.

Amazing how Windows screwed this up


The reason most third party utilities exist is that they are better than
what Windows provides. If they weren't better, nobody would use them.

To me, what's amazing is not that what Microsoft provides isn't as good
as the third party utilities, but that Microsoft doesn't learn from the
third parties and improve their products.


--
Ken

In article , Ken Blake
wrote:


To me, what's amazing is not that what Microsoft provides isn't as good
as the third party utilities, but that Microsoft doesn't learn from the
third parties and improve their products.

exactly.

In article , Mayayana
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.

that's a bizarre thing to say for someone who consistently uses terms
such as appleseeds.

On 6/22/2020 12:45 PM, Alan Baker wrote:
On 2020-06-22 12:30 p.m., philo wrote:
On 6/21/20 3:08 PM, Yousuf Khan wrote:
On 6/21/2020 10:42 AM, philo wrote:
Ransack : 52 hits in ten minutes

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

LOL! What exactly did you get it to search for?

Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Yousuf Khan


I just put in my daughter's name , got some photos and text documents

All the hits on my sister-in-law's name on the Mac: 3 seconds for 1405 hits.

Just sayin'

:-)


That's very slow compared to Search Everything on Windows.


--
Ken

On 6/23/2020 10:48 AM, Ken Blake wrote:
On 6/22/2020 12:45 PM, Alan Baker wrote:
All the hits on my sister-in-law's name on the Mac: 3 seconds for 1405
hits.

Just sayin'

:-)


That's very slow compared to Search Everything on Windows.

Another area where Microsoft has ****ed something up, even though it was
working simply beforehand, is file deletions. Remember there used to be
a time when if you wanted to delete entire groups of files or folders in
DOS, and you used a "del *.*" command, and the whole thing would be done
in under 1 second? But then later in Windows, doing the same thing would
take minutes, just because the Explorer is doing it in a braindead way,
where it deletes each file individually? Then it took 3rd party utils to
bring back the 1 second deletes?

Yousuf Khan

Mayayana wrote:
"Frank Slootweg" wrote

[Technical stuff deleted.]

| So I have to ask again: Are you sure you aren't one of nospam's
| socks!? :-(
|

Yes, but look who keeps arguing with him.

Yes, I'm sorry to realize that I did go full circle with him, but at
least it was only one circle! :-)

Alan Baker
has even proclaimed that he's only here to be a
dimwitted irritant. He apparently has some kind of
grudge about a Windows person who was showing
up in a Mac group, so he decided to take revenge.

Yes, he chased that person (if I'm right about who his main target is)
around like there's no tomorrow, but at least that person deserves
what's coming to him. At first, he marked these responses with 'OT', so
people could ignore/filter them, but AFAICT he stopped doing that.

(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.

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.

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.

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

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

On 6/23/2020 11:42 AM, Frank Slootweg wrote:

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.


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.


--
Ken

On Tue, 23 Jun 2020 13:09:57 -0400, Yousuf Khan wrote:
Remember there used to be
a time when if you wanted to delete entire groups of files or folders in
DOS, and you used a "del *.*" command, and the whole thing would be done
in under 1 second? But then later in Windows, doing the same thing would
take minutes, just because the Explorer is doing it in a braindead way,
where it deletes each file individually?

Maybe I'm having a lapse of memory, but I can't remember ever seeing
that happen -- unless files were in use, of course, but then they
couldn't be deleted at all.

--
Stan Brown, Tehachapi, California, USA https://BrownMath.com/
https://OakRoadSystems.com/
Shikata ga nai...

On 24/06/2020 01:04, Stan Brown wrote:
Maybe I'm having a lapse of memory,

No you're just brain dead.Â* People call you Stupid Stan Brown for no
other reasons than they know that they are dealing with a complete pumpkin.

There is no point in responding to a Muslim terrorist who is actively
recruiting potential suicide bombers.




--
With over 1.2 billion devices now running Windows 10, customer
satisfaction is higher than any previous version of windows.

"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.

On 2020-06-23 7:48 a.m., Ken Blake wrote:
On 6/22/2020 12:45 PM, Alan Baker wrote:
On 2020-06-22 12:30 p.m., philo wrote:
On 6/21/20 3:08 PM, Yousuf Khan wrote:
On 6/21/2020 10:42 AM, philo wrote:
Ransack : 52 hits in ten minutes

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

LOL! What exactly did you get it to search for?

Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Yousuf Khan


I just put in my daughter's name , got some photos and text documents

All the hits on my sister-in-law's name on the Mac: 3 seconds for 1405
hits.

Just sayin'

:-)


That's very slow compared to Search Everything on Windows.



Nope... ...it's really not.

Spotlight is searching EVERYTHING, both for filenames and for content.

I'll run a race against you any time.

My drive has 5,052,447 files.

Spotlight continuously indexes and re-indexes those files as they are
added or changed.

Every search for any content or other metadata you can imagine is
lightning-quick.

So "Everything" (the correct name of the tool from Voidtools I believe
you've been talking about) can be as fast as Spotlight...

....but it cannot be much faster at all.

And I've used the tool, and it is nowhere NEAR as user-friendly.