File search utility program (free)

I had to re-image my computer. For some reason, I lost Agent Ransack in the
process (lost reference and would not re-install). Since I am using Firefox,
this leaves me without a file-search utility. What is the fastest and
simplest file search program (free, of course)?

Thanks

Walter

In article , says...

I had to re-image my computer. For some reason, I lost Agent Ransack in the
process (lost reference and would not re-install). Since I am using Firefox,
this leaves me without a file-search utility. What is the fastest and
simplest file search program (free, of course)?

Thanks

Walter

FileLocator. It's free, but it was so useful I bought the paid version.

Nothing. It just shows my ignorance of computers. :-)

Actually, I thought that Firefox supplied the search function in Windows. I
now realize it is Windows 7 that does the searching; and I would not be left
high and dry without Agent Ransack. Wait until you are 90 years old!

"Nil" wrote in message
. 4.11...
"Walter E." wrote in
:

I had to re-image my computer. For some reason, I lost Agent
Ransack in the process (lost reference and would not re-install).
Since I am using Firefox, this leaves me without a file-search
utility. What is the fastest and simplest file search program
(free, of course)?

Agent Ransack is still available and can easily be found with a simple
Google search.

What does using Firefox have to do with it?

"Walter E." wrote in
:

I had to re-image my computer. For some reason, I lost Agent
Ransack in the process (lost reference and would not re-install).
Since I am using Firefox, this leaves me without a file-search
utility. What is the fastest and simplest file search program
(free, of course)?

Agent Ransack is still available and can easily be found with a simple
Google search.

What does using Firefox have to do with it?

"Walter E." wrote in
:

Nothing. It just shows my ignorance of computers. :-)

Actually, I thought that Firefox supplied the search function in
Windows. I now realize it is Windows 7 that does the searching;
and I would not be left high and dry without Agent Ransack. Wait
until you are 90 years old!

Another excellent one is "Everything Search". It's my preference for
finding files by name. It's blindingly fast at that, but it cannot
search within files for content. Agent Ransack can seach for content,
but is very slow. I keep both installed, but in practice I almost never
need to use Ransack.

You might ask this question at alt.comp.freeware.
--
Bill

Brought to you from Anchorage, Alaska

"Walter E." wrote in message
...
I had to re-image my computer. For some reason, I lost Agent Ransack in the
process (lost reference and would not re-install). Since I am using
Firefox, this leaves me without a file-search utility. What is the fastest
and simplest file search program (free, of course)?

In message , Nil
writes:
"Walter E." wrote in
:

Nothing. It just shows my ignorance of computers. :-)

Actually, I thought that Firefox supplied the search function in
Windows. I now realize it is Windows 7 that does the searching;
and I would not be left high and dry without Agent Ransack. Wait
until you are 90 years old!

Another excellent one is "Everything Search". It's my preference for
finding files by name. It's blindingly fast at that, but it cannot
search within files for content. Agent Ransack can seach for content,
but is very slow. I keep both installed, but in practice I almost never
need to use Ransack.

Another vote for Search Everything (from http://www.voidtools.com/).
_If_ you're only searching by filename, I've yet to see anything to beat
it; it searches as you type the filename, and will do so faster than you
type. Searching by filename is _all_ it does, but it does that very
well. (At least I _think_ that's all it does - it _may_ do other
searching, but as Nil says, it _doesn't_ search _inside_ files.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

`Where a calculator on the Eniac is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs
30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and perhaps
weigh 1.5 tons.' Popular Mechanics, March 1949 (quoted in Computing 1999-12-16)

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Nil
writes:
"Walter E." wrote in
:

Nothing. It just shows my ignorance of computers. :-)

Actually, I thought that Firefox supplied the search function in
Windows. I now realize it is Windows 7 that does the searching;
and I would not be left high and dry without Agent Ransack. Wait
until you are 90 years old!

Another excellent one is "Everything Search". It's my preference for
finding files by name. It's blindingly fast at that, but it cannot
search within files for content. Agent Ransack can seach for content,
but is very slow. I keep both installed, but in practice I almost never
need to use Ransack.

Another vote for Search Everything (from http://www.voidtools.com/).
_If_ you're only searching by filename, I've yet to see anything to beat
it; it searches as you type the filename, and will do so faster than you
type. Searching by filename is _all_ it does, but it does that very
well. (At least I _think_ that's all it does - it _may_ do other
searching, but as Nil says, it _doesn't_ search _inside_ files.)

And it's fast, because it reads the $MFT (master file table),
rather than descending the file system the old fashioned way
(Agent Ransack). Even Microsoft utilities descend the file
system the old fashioned way, so there is a tradition of
doing it that way. (If you have search indexing turned off
in Windows, Microsoft has no database to poke at, so it has
to descend the file system the slow way.)

So reading the $MFT is the fastest way to deal with a
filename based search. Whereas for file content searches,
the fastest way is to generate an inverted index. Which
is what Microsoft does for their search. It takes 3 hours
for the Microsoft SearchIndexer to index my C: drive. That
computation is done in advance, so a 500MB ESE database
will be ready to field content searches.

The Microsoft indexing solution isn't perfect. The contents
of LibreOffice documents may not show up. Only file formats
with a Search Provider type function, would be supported.
A LibreOffice document, is a ZIP file with plaintext documents
inside. A Search Provider would be a plugin for the Microsoft
search stuff, that tears apart the file during indexing, for
inspection purposes. So that's a potential limitation of the
Microsoft search methods. Microsoft offers search for
email and the like (so-called federated search), as long
as there is software to deal with unknown formats.

But since a lot of people will use "file name tagging" or
sorting into folders (so the path name gives away the
location), VoidTools Search Everything might cover
a fairly large percentage of needed searches.

Being a lazy guy, I use Agent Ransack, relying on the
system file cache to make it perform. The first search
you do with Agent Ransack is dog-slow. But, if you keep
the application open, subsequent searches take advantage
of cached file system information. The result is the
second filename-based search you do will be fast. And
right now, as I'm typing this, a copy of Agent Ransack
is sitting in my task bar, awaiting my next command.
It's already warmed up and on the flight deck.

If you do any operation which purges the system file
cache, then the next Agent Ransack search will be slow again.

The file system, is one of the few remaining bottlenecks
in a modern OS. You may buy an SSD to speed up stuff,
but file system descent has an "events per second"
limit, so it can only go so fast. Context switches
are very expensive. That means while you do your
old-fashioned search, your SSD is laughing at you,
because it isn't working very hard at all. I've even
tested this on my RAMDisk, and for all practical
purposes, an SSD is just as fast as a RAMDisk.

I used to dream of owning a RAMDisk, so I can tell
you how it actually works, is a major major disappointment.
Now I dream of owning an SSD (one that actually
works properly).

It's almost as disappointing as doing a Regedit search
on Windows 10, and never having the search be completed.
I understand it is "their best OS yet".

Paul

On Thu, 11 Feb 2016 08:24:14 -0800, "Walter E."
wrote:

I had to re-image my computer. For some reason, I lost Agent Ransack in the
process (lost reference and would not re-install). Since I am using Firefox,
this leaves me without a file-search utility. What is the fastest and
simplest file search program (free, of course)?

Walter,

I use two free search programs:

1. Everything Search Engine (https://www.voidtools.com/)

2. FileLocator Lite - this is the new name for Agent Ransack.
https://www.mythicsoft.com/filelocatorlite

On 2/11/2016 11:08 AM, Nil wrote:
"Walter E." wrote in
:

Nothing. It just shows my ignorance of computers. :-)

Actually, I thought that Firefox supplied the search function in
Windows. I now realize it is Windows 7 that does the searching;
and I would not be left high and dry without Agent Ransack. Wait
until you are 90 years old!

Another excellent one is "Everything Search". It's my preference for
finding files by name. It's blindingly fast at that, but it cannot
search within files for content. Agent Ransack can seach for content,
but is very slow. I keep both installed, but in practice I almost never
need to use Ransack.

Walter E

Thank you for mentioning "Everything Search", I installed it because of
your positive comments and exactly as you say, the searches are
unbelievably fast, even the indexing is unbelievably fast. I'm really
stunned at how fast it is. Much appreciated.

Mike

on Mon 15 Feb 2016 02:16:52a, Mike S wrote in alt.windows7.general:

Thank you for mentioning "Everything Search", I installed it
because of your positive comments and exactly as you say, the
searches are unbelievably fast, even the indexing is unbelievably
fast. I'm really stunned at how fast it is. Much appreciated.

Glad you like it! It's one of the most useful and most used utilities I
have.

It's amazing how fast Everything indexes whole disks and how slow
Microsoft's built-in search takes to do the same thing. Everything
takes maybe a minute. Windows takes hours and hours.

On 15 Feb 2016 16:32:19 GMT "Nil" wrote
in article
It's amazing how fast Everything indexes whole disks and how slow
Microsoft's built-in search takes to do the same thing. Everything
takes maybe a minute. Windows takes hours and hours.


I believe that Everything does NOT index the content of the files, just
names. MS indexes the contents.

On 16 Feb 2016, Jason wrote in
alt.windows7.general:

On 15 Feb 2016 16:32:19 GMT "Nil"
wrote in article

It's amazing how fast Everything indexes whole disks and how slow
Microsoft's built-in search takes to do the same thing.
Everything takes maybe a minute. Windows takes hours and hours.

I believe that Everything does NOT index the content of the files,
just names. MS indexes the contents.

Yes, you're right. It's an apple-vs-oranges comparison and I shouldn't
have made it.