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#76
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Why is search so brain dead these days?
On Sun, 21 Jun 2020 16:21:50 -0400, Yousuf Khan
wrote: On 6/21/2020 12:44 PM, Alan Baker wrote: Ummmm... ...no. 'The find utility recursively descends the directory tree for each path listed, evaluating an expression (composed of the ``primaries'' and ``operands'' listed below) in terms of each file in the tree.' There is no way a recursive directory search of an entire drive will be faster than an indexed search. Just keep reading the rest of the postings here on this thread, Windows' indexed searches are just horribly broken. Philo for example, had run one search in Agent Ransack it found 52 hits in 10 minutes. Same search in Windows search is still running after several hours and has only found 4 hits! I'd like to see that experiment peer reviewed and duplicated before it gets written in stone. Like, what kind of search (filename versus file contents versus both) and across what type of storage and how is it connected, etc. |
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#77
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Why is search so brain dead these days?
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 It would have searched, whatever drive letter he asked it to search. What I found disturbing, on my "broken" Windows Search on a fresh 2004 x64 install, was what I was seeing in Process Monitor. I was seeing Explorer making a ton of calls to the Registry, looking for filenames or fragments of filenames. Which might have been why my machine was pretty busy while the "search" was happening. Since I reset the indexing, using the registry key, it appears to have stopped doing whatever it was previously doing. It's pretty hard to believe this is a race condition, where some things initializing out of the box, resulted in that kind of functional failure. Explorer did not appear to be traversing the file system, and the "green bar" seemed related to File Explorer poking at a registry hive. It wasn't "just" doing FindNextFile. The time spent, is spent in some other futile exercise. Which I've now fixed. It comes back quickly now. Paul |
#78
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Why is search so brain dead these days?
Yousuf Khan wrote:
On 6/21/2020 12:44 PM, Alan Baker wrote: Ummmm... ...no. 'The find utility recursively descends the directory tree for each path listed, evaluating an expression (composed of the ``primaries'' and ``operands'' listed below) in terms of each file in the tree.' There is no way a recursive directory search of an entire drive will be faster than an indexed search. Just keep reading the rest of the postings here on this thread, Windows' indexed searches are just horribly broken. Philo for example, had run one search in Agent Ransack it found 52 hits in 10 minutes. Same search in Windows search is still running after several hours and has only found 4 hits! Yousuf Khan But you can fix it. I fixed mine! Paul |
#79
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Why is search so brain dead these days?
Stan Brown wrote:
On Sun, 21 Jun 2020 09:27:10 -0400, Yousuf Khan wrote: I recall there were various find-like utilities for searching under DOS that were just as simple, powerful, and fast. Now it's all messed up. What's messed up? Those utilities haven't stopped working. For instance, there's my own free GREP: https://oakroadsystems.com/sharware/grep.htm (A donation is requested if you use it and like it.) The options can be a bit daunting at first, just because GREP can do so much. But in addition to the full manual there's a shorter "GREP 101" version, both with many examples. There's also a tour that illustrates some of the advanced features. http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages.html There is a separate GREP, as well as a FileUtils that has a whole bunch of different utilities. ******* On Windows, there is native "findstr" as the "resident poor-mans grep". It's not very good, but can be used in scripts for the basics. That might be reserved for those who insist on using only native content when they script. Windows 10 Bash on WSL also has all those utilities, but with some details about line endings that might matter. Whereas the GNUWIN32 ones, generally do the right thing with Windows line endings. Paul |
#80
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Why is search so brain dead these days?
On Sun, 21 Jun 2020 18:08:54 -0400, Paul wrote:
Stan Brown wrote: [quoted text muted] The options can be a bit daunting at first, just because GREP can do so much. But in addition to the full manual there's a shorter "GREP 101" version, both with many examples. There's also a tour that illustrates some of the advanced features. http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages.html There is a separate GREP, as well as a FileUtils that has a whole bunch of different utilities. That's true, and I use GAWK very frequently. But I think you'll find that my GREP has some options that are not present in the GNU port. -- Stan Brown, Tehachapi, California, USA https://BrownMath.com/ https://OakRoadSystems.com/ Shikata ga nai... |
#81
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Why is search so brain dead these days?
On 6/21/2020 5:33 PM, Char Jackson wrote:
I'd like to see that experiment peer reviewed and duplicated before it gets written in stone. Like, what kind of search (filename versus file contents versus both) and across what type of storage and how is it connected, etc. With Microsoft products, it's no longer anecdotal, it just gets added to the existing database of findings. Yousuf Khan |
#82
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Why is search so brain dead these days?
On Mon, 22 Jun 2020 00:50:01 -0400, Yousuf Khan
wrote: On 6/21/2020 5:33 PM, Char Jackson wrote: I'd like to see that experiment peer reviewed and duplicated before it gets written in stone. Like, what kind of search (filename versus file contents versus both) and across what type of storage and how is it connected, etc. With Microsoft products, it's no longer anecdotal, it just gets added to the existing database of findings. I've never seen Agent Ransack run for 10 minutes. That's why I was asking. My guess is that it was being asked to do a content search versus a filename search. |
#83
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Why is search so brain dead these days?
On 2020-06-21 12:48 p.m., Frank Slootweg wrote:
Alan Baker wrote: On 2020-06-20 9:19 p.m., Paul wrote: Alan Baker wrote: On 2020-06-20 8:01 p.m., VanguardLH wrote: Alan Baker wrote: Mayayana wrote: But can Spotlight find it all on Windows? I use Agent Ransack. It finds text in files, file name segments, etc, at an amazing speed, and I don't need indexing. Anything can quickly look up stored data in a database, but the trouble is that such a program has to run regularly to update its record. That's not necessary with Agent Ransack. And best of all, AR can find the files on Windows. I don't have any files on a Mac. Ah, but the database is updated continuously. Ah, you also have a reading comprehension defect, too. In what particular? Well, anything that "indexes", generally hooks the NTFS journal. Except for other OSes that don't use NTFS. *There*'s your "reading comprehension defect" for you! Nope. Try again. Mac OS uses a hook into the file system calls to trigger the metadata server that file needs to be re-indexed. What's more, developers can add specific importers for the files their software creates so that Spotlight can index them seamlessly And it all happens continuously And guess what the NTFS file system has and does? It's above, in plain sight. You only have to read and comprehend it. (FYI, NTFS was not the first to have this functionality and neither was Apple.) Apple's functionality is not based on having a journal. Both NTFS and MacOS' file system are ... file systems. No, I'm not going to repeat the '...' bit. Paul explained that, but your needing to brag about Apple (why?) made your brain lockup and 'miss' what was explained. Next. 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). Oops! There's the 'secret' again! I hope you'll miss it this time again 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. Everything.exe was the one with a lot of hopes riding on it. Initially, it could index C: in about 2 seconds (having never seen C: before). It could do this, because it read the $MFT directly. They're not the first, nor the last, to try that. [Agent Ransack doesn't read the $MFT, not that I can see. It uses FindNextFile (brute force).] However, after a few releases, Everything.exe got the usual complaints about "why can't we see the file size in the listing?". That is a more expensive option, requiring a directory level scan. And it still does that today, so the time to index all of C: rises from 2 seconds to maybe 20 seconds. Just so you can have file sizes. Once the initial index is generated, individual journal events like file-adds or file-deletes, cause the index to be updated accordingly by the Everything service. Oops! There it was *again*! Shut the fsck (hint! hint!) up, Paul! I haven't tried out too many of these things, and those are some of the popular ones here. There are still people trying to write them, for some reason. Still not seeing how I failed of reading comprehension. That's really *your* problem, isn't it!? You *could* be less pompous and some kind soul might explain it to you, but there's little chance of that, isn't there? Certainly asking you to provide a real explanation isn't going to work... Yes: if you hook up a Windows formatted disk to a Mac, you can get spotlight to index it and it will perform its usual continuous indexing process. Unlikely, but theoretically possible, and totally irrelevant. Unlikely, perhaps, but not possible in theory. It works. |
#84
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Why is search so brain dead these days?
On 2020-06-21 12:54 p.m., Frank Slootweg wrote:
Alan Baker wrote: On 2020-06-20 6:13 p.m., VanguardLH wrote: Alan Baker , an obvious Linux/Mac proselytizer posting in the wrong newsgroup, wrote: Yousuf Khan wrote: I'm referring mainly to Windows search, ... I suggest you try out a modern Mac and its Spotlight facility. That is not a solution. Does nothing to address the problem. Go inhabit your Mac newsgroups and stop bothering those using a different OS than your choice. When you do something about your trolls infecting Mac newsgroups, I'll stop posting here. Are you for real!? 'our' trolls? What about 'your' trolls in the Windows (and Android) groups? Aren't *you* one of 'them'? You sure *act* like one. Until then, I'll educate you about how much better it could be for you. Giving information is fine. Acting like an obnoxious pompous prat, not so much. I only came here because of a cross-poster. I'm staying for the fun of it. |
#85
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Why is search so brain dead these days?
On 2020-06-21 1:24 p.m., Mayayana wrote:
"Alan Baker" wrote | Simple fact: | | You've all been complaining about Window's search functionality. | | Mac OS has a search that works really, really well. | I'd be happy to complain about Macs, but this is a Windows group and someone was asking about search. Since we're not using Macs it doesn't help to know what Mac search can do. But if you want to buy a Mac and pay me to use it, I promise I'll gush about how amazing all 5 programs are. And those kiddie icons are just so adorable. It helps to understand what can be done. |
#86
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Why is search so brain dead these days?
"Char Jackson" wrote in message
... On Mon, 22 Jun 2020 00:50:01 -0400, Yousuf Khan wrote: On 6/21/2020 5:33 PM, Char Jackson wrote: I'd like to see that experiment peer reviewed and duplicated before it gets written in stone. Like, what kind of search (filename versus file contents versus both) and across what type of storage and how is it connected, etc. With Microsoft products, it's no longer anecdotal, it just gets added to the existing database of findings. I've never seen Agent Ransack run for 10 minutes. That's why I was asking. My guess is that it was being asked to do a content search versus a filename search. I use Agent Ransack to view my Freeware List files. 240+ text files totalling 3mb & the search takes a couple of seconds. Give it my 'Documents' folder @ 19GB & I've closed the search, a quarter way through, after an hour. ... Probably not the best place to store 6.4GB of drivers but all the rest are text, Pdf & image files. -- Regards wasbit |
#87
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Why is search so brain dead these days?
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. -- Ken |
#88
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Why is search so brain dead these days?
Paul on Sun, 21 Jun 2020 17:37:52 -0400 typed
in alt.windows7.general the following: 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 It would have searched, whatever drive letter he asked it to search. What I found disturbing, on my "broken" Windows Search on a fresh 2004 x64 install, was what I was seeing in Process Monitor. I was seeing Explorer making a ton of calls to the Registry, looking for filenames or fragments of filenames. Which might have been why my machine was pretty busy while the "search" was happening. Since I reset the indexing, using the registry key, it appears to have stopped doing whatever it was previously doing. It's pretty hard to believe this is a race condition, where some things initializing out of the box, resulted in that kind of functional failure. Explorer did not appear to be traversing the file system, and the "green bar" seemed related to File Explorer poking at a registry hive. It wasn't "just" doing FindNextFile. The time spent, is spent in some other futile exercise. Which I've now fixed. It comes back quickly now. Paul This seems to be my experience opinion: that Windows is now spending a lot of time and resources handling the overhead it has created. If it was a human office, it has long reached the point where most of the work is tracking and documenting the work which is suppose to be done. "We need a meeting to find out why there has been no progress." -- pyotr filipivich Next month's Panel: Graft - Boon or blessing? |
#89
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Why is search so brain dead these days?
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! |
#90
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Why is search so brain dead these days? Followup
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 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! Found even more files almost instantly Just sent them a $10 donation |
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