Alternative File Search Utility?

Sly

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Aug 17, 2004
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Seeing as windows file search is a piece of crap (Apparently, it's designed to ignore files rather than search them; Is there anyway to import Win98se search? It was much better), i tried checking if there are any alternative search utilities out there. Apparently there's a ton of them.

I'm not really keen on the thought of trying the hundreds of strange utilities (some of them might be trojans), so i was wondering if any of you guys can recommend a free one?

And also how to link the <WindowKey>-F to open the new utility instead of the built in search window?

Thanks in advance:)
 
How is the Windows built-in search a piece of crap...especially in Vista?

I would agree that it is crap, with the default settings. By default it finds what is indexed, which isn't much. To go beyond that, you have to change the indexer settings, or click the Advanced Search button, and specify more search parameters. Which many users don't know how to do or don't expect to have to.It's great once configured to your liking, but many people don't know how or even that you can.
 
I haven't had any issues where it didn't find things that I was searching for. If a location, such as a network drive, isn't indexed, it will still let me search, it just takes a bit long.
 
I haven't had any issues where it didn't find things that I was searching for. If a location, such as a network drive, isn't indexed, it will still let me search, it just takes a bit long.

Yes, it will let you search. After you click on Advanced search, and select non-indexed locations, and specify the location if it is not in the index. By default, nothing in Program Files or Windows is indexed. And yes, there are legitimate reason to search those folders. I've lost track of how many customers I've had to log onto remotely to show them how to do that. Not everyone using Windows is as knowledgeable as we are, and things that seem dead simple to us gets pointed out that they are not to average users. ;)
 
Yes, it will let you search. After you click on Advanced search, and select non-indexed locations, and specify the location if it is not in the index.
Or you enable the Search option in the context menu, like it should have been done from the very beginning.
 
I haven't had any issues where it didn't find things that I was searching for. If a location, such as a network drive, isn't indexed, it will still let me search, it just takes a bit long.

Yep, same here. I like to just have it index everything though.

The best thing about it is to be able to search for a phrase and have it pull up results from everything from email's to documents with that phrase in it.
 
Or you enable the Search option in the context menu, like it should have been done from the very beginning.

But most of those were removed with SP1, and that still leaves the average user not having any better idea of what to do. I can find what I want, you can find what you want, my users couldn't find their hands if they were sitting on them. It's too hard for unskilled users.
 
Great! I didn't know you had to set the index option. It works now. Thanks!!! :)
 
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