If in Windows XP file search was albeit slow, but still workable, then in Windows 7 it turned into something completely incomprehensible. Many successfully use the search in Far "e or Total Commander" e instead of the standard windows tools. When there are a lot of files on disks, this search is also slow. I would hardly have believed if I hadn’t tried it myself, that files can be found instantly (!), Right at the time of entering the file name in the search bar. Interested in?
Search can be limited to certain file types or you can choose a predefined file type. A small drawback is that after installation - before you start using it, you have to do the so-called data indexing. In this process, they will transfer files to data warehouses and store information in indexes. Then they serve to search for a zipper of a specific file or text for your request.
The size of the folder with these files directly depends on the number of files that it indexes, and can even reach several hundred megabytes. There are two more paid versions. One for professional use and one for corporate deployment — both can be used commercially. All three versions have different functions - detailed comparisons can be found here.
A miracle program that saved me a lot of time and continues to help out every day is called Everything. This free mini-application (the size of the portable version is 272 KB) does just one simple thing - it searches for files on disks by part of the file name. The magic is that the search happens instantly as you type the letters of the file name into the search bar (as with Google’s "live search"). This opens up much greater file search capabilities. For example, if you forgot the exact file name, you can quickly try to enter different variants of the name. In a "classic" search, you would have to wait a long time each time for the search to complete, but here you can immediately see if something was found or not: 
The installation process takes place in English, and it becomes literally one click away. In the first case, indexing includes localized files, contacts, emails, history of visited Internet sites and favorite bindings. A barcode will be set for the main panel and toolbar for viewing on the Internet. If you do not want to use it, select the "Customization" option and scratch the one you want.
The main application window consists of several parts. At the top there is the main control panel, a field for entering words and a search box, on the left you can select the types of files to search. On the right is the search results window and the viewing window.
How it works?
The program at first start scans the file allocation table (NTFS MFT) and saves the scan result to a small cache file. Scanning disks is very fast - even with a few terabytes of data, the scan will take no more than one minute. Based full list files on all drives Everything builds in memory a data structure for quick search. At subsequent launches, re-scanning of all disks will no longer occur: the program will take information from the cache file and only update it. To track file changes, the program uses information from the USN log of the NTFS partition.Limitations of the program:
- The program searches only NTFS partitions.
- The search is performed only by file names (by attributes, dates and contents of files, search is not possible).
I am sure Everything will become your reliable assistant and will save you many, many hours. And for Microsoft, this is an occasion to reflect on how the search should actually work;)
This may take several minutes depending on the number of indexed files. If you click “Files”, you will be taken to the file area with index files. The desktop, “My Documents”, “Music” and “Pictures” are preinstalled. They cannot be removed from indexing. Use the Modify or Add and Remove buttons to change an area, add a new one, or delete it. The Browser link is used to determine whether you want to index content from web browsers. In the Integration section, you can change the properties of the toolbar and toolbar.
You know how this happens: one of the users sends a PDF or Word document to other employees and everyone saves their own copy, and 100 copies of the same document are created in NAS NAS. A similar situation happens on a personal computer. Do you remember how many times you promised yourself to take all the photos and put them in folders neatly? And it ended up with four copies of each JPG file in the system now.
Here's how indexing changes. You can either leave the preset or indicate that you want to index only after a few hours and days. In the "Advanced" section, you can determine what types of files you want to include in the indexing or how to remove them from the process, and there are other settings, including the ability to change the folder in which the index files are located.
The search is easy after indexing. In the left window of the main panel, enter the word, fry and send. At some point, the results appear on the right side. They are classified by file creation date. On the right side you have two icons designed to display parts and / or categories by sender, folder, size, etc. Above is the ability to filter the results found only in letters, files, pictures.
There are tools, such as a tool for creating accessible SharePoint document repositories and others, that can solve such problems, but not in the case when everyone starts to create copies of the same data, which are also already stored in backups. Present time disk space inexpensive, but it still flies a pretty penny, especially when you consider the cost of electricity, backup and heating. One tool that can help in this situation is the duplicate file finder, Fast Duplicate File Finder.
You can still make the results even better in the search box. Here you can select a search by file name, type, size, date of creation, for example, by e-mail by topic, from whom, for whom, etc. Not only will you not want to get it out of control, because it is fast, accurate, easy to manage, without any extra functions and settings, but it is free and still convenient from the main bar through the control panel or from Internet browsers with toolbars. The unpaid version compared to the paid ones are some of the features that have worsened.
To perform the first scan, you just need to specify the destination folders and click Start Scan. In the default configuration, Fast Duplicate File Finder compares files with the same extension, the contents of which are completely the same. You can also consider the percentage of content matches when comparing files. You can also search without extensions.
How to disable all programs running in the background?
We are most concerned about the lack of search capabilities on network drives. Disable all programs that run in the background. Click the Start button and select Run. You will be prompted to restart your computer. Click Restart Now.
From the Edit menu, select Select All. From the File menu, select Delete. Click “Yes” when you see the message. Are you sure you want to put it in the basket? After testing the game, restart the program earlier. To restart background programs.
When scanning a large data set, you can save the search project and exit the system, turn it off, or go into sleep or hibernation mode. Organization of the search for duplicates in the form of projects makes it easy to repeatedly periodically search in the same set of folders. Among other parameters, ignoring files with zero length, automatically minimizing the application after the start of scanning, protection and skipping system files and folders, as well as prioritizing the scanning process. The last parameter is great for preventing the utility from capturing all system resources or providing maximum access to resources to speed up the search.
Upon completion of the search, several options for further behavior are possible. You can automatically search for duplicates based on timestamps. You can also specify files to exclude based on timestamps, extensions, or pattern matching. You can force the utility to automatically move duplicates to another location, while maintaining the folder structure. This allows for insurance to archive duplicates. If you are happy with the results, you can simply remove duplicates. The utility can also delete all found empty folders.
The program presents the results of the comparison in the main window along with information about the file name, folder, size, time stamp, percentage of coincidence and the number of duplicate groups. This data allows you to decide which files you can safely get rid of. There is also a preview panel, such as the contents of text files or image files. This allows you not to leave the program in the process of deciding on the fate of a particular duplicate. You can also right-click to find out which program is associated with the file of the selected type. This is useful when working with binary files whose contents cannot be seen in the preview panel.
By default, Fast Duplicate File Finder marks files that can be deleted. You can select or deselect at your discretion. Files are highlighted, so you can easily see the changes made before starting the operation to delete or move duplicates.
Fast Duplicate File Finder is free and can work on most versions of Windows. You can download this utility from the website of the developer. There is also a paid version, Fast Duplicate File Finder Professional, and it costs $ 39.95. The paid version has several interesting features. You can find “similar” files, such as images with dimmed or text filesmatching up to an additional paragraph. You can filter the search results by excluding certain types of files or folders or by removing duplicates from the list by size or date. In the Professional version, you can also export the results to a CSV or XML file, as well as run the utility from command line.
The next time you need to free up some space in the system, Fast Duplicate File Finder will allow you to return unproductive space.
Find one or more necessary files simple, but what if you need to find a specific line in these files? This can be tricky when it comes to bulk files or files on multiple machines. One of the tools to find exactly what you need is PowerGREP.
As the name implies, this program provides the same regular expression search capabilities as the grep command-line utility on Linux and Unix. You can search for files on the network or in the local file systemusing the familiar user interface Windows It also has Windows-style features. The utility can be run from the command line, like a script Windows PowerShell. And, as in grep, you can not only search for text in files, but also easily replace the found line with another line.
But PowerGREP provides additional capabilities, not limited to basic search and replacement and building a list of results. The following options are available to you:
- Data collection - collection of text matching the search conditions in a new file;
- Rename files - mass renaming of files in accordance with the search and replace patterns;
- Merge files - the contents of all found files are combined into one file;
- Split files - the replacement template syntax is used to indicate how to find the found file into parts.
You can create scripts from sequences of search commands and save them for future reference. Another nice feature of PowerGREP is the integrated Assistant panel. It provides concise, helpful hints regarding functions and interface elements. Just click on the item you want or swipe the mouse over it and you don’t need to access the full-featured help system.
PowerGREP has a comprehensive help system that provides an explanation of each component, as well as examples, links, and regular expression tutorials. There is also a scripting library with a set of regular expressions for performing common tasks, such as finding addresses email, splitting weblog files, replacing HTML attributes and tags, replacing names, and finding and replacing text in a specific subset of files. After creating an operation or sequence of actions, you can simply specify the target path and perform a search. When searching and replacing, PowerGREP saves the history in case you need to cancel the action in case of an error.
A preview of the future result is available before real operations with files begin. You can also use different sorts, groupings, and selections to make sure that the data you want to modify is correct. In addition, you can easily view the results without leaving the program. PowerGREP can be run from the command line, which is very convenient for creating batch files, using external tools and scheduling tasks, such as automated log splitting and analysis for errors and warnings.
A single-user license costs $ 159. When buying multiple licenses, a discount is provided. PowerGREP is provided with a three-month money back guarantee. A limited free trial is also available for download from the developer's website.
