Resolved Recommendations for Desktop Search?

Google has abandoned one of its best products (Google Desktop Search), and I haven't been happy with either of two replacements that I've tried, Windows Search and Copernic.

Has anyone been happy with anything else? I live by my desktop search, so I want something that can search the contents of my files, and not just the titles of teh documents.

 

Quite a few users recommend Everything Search Engine, while some still like Agent Ransack.

 

Everything Search doesn't search the contents of files, which is a showstopper for me.

 

Agent ransack takes a bit too long, compared to the traditional (indexed) desktop search.

Thanks anyways.

 

FileSearchEX (GOFF Concepts)

Searches inside files, expands network shares, view image thumbnails, simplified search UI (like XP, but modern), works well with limited account permissions, low system requirements, portable, ...

 

FileSearch looks interesting, but it is not an indexed search. In other words, it searches everything again, each time you enter a search term. This does slow it down (compared to those programs--such as Windows Desktop search and Copernic-- which simply search a previously-created index).

I am looking for a desktop search that indexes all your files, then searches through that index, not through the computer itself, for each search.

 

Did you try it?

Just used it to do a search through 112,000 files (69,032,310,002 bytes [69GB]) in 61,319 Directories for "*.*" containing the words "Transacciones por segundo ". It found all 62 asp.net files containing that string in 21 seconds.

 

Yes, I did try it. Just to show you what I'm talking about, I tried searching for "revolutionary war" and it took over a minute to find more than two results; by the second minute (after 120 seconds I stopped the search), I had 73 results, and this was after taking the time telling it to only to look in the D partition (which still keeps it from searching my desktop, which is always a possibility for a document). I told it to search only the D partition so that it wouldn't go through the C partition.

Using Windows search gave me lots of results instantly, and after hitting enter (for the more results window to appear), I got 398 results in just a few more seconds.

Even 21 seconds is a lot longer than I'd like to wait.

 

Oh no, there's no doubt that much quicker results can be had. How much you willing to spend?

 

If I could get something that was a bit more consistent that copernic and Windows, I don't know.... say $50. A trial period of a full-featured program would be best. WDS and Copernic seem ok for a couple of searches, and then it breaks down. Nothing was like Google for consistently bringing exactly the file that I was looking for.

Copernic has a pro version, but the same "engine" drives both products (free and pro), and the search results are displayed in the same order (in both free and pro versions).

I gotta say, 50 would be pretty close to an upper limit. I'm not sure I want to shell out 100 USD for something like this...

 

Sorry. I'm afraid I don't know of an instantaneous solution for a laptop running an AMD A6-3400M and 5,400 RPM hard drive. (What's the max read/write, maybe 150MB/s?)

That 21 seconds above to search through every single, solitary byte of ~69GB of "-current-" data was with an i7 2600K pushed to ~4.2 GHz on a ~500/300 MB/s SSD. Might be able to reduce that to 5 seconds or so by cranking it up to ~5GHz and plugging in a 2,800 MB/s OCZ Z-Drive R4 RM88 SSD, ($13,300 USD for the 1.6TB).

 

OK, when you mentioned spending money, I thought you meant for a pro desktop search, not upgrading the hardware so FileSearch would go faster.

I think I'll stick to Windows or Copernic. Thanks for the suggestions, anyways.

 

Keep in mind that to be worthwhile, indexing must be done regularly. Problem is, indexing takes up a lot of processor time, leaving less computing power for other tasks.

 

I don't know how Windows does it, but Copernic has an adjustable time frame of "x minutes of idle time" before it updates the index. So if you are typing a document or even surfing, no indexing will be done, but as soon as you stop for a few minutes, it will update with everything since the last time an update was done. IIRC, Google Desktop Search had a similar feature.

 

Copernic isn't bad, mind you, but I just found the way they arranged the results to be not so good. They sort either by location or by date (modified?); Google desktop arranged them by date or "relevance." It always seemed that the "relevance" option was the best, unless I recalled that this was a very old (or new) document, allowing me to locate it in one particular place in the list of results. I have found Copernic on the average won't return the file I want as soon in the results page, as much as Google would have, but of course your mileage may vary.