Everything Search
Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2012 7:50 pm
Everything Search (ES) is a freeware search program that can find files and folders instantly: http://www.voidtools.com/
If ES is installed on your system, V gives you the option of using it to perform the search.
As an indication as to how fast ES is, I just searched my 500GB drive for all .bak files. V found 1225 .bak files in 86 seconds.
With the Everything Search option enabled, the same search took under one second!
Note that ES only searches NTFS formatted drives (FAT32 is not supported) and only searches for file names (it does not search file contents).
Please refer to the ES web site for further details: http://www.voidtools.com/
If you want to try ES, please download the latest alpha release from the Announcements section of the ES forum: http://forum.voidtools.com/index.php
Using ES masks in searches
ES has its own syntax for specifying file masks. Not only can you specify a simple file mask (like *.jpg), but you can also create fairly complicated masks using boolean operators and regular expressions.
V does not support the ES syntax for file masks (and vice versa). For example, to search for .bmp and .jpg files with V, you would use a mask of *.bmp,*.jpg, whereas with ES you would use *.bmp|*.jpg.
When the ES option is enabled, V will try to convert the specified file mask into a format that ES can understand, however, it may not always be able to do this.
If you want to use anything but a simple file mask with the ES option enabled, it is recommended that you specify the file mask using the appropriate ES syntax - and prefix the mask with a colon (:). This tells V to pass the mask to ES unmodified.
For example, you can use the following mask in ES to search for all .jpg files that begin with 1 or 2: regex:^[12].*.jpg$.
To use this mask in V (in the Named field of a search), you should prefix it with a colon. That is, use :regex:^[12].*.jpg$
Note that ES file masks (prefixed by a colon) can only be used when the ES option is enabled.
Also note that searching for a string with ES will find all file names that contain that string, whereas V will only find files whose name exactly matches the string. For example, searching for thing with ES will match files like everything, something.dat and nothing.doc, whereas V will only match thing.
ES and UAC
ES requires administrator privileges to run.
This means that if you are running Vista or Windows 7, you will probably receive a UAC prompt when you run ES. The FAQ section of the ES web site describes how you can disable the UAC prompt.
Since V is usually not running with administrator privileges, you will also receive a UAC prompt every time you do a ES search with V. However, if you have V installed in the System Tray, you will only receive a UAC prompt the very first time you do a ES search with V. Subsequent ES searches with the same tray instance of V will not display the UAC prompt.
If ES is installed on your system, V gives you the option of using it to perform the search.
As an indication as to how fast ES is, I just searched my 500GB drive for all .bak files. V found 1225 .bak files in 86 seconds.
With the Everything Search option enabled, the same search took under one second!
Note that ES only searches NTFS formatted drives (FAT32 is not supported) and only searches for file names (it does not search file contents).
Please refer to the ES web site for further details: http://www.voidtools.com/
If you want to try ES, please download the latest alpha release from the Announcements section of the ES forum: http://forum.voidtools.com/index.php
Using ES masks in searches
ES has its own syntax for specifying file masks. Not only can you specify a simple file mask (like *.jpg), but you can also create fairly complicated masks using boolean operators and regular expressions.
V does not support the ES syntax for file masks (and vice versa). For example, to search for .bmp and .jpg files with V, you would use a mask of *.bmp,*.jpg, whereas with ES you would use *.bmp|*.jpg.
When the ES option is enabled, V will try to convert the specified file mask into a format that ES can understand, however, it may not always be able to do this.
If you want to use anything but a simple file mask with the ES option enabled, it is recommended that you specify the file mask using the appropriate ES syntax - and prefix the mask with a colon (:). This tells V to pass the mask to ES unmodified.
For example, you can use the following mask in ES to search for all .jpg files that begin with 1 or 2: regex:^[12].*.jpg$.
To use this mask in V (in the Named field of a search), you should prefix it with a colon. That is, use :regex:^[12].*.jpg$
Note that ES file masks (prefixed by a colon) can only be used when the ES option is enabled.
Also note that searching for a string with ES will find all file names that contain that string, whereas V will only find files whose name exactly matches the string. For example, searching for thing with ES will match files like everything, something.dat and nothing.doc, whereas V will only match thing.
ES and UAC
ES requires administrator privileges to run.
This means that if you are running Vista or Windows 7, you will probably receive a UAC prompt when you run ES. The FAQ section of the ES web site describes how you can disable the UAC prompt.
Since V is usually not running with administrator privileges, you will also receive a UAC prompt every time you do a ES search with V. However, if you have V installed in the System Tray, you will only receive a UAC prompt the very first time you do a ES search with V. Subsequent ES searches with the same tray instance of V will not display the UAC prompt.