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July 2009 Featured Software |
| July 2009 Submitted by Dan Delong |
A common complaint regarding the Windows search function; “It is so slow!” However, the Everything search engine is exactly the converse. This little program can zip through a huge indexing process in seconds, creating its own, updated database. The database itself is small because only file names and folder names are stored in it.  This is the work of one programmer, David Carpenter, of Voidtools. Search terms follow the usual Boolean rules, with the added bonus of optional Regex terms. Case matching and path matching is another feature. One important restriction – Everything works only on the NTFS file system. If your storage medium is FAT32, it is easy to change it to NTFS. Just follow the instructions in the FAQ. Additionally, only local drives – located on the host machine – are indexed. To access drives on other machines, using the built in FTP server (or with HTTP on Port 80), requires installation of this program on the other computers on the network, or over the Internet. Each of these remote machines will have their own Everything database, which can be accessed from within the host’s copy of the program. In my test, about 70 thousand files, located in about 6 thousand folders on an external USB2.0 hard drive, took only about 10 seconds to index. In the example screen, this drive is referred to as the F: drive, because it is running a virtual version of XP within MojoPac (my testing operating system environment). The search term used in the example is: guitar !\MAGIX (Meaning: Search for “guitar”, but not in the MAGIX folder). The results appeared instantly. Notice that Everything is able to list all mentions of guitar, even those located in the bookmarks folder of the browser. Double clicking on that file opened the browser directly to the linked Gruhn Guitar page.
Running the Everything program as a standalone (i.e.; no installer or registry changes), requires downloading the zip file version. The ability to run directly from its main exe file, qualifies Everything as a portable application. However, if it needs to be included as a start-up operation, it is best to run the installer version.
System requirements: Platform: Windows 2000, XP, 2003, Vista, 2008 and Windows 7 Version: 1.2.1.371 Price: free Language: English and many others Download Size: 272 KB for zip file, 334 KB for full installer Installed Size: 588 KB Rating: Download Site: here |
