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Author Topic: Can anybody suggest a downloadable program to search for files on a computer.  (Read 1650 times)

Bohandas

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Can anybody suggest a downloadable program to search for files on a computer? My computer has Windows 7 so obviously the built-in search program is no good. Agent Ransack is a bit better, but still far inferior to the search function that I used to have on Windows XP.

Ideally I'd like to find a program that has a separate entry box for each supported search criterion, and all of these boxes displayed simultaneously, preferably on the side rather than the top of the screen.

Any suggestions?
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Sigulbard

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Did you use the Google machine? I mean, as in, used it for searching for search programs.
I found this, anyway: http://download.cnet.com/Everything/3000-2379_4-10890746.html
If you scroll down on the page there's a list of other programs as well, for example Google Desktop, which seems to be particularly popular.
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Tellemurius

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what types of files are you looking for? Windows 7 search barely fails for me.

Bohandas

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Did you use the Google machine? I mean, as in, used it for searching for search programs.
I found this, anyway: http://download.cnet.com/Everything/3000-2379_4-10890746.html
If you scroll down on the page there's a list of other programs as well, for example Google Desktop, which seems to be particularly popular.

I have that one too. It won't read my flash drive.

And most of the other things listed appear, from their descriptions, to be files to search the web, rather than to search one's own computer and only one's own computer.

what types of files are you looking for? Windows 7 search barely fails for me.

Well, at the moment I want to search specifically by file names (ONLY; excluding file contents) and I resent having to type in a bunch of secret undocumented commands that I first have to look up online in order to do so. But at other times I might want to search by file contents only, excluding file names. At other times I might want to search for a file whose contents contain one word, but whose title DOES NOT contain another word. At no point however, do I want to have to type a command - or anything at all other than the specific words to be searched for - in order to do any of these things.

For example, in order to search for a file whose name contains one word and whose contents contain another, I should be able to simply enter those words into two separate boxes instead of typing a command, as was the case for the search feature in Windows XP

Also, I suppose Windows 7 search wouldn't be so bad if clicking the search window brought up an unexpurgated list of all available filters/protocols instead of just suggesting 2-4 (varying, seemingly without reason, between folders) of the most worthlessly useless ones. So if anybody knows of a registry hack that will force it to always display every search filter that would be much appreciated too.
« Last Edit: March 17, 2013, 01:51:43 pm by Bohandas »
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Sigulbard

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Bohandas

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Perhaps this?

Thanks!

FileSearchEX (the third program on the list) seems to be exactly what I was looking for.
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