Free File Search Utility is the Best Yet [1]
I've been looking for a program like this for years.
"EVERYTHING" is a free search utility that will locate a file or folder by name located on any of your hard drives in less than a second.
"Ho-hum" you say, "there are several programs that do that."
Quite so, but this one does it without creating massive indexes. That saves your disk space and more importantly, doesn't slow down your PC by needing to maintain such indexes.
"But how can this work?" you ponder, "instant search utilities needs indexes in order to work."
Yes they do and that's the trick. with this product; it uses the indexes that form part of the NTFS file system. It is using something that is already there rather than duplicating it.
It's a clever idea. Now why didn't somebody (including Microsoft) think of this before?
Of course to use EVERYTHING your hard drives need to be NTFS formatted but that includes 99.9% of all XP and Vista users, so it's hardly a limitation.
EVERTHING can scan multiple drives, find search terms embedded within file names and can be accessed from a desktop shortcut, the Start Menu or from the right click context menu. It weighs in at a massive 334 KB download. Yes folks, that's kilobytes not megabytes. And its free.
What more can you ask for?
(Windows 2000, XP, Vista)
This item was based on a suggestion by regular contributor rhiannon.
Update: I need to clarify my comment that EVERYTHING does not "create massive indexes." This means what it says and should not be read as implying it does not create any indexes. It does, but they are very small and created in seconds not hours. These tiny indexes are possible because EVERYTHING leverages itself off the information contained in the NTFS file system rather than recreating that information afresh.