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Skepticism after Windows 10 search failure

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Re: Skepticism after Windows 10 search failure

#111
The only things I'm searching this way are related to Windows' own ambiguities and opaqueness. For example, something like classic 'Control Panel' (not quite true, 'bookmarked' it after a while) or special setting menues. Most of these issues are caused by the dual UI.

All other things - in particular file search - are much more comfortable with Total Commander, a software providing a sophisticated consistent interface for more than 20 years now, superseding any Windows versions internal abilities easily (including the whole explorer functionality).

Re: Skepticism after Windows 10 search failure

#112

It's amusing (and infuriating) that file search - IMO, one of the most important features for a desktop O/S - has been utterly broken in Windows since Vista. On Windows 10, half the time it just hangs with "Searching files", displaying zero results. The other half, search simply says "Nothing found", even when I know there is a match. I just tested it with %USERPROFILE%/.docker - open up File Explorer and search for…

Use Everything instead. https://www.voidtools.com/

This tool is wonderful - mindbogglingly fast. I can't believe how long it has been around, without equivalent performance or consistency baked into Windows. I think I first used this before Vista came out - has it really been that long?

Re: Skepticism after Windows 10 search failure

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird. I too have qBittorent installed and the Start menu search finds it as first option when I type 'bitt' ('bit' gives 64-bit Python launcher)... not too shabby.

"bitt" shows me zero results, but "bitto" (all the way to "bittorrent") works. It's beyond b0rked!

Same. And "torrent" returns no results at all. :/

Re: Skepticism after Windows 10 search failure

#114
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What i find strange is, i type in a program that is recently added and listed at the top of the start menu, and it doesn't come up in the search.. Then, i tried searching again, and it comes up, 3rd time lucky.. Doesn't make sense at all!

It makes perfect sense if your indexing is very slow or broken..

If the index isn't updated instantly then they should account for that by first searching the index (for speed) and then manually trawling through the Start Menu folders for results which are missing from the index.

Re: Skepticism after Windows 10 search failure

#115

It's amusing (and infuriating) that file search - IMO, one of the most important features for a desktop O/S - has been utterly broken in Windows since Vista. On Windows 10, half the time it just hangs with "Searching files", displaying zero results. The other half, search simply says "Nothing found", even when I know there is a match. I just tested it with %USERPROFILE%/.docker - open up File Explorer and search for…

the .docker problem is because (IIRC) by default the indexing service is set to ignore a bunch of folders. I think Program Files is also excluded by default, which is fun if you want to run an .exe file.

Re: Skepticism after Windows 10 search failure

#117

It's amusing (and infuriating) that file search - IMO, one of the most important features for a desktop O/S - has been utterly broken in Windows since Vista. On Windows 10, half the time it just hangs with "Searching files", displaying zero results. The other half, search simply says "Nothing found", even when I know there is a match. I just tested it with %USERPROFILE%/.docker - open up File Explorer and search for…

I personally never use search tools; at least, not with files I've created myself. IMHO organising correctly your files using aptly named directories and sticking to that is much more effective than dumping stuff around the filesystem and then having to rely on search in order to untangle the mess. That's why I tend to disable desktop icons; in this way I always have to force myself into opening a file manager and ac…

I'm a data hoarder and I organize meticulously, so I get where you're coming from. But I often need to do searches along different dimensions than the "primary keys" I chose for organizing the directory structure. Search is indispensable for this.

As an example, say I have records related to my taxes - a bunch of documents and images - organized into directories by year, and I want to copy all of the images for the last 5 years out into a temporary directory so that I can flip through them easily. I can browse to my taxes directory, do a search for "kind:picture" then sort the results by modified date and drag the relevant items into the destination directory.

For some types of tasks this is so convenient that sometimes when I'm ssh'd into a server on my home network I'll move files into a mounted network share so that I can manipulate them from Windows Explorer. Clicking around a graphical file explorer is just way less cognitive overhead than stringing together a big command on the command line. Windows Explorer in the Windows 10 era isn't great, but it's much better than e.g. Finder or Thunar, which are my other options on my home computers.

Re: Skepticism after Windows 10 search failure

#118

The search behaves “as if” it’s using randomly-ordered keys in a random source dictionary, and it’s maddening. If I type what seems to be the same 3 letters a few times in a row, the result is always different: one time it acts like the app isn’t even installed, another time it finds the app (first choice), another time it finds some other random sub-component instead of the app with a weird file extension. Oh, and m…

My favorite part of Windows 10 search is how when I enter "bittorrent" it has absolutely no idea what I mean. The program is called qbittorrent.

weird. works for me: https://i.imgur.com/9kBh2uB.png

Re: Skepticism after Windows 10 search failure

#119
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same reason IE was integrated into the OS in 1998. To embrace, extend & extinguish.

What are they embracing so they can extinguish in this instance?

> What are they embracing so they can extinguish in this instance?

Firefox, linux, open source. It's really funny how a lot of open source projects are hosted in github.

Re: Skepticism after Windows 10 search failure

#120

The search behaves “as if” it’s using randomly-ordered keys in a random source dictionary, and it’s maddening. If I type what seems to be the same 3 letters a few times in a row, the result is always different: one time it acts like the app isn’t even installed, another time it finds the app (first choice), another time it finds some other random sub-component instead of the app with a weird file extension. Oh, and m…

My favorite part of Windows 10 search is how when I enter "bittorrent" it has absolutely no idea what I mean. The program is called qbittorrent.

When looking for QGis i write:

Q -> nothing

Qg/Qg -> Qgis

QGi -> nothing

Qgis -> websearch

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