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"Everything" is a filename search engine for Windows

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Re: "Everything" is a filename search engine for Windows

#51

Post by speed_spread »

xnyan wrote: post #48
niux wrote: post #8

Is there a tool similar to this one on MacOS?

It's literally the only thing from windows I miss. NTFS gives you a journal of all FS events that's virtually instant for "free" (only free as in no additional cost beyond what windows is already incurring, there's definitely overhead). In my limited research Mac APIs like FSEvents are not enough to recreate this.

This reminds me a lot of live queries in BeFS.

I like how 30+ year old NT architecture comes back again to solve things in ways that no other major OS has developed since then.

Re: "Everything" is a filename search engine for Windows

#52

Post by beefnugs »

sickblastoise wrote: post #36
beart wrote: post #5

Search in Windows is THE indicator of how poorly Microsoft has maintained their core operating system, IMO. What could be more significant over the last 20 years than "search", and where does there exist a worst implementation of it in a major piece of software? Everything really puts a spotlight on this with how simple and effective it is.

I seriously don’t understand how searching for a file in windows takes so long and yields such crappy results? What abomination must there be under the hood for it to be this consistently bad for all of these years? Microsoft devs chime in if you have any insight.

Somehow i don't even think it is enshittification, because their search has been bad forever. On all previous versions of windows server even.

ok ok, maybe it would slow things down to index shared drives? well how do you fuck up simple search on the LOCAL computer too???? I have to use powershell to do searching "gci -recurse" is built in alias for get-childitem. And it wasn't too many more lines of code to start searching the contents of word and excel files. (although this does take a lot longer, at least it works)

Re: "Everything" is a filename search engine for Windows

#55

Post by okasaki »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #43
beart wrote: post #5

Search in Windows is THE indicator of how poorly Microsoft has maintained their core operating system, IMO. What could be more significant over the last 20 years than "search", and where does there exist a worst implementation of it in a major piece of software? Everything really puts a spotlight on this with how simple and effective it is.

It drives me bonkers that when I hit the Windows key and type "bash", the first suggestion is always "Git Bash", which I have never used, when I truly want it to just run "bash" from WSL, which is not only a perfect text match, but actually gets used. But not only is "bash" not the first result, it's not even the second, third, or fourth. Between the "Best match" of "Git Bash" and the actual "bash" command is 10 web…

When I type in 'reboot' it gives me Reboot the movie in some online store.

They have played us for fools.

Re: "Everything" is a filename search engine for Windows

#56

Post by HaZeust »

beefnugs wrote: post #52
sickblastoise wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I seriously don’t understand how searching for a file in windows takes so long and yields such crappy results? What abomination must there be under the hood for it to be this consistently bad for all of these years? Microsoft devs chime in if you have any insight.

Somehow i don't even think it is enshittification, because their search has been bad forever. On all previous versions of windows server even. ok ok, maybe it would slow things down to index shared drives? well how do you fuck up simple search on the LOCAL computer too???? I have to use powershell to do searching "gci -recurse" is built in alias for get-childitem. And it wasn't too many more lines of code to start se…

WinXP Search was pretty good.

Re: "Everything" is a filename search engine for Windows

#57

Post by nirav72 »

akimbostrawman wrote: post #41
Log_out_ wrote: post #14

Microsoft should buy them out and add bing to get a bang for the buck. Building functional software as a ex tortion tool for intentionally dysfunctional ecosystems. 2024..

they will never. windows search today is to increase bing traffic and show ads, much like the whole OS

Yeah, it has been pretty bad in win11. But at least you can disable the bing search. (For now)

Re: "Everything" is a filename search engine for Windows

#58

Post by summerlight »

happytoexplain wrote: post #25

I've used Everything for as long as I can remember, and it has completely spoiled me on search/launcher functionality. Perfect UI, perfect results ordering (no cute prediction about what you might want), and, of course, truly instant results and a truly live index - it will find files created one millisecond ago. I also use Launchy specifically for launching programs. Same instant results, though not live-indexed. Wh…

> Which makes me question every single time I use the Windows default search box: How? How is one of the most fundamental features of the biggest software platform in history, made by one of the biggest companies in history, after decades, still not even close to as good as multiple basic indie replacements?

The worse thing is that it used to work much better in the Windows 7 era. I don't know what happened there and how they justified this launch of massive quality degradation.

Re: "Everything" is a filename search engine for Windows

#59

Post by krapp »

summerlight wrote: post #58
happytoexplain wrote: post #25

I've used Everything for as long as I can remember, and it has completely spoiled me on search/launcher functionality. Perfect UI, perfect results ordering (no cute prediction about what you might want), and, of course, truly instant results and a truly live index - it will find files created one millisecond ago. I also use Launchy specifically for launching programs. Same instant results, though not live-indexed. Wh…

> Which makes me question every single time I use the Windows default search box: How? How is one of the most fundamental features of the biggest software platform in history, made by one of the biggest companies in history, after decades, still not even close to as good as multiple basic indie replacements? The worse thing is that it used to work much better in the Windows 7 era. I don't know what happened there and…

I think it had to do with their decision to design Windows as "app first," meaning around the assumption that everyone will be using it on a tablet or a phone.

I don't know why that specifically means search and even folders (a folder with nothing but text files will load so slowly it has a loading bar) are broken but it can't be a coincidence.

Re: "Everything" is a filename search engine for Windows

#60

Post by [deleted] »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #24
Log_out_ wrote: post #14

Microsoft should buy them out and add bing to get a bang for the buck. Building functional software as a ex tortion tool for intentionally dysfunctional ecosystems. 2024..

When I was at Microsoft I already knew the answer but asked around - just to be sure - and the reason is…. *drumroll* …It bypasses NTFS ACLs (because it works by indexing the raw MFT) Microsoft sells Windows as secure/securable OS: filesystem permissions must be enforced (of course, FS ACLs are a huge part of the reason why Windows’ files-on-disk UX isn’t the best). Yes, Microsoft could still buy it and then redistri…

[deleted]
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