Long Time to Find Programs

[J-Mac]

Why does it take FARR so long to locate a program when I enter it?

I am running FARR 2.00.126 on a Windows XP Pro SP2 machine, a pretty quick one usually.  I did have to go into the settings and select Program Files as a folder to search when I installed it. (I would have expected that folder to the first one automatically configured for searching for programs, if any. But it, along with several others, like My Documents, was not selected at installation).

I kind of thought that FARR would go and perform an initial search and cache all found program files as soon as it is installed, but apparently it searches anew every time I type in a keyword. And that is if I know the exact program executable name. If the program has a name that does not match the nominal title of the program, it then takes FARR an extremely long time.  (E.g., Total Commander actually starts with cecmd.exe).

Is this configured all wrong on my PC? Or is this normal behavior?

Thanks.

Jim

[mouser]

farr is meant to search the start menu, not program files.

[J-Mac]

farr is meant to search the start menu, not program files.

OK -- then does it pre-inventory all in the Start Menu upon installation? Or does it search fresh each time I enter a name?

Thanks

[J-Mac]

Oh - which Start Menu does it search? User Start Menu? Or All Users?  Or both?

Thanks.

[mouser]

should search both

[justice]

as soon as i type tot then total commander is selected, should take about 0.2s at the most. do you have farr sitting in the system tray as it should? and on the general tab does inactive memory use say "stay in memory longer"?

definately should be instant. Maybe you have loads of folders on your desktop?
See my capture using FARR to run Total Commander: http://www.screencast.com/t/DBSgdcOIKP

[J-Mac]

as soon as i type tot then total commander is selected, should take about 0.2s at the most.

Same here - as long as it is not the first time I was looking for that particular program.  It takes much longer when it is the first time.

....do you have farr sitting in the system tray as it should? and on the general tab does inactive memory use say "stay in memory longer"?

Yes.  That is selected.

definately should be instant. Maybe you have loads of folders on your desktop?
See my capture using FARR to run Total Commander: http://www.screencast.com/t/DBSgdcOIKP

Nope -- two folders on my desktop; one is a "Downloads" folder, and the other is actually a "virtual" folder for my PPC.

I am talking about "finding" programs for the first time.  I realize that if it has to do the searching the first time you look every program, that would understandably take some time.  However -- and maybe this is actually a feature request -- I am talking about FARR polling the selected Search folders upon installation and noting all program locations.  That would eliminate the delay when finding a program for the first time.  Except, of course, newly installed programs.  But even they could be automatically updated within FARR -- I think!

Thanks.

Jim