Author Topic: What is the currently best Desktop Search software? (Read 1,110,399 times)

Armando · « **Reply #725 on:** March 14, 2010, 10:46 PM »

Thanks For the info, kartal.

vitali_y · « **Reply #726 on:** May 11, 2010, 02:27 AM »

uh... One more time here: StopKa release of version 1.5_100520 is public.
Download:
http://stopka.us/en/download.html
Screenshots:
http://stopka.us/en/screenshots.html
Topic to discuss with author:
http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=15990.0

Armando · « **Reply #727 on:** August 26, 2010, 02:28 AM »

Newish article about the " Best desktop search tools " and a Summary ...

Every now and then, I have this urge to retry X1 and... I resist. Maybe is it the time to do so and see if some of the gripes I had were finally fixed.

Still.... 50$... and I already own Archivarius which does 3/4 the job (minus Outlook indexing [Edit : well... It does it but it's not convenient at all -- slow as hell etc.] and other niceties that X1 does so well [like column filtering, save searches. etc.])

J-Mac · « **Reply #728 on:** August 26, 2010, 02:55 AM »

Hi Armando!

This is a little too weird but I am also on the X1 forum right now when the email arrived notifying me of your post about X1. I am also looking hard at it again to see if I want to buy the latest Pro version. I have NO true search engine installed now, except Search Everything and of course Windows 7 desktop search. You know, I had WDS set to index the content of all my drives and when I looked earlier tonight - because my searches weren't finding very much - and my indexing settings had changed to file names only plus it was only indexing two of my drives. I am not sure when or how the settings changed; I imagine it had to have been done by a recent Windows Update, as I didn't change the settings. That is what caused me to take another look at X1.

I'll post back and let you know what I decide to do. I liked X1 before but declined to update about two years ago. Now I miss the ability to search for content.

Take care,

Jim

Armando · « **Reply #729 on:** August 26, 2010, 05:38 AM »

Hi Jim!

Thanks for your note.
Yes, please tell us what you think/found.
I won't have the time to test anything before September the 5th/6th... Am postponing the download until then...

cyberdiva · « **Reply #730 on:** August 26, 2010, 01:00 PM »

Quote from: Armando on August 26, 2010, 02:28 AM

Newish article about the " Best desktop search tools " and a Summary ...

Both of these links go to the summary.

cyberdiva · « **Reply #731 on:** August 26, 2010, 01:12 PM »

Armando, I too am very interested in what you think/find. A couple of years ago I tracked down a copy of Yahoo Desktop Search (by then it was no longer readily available), which is based on X1. Yahoo works well, but I have no idea whether it would work on Windows 7 (my desktop runs XP Pro), nor what other features X1 might offer that Yahoo does not. I suspect that X1 may also be more configurable than Yahoo. I've also got Archivarius, but I've never gotten it to work smoothly for me, and it seems very sluggish next to Yahoo. So I'd really like to know what you find about X1.

CWuestefeld · « **Reply #732 on:** August 26, 2010, 01:18 PM »

I had been using Copernic + Xobni for some time. But Xobni started killing Outlook, and Copernic just got too annoying in demanding to upgrade to a new version that has fewer features.

So now I'm just using WDS. This works well enough on the indexing side. However, the UI is pure evil. To do any sophisticated queries you need to know their query syntax. I've made up a cheat sheet that I've got tacked to my wall.

Darwin · « **Reply #733 on:** October 14, 2010, 11:30 PM »

The thing that p****s me off about WDS is that it's extremely random as to whether or not it will index my documents. I'm on Win 7 but have partitioned my drive into C: for windows and apps and E: for documents, settings, and mail. I suspect that therein lies the source of my problem. I reinstalled the latest version of X1, was thrilled/surprised to find that my license still works, and it's been flawless. My only quibble is that my harddrive and fan both go nuts every so often, I expect when X1 is updating. I also installed the latest versions of Archivarius and dtSearch. Settled on X1 because it creates an index that is 30% smaller than dtSearch and half the size of the one created by Archivarius. X1 also integrates with the search bar in the start menu.

Honestly, I'm not sure if I'm going to stick with it, though. Time will tell...

cranioscopical · « **Reply #734 on:** October 15, 2010, 12:02 AM »

Quote from: Darwin

my harddrive and fan both go nuts every so often

I think this is probably true of all your fans

Darwin · « **Reply #735 on:** October 15, 2010, 01:21 AM »

Quote from: cranioscopical on October 15, 2010, 12:02 AM

Quote from: Darwin
my harddrive and fan both go nuts every so often
I think this is probably true of all your fans

Occupational hazard?

Armando · « **Reply #736 on:** October 15, 2010, 05:26 AM »

Quote from: Darwin on October 14, 2010, 11:30 PM

I reinstalled the latest version of X1, was thrilled/surprised to find that my license still works, and it's been flawless. My only quibble is that my harddrive and fan both go nuts every so often, I expect when X1 is updating. I also installed the latest versions of Archivarius and dtSearch. Settled on X1 because it creates an index that is 30% smaller than dtSearch and half the size of the one created by Archivarius. X1 also integrates with the search bar in the start menu.

Yes, Archivarius is on the heavy side when it comes to the index size. Plus, it's still a real hog when it comes to indexing Outlook (here at least...).

But the fact that X1 make your fan and hardrive go nuts means that uses other kind of resources...

Could you do a little test for me ?

Pic your biggest *.doc or pdf... Or there's this large weird pdf that you could download : Spinbitz - Interface Philosophy - Mathematics and Nondual Rational-Empiricism), and search for a sentence/expression located at the end of the document, let's say after page 479. Does X1 find it ?

In the past, I've had problems with X1 not indexing documents fully. I wonder if the fixed that.

Darwin · « **Reply #737 on:** October 15, 2010, 02:12 PM »

Hmph! I downloaded the pdf and saved it in a folder that X1 is supposed to be watching and fully indexing. I then set X1 to run whether the computer is in use or not and did a manual indexing... three times. As far as I can tell, not only doesn't X1 index the complete file, it's not indexing this one AT ALL!

Thank you for reminding me of this, Armando, I dimly recall you asking me to run the same experiement, on the same file - because I certainly recognize it - with the same result in the past.

I wish I'd kept dtSearch and Archivarius around to see if they picked it up...

At any rate, this may just be the "push" I needed to remove X1 and just stick with WDS. It's not like I search my files all that much, anyway

Darwin · « **Reply #738 on:** October 15, 2010, 03:21 PM »

Well, X1 is gone and my computer is quieter (for the most part) and running cooler. Win-win, except that WDS doesn't index my documents location... I'll have to work on that!

Armando · « **Reply #739 on:** October 15, 2010, 04:47 PM »

That was quick!
I wonder if X1 has (had...

) a setting preventing it to index the content of files bigger than 10MB or something. That could've been something to check.
But your computer is running quieter, cooler and probably faster, which is not a negligible thing.

Armando · « **Reply #740 on:** October 15, 2010, 05:00 PM »

About Archivarius... I can tell you that Archivarius picks everything up, including the Spinbitz book!

It's also very lean and pretty speedy in general.

However,
1- The index is big (maybe that's because of spinbitz...

)
2- And... Well the UI is certainly not as well designed than X1
3- Outlook integration is poor
4- no real time monitoring (which has some advantages, but it would be nice to be offered the choice... At least for some folders...)

Isn't annoying that software is almost always about... compromises?

Darwin · « **Reply #741 on:** October 15, 2010, 05:24 PM »

Quote from: Armando on October 15, 2010, 05:00 PM

Isn't annoying that software is almost always about... compromises?

Indeed! Of all the desktop search engines I have tried, I like Archivarius the best. What I *could* do is to target what it indexes and NOT have it index Outlook (though the last time I had it installed I had it set that way and, as mentioned, it's index was 50% bigger than the X1 index, and 30% bigger than dtSearch, both which DID include Outlook). However, for now I'm content to give WDS 4 another go, though it's not indexing ANY pdf or Office content anywhere on my system. I'm considering reseting it and re-indexing everything, but so far the only instructions that I have found are for WDS 3...

BTW, regarding real time monitoring and Archivarius, what I have done in the past is schedule indexes for every 5 minutes or so. As long as you don't try to do this with an Outlook index, running the index in the background is remarkably resource "light" and very quick.

Armando · « **Reply #742 on:** October 15, 2010, 07:47 PM »

Thanks for the Archivarius advice.

What you could try for WDS 4 is simply... Rename the current index, and let WDS create another one... I'm pretty sure that would woork.

Darwin · « **Reply #743 on:** October 15, 2010, 08:48 PM »

Quote from: Armando on October 15, 2010, 07:47 PM

Thanks for the Archivarius advice.

What you could try for WDS 4 is simply... Rename the current index, and let WDS create another one... I'm pretty sure that would woork.

Thanks for the suggestion - I may give it a try. I'm realising that this isn't really that big an issue for me - I rarely, if ever, search for files by content anyway...

Darwin · « **Reply #744 on:** October 16, 2010, 06:54 PM »

Well... that didn't work, but I really don't care that much (see above).

On a different note, my CPU temps were consistently in the 70-80 degree range with X1 installed, even if neither X1 nor anything else was active. I'm now seeing temps in the 30-60 degree range, depending on the load (currently my corse are at 26 C and 32 C reseptively). I'm thrilled

Armando · « **Reply #745 on:** October 18, 2010, 05:36 PM »

That's a significant difference !

Darwin · « **Reply #746 on:** October 18, 2010, 06:40 PM »

Quote from: Armando on October 18, 2010, 05:36 PM

That's a significant difference !

Yup

On the downside, NOTHING I do will induce WS 4.0 to index my Documents. I've created a dummy docx document containing the single word "Grunties" and saved it on my desktop. WS 4.0. had it indexed and searchable within a minute (my user profile, including the desktop, are on a secondary partition). I moved it to my Documents folder on the same partition and it is gone, as far as WS is concerned the Documents folder simply does not exist. I'm losing my mind...

Armando · « **Reply #747 on:** October 18, 2010, 07:56 PM »

This is really weird. You're on Vista or Windows 7 ?
In any case, If I was you I'd rename/delete the WDS index folder before going to bed, see if it recreates another one during the night. Unless there's an option to start from scratch (before going to bed too, of course.

)

Darwin · « **Reply #748 on:** October 19, 2010, 12:19 AM »

Heh, heh - I traced the problem (and fixed it!) to a cleared radio button:

[attachimg=#]

I had to enable the highlighted option and all is well... It's a bit counter-intuitive because a search now shows up ALL of my documents and they have clearly been indexed.

mwang · « **Reply #749 on:** October 19, 2010, 12:34 AM »

That doesn't seem right. Turning that option on tells WDS to conduct full-text search for non-indexed files. If a document's content is found only when the option is on, IOW, it's not indexed.