Why in 2023 does this simple task break Windows 10 ?

[MathWizard]

I'm trying to find a radio schematic or article I have on my PC, and so in File Explorer I enter terms in the search box, and also click to organize by date. And it breaks file explorer, it just can't get past about 1/2 way without the program just closing, no error or warnings.  I'm guessing it's the 'list by date part' that breaks it, but that's crazy. I have a top of the line machine, with SSD's, and I'm only searching on 1 SSD, and it's perfectly healthy.

If Bill Gates tried the same search on Windows 10, would it happen to him too ? And would he care anymore ?

[JohanH]

I've always hated Windows search function. It's so utterly useless.

When searching for some source code, or variables from file content, there is nothing that beats Linux command line tools. Fortunately you can do this also in Windows from the git command prompt or using WSL (using "find", "grep" etc.).

[SiliconWizard]

Bill Gates uses Macs.

[nigelwright7557]

Windows is naff.
What a carry on to add a network device.
It takes settings all over the place to get it working.

I use "searchmyfiles" app to find files and contents.

[JohanH]

You can search all day with GUI apps (whilst tuning them), whereas if you learn to use the command line and a few basic unix commands, you will find what you seek in two seconds.

[MathWizard]

I don't like the simple image viewer either, I've had it crash from simple things too, that there's no good reason for, they just stoppped going with what worked fine enough on older versions.

[MathWizard]

You can search all day with GUI apps (whilst tuning them), whereas if you learn to use the command line and a few basic unix commands, you will find what you seek in two seconds.

So can searches like this be done in the powershell or some such thing in windows too?

[brucehoult]

I've always hated Windows search function. It's so utterly useless.

A pity. The MacOS one works well.

Fortunately you can do this also in Windows from the git command prompt or using WSL (using "find", "grep" etc.).

What on earth is a "git command prompt"?

NB I've been using *nix shells since the 80s, Linux since the first RedHat distro on floppies, and git since 2006 or 2007.

[JohanH]

So can searches like this be done in the powershell or some such thing in windows too?

I'm not that familiar with powershell, but I use the Git Bash terminal in windows (this bash terminal is installed by default when you install Git in Windows).

Another tool I recommend in windows is Microsoft's "winget" command line tool. With this command you can install and update a lot of third party software (e.g. "winget search git", "winget install git.git", "winget update" etc). It's amazing that Microsoft finally after decades, implemented their own command line package tool. They have seen the light!

[JohanH]

What on earth is a "git command prompt"?

Sorry for the mixed terminology, trying to appease Windows users here. It's the bash shell installed together with git on Windows.

[3roomlab]

everytime it sees a folder with a mix of files (wav mp3 pics pdf) it will try to be smart and attempt to present a file list in a way it thinks is smart, but everytime i would click the setting to tell it not to be smart just list by type. but it will forget this setting the next time i open it even when you click remember settings. "remember settings" is an actual option that does not work. amnesia is the real windows feature.

[gmb42]

Off topic from the OP, but hey-ho

Another tool I recommend in windows is Microsoft's "winget" command line tool. With this command you can install and update a lot of third party software (e.g. "winget search git", "winget install git.git", "winget update" etc). It's amazing that Microsoft finally after decades, implemented their own command line package tool. They have seen the light!

winget does work well, listing and updating most installed software but there are a few things I have that aren't in the winget package list so are updated by others means, e.g. chocolatey which I'm slowly moving away from.

What is immensely frustrating for me is that winget was created without a PowerShell interface and emits unstructured text output.  MS are belatedly retrofitting PS compatibility but a ludicrous original omission.

[50ShadesOfDirt]

I have always turned off Windows Search (the service), and then used a 3rd-party search tool. One of my favorites is SwiftSearch, at:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/swiftsearch/files/Version%207.5.1/

Swiftsearch has a unique way of searching; don't know if it'll do everything you want. But, there are countless other search tools as well, depending on the features you need. Go open source ...

Hope this helps ...

[spostma]

thanks for the pointer to SwiftSearch.

However, your SwiftSearch link to github seems to be suspicious, see VirusTotal.com behaviour analysis.

Version 7.4.3 seems to be clean, although it contacts 2 IP addresses.
https://sourceforge.net/projects/swiftsearch/files/Version%207.4.3/

[Sredni]

If it's filenames you need to search, use "Cathy".

http://rva.mtg.sk/

It's just a handful of kB and it is lightning fast.

[SiliconWizard]

On Windows I was using locate32 for a number of years, but the project got abandoned IIRC. It was the equivalent of the locate+grep CLI on unix-like systems, but with a GUI. Maybe it's still available for download and still works on Windows 10, there are good chances it would. Very lightweight too.

On Linux and macOS there are tons of good search tools. For Linux, apart from command-line tools, the main GUI one I currently use is KFind. Works very well. Very fast on SSDs. While there's a number of KDE apps that have a Windows build, such as Okular, I don't think KFind does (but you could have a look).

[PlainName]

Many useful GUI search tools on Windows. Just as fast as opening a command prompt and trying to remember what to type, then trying to decipher the output

'Everything' just lists, well, everything and you just filter out what you're looking for.

A rather different tool, which I tend to use most because it's the easiest, simplest and always there, is Listary. I don't actually have this installed for searching - that's just one of the useful facilities it provides. It's primary use (for me) is to deal with the standard open/save dialogs defaulting to some appdata folder I never use. Hard to explain the benefit until you've used it for a while, and then you'll be lost without it.

If it's searching for data inside files (that is, where is the file that contains 'something') then there are many grep-alikes. The one I use is AJCGrep mostly because I also use their AJC Active Backup (a lifesaver - not often, but it only needs to do it once). However, it is good in that it will give a list of matches with surrounding lines for context (try that on a command line) and similar usefulness. Fast, too.

[Mechatrommer]

Based on recommendation from members here sometime ago when i was looking for WinXP explorer replacement on newer Windows... now i use XYplorer and never look back. it worths every penny. Built in explorer past WinXP are pure shit up to today.

[rdl]

Windows 7 was the best version of since Windows 2000, but the changes they made to File Explorer were not one of its good points. And the Windows Search was absolutely abysmal. If you asked it to do anything not completely simple, it would usually just slowly grind to a stop and do nothing. One of the first things I always did was turn it off.

[50ShadesOfDirt]

I use ESET on my systems, and it passes SwiftSearch (an MFT search tool) as clean. Virustotal shows only 1 entity not liking it, out of dozens. I've used swiftsearch for years ... no hacks yet.

If one is worried about *any* virustotal hit, then switch to any of the (dozens or more?) other MFT search tools out there ...

Most programs/utilities are "contacting" home either for telemetry or for update checks. If one doesn't like this aspect of things, just run a free tray-based firewall that disallows all comms out; many give you the option to whitelist the programs you care about, on the fly.

The point of all of this is, avoid the internal/free search tool built into Windows, unless you either like it as is, or don't care enough about searching to need something better. Swiftsearch, and probably all such MFT-based tools, finds things incredibly fast ...

So many (open-source) tools, so little time ...

Hope this helps ...

[chilternview]

Just install UnixUtils (https://unxutils.sourceforge.net/) and use 'find' - and grep etc. No wrestling with weird gui's.

[PlainName]

No wrestling with weird gui's

Indeed. That's why every single consumer desktop is a GUI. Er...

[SiliconWizard]

locate32 is actually still available (although not updated in over ten years). It works fine on Win 7, and I would be really surprised if it didn't on Win 10 and 11:
http://locate32.cogit.net/

[chilternview]

Indeed. That's why every single consumer desktop is a GUI. Er...

And that's why every one of those desktop environments has a command line / terminal app... so that those of us that prefer to use a command line and scripting can.

[PlainName]

Sure, and notice how the terminal is just a window in a GUI, one of many apps (which aren't command lines). I dare say there are gurus that just run a command line straight from boot, but they are hard core and should also turn up their noses at editors that fake a GUI in text mode.

[Halcyon]

Forget Windows search.

I use Agent Ransack - https://www.mythicsoft.com/agentransack/

Quite powerful. There is a free version and a pro version (USD$69 for 3 computers).

[ramussons]

Have you tried Ultra Search?
https://www.jam-software.com/ultrasearch

[pickle9000]

freecommander is pretty good search wise. Its stand alone. It can search inside files for text but in some cases like pdf's you need to donate a bit to get access to the conversion program. Well worth it. It's free otherwise.

[celly67]

I'm trying to find a radio schematic or article I have on my PC, and so in File Explorer I enter terms in the search box, and also click to organize by date. And it breaks file explorer, it just can't get past about 1/2 way without the program just closing, no error or warnings.  I'm guessing it's the 'list by date part' that breaks it, but that's crazy. I have a top of the line machine, with SSD's, and I'm only searching on 1 SSD, and it's perfectly healthy.

If Bill Gates tried the same search on Windows 10, would it happen to him too ? And would he care anymore ?

it is even possible that bill gates might be countering with that situation!!!!

[SiliconWizard]

As already said earlier, many MS employees actually use Macs.
It's funny to notice that one of Dave Plummer's (the retired MS developer who has become a millionaire and keeps talking about his past experience at MS) latest videos is titled "Save Money by Buying a Mac Pro".

[SeanB]

Latest from Dave is about monitors.



But for me a search on the entire system for a file containing something will take around 5 minutes if I select the entire filesystem instead of /home only, including in some cases processor ID strings that match.....

[brucehoult]

As already said earlier, many MS employees actually use Macs.
It's funny to notice that one of Dave Plummer's (the retired MS developer who has become a millionaire and keeps talking about his past experience at MS) latest videos is titled "Save Money by Buying a Mac Pro".

He's right, both in that sufficiently expanding a Mac Pro will end up cheaper than expanding a Mac Studio, and in that for many people it's worth spending that kind of money on a computer. Even if it's $10k+ it's still vastly less money than a farmer spends on a tractor or a truckie on a Kenworth or even than a car mechanic or plumber spends on their work tools.

The problem I have is that the Mac Pro and Studio don't offer value for what I as a software developer need. I'm not throwing around terabytes of video files with huge disks and crazy transfer speeds, and high end GPUs and networking and storage are completely wasted money for me.

In my current work project the entire directory is 42 GB, with the actual source code directory is 981 MB of which .git is 856 MB. The cost of enough extra RAM to keep all of that stuff in disk cache is pretty minor, and even if not, a consumer 3 GB/s SSD is fine.

What I *do* need is a lot of cores for the parallel compile steps, and a high 1 or 2 core turbo for the constantly interleaved ./configure and link -- and finishing up that one rogue C++ compile (it's always C++ not C...) that takes minutes.

15 years ago my then employer was fairly easily persuaded to give me an 8 core 2.26 GHz Mac Pro (2x Xeon E5520 Nehalem, max turbo 2.47 GHz) instead of the standard high end MacBook Pro (2.93 GHz Core 2 Duo), as the price was very similar at MBP $3100, Pro $3300 in std config but the MBP needed a RAM expansion. The Pro was obviously a LOT faster in general for building software. My recollection was 15 min vs 60 min to do a clean build.

BUT, I build myself a custom i7-860 (also Nehalem) quad core machine: 2.8 GHz base, 3.3 turbo. I Hackintoshed it and it built the same software in 12 minutes, and cost a heck of a lot less than the Mac Pro. A mild overclock to 3.05 base 3.6 turbo sealed the deal :-)

That was the start of several generations of my building Hackintoshes using CPUs Apple didn't use at the time, but put into the top end iMac 6 or 9 months later. i7-860, i7-4790K, i7-6700K...

I've just bought a new machine. It arrived in Auckland this morning, hopefully I'll have it tomorrow afternoon.

I was looking at Dave's 24 core (16 P + 8 E) Mac Studio. With 64 GB RAM and a 1 TB SSD it's $3999. The top 16" MacBook Pro with a 16 core M3 Max (12 P + 4 E) and the same config is $4199.

What I actually ended up buying is a Lenovo 16" laptop with a 24 core (8 P + 16 E) i9-13900HX, with 32 GB RAM (can upgrade it to 64 later) and 1 TB SSD for $1750.

Compared to the Studio with M2 Ultra, Geekbench has the mobile i9 as 10% faster single core, 20% slower multi core. The M3 Max MBP comes in 3% faster single core, 20% faster multi core.

Hopefully I'm going to be happy with the i9 Lenovo with a $2000 saving even after upgrading the RAM.

[Mechatrommer]

Dave Plummer's

He's right

no he isnt.. 9K is 60 years of Adobe Premiere Pro subscription. including top notch custom Winglows and Intel/Ryzen PC to match the spec, 1K est, 2K top.. thats 45 years of Adobe Premiere Pro. do you want to stuck with a system for 40-60 years? within "Mac's Domain" or "Mac's World" (comparing to Mac Studio) he's probably right. but M$ is not a video editor, and $$ does not proportional to intelligence.

Even if it's $10k+ it's still vastly less money than a farmer spends on a tractor or a truckie on a Kenworth or even than a car mechanic or plumber spends on their work tools.

the only sane reason imho to waste money on that crap or figure is if you can get it back at least double figure net revenue in a year or less.. ie if video editing is your butter and bread. you should already realized it by now 

[brucehoult]

Dave Plummer's

He's right

no he isnt.. 9K is 60 years of Adobe Premiere Pro subscription. including top notch custom Winglows and Intel/Ryzen PC to match the spec, 1K est, 2K top.. thats 45 years of Adobe Premiere Pro. do you want to stuck with a system for 40-60 years? within "Mac's Domain" or "Mac's World" (comparing to Mac Studio) he's probably right. but M$ is not a video editor, and $$ does not proportional to intelligence.

Even if it's $10k+ it's still vastly less money than a farmer spends on a tractor or a truckie on a Kenworth or even than a car mechanic or plumber spends on their work tools.

the only sane reason imho to waste money on that crap or figure is if you can get it back at least double figure net revenue in a year or less.. ie if video editing is your butter and bread. you should already realized it by now 

What has a Premier subscription got to do with anything? That's down in the noise.

The proper thing to compare it to is the $100k to $200k salary of the person operating it -- fully loaded salary if you're the employer. If a $10k machine is fast enough or slick enough to make the human 10% more efficient than a $1k or $2k machine then it's paid for itself in a year -- and you're probably going to keep it 2 or 3 years.

He's talking about video editing, but I do software development. With my current machine -- a 5 year old 32 core Threadripper 2990WX -- building the software I'm working on (for the last four months and probably the next year) takes 20 min to 40 min each time, depending on the options e.g. debug or release, build tests or not. That's often a many times per day task. A machine that can halve or quarter that would be worth paying a lot for.

[Mechatrommer]

If a $10k machine is fast enough or slick enough to make the human 10% more efficient than a $1k or $2k machine then it's paid for itself in a year

has it been proven?

That's often a many times per day task. A machine that can halve or quarter that would be worth paying a lot for.

Mac Pro cant... can it?

What has a Premier subscription got to do with anything? That's down in the noise.
The proper thing to compare it to is the $100k to $200k salary of the person operating it
He's talking about video editing

i was talking about lone ranger content maker in tiktok, if talking about company, company can afford anything, why they do even care if they want to buy Mac Studio? it only few thousands more? did i mention $$ is not intelligence? cheers.

[cfbsoftware]

I'm trying to find a radio schematic or article I have on my PC, and so in File Explorer I enter terms in the search box, and also click to organize by date.

I highly recommend a search tool called Everything from VoidTools.

https://www.voidtools.com

There's some introductory info about it in the FAQ:

https://www.voidtools.com/faq

What is "Everything"?
"Everything" is search engine that locates files and folders by filename instantly for Windows.

Unlike Windows search "Everything" initially displays every file and folder on your computer (hence the name "Everything").

You type in a search filter to limit what files and folders are displayed.

How long will it take to index my files?
"Everything" only indexes file and folder names and generally takes a few seconds to build its database.

A fresh install of Windows 10 (about 120,000 files) will take about 1 second to index.

1,000,000 files will take about 1 minute.
...
...

[rsjsouza]

freecommander is pretty good search wise. Its stand alone. It can search inside files for text but in some cases like pdf's you need to donate a bit to get access to the conversion program. Well worth it. It's free otherwise.

+1 as well. I also have been using Freecommander for the last 10+ years as a full replacement for the terrible Windows Explorer and its broken features. Its Find feature is exceptional and its customization allows adding shortcuts to its top toolbar and integrate with other  other third party utilities - I configured it to launch Beyond Compare with a simple keystroke, which allows complete directory and file comparison as well.

Although free, I gave money to the developer for their great work!

(I did this with other utilities that I use often, such as Beyond Compare, IrfanView, Winrar, etc.)

[dferyance]

WinFS was one of the original Windows Vista features but it was canceled. It was going to greatly improve searching, it combined the filesystem with a database. Now Microsoft cares about web search and cloud stuff and not your PC being useful.

Windows Explorer is in a difficult position. It enabled a lot of extensibility features which developers took advantage of. But these extensions often cause it to crash or run slow. I know MS has done some work to reduce the impact of extensions but I still find installing applications often make Windows Explorer run slower. So it is hard to know if an issue is really and OS issue or an application issue hiding in explorer.

[Jason Henry]

It's possible that Bill Gates might experience similar issues, as software bugs can affect anyone regardless of their status or expertise. However, whether he would care anymore depends on his current level of involvement and priorities.