Audience
Windows users
About Windows Search
Windows Search is a desktop search platform that has instant search capabilities for most common file types and data types, and third-party developers can extend these capabilities to new file types and data types. Windows Search is a standard component of Windows 7 and Windows Vista, and is enabled by default. Windows Search replaces Windows Desktop Search (WDS). The WSS organizes the extracted features of a collection of documents. The Windows Search Protocol enables a client to communicate with a server that is hosting a WSS, both to issue queries and to enable an administrator to manage the indexing server. When processing files, WSS analyzes a set of documents, extracts useful information, and then organizes the extracted information so that properties of those documents can be efficiently returned in response to queries.
Other Popular Alternatives & Related Software
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. "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. Everything can search file content with the content, search function. File content is not indexed, searching content is slow. A fresh install of Windows 10 (about 120,000 files) will use about 14 MB of ram and less than 9 MB of disk space. 1,000,000 files will use about 75 MB of ram and 45 MB of disk space. Your search windows will reflect changes made to the file system. "Everything" will run on Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10.
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AnyTXT Searcher
AnyTXT Searcher is a powerful file full-text search engine, a desktop search application for fast document retrieval. Just like a local disk Google search engine, much faster than Windows Search, it is your ideal free desktop file content full-text search engine.
It has a powerful document parsing engine built in, which extracts the text of commonly used file formats without installing any other software, and combines the built-in high-speed indexing system to store the metadata of the text. You can quickly find any text in any file on your disk by AnyTXT in less than 1 second. It works on Windows 11,10, 8, 7, Vista, XP, 2008, 2012, 2016,2022.
AnyTXT Searcher supports the following file formats:
Plain text (txt, cpp, py, html, etc.)
Microsoft OneNote (one)
Microsoft Word (doc, docx)
Microsoft Excel (xls, xlsx)
Microsoft PowerPoint (ppt, pptx)
PDF
WPS Office (wps, et, dps)
EBook (epub, mobi, azw3, fb2 etc.)
Mind Map Format (lighten, mmap, mm, xmind etc.)
OFD
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Apple Spotlight
Spotlight is the default search tool for Mac, iPhone, and iPad. Quick access to content is key to an efficient workflow, and there are several ways you can make it easy for people to locate your app's content. Spotlight is a powerful search technology that makes it easy to locate files and content across the system. Using Spotlight, people can search for things using meaningful attributes like the intended audience for a document or the orientation of an image. Make your app’s content searchable. You can share content with Spotlight by making it indexable and specifying descriptive attributes—known as metadata. Spotlight extracts, stores, and organizes this information to allow for fast, comprehensive searches. For developer guidance, see Core Spotlight. Define metadata for your custom file types. Supply a Spotlight Importer plug-in that describes the types of metadata your file format contains.
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UltraSearch
Improve your workflow with our ultra-fast solution for convenient file search, UltraSearch Professional is available now! The must-have Windows Search alternative reduces your waiting time to an absolute minimum as it shows you the first results while you are still typing. Take advantage as you search for files not only on hard disks but also on network drives. Flexibly individualize your search with your own search parameters to make the process even faster and more comfortable. Benefit from UltraSearch Professional with its Ribbon surface, quick-access to convenience functions, PDF and Excel export, the Query Composer and many more exclusive features and let us maximize your user experience! The simple user interface provides fast and easy access, Windows integration and offers excellent performance for your file search. Use the efficient search syntax and optimize your search results by combining search attributes. The Query Composer will assist you.
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Pricing
Free Version:
Free Version available.
Integrations
Company Information
Microsoft
Founded: 1975
United States
microsoft.com
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Product Details
Platforms Supported
Windows
Training
Documentation
