Why "Windows search" is not available in TC?

[obmana]

I'm on latest beta, and read about various search improvements with newly introduced Everything wrapper. Improved search is always a plus, and TC search interface is very powerful tool, allowing even regex in Office file content, or plugins embedded search.

OTOH, personally I use Windows search a lot, for contents search. I have indexed several locations and I'm very satisfied with this indexer. I use Windows 10, but I've use Windows search from it's introduction in XP if I'm not mistaken. I press Win+S, type search terms and select search type to see immediate results, or I just open File explorer to do the same. Query syntax is also very powerful, thou not necessary for casual search.

However these results can not be filtered in TC panel, as Windows search does not have implemented interface in TC nor in plugins. I guess there is some fundamental problem why this is, as I know that Windows search provides API.

For example, for searching contents of PDF files, I could try xpdf plugin and do TC search, but unless I'm searching for content in couple of files, this would be bad idea, aside from xpdf being rather primitive as it uses xpdf to convert content to text inplace and simply do search, it would be slower on exponential magnitude. Similarly for other formats that have dedicated IFilter in Windows search.

Can someone comment why Windows search is not available in TC?

[ghisler(Author)]

I didn't see any benefit in integrating Windows search into TC, because it requires indexing, and doesn't support many of the features in TC search. Why not use Windows search directly?

[obmana]

I'm using it directly, as I mentioned. As a TC user, I could occasionally benefit of further filtering by TC features, in search listbox.

I didn't see any benefit in integrating Windows search into TC, because it requires indexing...

Windows search indexing is enabled by default, so user already has indexed context which could potentially be used.

...and doesn't support many of the features in TC search

IMHO, it could be perfectly implemented as plugin search.

[milo1012]

IMHO, it could be perfectly implemented as plugin search.

Not really, as wdx plug-ins can't be set up "on-the-fly", i.e. they have constant field functions as long as they are loaded.
So if you'd want to alter any search option, you'd need to reload the plug-in or restart TC for that.
There were suggestions to implement such wdx config, but it's not implemented so far.

aside from xpdf being rather primitive as it uses xpdf to convert content to text inplace and simply do search

What makes you think that xpdf is inferior to the Windows parser?
Parsing PDF isn't easy. I tested quite a lot of PDF text parsers, including any filter you can use for the Windows search, and all have their share of problems (yes, even the Adobe official filter).

[Lefteous]

I don't see how 'Windows search' is much different from Everything in terms of supported search options. TC asks the third party search for a search result based on supported search options. Then TC filters the search results based on it's unique search options.

[Dalai]

I didn't see any benefit in integrating Windows search into TC, because it requires indexing...

Windows search indexing is enabled by default [...]

That's right.

[...] so user already has indexed context which could potentially be used.

No, it's not necessarily enabled for all the directories/places the user saves his/her data. IIRC this applies to all additional hard disks and/or partitions. In other words, in worst case it requires the user to manually add the directories in the indexing settings to make Windows index them.

So, yes, it requires indexing.

Regards
Dalai

[obmana]

aside from xpdf being rather primitive as it uses xpdf to convert content to text inplace and simply do search

What makes you think that xpdf is inferior to the Windows parser?
Parsing PDF isn't easy. I tested quite a lot of PDF text parsers, including any filter you can use for the Windows search, and all have their share of problems (yes, even the Adobe official filter).

I'm just saying what it is - xpdf extracts text and does plain text search, it does not have any indexing features (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_indexing), nor it claims that it has. I used it as example for pdf search possibilities in TC.

No, it's not necessarily enabled for all the directories/places the user saves his/her data. IIRC this applies to all additional hard disks and/or partitions. In other words, in worst case it requires the user to manually add the directories in the indexing settings to make Windows index them.

Sure. Same applies to File explorer - if you want to search for indexed content in a location that is not indexed you wont get results.

[micheldc]

Sorry to wake up this topic, I am not clear to the benefic to use windows search with totalcmd.exe. Although, my question is totalcmd.exe does use windows search, currently? I am willing to disable that windows characteristic, because is using 15 GB of wasted space.

Thanks.

[tuska]

Please find here a detailed description including pictures:
- 14. Windows Search in Total Commander and 'Everything' -> from 'Everything' 1.5.0.1258a
- Pictures

[Horst.Epp]

Sorry to wake up this topic, I am not clear to the benefic to use windows search with totalcmd.exe. Although, my question is totalcmd.exe does use windows search, currently? I am willing to disable that windows characteristic, because is using 15 GB of wasted space.

Thanks.

As tuska already posted, you can use the Everything integration in TC to query the Windows index.

Since many versions of the Windows indexer you can configure what its indexed.
Its not wasted space if you often search for files by content.
Even on SDD volumes using an index is faster.