Search file names only

[joema]

In Vista and Win7 beta, under folder options | Search | what to search, there was an option called "search file names only". It's not there in the final Win7.

Is there a global or per-drive option to only index file names, not contents?

The reason is obvious: it would be a lot faster. For many users, filename indexing only is sufficient.

 

[kegobeer]

Since indexing is done behind the scenes, and contents and file names are indexed, there should be no speed difference for the end user. In non-indexed locations, only file names are searched. That's why there is no longer the "search file names only" selection.

You can search by just about whatever you want, using search filters. If you want to search by name, just go to the search box and use the name: filter, like this:

name:epson

Default filters change, depending on the folder you are inside at the time. If you are in a pictures directory, the filters that pop up will be different than those if you are inside a standard files directory.

 

[joema]

Since indexing is done behind the scenes, and contents and file names are indexed, there should be no speed difference for the end user. In non-indexed locations, only file names are searched. That's why there is no longer the "search file names only" selection...

Thanks for the detailed response. I accept on my 3.8Ghz quad-core machine with 8GB RAM, both indexing and searching of 600GB and 300,000 files is acceptably fast. That's despite many of those files being indexed for content, not just file names.

However -- Win7 help itself says:

"Question: Can I index my entire computer so all searches are fast?
Answer: You shouldn't do this. If you make the index too large, or if you include system file locations (such as the Program Files folder), your routine searches will slow down."

Yet -- simple 3rd party utilities like "Everything" can index the entire drive (filenames only) and search extremely fast -- much faster than Win7, even on my PC. I assume because they only index and search filenames, not content.

If a free 3rd party utility can index and search faster than Win7's expensively-developed search service, it seems logical Win7 should offer a global, per-drive or per-folder filename-only indexing option.

There are probably lots of people without leading-edge hardware who would like a fast, efficient, indexed full-drive filename search. Windows 7's search service has that capability, but it's not exposed for use. That seems illogical.

 

[kegobeer]

This third party application runs in the background and indexes all of your hard drives, and it doesn't impede the OS at all? I have my doubts that is really going on.

I agree with Microsoft - it's completely unnecessary to index an entire drive. System files, program applications, and other files don't need to be indexed at all. Index the files you use all the time - like email, downloads, pictures, etc.

 

[logicearth]

"Question: Can I index my entire computer so all searches are fast?
Answer: You shouldn't do this. If you make the index too large, or if you include system file locations (such as the Program Files folder), your routine searches will slow down."

Yet -- simple 3rd party utilities like "Everything" can index the entire drive (filenames only) and search extremely fast -- much faster than Win7, even on my PC. I assume because they only index and search filenames, not content.

You answered your own question. "I assume because they only index and search filenames, not content." There is more to searching then just filenames. For example some files contain metadata, JPEGs and MP3 for instance. Indexing the entire drive would make the index extremely large and in turn increase the time it takes to search though it. Something like "Search Everything" just has a list of filenames much easier to search but also less useful.

Also Indexing the entire drive includes at lot of useless files and data which just adds to the false positives ratio.

 

[joema]

This third party application runs in the background and indexes all of your hard drives, and it doesn't impede the OS at all? I have my doubts that is really going on...I agree with Microsoft - it's completely unnecessary to index an entire drive..

Yes. Search utilities like Everything index the entire drive within seconds, and search almost instantly.

The index is modest size and searching is incredibly fast. True it only indexes filenames, but that is all many users want or need.

There are perfectly valid reasons to index all filenames on a drive, INCLUDING program files and DLLs. Say you want to inspect how many versions of a VC runtime dll you have, etc.

Ironically, Windows Search is capable of doing that, and in fact does index filenames. Prior to the RTM version of Win7, the option existed to ONLY index filenames.

Whether to index filenames or content should be the USER's discretion. That was the case in Vista and the beta versions of Win7. I don't see why the option was removed in the RTM version.

 

[kbz1960]

You can still use wild cards like *.txt or filename.*

 

[kegobeer]

I disagree about what many/most users want or need. My opinion is that people want the ability to index based on a lot more than just a filename. I'd say the average user probably owns a digital camera. And, those pictures are probably imported using the Windows 7 import feature. Tagging each photo with a location, names of people in the photo, etc, means that photos can be found by looking for a specific name, location, etc. Documents are the same way - edit the metadata and later search by common terms. Why bother trying to remember a name of a document or photo when you can search for meta terms, or by what the document contains, or by when the photo was taken?

In contrast, many/most people don't need to find different versions of a particular runtime dll - I'd say that group is very tiny compared to the average computer user group. For those people, a third party search engine is appropriate.

I can't comment on why it was changed, because I don't know.

 

[joema]

You can still use wild cards like *.txt or filename.*

Yes, understood. However the problem isn't searching for only filenames. Rather to achieved indexed filename searches, Win7 also unnecessarily indexes content. That in turn adds overhead that limits the practical scope of indexed filename searches (see above Win7 documentation warning against indexing entire drives).

 

[joema]

I disagree about what many/most users want or need. My opinion is that people want the ability to index based on a lot more than just a filename...Why bother trying to remember a name of a document or photo when you can search for meta terms, or by what the document contains, or by when the photo was taken?...many/most people don't need to find different versions of a particular runtime dll...

Having a user-configurable option (as on Vista or Win7 beta) to restrict indexing to "filenames only" does NOT preclude indexing content. If users want to index metadata, they can. It would likely default to that. Rather it would give users the option of filename-only indexing, with the lower overhead and faster performance that entails. Apparently that option existed in Vista and Win7 beta, but was removed for RTM.

There are many reasons to search for various filenames, not just a specialized DLL. If filename searches were unimportant, Win7 wouldn't do that. It does, just not always indexed.

 

[joema]

This is to correct an inaccurate statement I made above. It appears Win7 can optionally index filenames only, on a per-drive basis. The setting is in Explorer, right click on drive properties, and under general tab, clear checkbox titled "Allow files on this drive to have contents indexed in addition to file properties".

However when applying those changes to all files on the boot drive, I got this error:

Error on C:

Access denied

"You will need to provide administrator permission to change these attributes"

I hit 'cancel', but the checkbox stayed clear and it appeared the content indexing went away -- however I rebuilt indexes to be sure.

Filename-only indexing was clearly in effect, as I only got filename matches after making the above change, not content matches. Despite this I couldn't tell any performance difference between that and doing content indexing of my entire C and E drives, about 550GB total and 186,000 items indexed. Maybe my quad-proc 3.8Ghz i7-860 compensates for this.

During these tests I noted Windows indexing cannot do a leading wildcard indexed search. IOW a leading wildcard will cause a scan, vs an indexed lookup. That is typical of indexed access methods. However the free utility Everything.exe apparently does leading wildcard indexed lookups -- it's just as fast as when using a trailing wildcard, or none at all.

Based on these tests, my advice is leave content indexing turned on. Despite the previous speculation in this thread that filename-only indexing should be faster, that's not so (at least on my PC).

Adjusting Windows 7 indexing is a little confusing, since the UI entails visiting three different places: Explorer drive properties | general tab, control panel | indexing options, and control panel | folder options | search tab.