Search network drives faster? Indexing? Google Desktop?

[edro]

I used to use Google Desktop to search network drives. It would "crawl" the drives every so often and worked very quickly and simply.

Since my Win7 upgrade, Google desktop doesn't seem to want to crawl.
Since I can't index network drives on Win7, searching network drives is very slow, like pre-indexing speeds.

Are there any Google Desktop type crawling programs that allow faster file searches for network drives?
Can I install something that allows Win7 to index network drives?

Thanks!

 

[BrightCandle]

Open up the start menu and just type "index" and select the "Indexing Options". In there you can modify what the indexing works on and you can just add the disk to the list of indexed folders. I don't know how it does when the network drive gets disconnected however as I don't use it but I do index other disks this way.

 

[Bubbaleone]

Like you, I'd been looking for a way to rapidly search network drives when I ran across Index Your Files. It's a very small (969 KB) portable freeware utility that runs in the system tray. YMMV, but I've found it extremely useful as it's very fast, you can specify exactly what you want to index; size, date and extension name search options are available, and the resulting files from a search can be viewed, copied, moved, deleted, dragged to other locations, or the containing folder opened for further viewing.

 

[edro]

Open up the start menu and just type "index" and select the "Indexing Options". In there you can modify what the indexing works on and you can just add the disk to the list of indexed folders. I don't know how it does when the network drive gets disconnected however as I don't use it but I do index other disks this way.

You can't add network drives there. Local only.

Like you, I'd been looking for a way to rapidly search network drives when I ran across Index Your Files. It's a very small (969 KB) portable freeware utility that runs in the system tray. YMMV, but I've found it extremely useful as it's very fast, you can specify exactly what you want to index; size, date and extension name search options are available, and the resulting files from a search can be viewed, copied, moved, deleted, dragged to other locations, or the containing folder opened for further viewing.

Awesome, thanks!

That seems to be a very good program! You are right... it is very fast and lite.
It working great.

 

[Bubbaleone]

:thumbsup: !!

 

[imagoon]

Ask your admins to properly configure the Windows search service on the file servers. When you search network drives, Win7 will just ask the servers to look in their index and give you the results.

 

[Zxian]

Ask your admins to properly configure the Windows search service on the file servers. When you search network drives, Win7 will just ask the servers to look in their index and give you the results.

This assumes that the shares are on Windows Server. If it's a CIFS share on a NAS or another Win7 machine (I think), then this won't work.

 

[ImpulsE69]

This assumes that the shares are on Windows Server. If it's a CIFS share on a NAS or another Win7 machine (I think), then this won't work.

Correct.

 

[edro]

I've been using http://www.indexyourfiles.com for a month now and I have nothing but great things to say.

This is a rock solid, fast, simple, easy to use program with great features.
It is a great replacement for Google Desktop's indexing service.

I have it scheduled to re-index my network drives every day and it works without a hitch.
The file preview is great as well. Works perfect for PDFs, which are the most common files I index and search for.

 

[nintendo1889]

This was written in 2005, so it might not work in the newest builds.

http://www.geekzone.co.nz/content.asp?contentid=3939

In the CRAWL_DIRS reg key, does the * as in *C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu mean that it should crawl those directories more often, and does the ! as in !C: mean that it should index those drives?