Everything 1.4.1.935

Windows Search is frustratingly slow. Anybody who's used it can attest. For some reason, it takes Microsoft's built-in utility at least half a minute to search a drive for a specific phrase or letters. It's bewildering because there are so many search utilities that can do it nigh instantly. One program goes as far as to say it replaces the Window's search function completely and replaces it with a lightning-quick interface that instantly looks up files on your entire disk drive. That program is called, fittingly enough, Everything.

The layout is insanely simple. When you boot it up, there's a search bar at the top and an empty results page taking up most of the window. Entering anything into the search bar will have the results page updated in real time, giving you matching names in the entire drive. This process, unlike the Windows Search function, takes less than a second to display thousands of results. If you have millions of files, it may take up to five seconds, but that's incredibly rare.

You can sort the results by many of the criteria Windows Explorer itself uses. You can sort by name, date modified, size, and specific path. With some fiddling in the settings of Everything, you can also search by creation time, last access time, and attributes.

This program is, overall, exactly what it says. A demonstrable and marked upgrade over the default Windows Search function. It's difficult not to recommend this program to anyone who happens upon it.