UltraSearch: free (and commercial), even faster tool for searching for files or folders by name (rather than by content).

FileLocator Lite (aka Agent Ransack): free (and commercial), fast and fabulous tool for searching for files containing a given string.

If you're on Mac/Linux, you may find alternatives there or of course will find many of these features already built into those rich OS's.įirst let me list the tools, then I'll offer some commentary Indeed, I list over 1800 tools and resources in over 150 categories that you may like, at my site.Īnd yes, these are all Windows tools. If you already some similar tool, whether free, commercial, or built into the OS, which you prefer, I'm not trying to pull you from those. Of course, I realize everyone has their own favorite tools. I think they really are fundamental tools, as I'll explain below.

I recommended we install these as I do on nearly all my engagements (and indeed on all my own machines). I was reminded to share this list today as I was helping a customer, as I got on their server with them to help them solve a problem. I've never seen these to cause a problem in many thousands of uses. They don't run in the background, only doing their job when you ask them to, so I find them safe to install and use on production servers, though of course any tool can be abused. I'd like to recommend four free tools that I think everyone (running Windows) should consider installing on their machines, as they can help with day to day tasks that many (certainly I) hit every day. And I may revise the content as necessary. Corrections are welcome, in the comments.

Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Some content may be outdated-though not necessarily.

Ultrasearch free