WinFindr

WinFindr is a lightweight and easy-to-use Windows file and registry search tool, that can also search inside PDF files.

Everything vs WinFindr
Everything searches for files and folders only. It does not search for registry data. Obviously, you can use Windows Registry Editor to search for registry data, but it is not as easy as using a single tool that can do both, and display all the results in a single view.

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Downloads (Portable & Setup Versions)

WinFindr - Everything Alternative

Did a short test on my VirtualBox Win11 (Home 24H2) system, installed the app for that.

Registry search:
Did a search (as Admin, like proposed in the app) for the word Test (that's my username on the testsystem) and of course found several entries.
A very few found registry results point to the right place in the registry when opening the key, but most of them don't come anywhere, totally wrong or try to open registry keys in folders that are not accessible, like some Driver folders.

File search:
In Everything I can open a file search from the context menu in File Explorer, in this app that is not possible, I have to specify where to search. Every time I start a new search, I have to fill in what and where to search. A new search again results in searching all drives/partitions, that I have to specify manually again. That brings a lot of extra work.

PDF search: not yet tested.

So at this moment I don't see any value of this app, but maybe in future it will.
Thanks anyway for sharing this freeware tool.

Why would you ever want to search files AND registry?

kelper said:

Why would you ever want to search files AND registry?

Click to expand...

It is possible to select either folders/files or registries (or both).
But you'll have to select that every time again.
There is no setting that tells that only a certain function has to be searched.
So you'll have to do this every time:
- Select out of these what you want to search: Search for: Folders, Files, Registry keys, Registry entries, some of them or all (default after programstart is all).
- Select "Choose which paths are searched" - default after programstart is "Quickly search only the most common paths", but thats searching unpredictable, about everywhere.
- Deselect all unwanted partitions - default after programstart all partitions are selected, so at my computer that would mean 6 out of 7 partitions to be deselected.
Everything has to be done again step by step after closing the app and restarting it. Nothing of that can be set to be 'remembered' in the settings of the app.

Besides that, the app is appearing in full-screen after every programstart. If you click it to a smaller window (right upper corner) next time it will start again in fullscreen. As far as I remember I never saw that in any app at all.

I think the developer still has to further develop the app, because in this way it is totally unusable (as far as I see it).

WinFindr 1.8 has been released.

Its main improvements over the previous version are:

• Two new natural language search modes: Similar word matching and phonetic matching.
• You can now have WinFindr to stay running in the tray area as an icon, and configure it to start automatically with Windows.
• Improved compatibility with screen readers and other accessibility features.

Full Changelog