• It is stunning when you see how badly Windows operates: indexing

    From Alan@3:633/280.2 to All on Sun Aug 10 09:30:00 2025
    I'm going some tech support for my brother today, and that's meant
    looking "under the hood" of his Windows 10 machine.

    And it is astounding how poorly Windows handles indexing content.

    I had to uninstall OneDrive and set it up again from scratch and in the
    course of that I moved the contents that had previously been
    synchronized to two folders with "(Old)" added to make sure that nothing
    got lost when we did it.

    And I wasn't surprised when resetting his connections to his OneDrive
    store and the company Sharepoint store set off a flurry of indexing. I
    wasn't even surprised that that took a bit of time to finish; I was re-downloading a lot of files which from the perspective of Windows, all needed to be indexed anew.

    What was completely surprising was that simply moving the those two
    "Old" folders immediately caused Windows to re-index that content! I
    decided to clean up the two separate "Old" stores into a single folder,
    and all of a sudden, the indexing which was at 0 in
    Settings:Search:Searching Windows

    Windows isn't smart enough to recognize that these are all files that
    its already indexed and they're now just in a new location!

    About 80,000 files were move about 30 minutes ago, and the re-indexing
    isn't even 25% done!

    If I do a similar thing on macOS, it's done almost before the files have finished the move.

    --- MBSE BBS v1.1.2 (Linux-x86_64)
    * Origin: A noiseless patient Spider (3:633/280.2@fidonet)
  • From Hank Rogers@3:633/280.2 to All on Sun Aug 10 09:55:12 2025
    Alan wrote on 8/9/2025 6:30 PM:
    I'm going some tech support for my brother today, and that's meant
    looking "under the hood" of his Windows 10 machine.

    And it is astounding how poorly Windows handles indexing content.

    I had to uninstall OneDrive and set it up again from scratch and in the course of that I moved the contents that had previously been
    synchronized to two folders with "(Old)" added to make sure that nothing
    got lost when we did it.

    And I wasn't surprised when resetting his connections to his OneDrive
    store and the company Sharepoint store set off a flurry of indexing. I wasn't even surprised that that took a bit of time to finish; I was re-downloading a lot of files which from the perspective of Windows, all needed to be indexed anew.

    What was completely surprising was that simply moving the those two
    "Old" folders immediately caused Windows to re-index that content! I
    decided to clean up the two separate "Old" stores into a single folder,
    and all of a sudden, the indexing which was at 0 in Settings:Search:Searching Windows

    Windows isn't smart enough to recognize that these are all files that
    its already indexed and they're now just in a new location!

    About 80,000 files were move about 30 minutes ago, and the re-indexing
    isn't even 25% done!

    If I do a similar thing on macOS, it's done almost before the files have finished the move.

    So why don't you tell him about mac OS? Then you wouldn't have to do
    all that work taking care of his shitty windows computer.



    --- MBSE BBS v1.1.2 (Linux-x86_64)
    * Origin: A noiseless patient Spider (3:633/280.2@fidonet)
  • From Alan@3:633/280.2 to All on Sun Aug 10 10:08:37 2025
    On 2025-08-09 16:55, Hank Rogers wrote:
    Alan wrote on 8/9/2025 6:30 PM:
    I'm going some tech support for my brother today, and that's meant
    looking "under the hood" of his Windows 10 machine.

    And it is astounding how poorly Windows handles indexing content.

    I had to uninstall OneDrive and set it up again from scratch and in
    the course of that I moved the contents that had previously been
    synchronized to two folders with "(Old)" added to make sure that
    nothing got lost when we did it.

    And I wasn't surprised when resetting his connections to his OneDrive
    store and the company Sharepoint store set off a flurry of indexing. I
    wasn't even surprised that that took a bit of time to finish; I was
    re-downloading a lot of files which from the perspective of Windows,
    all needed to be indexed anew.

    What was completely surprising was that simply moving the those two
    "Old" folders immediately caused Windows to re-index that content! I
    decided to clean up the two separate "Old" stores into a single
    folder, and all of a sudden, the indexing which was at 0 in
    Settings:Search:Searching Windows

    Windows isn't smart enough to recognize that these are all files that
    its already indexed and they're now just in a new location!

    About 80,000 files were move about 30 minutes ago, and the re-indexing
    isn't even 25% done!

    If I do a similar thing on macOS, it's done almost before the files
    have finished the move.

    So why don't you tell him about mac OS?’ Then you wouldn't have to do
    all that work taking care of his shitty windows computer.
    Believe me, I have.

    There was a time when he couldn't use a Mac because there was certain
    software for his industry that wasn't available.

    But now he's using that software via a Windows Remote Access connection
    to a server operated by the developer, his next machine just might be a Mac.

    :-)

    --- MBSE BBS v1.1.2 (Linux-x86_64)
    * Origin: A noiseless patient Spider (3:633/280.2@fidonet)
  • From Windows11 Proud User@3:633/280.2 to All on Sun Aug 10 10:51:39 2025
    On 10/08/2025 01:08, Alan wrote:
    his next machine just might be a Mac

    Why a Mac? Why not use some other terrible operating system, like Linux?!

    If you're not using Windows or you don't like how it works, then go and
    fuck yourself.

    Windows is different, which is why almost everyone uses it.




    --- MBSE BBS v1.1.2 (Linux-x86_64)
    * Origin: To protect and to server (3:633/280.2@fidonet)
  • From Hank Rogers@3:633/280.2 to All on Sun Aug 10 13:22:33 2025
    Alan <nuh-uh@nope.com> wrote:
    On 2025-08-09 16:55, Hank Rogers wrote:
    Alan wrote on 8/9/2025 6:30 PM:
    I'm going some tech support for my brother today, and that's meant
    looking "under the hood" of his Windows 10 machine.

    And it is astounding how poorly Windows handles indexing content.

    I had to uninstall OneDrive and set it up again from scratch and in
    the course of that I moved the contents that had previously been
    synchronized to two folders with "(Old)" added to make sure that
    nothing got lost when we did it.

    And I wasn't surprised when resetting his connections to his OneDrive
    store and the company Sharepoint store set off a flurry of indexing. I
    wasn't even surprised that that took a bit of time to finish; I was
    re-downloading a lot of files which from the perspective of Windows,
    all needed to be indexed anew.

    What was completely surprising was that simply moving the those two
    "Old" folders immediately caused Windows to re-index that content! I
    decided to clean up the two separate "Old" stores into a single
    folder, and all of a sudden, the indexing which was at 0 in
    Settings:Search:Searching Windows

    Windows isn't smart enough to recognize that these are all files that
    its already indexed and they're now just in a new location!

    About 80,000 files were move about 30 minutes ago, and the re-indexing
    isn't even 25% done!

    If I do a similar thing on macOS, it's done almost before the files
    have finished the move.

    So why don't you tell him about mac OS?’ Then you wouldn't have to do
    all that work taking care of his shitty windows computer.
    Believe me, I have.

    There was a time when he couldn't use a Mac because there was certain software for his industry that wasn't available.

    But now he's using that software via a Windows Remote Access connection
    to a server operated by the developer, his next machine just might be a Mac.

    :-)


    You should buy him a new Mac for his next birthday! Because he’s still really using windows; just some other person’s windows machine. That’s pretty pathetic.

    Don’t give up. He may come to his senses and embrace apple’s wonderful ecosystem.



    --- MBSE BBS v1.1.2 (Linux-x86_64)
    * Origin: A noiseless patient Spider (3:633/280.2@fidonet)
  • From Paul@3:633/280.2 to All on Sun Aug 10 13:28:53 2025
    On 08/09/25 19:30, Alan wrote:
    I'm going some tech support for my brother today, and that's meant looking "under the hood" of his Windows 10 machine.

    And it is astounding how poorly Windows handles indexing content.

    I had to uninstall OneDrive and set it up again from scratch and in the course of that I moved the contents that had previously been synchronized to two folders with "(Old)" added to make sure that nothing got lost when we did it.

    And I wasn't surprised when resetting his connections to his OneDrive store and the company Sharepoint store set off a flurry of indexing. I wasn't even surprised that that took a bit of time to finish; I was re-downloading a lot of files which from the perspective of Windows, all needed to be indexed anew.

    What was completely surprising was that simply moving the those two "Old" folders immediately caused Windows to re-index that content! I decided to clean up the two separate "Old" stores into a single folder, and all of a sudden, the indexing which was at 0 in Settings:Search:Searching Windows

    Windows isn't smart enough to recognize that these are all files that its already indexed and they're now just in a new location!

    About 80,000 files were move about 30 minutes ago, and the re-indexing isn't even 25% done!

    If I do a similar thing on macOS, it's done almost before the files have finished the move.

    As a surprise for you, the people in the Windows groups
    you copied in, don't actually recommended the Federated Search.

    The model is pretty easy to understand. The NTFS USN Journal file
    (NTFS is a journaled file system with a playback journal), every
    time *any* file operation is done, a record is added to a FIFO queue
    of events. For example, I can createfile(test.txt), writefile(256KB, "test.txt"),
    commit("test.txt") and so on. I have a history of the file, its size as
    it "grows" during writes, and there should be some record of when the
    file is done and flushed.

    The USN Journal offers a service, where each entry of that style,
    is "sent" to applications that register for the broadcast service.
    For example, Windows Search Indexer registers for all the NTFS USN Journals, and people who have installed third-party "Everything.exe" or
    "File Locator Pro" (Mythic Software), those applications also keep their
    file lists current (additions, deletions, moves, copies) bu listening for
    the broadcasts and applying their filter(s) so they can ignore any exclusion zones.

    The Search Indexer has two options (filename, content) indexing
    or just (filename) indexing. We're not sure whether the ticky box for
    "filename only" indexing has ever worked. If all the Search Indexer did
    was filename indexing, it would finish a lot faster than if indexing
    Content. Whether the box is ticked or cleared, the database contains
    a content index. Typical database size is 4GB.

    You can define Exclusions, to keep the Gatherer out of certain folders.
    For example, WinSxS would be a poor choice of areas to index,
    similarly indexing the OS "LCU" Last Cumulative Update folder on
    Windows 10, that would be a piss poor choice of places to Index.
    There can be 200,000 files nobody cares about in LCU.

    This is a power user feature, that requires an investment in tuning
    to reap a result. It took me *forever* to tune Windows 7, but for
    some reason today, the Windows 7 search is pretty well instant. I
    don't even understand how that is possible, because I was driving
    the search with a script for a while (as part of testing and to
    get rid of File Explorer bloat from ruining the result), and at
    one time, it could never return a result in under three seconds.
    Now, without patches or updates, it beats its old record.

    1) There is a lot of mystery meat in Federated Search.
    2) Federated Search recommended-max file count is 1,000,000 files.
    Failure to observe this, it just means the Merge operations
    the Indexer does, get slower and slower. Inverted Search indexers,
    tend to index a set of files, and then they Merge the smaller index
    into the Master index. And this is a miserably slow way to do it,
    but more than one company does it this way.
    3) Third party tools are willing to do filename-only indexing, which
    can be a lot faster than (filename,content) indexing. I can't speak
    for others, on the perceived performance of the third party ones.

    I've tested Indexing, but I'm not making a fetish of this, and I needed
    it to work on the Windows 7 Archive setup, as that's my NAS. I defined
    some exclusions. There are still a few things I should be excluding
    which haven't been added.

    For my Daily Driver, I use Agent Ransack brute force searcher.
    Search time is at least consistent, and there is a tendency to
    not miss files when I use Agent Ransack. For the Federated Search,
    there is some quirky behavior when entering names. For example

    filename:"*test*"

    will give you a more precise result than

    test

    entered without proper syntax. You can also do things
    like that without the double quotes, but there might
    be some exposure by doing so. I'm pretty sure some formulation
    of a file name, will run afoul of this one, and the file won't
    be picked up.

    filename:*test*

    You can name things and AND them together.

    filename:*test* ext:txt content:"Hello World"

    So one of the things it would be handy to find, would be
    the web page with the "search language" that works this week.
    You would think a piece of crap this complicated, would
    have a Help file... Ha!

    Paul (sent from alternate OS, experiment...)

    --- MBSE BBS v1.1.2 (Linux-x86_64)
    * Origin: A noiseless patient Spider (3:633/280.2@fidonet)
  • From Paul@3:633/280.2 to All on Sun Aug 10 13:52:40 2025
    On 08/09/25 23:22, Hank Rogers wrote:
    Alan <nuh-uh@nope.com> wrote:
    On 2025-08-09 16:55, Hank Rogers wrote:
    Alan wrote on 8/9/2025 6:30 PM:
    I'm going some tech support for my brother today, and that's meant
    looking "under the hood" of his Windows 10 machine.

    And it is astounding how poorly Windows handles indexing content.

    I had to uninstall OneDrive and set it up again from scratch and in
    the course of that I moved the contents that had previously been
    synchronized to two folders with "(Old)" added to make sure that
    nothing got lost when we did it.

    And I wasn't surprised when resetting his connections to his OneDrive >>>> store and the company Sharepoint store set off a flurry of indexing. I >>>> wasn't even surprised that that took a bit of time to finish; I was
    re-downloading a lot of files which from the perspective of Windows,
    all needed to be indexed anew.

    What was completely surprising was that simply moving the those two
    "Old" folders immediately caused Windows to re-index that content! I
    decided to clean up the two separate "Old" stores into a single
    folder, and all of a sudden, the indexing which was at 0 in
    Settings:Search:Searching Windows

    Windows isn't smart enough to recognize that these are all files that >>>> its already indexed and they're now just in a new location!

    About 80,000 files were move about 30 minutes ago, and the re-indexing >>>> isn't even 25% done!

    If I do a similar thing on macOS, it's done almost before the files
    have finished the move.

    So why don't you tell him about mac OS?’ Then you wouldn't have to do
    all that work taking care of his shitty windows computer.
    Believe me, I have.

    There was a time when he couldn't use a Mac because there was certain
    software for his industry that wasn't available.

    But now he's using that software via a Windows Remote Access connection
    to a server operated by the developer, his next machine just might be a Mac. >>
    :-)


    You should buy him a new Mac for his next birthday! Because he’s still really using windows; just some other person’s windows machine. That’s pretty pathetic.

    Don’t give up. He may come to his senses and embrace apple’s wonderful ecosystem.

    It's a good thing Alan has not picked up on the
    really bad parts of Windows :-)

    All computers have problems. As a former Apple computer user,
    who used to belong to a web fora where I helped out, we tried
    to be honest about our experiences, for the benefit of one another.
    There was none of this smug wand waving you see today.

    Paul

    --- MBSE BBS v1.1.2 (Linux-x86_64)
    * Origin: A noiseless patient Spider (3:633/280.2@fidonet)
  • From Mr. Man-wai Chang@3:633/280.2 to All on Sun Aug 10 14:34:18 2025
    On 10/8/2025 7:30 am, Alan wrote:
    I'm going some tech support for my brother today, and that's meant
    looking "under the hood" of his Windows 10 machine.

    And it is astounding how poorly Windows handles indexing content.

    This Indexing Service should have been *OPTIONAL*. The search function
    should work regardless of the indexing settings.

    Why can't I choose a slow but more reliable method that doesn't need
    indexes?? :)

    --
    @~@ Simplicity is Beauty! Remain silent! Drink, Blink, Stretch!
    / v \ May the Force and farces be with you! Live long and prosper!!
    /( _ )\ https://sites.google.com/site/changmw/
    ^ ^ https://github.com/changmw/changmw

    --- MBSE BBS v1.1.2 (Linux-x86_64)
    * Origin: https://sites.google.com/site/changmw/ (3:633/280.2@fidonet)