Best free desktop search
Search files without using a desktop search utility
Desktop search programs like X1 or Google Desktop Search allow you to quickly find any file on your PC by filename or by any phrase contained within the file.
However, these programs carry a high overhead. Creating and maintaining the indexes eats up a lot of processor power, and the indexes themselves take up a lot of disk space.
If you only occasionally need to search all the files on your PC for a specific phrase, you don't need a full desktop search program. You can achieve the same result in other ways and avoid the unnecessary overhead.
The first option is to use the search feature built into Windows but it's agonizingly slow. So slow that you would ever use it as a last, desperate resort. Besides, it's a resource hog as well. That's why many experienced users turn off the automatic Windows indexing service.
The second option is to use a Grep style search tool. Grep is a famous UNIX command line utility but there are several free versions for Windows, including BareGrep [1] and GNU Grep for Windows [2]. Both, however, are rather too technical in their usage and not suitable for average users. Rather more friendly is the GUI based Wingrep [3] program. It's a fast and very powerful product, but unfortunately it's shareware, not freeware.
The third option is to use a dedicated non-indexed search utility such as the freeware program Agent Ransack [4]. Ransack is a great product but it has somewhat limited search features compared to its shareware "big brother" called File Locater Pro. However, if you can live with its reduced feature set it's a great freeware solution.
A final option is to use the search feature built into some File Managers. Among the best of these is XYplorer [5].
XYplorer can search for both file names and file contents and has powerful search specification options, including the ability to limit the search to specific drives, folders, file types, creation dates, size, file attributes and more. Furthermore, the speed of the inbuilt search is simply amazing.
XYplorer is shareware but you can get the last free (for personal use) version from here [6]
Overall XYplorer gets my recommendation as the best free non-indexed solution to finding files and file content quickly and easily. As a bonus you'll also get an outstanding file manager and a great replacement for Windows Explorer as well.
[1] http://www.baremetalsoft.com/baregrep/index.php
[2] http://www.steve.org.uk/Software/grep/
[3] http://www.wingrep.com
[4] http://www.mythicsoft.com/agentransack/
[5] http://www.xyplorer.com/product.htm
[6] http://www.321download.com/LastFreeware/page22.html#XYplorer