What does it do, how does it do it and why?

Are you ever annoyed at how long it takes for Windows to find a file?  I am. This is because we have a lot more files on our hard drives these days.  And the hard drives themselves are simply huge. 

Quick Search 3.0 attempts to solve this problem by placing all the file names and their locations into a compact database.  Once the files are nicely indexed in a database, it takes very little time to locate them.  In fact, on my computer (with one 12 GB hard drive divided into 2 partitions) Windows takes over a minute to find all the files matching *.CLS wildcard (there are 1574 of them).  Using Quick Search 3.0, it takes just a bit over 3 seconds.  Locating a single file (aim.exe) located on the far end of the searching spectrum takes 7 seconds as opposed to instantaneous (less then 0.1 seconds) with Quick Search 3.0.  Since I wrote Quick Search 3.0, in my daily use I hardly ever use the Find Files & Folders applet.

So the reason for Quick Search 3.0 is crystal clear - it saves a lot of time.

How to schedule Quick Search 3.0 to update regularly?

I know you might ask: "Files get added and removed all the time.  How do I update the list of files in the database?"  The simplest answer is click on the Update Files button and it will do it for you.  Depending on the number of files, it may take a while.  

But what you really want to is to schedule to Update Files on a regular basis.  If you run Quick Search 3.0 with a command-line switch /A, then Quick Search 3.0 will start, update the files and then quit.  So in Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000 or XP you can simply add Quick Search 3.0  to the scheduler.  For instance, let's assume that Quick Search 3.0 is installed in the "C:\Program Files\Quick Search" folder.  In that case you would set the following command to run: 

"C:\Program Files\Quick Search\QuickSearch.exe" /A

Who should use this program?

If your computer is on pretty much the entire day, this program is for you.  You can schedule it to Update Files either during lunch time or at night or whenever you are not at your desk. 

Changes from 2.0

Quick Search 3.0 is improved in following ways:

• Context-sensitive menus on right-click. (not as simple as it sounds)
• Drag'n'Drop from Quick Search 3.0
• If you highlight files from multiple folders, clicking on Open Containing Folder button brings up multiple folders.
• Pressing Enter on highlighted file or files will execute them
• Pressing Alt-Enter on highlighted file or files will bring up Properties for each of those files.

Credits

Quick Search 3.0 was written by Robert Gelb (rgelb at vbrad.com).
This program uses SearchWorks 2.0 file searching technology. 
For more information and updates on Quick Search 3.0 or SearchWorks technology, please see http://www.vbrad.com