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Everything

Developer(s)	David Carpenter
Stable release	1.2.1 / March 13, 2009; 15 years ago (2009-03-13)
Repository	none
Operating system	Microsoft Windows XP, Vista
Type	Search tool
Website	http://www.voidtools.com/

Everything is a free proprietary Windows desktop search engine that can rapidly find files and folders by name on an NTFS volume.

How it works

Everything searches the NTFS change journal for file names matching a user search expression, usually a fragment of the target file name. The change journal lists changes to files in the order in which the changes were made. It is maintained by NTFS itself to insure the integrity of the file system. By searching change journal records in the reverse order they were added, file names are tested against the search expression in the order they were most recently changed, which is often close to the order in which they were most recently used. By walking the change journal this way and sorting match results dynamically as it proceeds, Everything can "find" a file surprisingly quickly, particularly a file that has been recently created or edited.

Because Everything doesn't index file names or content itself, it is an extremely lightweight application, using very little memory or processor time to provide its service. However, because it relies exclusively on the change journal, which is of finite extent, it isn't able to find every file on an NTFS volume that matches the search expression, but only those files that have changed relatively recently.

It can't be used to find files on a FAT file system volume, which includes most USB drives, or, when run in Wine, on a NTFS volume mounted by Linux.

Multiuser security

Useful as it is, Everything is not a safe application in a multiuser environment. Because it requires access to the NTFS change journal, Everything must run with administrator privileges, either in a privileged user account or as a Windows service. As a Windows service it can expose search functionality to accounts without administrator privileges. However, Everything doesn't filter search results by client privileges before displaying them, so that every user can see every file on a volume, just as if they were using Everything in an administrator account themselves. Furthermore, a user can double-click a file name in the Everything results list to open the file or run it, if it is an executable, and Everything will launch the file with its own administrator credentials rather than with the user's own credentials. Although there may be a way to prevent privilege escalation, there is no obvious remedy to prevent one user from listing the private files in another user's account.

See also

• Desktop search
• List of desktop search engines
• Journaling file system
• NTFS
• USN Journal (NTFS change journal)

References

1. "Indexing Service". Retrieved 2009-10-13.
2. "Everything doesn't search everything". Retrieved 2009-10-13.
3. "Eagerly Awaiting FAT/FAT32. Great Program!". Retrieved 2009-10-13.
4. "Running everything in Linux with Wine". Retrieved 2009-10-13.
5. "Run Everything as a service". Retrieved 2009-10-13.

External links

• Everything search engine
• Everything Search Engine Review

• Articles created via the Article Wizard
• Desktop search engines