■ Find everything fast, including needles in a haystack desktop

Almost one year ago I first announced DeskRule, a quirky little program that promised it could find anything including "photos of your wife Sheila shot in Australia", wherever these happened to lie in your computer (apparently Picasa can also do that). It is a desktop search engine like no other because it goes beyond traditional filename and file contents searches: every conceivable system property can be used as a search criterion — picasa cannot do that <g> — from banal file size and date picture taken to exotic GPS geolocation data.

During this time I was busy making DeskRule faster and easier to use, and I believe it has reached a stage that is ready for showtime. Managing 300 file properties is not an easy task but DeskRule allows you to customize its toolbar to show just those properties you are interested in. When you start the search it first checks the windows search index to find files as quickly as possible. If you cannot find anything due to known index shortcomings, it switches to a "robust" (slow and reliable :) folder by folder search to locate the files. The results are presented in a standard explorer view where all the expected behaviors are available (open, drag-drop, context menu and a quick preview panel). A quick filtering box at the top-right corner allows you to refine the the search results.

DeskRule is the evolution of the search engine available in xplorer² ultimate edition, but focusing only on search. As soon as it goes out of beta — unshackled by slow self-tests — it should be faster than xplorer². Except for standard system properties it supports old column handlers and WDX content plugins for even more search attributes. The general idea is:

Search everywhere. Wherever you have files DeskRule can locate them; not just normal folders, but also in mobile phones and cameras, zipfolders, FTP and all the other virtual folders available in the shell namespace.
Fast and robust search. If you have windows search (WDS) enabled, DeskRule will use it to find your files quickly. DeskRule has a backup "slow and robust" mode that complements for any WDS shortcomings.
Use all item properties. Some 300 (windows 8) unique system properties are available to be used as search parameters, both simple (name, date modified, file contents) and more advanced like Rating, Tags, Authors, even GPS.Longitude.
Powerful search expressions. Search rules are individually powerful supporting regular expressions, and can be combined in complex search statements (boolean algebra) e.g. you could search for files with pin-point accuracy like:
name="report" AND NOT (date="last month" OR rating="4 stars")
Plain and advanced search modes. You can either have a complex flexible set of search rules, or you can have a simpler easy to use mode. For more information see the documentation.

Here is a demo video with a quick overview of DeskRule search engine

Why don't you download and try out DeskRule, and please send us your feedback for any problems or suggested improvements. Thanks!

Click to download DeskRule

Minimum requirements: windows Vista or later (32 or 64 bit)