VX Search 18.4.12

VX Search is a rule-based file search program for Windows from Flexense. It finds files on local disks, network shares and NAS devices by matching them against conditions the user defines. It then sorts the results, acts on the matched files and turns the findings into reports. It is commercial software sold in two editions, VX Search Server and VX Search Enterprise, both of which run in the background as a service.

Search profiles

VX Search saves each search as a profile. The profile holds the input locations (disks, directories, UNC paths or whole servers and NAS devices), the matching rules, options and exclusions. VX Search skips excluded folders recursively and can match them by name patterns or regular expressions. The directory list for a search can also be loaded from a text file.

How matching rules combine

VX Search evaluates rules in order using either “Match All Rules” (logical AND) or “Match Any Rule” (logical OR). Each rule has positive and negative operators, so a condition can include or exclude files. Rule lists can be nested to build multi-level queries such as “larger than a given size and either a video or an archive”.

Rules cover file type or category, name, extension, path, folder depth, size, creation, modification and access dates (including relative ages), attributes, owner and group, program version fields such as vendor or product name, JPEG EXIF tags, and directory conditions such as file count or empty folders.

Searching inside files

A Text String rule finds files that contain, or do not contain, a given string. Regular expressions work for text as well as names and paths. Images, videos and many binaries hold no searchable text. A common VX Search setup therefore uses one rule to limit the search to text-bearing extensions and a second to check their contents. This avoids reading irrelevant files across the network. A HEX Pattern rule matches a byte sequence at a fixed offset. The sequence 4D 5A at offset zero identifies Windows executables whatever their extension.

Working with results

The results dialog groups matched files into categories by type, extension, size, owner or date. Grouping by modification year, for instance, shows the file count and disk space for each year. Applying filters to selected categories narrows the list to those files. Users can then copy, move or delete matched files, including copying them to UNC locations. Delete operations can wipe data rather than only remove the file entry.

Reports, charts and SQL export

Users can save results as HTML, PDF, Excel, text, CSV, JSON or XML reports, in summary or detailed form. Pie and bar charts break results down by directory, extension, size, owner or date, and timeline charts show distribution by year. Through an ODBC data source, VX Search can also export results to an SQL database, letting several servers feed one central store.

Scheduling and the two editions

VX Search Server runs searches periodically at set intervals. Conditional actions generate reports, send an e-mail or run a custom command once a search finds a specified number of files. Users can manage the service from a GUI client or the vxsearch command line utility, locally or over the network. VX Search Enterprise adds a web-based management interface, multi-user configurations with Windows user authentication, batch search operations and consolidated statistics. It also removes the Server edition’s limits.