One problem facing corporate networks is the disparity between those who use network file shares to store documents on a file server, and those that either forget to use the shares or hoard documents on their local computer.
While some networks are setup in a way that synchronizes client computer’s My Documents folders with the file server on a periodic basis, other business computer networks are lacking automated file storage. The latter environment can produce difficulties when multiple revisions of a document are maintained by multiple employees.
By no means is LANSearch Pro an end all solution to files spread all over a local area network. However, when it comes to locating files by file name or file contents, this tool can help reduce flurries of email and workstation visits by IT personnel. Instead of asking the computer users to scour their hard drives for data, why not use a centralized search tool and remove them from the equation?
LANSearch Pro is basically Windows Search, but not limited just to your local hard drives and mapped network drives. This utility will scan any available computer on a LAN in accordance with the search terms you enter. Using regular files names, wildcards, and even searching for text within a file, LANSearch Pro sifts through network connected computers looking for the files you want.
When you open LANSearch Pro, you can easily fire off a search of your network simply by typing a file name or wildcard (*) with the file extension, or a combination of the two, in the text box and clicking on the green arrow. This type of search will comb your local network for computer containing file names relating to your search terms. This is the simplest, no frills use of LANSearch Pro though.
While the initial example is easy to accomplish, it will also take quite some time to look over all the files on each computer for your intended targets. To shorten the timeline on this process, click on the icon containing red check marks. This will bring up the Options menu.
There are several tabs within the Options menu. The first tab, Main, gives you the option of filtering your results by date and size, as well as what to display in the results pane in the main screen of LANSearch Pro.
One of the more important options in this tab is “Enable text search”. Activating this option, which is turned off by default, allows you an extra search option in the main screen. If you check the box to activate the text search choice, you will have to restart the LANSearch Pro application before it is visible.
With the “With text” option now available, you can add specific terms to your search and have LANSearch Pro inspect file contents for your search text. You may use quotation marks to specify your search terms, akin to the Google search engine. Clicking on the icon to the right of the “With text” allows you to pick from other search term options (shown below).
After completing a search, you are presented with the results in the lower portion of the main screen. Each file is listed with the computer’s name, followed by the top level folder, and any sub-folders preceding the actual file.
At this point, you may right-click on a particular file and be presented with a short list of choices. You have the standard fare available: Open, Copy, and Move. You can also Map a Network Drive, for the containing folder, as well as use the Open Folder option to navigate directly to the containing folder on the target computer.
Moving back to the options menu, we find the Net search tab. By default, as you will notice in the screen shot below, LANSearch Pro is set to search the entire local network. All machines in your current subnet will be searched if you do not change any of the settings in this screen.
However, you have the option of changing the network search scope to target specific, or exclude specific, computer on your network. Clicking on the green cross icon allows you to add IP address information.
The next tab, Hidden folders, gives you the option of telling LANSearch Pro to look only through common folders, hidden folders, or both. Keep in mind that selecting to search through both types of folders can dramatically increase the time it takes to return results.
Hidden folders, in a Windows XP environment, includes items like Temporary Internet Files. Without question, these types of folders can accumulate large amounts of files unless properly maintained. That said, the ability to view content in hidden folders comes in handy when doing a search for users Internet browsing habits, for instance.
The Folders tab is a quick way to input filters on what folders are included in the search. In this instance, you can put a wildcard character before, after, or on both ends of a folder name. You may also leave the default setting of All Folders if uncertain where the targeted files may reside.
While you may not use this feature as much, LANSearch Pro does give you the ability of searching anonymous FTP locations. There is a notice on this page about the use of the FTP search, and what other options will not work with it.
Keep in mind that in the hands of a system administrator and properly trained technical staff, LANSearch Pro can be a very useful tool. Conversely, this freely available utility can prove dangerous in the hands of a hacker or overtly curious employee. Since it is software that has to be installed to be used, a software inventory type scan can turn up installations of it on corporate computers.
It is my understanding that LAN Search pro has a portable version, so a software inventory-type scan would not alert the user of its existence. Of course, viewer logs and registry entries might reveal that it has been used.