winLight

winLight is a practical tool that can perform search operations to instantly find files in your operating system's partition. It contains intuitive options and advanced configuration settings for experienced users.

The entire installation doesn't take long. However, because it's ad-supported, the app offers to download and install a third-party component that it doesn't actually need to work properly. If you don't rush through the wizard steps, you can deselect the entry to make a clean setup.

Once launched, winLight automatically indexes your C: partition and gets integrated into the taskbar notification area. This way, it becomes minimally invasive and lets you carry on with your regular computer activity while providing quick access to its settings.

The main window has a simple design and layout, enabling you to enter a keyword to locate files and folders by partial or full matches, as well as to display results in real time. You can check out the name, extension and full path of each file, and double-click it to launch. Expert users may input command-line parameters beforehand.

As far as program preferences are concerned, you can modify the default path and file types to include in the search task, create a list with excluded items, indicate items to always scan, as well as set the wait time, minimum character length and maximum number of history to keep in history. Icons can be hidden from the results list and the tool can be integrated into the Windows Explorer context menu.

winLight had minimal impact on the computer's performance in our tests while running searches. No error dialogs popped up and it didn't hang or crash. Its interface needs some improvements in the graphical department, while the configuration settings should be more intuitive.