Searching Synology DS from Win 10

[Searcher214]

I've seen numerous threads on the Microsoft forums, but not a single one with a positive outcome or resolution, on searching and indexing of a Synology DiskStation from Win10.

The issue appears when you want to search file contents, such as "*.docx contains:walnut". This appears to require the Win10 indexing service, which cannot apparently index a mapped drive.

The only suggested work-around I've seen, which is not really practical for many, is to replicate every file from the NAS onto your PC using Offline Files. If this is done, you can index the offline files folder, and therefore indirectly search the contents of files on the NAS. Of course, if you have a typical home user 4 or 12 TB NAS, you're not really going to replicate that onto the typical laptop's 512 GB SSD, using offline files.

I've seen suggestions to use Universal Search, less attractive as (I believe) you must log into the DiskStation web page to access it, rather than thru Windows File Explorer. However, even the Advanced Search options of Universal Search don't appear to have any method to search file contents for typical Word, Excel, or other MS Office files.

What's a user to do?

 

[EAZ1964]

You probably read a previous post on this?

Windows search for network shares on Synology?

I have various shared folders on our Synology NAS which are accessed by multiple windows PCs. I would like to be able to search the contents of the network shares via Windows' built-in search abilities. I would rather not have each individual PC index each of these shares, as this would need...

www.synoforum.com

 

[Searcher214]

You probably read a previous post on this?

Windows search for network shares on Synology?

I have various shared folders on our Synology NAS which are accessed by multiple windows PCs. I would like to be able to search the contents of the network shares via Windows' built-in search abilities. I would rather not have each individual PC index each of these shares, as this would need...

www.synoforum.com

Yes. Unfortunately, the conclusion there appears to be that Synology has built in support for Mac (in fact I see that option in Universal Search), but not Windows. Hey, why make your NAS compatible with 1.25 Billion PC's, when you can target 0.1 Billion Mac's!

Not bashing on Apple, either... I love my iPhone and iPads. But it seems like a really stupid decision on the part of Synology to integrate compatibility with Mac's, but not PC's?

 

[Tedster]

Synology are getting quite good at making stupid decisions!

 

[Searcher214]

I suppose Microsoft is as much to blame, as Win 7 let you directly index mapped drives. This is a new problem for Windows 10/11, as they rely on the server to do the indexing. But it's astounding to me that Synology appears to be doing nothing to address this, when statistically more than 90% of their users are on (or will soon be on) Win 10/11.

I'm hoping Synology does have an answer for this, and it's just not very obvious, from the little information available. There are some posts from users keeping their 12-year old Windows 7 PC's online, solely for the purpose of searching their NAS. Sad situation.

 

[Micky]

You could setup a tool like Everything to circumvent this annoyance... It can index all files and folders of local and remote (mapped) sources.

 

[Searcher214]

Maybe it's safe and completely above board, but I'm not really in love with the idea of installing a third-party app from a little-known source, for the purpose of having it crawl and index all the content on my various personal and business drives. There is personal finance, business finance, and sensitive commerce-controlled data on these drives.