Find as you type
Lightweight Filename Search Utility - Hobby Project
This is something I was working on in my spare time (which I seldom get). As the name suggests, the program finds files in a computer - as you type a part of the name.
This is very similar to the Vista Find bar on the Start Menu; only much faster and includes the entire computer. I'm trying to setup a 'service + client' style application. So far, it is working pretty well.
It's not too hard to implement. The service crawls the computer every hour or so, and stores the filenames of all the files on the box. The client app simply does a quick search of the file when you type a part of the filename and throws some relevant facts about the files that match the criteria to the user.
It does the crawling ahead; so the results are obtained crazy fast. It doesn't read inside the files; so the database doesn't take up gigabytes of space.
Now, I wonder why there is no implementation of anything similar that is super famous. Microsoft could directly implement this as part of Windows.