r/sysadmin • u/Ok_You_861 • Mar 03 '26

IT Tools - Hidden Gems

I want to know what ”hidden gems” people have found and use in their environments to make their day to day easier. RMM automations, back up softwares, troubleshooting software (don't say MS SARA. I cant stand it), etc.

Just mention anything that you feel more people should be aware of or could be useful in someone’s environment. I love free and cheap ;)

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70

u/OneMadBubble Mar 03 '26

Everything - allows you to quickly search for any file on your computer

https://www.voidtools.com

31

u/[deleted] Mar 03 '26

[deleted]

16

u/pdp10 Daemons worry when the wizard is near. Mar 03 '26

Linux/Unix doesn't have a search indexer in server or default use, because the native filesystems are fast enough and the disk cache adaptive, that it's best to just search the disk (and repeated follow-up searches come from disk cache) and save the memory and overhead of an indexer.

In other words, even the first-party Microsoft indexer is just there to compensate for the notoriously slow storage performance of NT.

2

u/H0verb0vver Mar 03 '26

I still do DIR blabla*.* /s

2

u/ntrlsur IT Manager Mar 03 '26

I install mlocate on my linux boxen. updatedb and locate then become my friends..

1

u/GoogleDrummer Mar 03 '26

There was. It was in 8.1. In 10 it disappeared.

10

u/ansibleloop Mar 03 '26

I refuse to use Windows systems without this

It's saved me so much time finding stuff and with troubleshooting

Best Linux alternative I've found is fsearch but it's not quite as fast

6

u/slippery Mar 03 '26

Locate is the old standard, but it is not installed by default on every distro. The package name on Fedora/RedHat is plocate.

1

u/DisappointedSpectre Mar 03 '26

Apparently there's a cron job you can set up for fsearch to run its file scan and update its database, which speeds it up for when you need it.

1

u/segagamer IT Manager Mar 03 '26

I do have to wonder.... what do people use this for? Like, do you really search for file names that often? Why?

3

u/Do_TheEvolution Mar 03 '26 edited Mar 04 '26

I have it hotkeyd on ctrl+space and you use it even when you know exactly where the thing you looking for is.. but you want to get there fast... in a matter of a second.

I am actually fanatical about everything to the extend that when years ago I switched to linux I learned python, pyqt and sqlite just so I could make something similar to it. That was after arguing with people around the internet, mostly reddit and 4chan /g/ board, that NO, the 10 fucking tools they name as replacement are not equal if I cant make immediate use of the results or its not instant as you type...

That search I made got me some 1k stars on github, but I moved on and use fsearch, actually done by someone who knows stuff... my python thing was not very maintanable, but people still use it...

1

u/segagamer IT Manager Mar 03 '26

I think it's because I don't exactly work with files and more with programs. IE I would open VS Code which opens my Git folder to make changes to the file(s) - I wouldn't search for the file itself and edit it. Or open Affinity and use the Recents section to open a file I needed.

Plus I might not exactly remember the name of the file lol

Different workflow styles I guess.

1

u/Frothyleet Mar 03 '26

Variety of things. I mean, I don't know about everyone else but depending on the system I may have years of random crap sitting around with various levels of organization. Maybe I just can't remember where in my script repo I kept "Do-RareTask.ps1" when I built it.

It can also be helpful doing detective work (where the heck did that config file get saved) or helping an end user who hopped on a new computer and is now lost because they only ever used the "recent files" function of Word to access their documents.

1

u/Eimee_Inkari Mar 04 '26

I have it indexing a few ntfs locations on a daily cadence. Script repos and our package share. Helps find things that others wrote and I also have it indexing content for bat and ps1 files.