JAM Software has released UltraSearch 1.7, a major update of its super-speedy MFT search tool.

As with many similar tools, the program doesn’t waste resources maintaining an index on your hard drive. Instead it accesses the NTFS Master File Table directly, which allows UltraSearch to retrieve its results at very high speed, typically just a second or two.

The headline addition in this release is probably the new support for regular expressions. The ability to find matches for your /Pattern/ provides considerably more flexibility.

Regular expression and NTFS hardlink support give the program even more searching power

And UltraSearch 1.7 is now able to locate NTFS hardlinks, too, although by default this is only enabled on the system drive (check Options > NTFS Hardlinks for various configuration options).

The new build isn’t just for geeks, though. Small practical improvements include a switch to easily launch the program when Windows boots (Options > Launch at Windows Startup); command line options can start the program minimized, or in your system tray; and there’s easier sorting of your results.

An old irritation has been resolved. You no longer have to manually refresh UltraSearch’s index to detect files which have been added since the program was launched: the changes are detected and it updates itself automatically.

Memory use has been cut, and search speeds increased.

And a number of irritating bugs have been squashed.

As with all of these MFT tools, the program has its limitations. You can only search on file and folder names, for instance, not contents. And you can only search NTFS drives.

But if that’s not a concern, then UltraSearch 1.7 will serve you well. It’s a fast and capable update which extends an already excellent program with several useful enhancements and improvements.