Windows Grep Text Search And Replace

Windows Grep is described by its author as

Windows Grep is a tool for searching files for text strings that you specify. Although Windows and many other programs have file searching capabilities built-in, none can match the power and versatility of Windows Grep.

Windows Grep is more or less a GUI (Graphical User Interface) for the grep command line utility. In addition to searching for text it also supports replacing of text.

Searches can be performed using either the beginner or expert mode, with the former providing a wizard. The wizard is basically a step by step version of the expert mode that does not necessarily make the searching task easier and in reality only offers less options.

File formats supported include plain (source code, batch files, etc.) and binary (EXE, DLL, etc.). It is possible to perform searches based on the size and the date of the files in question and also use regular expressions in the search. Search results can also be saved and printed. Additionally Windows Grep can search inside ZIP archives thus making it handy for searching backups for example.

One of the strengths of Windows Grep is the way search results are displayed. The user can control the number of lines displayed around either side of the matching text, whether to include whole lines and some others. (see image below). Worth a mention is the support for searching delimited (text separated by a constant character such as a comma) and fixed length text file formats.

windowsgrep

Windows Grep runs on Windows 98, 2000, XP and Vista  and is a non-expiring and non-crippled shareware. It prompts for registration at program exit.

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