This works best if you have all the discs and drives in reach, and if you have labeled them properly. It won’t help users on the other hand who have hundreds of burned CDs and DVDs without labeling.

CD Archiver is a disc cataloging software much like Visual CD, Cathy or Disk Explorer Professional.

All contents are saved into databases of which you can create and maintain as many as you like. The program supports indexing data from optical discs like CDs or DVDs, but also from folders on the drive making it ideal for network shares or external drives that are not connected all the time.

You need to create a database on first run before you can use the program’s functionality. Once the database has been created you can start adding content to it via the File menu. Click on file > add to pick one of the three available choices. Available for selection are folders, discs and offline discs. Folders and discs can be selected or inserted directly, offline discs are discs that you do not have access to but want to add to the program. This can be a video DVD, music CD or other data.

The program aids you by supporting Internet searches for CDs and books on Amazon, and TV series and movies on IMDB. Searching and adding offline contents is however less intuitive than adding contents directly.

CD Archiver will furthermore retrieve information from the Internet automatically for select file types. This includes music and video meta information that are automatically added to the archive which improves search significantly. It is always possible to correct results if something is identified incorrectly.

A search is provided to search all or only select container files. Results are then automatically displayed in the program interface. Thumbnail images are automatically stored in the database making it an ideal archiving software for image discs or directories.

Windows users can download the latest CD Archiver version from the developer website. The program requires the Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 or later.

One of the options to access all photos taken, regardless of where they have been stored or archived, is a image cataloging software like vvvP. Despite the strange name, it turns out to be a very effective solution for photographers and computer users who want a single program to view and work with all their photos or photos they have to manage.

The program stores information about images in catalog files. It stores various information about each image that is added to the catalog.

• A thumbnail image with a configurable size
• EXIF data if available
• The SHA-1 hash of every file
• User comments

The program supports various image formats, including jpg and raw images. It has to be noted that the program does not process RAW images but adds a preview image instead.

When you first start the program, the first thing that you need to do is to create a new catalog on the hard drive. Click the New button or select File > New to save it. This catalog file contains all the information necessary to manage images even if they are not located on fixed or removable drives.

The program differentiates between fixed and removable storage locations. Fixed locations are for instance internal hard drives connected to the computer, while removable locations are for instance removable hard drives or optical discs.

If you want to add photos from fixed locations, you need to select Catalog > Fixed Locations first before you can crawl them. Once added, you can add photos with a click on Catalog > Catalog Images.

Check the “handle removable volumes” or “handle fixed” volumes” first, and pick a folder that you want crawled. The crawling may take some time, depending on the amount and type of files.

All folders are afterwards shown in the main program interface, provided that the right catalog is loaded. It is possible to browse the folders in the interface to see thumbnail previews, image names and other information like the date the image was taken.

The program comes with a search which can be used to search for file names, extensions, start and end dates or descriptions. The search is very fast and responsive.

Images can be added to virtual folders which are then accessible in the program interface as well. Handy for instance to make a pre-selection of photos that are stored in various locations.

One interesting option is the ability to use the image catalog in a network, which effectively means that multiple users in the same network can access the catalog.

The photo cataloging software vvvP is available for Windows, Linux and Macintosh computers. Interested users can download the latest program version or the source code from the project homepage.

Disk Explorer Professional adds all files and folders found on the selected volume or path as a new entry to the program database. The Add Volume and Add Virtual Volume configurations menus offer several additional options to the user.

Here it is possible to use profiles to include or exclude file types or contents from the cataloging. Both file name related information and file content information can be saved in the database.

The software supports the cataloging of contents on ftp servers as well, which could be very interesting for webmasters to index the contents on their sites and companies who use servers for backup or storage purposes.

Probably the most interesting feature is the ability to include file contents directly in the catalog. This is managed via profiles. You can index some file contents, for instance txt and pdf files, during cataloging, none or all. The selection has implications on the size of the database and accessibility.

Say you want to make sure that documents are always accessible. You could configure Disk Explorer Professional to make all documents directly accessible from the interface. Webmasters could make all static HTML files or configuration files accessible, a professional photograph larger image previews of all photos.

Thumbnails of images are automatically generated and added to the catalog, even if the indexation of no file contents is selected during configuration. You can again opt to archive the full images as well.

Profiles can be added, deleted and edited via Options > Profiles in the main application window or by pressing F7.

All volumes that have been added to the catalog are then displayed in the left sidebar. They can be browsed normally and files in the active directory are shown with their name, size and modification date.

Previews are shown for some file types, images and photos for instance. A double-click launches the default viewer for the file type if its contents have been indexed as well.

These previews are handled by filters. A total of 18 filters are available, mostly for image and audio formats.

An advanced search form is offered under Tools > Find or by pressing Ctrl-f. It offers basic file searches and many parameters to find specific files. Available are size, date, time,r rating and file attributes filters. The results can be exported or saved.

Additional features of Disk Explorer Professional

• Multiple databases can be open at the same time in the same program window
• A database and volumes can be exported to various formats including HTMl and XML.
• CDDB look-ups for audio files
• Comments and folder / file ratings supported
• Volume and database statistics and information available.
• Database contents are compressed to save local storage space.

Verdict

The Professional in Disk Explorer Professional suits the application well. It is a professionally designed disk cataloging software with an impressive feature set. Among the strong points are the application’s customization option via profiles and filters, the ability to index file contents in the catalog and the advanced search.

Disk Explorer Professional is near perfect. One feature that is missing is support for the sftp protocol. The program is compatible with most versions of the Windows operating system. It has been tested under Windows 7 Professional.

Indexing a CD or DVD takes only a second the most. It is really fast and will record folders, file names, file sizes, creation dates and attributes. Essentially the full structure of each CD or DVD that is indexed that way. Files can be linked to keywords to make the search even more efficient.

All indexed volumes can be searched in the same interface. The search supports wildcards and a few advanced search parameters like searching specific dates or file sizes.

Octopus should work on most Windows operating systems. Alternatives are the fast and tiny disk catalog software Cathy or Visual CD.

Cathy has a size of only 59 Kilobytes unpacked and creates a new disk catalog file after scanning and indexing a new disk. I previously mentioned that the indexing process was fast. It takes only a few seconds to index the contents of a full DVD. That is possible because Cathy indexes only the files, their path and information whereas Visual CD would index the contents of zip drives and media information.

Another benefit of using Cathy is its simplicity. Every disk catalog is searched automatically and results start to appear after seconds. Several filters are available to narrow down the search results. It is for instance possible to filter by date or length.

The verdict: If you want fast, simple and portable select Cathy. It’s the perfect disk catalog software for users who want to search their entire disk collection in a few seconds. If you want to add value, add mp3 tags, thumbnails and the like go for Virtual CD which offers that. It does take much longer to index the disks though and the interface is complicated and not that intuitive.

Visual CD will start the disk scanning and file indexing process. I kid you not if I say that this can take a while depending on the amount and type of files on the disk. Most files get simply indexed but some get indexed with additional information. The contents of archives gets indexed as well or the tags of music files.

A disk catalog is created in the end and stored locally. Each disk catalog can be searched independently from each other or to search across multiple disk catalogs. The additional information, like mp3 tags, are included by default.

Not everything is indexed by default and stored in each disk catalog. The options contain numerous settings that index additional information. Go there to add video, picture, mp3, music and hidden files & folders to the indexing process.Visual CD can also create thumbnails of images and videos that are then displayed during searches or while browsing a disk catalog. It’s pretty obvious that each additional setting can have a huge influence on the indexing process and the time it takes to create the disk catalog.

One interesting aspect is the use of comments that can be added. Comments can also be included in searches. The disk catalog software comes with a few extras like a renamer and duplicate finder which add to the value of the software program.

The original website is not online anymore. You can download the latest version of Visual CD 4.20 here from Ghacks. Visual CD (161)