So do the list/path bar check and see if these found files are actually ON the USB or not. I don't think there are many other options, if any. If they are on the USB, hidden, then Search is finding them somewhere else on your system. So, if Search is finding them, they cannot be on the USB. The only way I can see for these files to be on the USB and not visible in Finder is if they are set to hidden, but then Search wouldn't find them either. But the default Search is 'This Mac' and it just mixes everything together. Once the search is done, you can then select down from the default of 'This Mac' to the folder in which the search was launched or in the Shared user files.

It searches everywhere, not just in the directory or drive. The problem with Search is, as I said earlier, it's universal. exe are actually on the USB drive or not. exe files (use Search if you have to) and then do one click on one of them and read what the path bar reports. Now get to where you can see the nefarious. A path bar will appear at the bottom of the list of files. Please humor me for a moment and open Finder, select the list view, then on the top bar select View, and click on Show Path Bar. Finder will show every file on the USB drive that is not hidden.

Microsoft's reasoning behind this was pretty much 'A lot of the same programs will be using the same lower level stuff so we might as well just link to it instead of copying it multiple times.' I'm not really a programmer so maybe they didn't really have a choice due to how Windows is designed, but I think we can all agree it's not a very effective design.OK, thanks for the update. Windows apps (programs) are very dependent on multiple things throughout the Windows operating system, such as shared DLLs, registry settings, etc. You can right click on an app and select 'Show package contents' and see what all is actually contained in a Mac application. You can take a Mac app and copy it to another system and it will run. They might have folders that they write to your user or system library that they depend on to store preferences, but they do not depend on these folders to successfully launch (unless there's some sort of licensing implemented). Other than that, how they work are very different. The only remote similarity is that they both launch applications.

What opens exe files on mac