WinText

WinText is a lightweight and portable application capable of extracting all readable text from any file, regardless of its extension.
It enables you to search through extracted text and save it to file for closer inspection. The tool doesn't implement complex options or configuration settings, making it accessible to all types of users.

Portable utility with a minimalistic GUI

Since there's no setup pack involved, you can save the files to a custom location on the disk or place them on a USB flash drive to carry the program with you when you're on the move and directly run it on any workstation without installation. It doesn't integrate new entries in the Windows registry, need DLLs to run, or create files on the HDD without your permission.
As far as the interface is concerned, WinText sticks to a standard window with a minimalistic appearance, where you can use the file browser or resort to the drag-and-drop support to indicate a file to autoscan.

Extract, copy and save text

The readable text strings are loaded in the main window, where you can view one line at a time and perform a quick search if you're looking for specific information. The status bar shows the estimate scan time.
It's possible to copy everything to the Clipboard or save to disk by specifying the filename, extension and destination folder. Apart from the fact that you can clear the main panel to scan a new file, there are no other notable settings.

Evaluation and conclusion

It worked well in our testing, without causing Windows to freeze, crash or show errors. Files were scanned swiftly while CPU and RAM usage was minimal.
Although it doesn't have richer features, WinText offers a simple and effective solution for auto-extracting text strings from any types of files, and it can be easily used.