Windows Desktop Search 3.0.1

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Publisher's description of Windows Desktop Search

From Microsoft: Windows Desktop Search (WDS) helps you find virtually anything on your PC or your networked drives including e-mail messages, calendar appointments, and documents. Searching your computer is now as fast and easy as searching the Web. Find information fast--Windows Desktop Search helps you find the information you need from the thousands of documents and e-mail messages located on your PC in seconds, improving your productivity. Search from familiar interfaces--works seamlessly within Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office Outlook and offers you familiarity, convenience and ease of use. Easy to deploy and manage--enables IT managers to quickly deploy, manage, and extend across the enterprise. Version 3.0.1 includes a new indexing feature.

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Editor's review of Windows Desktop Search

Windows Desktop Search brings some Vista functionality to Windows XP and 2000 operating systems by indexing the contents of the hard drive, replacing the old, cumbersome Windows Search.

You can opt out of indexing your hard drive, a slow and tedious process best done while away from your machine, but WDS is hamstrung and ineffective without it. Adding a network drive substantially increases the time it takes to complete the indexing process, but it's a great feature. WDS also has a useful preview pane. When you click on a specific file type, like a JPEG, it shows you a thumbnail and lists other similar file types in the same folder, even if they didn't meet the search criteria.

WDS integrates well with other Microsoft apps, especially Outlook, but no better than its competitors. The interface is nailed to the desktop taskbar and opens up to a larger Windows Explorer-style window when you hit Enter or the magnifying glass icon. Changing settings or adding a network drive is painful, because the Preferences are hidden. Hint: they're under Desktop Search Options when you click on the grid icon, next to the Help question mark.

Although we didn't experience CPU sluggishness after indexing, others have. WDS is a good indexing search tool but unless you spend a lot of time on networked drives, we'd look elsewhere.

User reviews of Windows Desktop Search

• Average user rating: out of 31 votes
• Your rating: Write your own review

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  Windows Desktop Search

  Search for files and folder quickly within Windows XP

  by: Dango517 on 06-May-2008 10:40:18 PM

  Pros: I thought this was an excellent tool when I was using XP. You could simply type in a part of a folder name and see some quick results. No need to "search the tree", so to speak. This has nothing to do with searching on line this program is about searching the files within your Windows OS. This has become a very important feature within Vista and I was glad to see it continued.

  Cons: It did have a few problems.

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  Windows Desktop Search

  Microsoft: 0 Google: 1

  by: Sinquisition on 17-Mar-2008 11:57:26 PM

  Pros: Microsoft's ego gets knocked off the saddle yet again.

  Another attempt to rip off yet another product idea from competitors falls not-too-gracefully on its face.

  This only reminds me whatever Microsoft can do, Google ALREADY did better.

  Cons: I had trouble with Windows Desktop Search even before it was successfully installed on my computer. After installation I replaced Google Search temporarily and switched on Windows' version. where I saw twice as much memory eaten in a matter of minutes. I had no problems uninstalling it, but it seems other people did.

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  Windows Desktop Search

  Simple is the best

  by: DT Song on 17-Nov-2007 05:46:09 AM

  Pros: Works fine. Search quickly. Difficult to install and uninstall.

  Cons: I don't think this is the same search engine in Vista, No useability.

  If you just want to search files in Windows XP, try Instant File Find , Ava Find . More like vista instant search, but search files only..

  If you want to search contents in files, try Google Desktop Search , Copernic, but takes too much computering power.

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  Windows Desktop Search

  Promising feature but lacks speed and usability

  by: Yiuhoo! on 28-Sep-2007 04:10:38 PM

  Pros: I only installed it because Outlook 2007 needs the engine for indexing.It works well with Outlook, but would have prefered that Microsoft wouldn't integrate it with the rest of my system. Why? Because Windows Desktop Search just isn't that good as other desktop search programs.

  I've also tested the latest versions (august 2007) desktop search programs from Copernic, Google's and Yahoo!. I've found Copernic Desktop Search the best of these programs.

  Cons: When compared to Copernic Desktop Search it lacks flexibility. Windows Desktop Search lets you set for each filetype choose how you want it to be indexed. But it's an pain in the ***** to set it. Worse of all it doesn't always remember the settings. Grouping filetypes in Copernic Desktop Search is far superiour.

  Outlook 2007 keeps nagging you that you need Windows Desktop Search for the advanced searching features. Simply annoying.

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  Windows Desktop Search

  Nice when it works; potentially painfully to uninstall

  by: kmich411 on 28-Sep-2007 08:07:56 PM

  Pros: The interface was nice the way it sorted your files. It fairly quickly completed a search across all of my files, contacts, email, music, etc. It allowed you to easily add or omit any file extension or folder you wanted index.

  Cons: It did not index all the files specified; re-indexing multiple times still left files specified to be indexed not indexed. If it does not do what it is intended to do it is of no value. Also, when I tried to un-installed it the uninstall failed process failed on one of my 2 PCs and required an unreasonable amount of research, time, and effort to force of my PC.

  I am now trying Copernic 2.0 which has a nearly identical interface and so far has actually indexed all the files and extensions I asked it to!

  Was this review helpful? Yes | No (3 of 3 users said yes)

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