Westserve

Desktop Search Tools

The standard search tool built into Windows XP is so sad, I don’t think I’ve ever used it seriously. So, for a while, I’ve been playing around looking for a desktop search tool that I can work with.
Desktop search tools are apps that build an index of keywords in emails, documents, files, etc on your system. They then run continuously, keeping the index up to date and providing ‘instant’ searching that index.
These days, I reckon this kind of feature is essential in managing the huge amounts of data on most work-related PC’s.
Finding one that I can really work with is easier said than done.

Here’s the four I’ve tried and the one I think I’ll be sticking with:

• Google Desktop. This is what started the desktop search ‘thing’ for me. It was pretty good, and the scaremongering about privacy didn’t really concern me. The CPU load and memory footprint were pretty good, but the search for email (I use Outlook) was poor, with results not giving enough information for me to decide which item I wanted.

• X1 This used to be a pay-for tool, but is now free. This worked pretty well, but it can’t index some file types, and the memory footprint was pretty hefty. It also locked my Outlook PST file so that a backup utility I use could not proceed. This has promise, but the interface was overly complex and clunky for my taste.

• Windows Desktop Search This was the most frustrating of all. I installed it because it is used by Office 2007 and is embedded in Vista – so I figured I would get used to it. It takes some setting up and requires the Windows indexing service to be running and drives to be searched to have that indexing turned on. The interface is simple – perhaps too simple? But the system integrates nicely and provides a built-in instant search in Outlook 2007 and Onenote 2007 – two apps I use very heavily. CPU use is good, memory footprint a little heavy with up to three processes running to drive it. But here’s the sticking point for me: When I wanted to try other desktop search tools, I went to uninstall WDS... and couldn’t. On two machines here, it didn’t appear in add/remove programs, and then when advised it installs as a Windows Update, I went looking for the uninstall update folder – again, it doesn’t exist. After a lot of searching on the web, I had to stop all related services, delete the apps folder, then trawl the registry looking for references. It’s a messy and incomplete process…

• Copernic This is what I’m currently using. Again, this was a pay-for app that has gone free with version 2.0. So far, I’m impressed. It has a small CPU load and memory footprint (once initial indexing has happened), a great interface and highly usable results. It’s easy to drill down and find the item(s) you are looking for, you are given enough of a snippet of the email/document/file to work out if it’s the item you want. It indexes all the file types I need, and it’s fast.

So far, so good. I’ll let you know if the situation changes.