Office applications Toolkit

MSN Desktop Search review

7.0

Editors' Rating

Jeff Bertolucci CNET

Published: 23 Mar 2005

MSN Desktop Search, a component of Microsoft's free MSN Toolbar Suite, is a query tool accessible from a multitude of Windows components, including the Taskbar, Internet Explorer, Windows Explorer, Outlook and Outlook Express. MSN Desktop Search lets you track down files, email, and mail attachments from just about anywhere within Windows. The bad news: MSN Desktop Search lacks a viewer to see inside the contents of your files before you open them -- a must-have feature that's found in better local file finders available from Copernic and Yahoo. Our beta version of MSN Desktop Search proved both reliable and quick in our tests, but we think the file viewer is essential for the success of any future releases.

We downloaded and installed MSN Toolbar Suite within three minutes -- a quick and painless setup via DSL. Like Copernic Desktop Search MSN smartly inserts a query box in the Windows Taskbar, allowing you to run local searches by simply typing a word or phrase within the window. Like Yahoo Desktop Search, MSN Desktop Search also adds a query toolbar to Outlook and Outlook Express.

Is MSN Desktop Search the best of the bunch? No, but it's among the fastest local search engines we tested. Like Copernic, Yahoo and others, MSN uses 'word wheeling' technology that immediately begins displaying matches as you type. And MSN's toolbar plug-ins for Internet Explorer, Windows Explorer and the two Outlooks are handy for impromptu searches.

But MSN Desktop Search really needs a file viewer like those found in Copernic and Yahoo Desktop Search. As it stands now, you have to open a file located by MSN Desktop Search in a separate application to view its contents. On the plus side, MSN will display two-line text summaries of documents and small thumbnails of image files so that you're not completely in the dark when viewing a list of hits. We'd also like to see an integrated media player for audio and video files, a great feature found in Yahoo Desktop Search (beta).

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Overview

MSN Desktop Search

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Editors rating: 7.0

Verdict

MSN Desktop Search delivers fast local searches and is simple to use, but we'd like to see an integrated viewer and a media player. It's a good first try, though.