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Desktop Search disappointments

All the big search players are working on desktop search:

• Google Desktop Search
  
• Yahoo will release a version based on X1 early next year
  
• MSN Toolbar Suite

Scoble has posted a Desktop Search Reviewers' Guide. My top evaluation criteria are:

1. Quality of search results
   
2. Speed
   
3. Price

 

MSN Desktop search - KO
Why include other crap like a password manager, pop up blocker etc? These are separate products and features that I makes sense to use independently of the desktop search feature. At the moment I'm using Maxthon which offers all the features anyway.

I didn't get very far with the evaluation though as the setup gave me the following error:

MSN Toolbar Suite cannot be installed because your version of Windows I not supported. MSN Toolbar Suite requires Windows 2000 SP4 or later or Windows XP.

Microsoft's obsession with XP is really starting to annoy me. I'm using Windows 2003 on my laptop and I'm unable to install the latest software like Windows Media Player 10 and other software like Photo Story 3 that require a "Genuine Windows Validation"

Google Desktop Search - KO

I didn't get further with Google Desktop Search either:

Google Desktop Search is not currently compatible with another program on your system. You will need to uninstall this program if you would like to install Google Desktop Search. The following may help to identify the program:

Different network providers:
WinSock Proxy [udp]
MSAFD Tcpip [RAW/IP]
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Firewall Client\wswsp.dll

I01

Click OK to report this problem to Google, or click cancel to exit without reporting the problem.

Looks like I'll continue to use the Advanced Search in Outlook for finding my mails and findstr for everything else