August 3rd, 2006
What's up with Windows Desktop Search?
So far, the biggest complaint I have about using the beta of 2007 Microsoft Office system (small “s”) is the abysmal performance hit caused by the current version of Windows Desktop Search (WDS) - the engine required to enable the Instant Search feature in Outlook and OneNote. It’s a pig… with no lipstick.
Both applications endlessly nag at you to install WDS to enable Instant Search - a great feature to be sure but one whose value is diminished by the incredible greed of the indexing engine when it comes to system resources. It’s currently hovering around 120 MB of RAM and it’s not doing anything! My Outlook PST files and my OneNote notebooks have long since been indexed. I can search and find anything I need to. So just what the heck is the indexer doing?
Causing weird delays, an occasional system hang, and a lot of disk thrashing. Near as I can tell anyway.
Yes… I know it’s a beta. But it needs an update. WDS 3 has no UI, kills the current Windows Desktop Search upon installation, and provides search only in the two aforementioned Office applications. Oh, and did I mention it’s a memory hog? If you use a laptop or Tablet PC, there’s another performance hit. The indexer insists on running when you’re on battery power, seriously diminishing how long you can go before seeking an AC outlet.
You can turn off the nag in Outlook pretty easily if you don’t mind poking around in the Options dialog. Turning off the every-time-I-open-OneNote nag requires a Registry hack which seems to work only for some folks who have tried it.
Please get this thing updated.
Marc Orchant has been building, testing, and sometimes breaking hardware and software for 25 years. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
