I've gotten so used to MSN's deskbar. tsk tsk.

...and frees you from having to manually organize your files, emails and bookmarks.

Not a problem, Johnny.
What part of index-based search apps do you not trust? Just curious...

So here's a follow-up to the earlier GDS post.

I'm not really going to do a full review, mainly because I'm still sticking to MSN Desktop Search which, for me personally, is still a better product overall. But let's just look at the good and the not-so-good that this final release of GDS brings.

The Not-So-Good:
- It still uses a darn browser window to display search results - what a terrible idea! I wasn't expecting this to change between the beta and the final, to be honest, but this still falls into the not-so-good (and possibly even the bad) category nonetheless. MSN DS uses a shell namespace extension (no, it's not IE, people) to display full search results. The great thing about this is that it allows you to use all the nice Explorer-like functionality such as context-menus, drag-and-drop etc which, in my opinion, is a must for an app that works with lots of files. Every other desktop search app does it...why not Google's?
- There's a deskbar now, similar to the one in MSN DS. Unfortunately, it's not quite as functional. It's just a text box that you type the query into, hit enter and get the results in the...yes, you guessed it, browser window. There's no instant find-as-you-type the way MSN DS does it...which is just really cool and very convenient.

The Good:
- The API! Remember Ballmer's words, MSN - "developers, developers, developers!" GDS now includes an API that developers can use to integrate its search functionality into their own apps. This is wonderful. MSN can definitely one-up them if they offer something similar soon, especially since MSN DS already has the advantage of having find-as-you-type. Give devs a way to integrate the deskbar into their own apps!
- Support for Thunderbird. MSN DS currently indexes mail only from Outlook and Outlook Express, and I don't see that changing anytime soon, unless a third-party IFilter comes up for it. I personally use Outlook 2003, so I'm more than happy with MSN DS, but GDS is a nice alternative for Thunderbird users, although it doesn't offer a handy "Show Conversation" feature like MSN DS does. (no context-menus, remember?).

So that's that. My verdict - MSN DS wins this round. Power-user features like aliases and application launching through the deskbar have also become indispensable to me (I don't have any shortcut icons lying around anymore). The MSN folks just need to get an API out, and they'll be all set.

If you use Thunderbird for email and you don't mind giving up features like aliases and app launching, I'd personally recommend Copernic Desktop Search rather than GDS. Copernic supports Thunderbird, has a deskbar with find-as-you-type, and brings up the context-menu when you right-click on search results.

Honestly, I was expecting GDS to offer something completely unbeatable with their final product. After all, they did it with their web search engine, didn't they?

You can make it index those current documents on your mapped drives with a little registry modification. An important thing to note, however, is that once the mapped drive is indexed, the index is only updated with respect to any files you create or open. So if you index, for example, a big shared drive and someone else creates a new document, that document will not show up in your index unless you also open it.

I find this funny, most of you guys are say "oh I'll pass" "I don't like the idea of this" but all the Mac folks just can't wait for a similar thing from Apple in their newest release of Mac OS X Tiger (10.4)

What amazes me is people actually think Google (or Microsoft) are cataloguing peoples hard drives and them keeping the results. Of course it index's the HD and stores it, that's the whole point! but it does it only on your machine.

I use MDS, mostly to search email (and i have a lot of pictures) since i have about 5 years worth and every now and then i need to find an old email and Outlook search is rubbish (very slow and often unsuccessful). As a test I turned of auto update and blocked all MDS apps from accessing the net and its never even tried to

...

Now if you don't need something like this, it's all well and good. But if it's paranoia that's preventing you from using indexed search applications which could otherwise have made your tasks simpler and faster, you're just missing out. Your loss.