Microsoft Releases Windows Desktop Search for the Enterprise
Posted by amitpagarwal on 16 November 2005 - 23:22 · 24 comments & 5033 views
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(4 replies)
#1 Posted by ksalter on 17 Nov 2005 - 00:48
- Great...has anyone figured out why Desktop search crashses Outlook 2003? I wouldn't want to deploy this across my network knowing that the sucker crashes Outlook very consistently.
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#1.1 Posted by icecaveman on 17 Nov 2005 - 03:10
- Might want to update office? Have you installed Office 11 SP2?
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#1.2 Posted by threedaysdwn on 17 Nov 2005 - 05:16
- What kind of crash are you seeing in Outlook? And what leads you to believe it's caused by WDS? Any details you can provide would be helpful. Did you send an error report?
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#1.3 Posted by ksalter on 20 Nov 2005 - 15:30
- Yes I have sent numerous error reports. Outlook runs perfectly (has for months) until I have Windows Desktop running. And ONLY when Windows Desktop Search is running (even if paused), when I open Outlook and after it checks email, it will crash almost 100% of the time. If I shut down completely Windows Desktop Search, Outlook runs fine. This is Outlook 2003 SP 2.
I really like Windows Desktop Search, and especially how it indexes email (Outlook), but I can't have the constant crashes. On my network I am running this locally on my machine. Until I can get some level of confidence it will not crash Outlook on everyone else's machines, I cannot use this. -
#1.4 Posted by jedimasterk on 21 Nov 2005 - 00:28
- Is it me or does this version seem more responsive than the consumer version. So far I like it.
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#2 Posted by halloween_david on 17 Nov 2005 - 01:52
- I was hoping they'd let you have it on the start menu like I've seen it in screenshots of Windows Vista. IMO it doesn't really look good on the taskbar. Works great though I'm loving it.
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(1 reply)
#3 Posted by halloween_david on 17 Nov 2005 - 01:55
- Before anyone says anything. Yes I know clicking on Search in the Start menu brings up the same thing. What I'm talking about is the actual bar on the taskbar being in the Start menu
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#3.1 Posted by threedaysdwn on 17 Nov 2005 - 05:18
- Need to save some features for Vista
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(4 replies)
#4 Posted by denzilla on 17 Nov 2005 - 04:34
- Can't really find a use for it. I already know where my stuff is....
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#4.1 Posted by matt74441 on 17 Nov 2005 - 06:44
- Unlike you and me, everyone else that uses Windows seems to like dropping all of their files on the Desktop, My Documents and the root of the C Drive. Not to mention a lot of P2P programs drop their Shared Folders in the Program Files directory. Why I like Linux, everything goes in /home
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#4.2 Posted by threedaysdwn on 17 Nov 2005 - 07:11
- I keep all of my stuff organized... The only stuff on the desktop is something I'm actively working with. All my documents go in "My Documents" and I have a videos and music directory with everything organized into categories then artists then album.
But I'm completely dependent on WDS these days. I use the deskbar to launch programs, to search the web, dictionary.com, wikipedia, and dozens of other sites. With the amount of e-mail I get at work (sometimes thousands a day), Outlook's search functionality just simply doesn't cut it.
And when I'm at home, I can get to programs and files much faster by searching than browsing. Even with my Music and Videos folders on the taskbar as toolbars, I can get to a song, album, or playlist much faster by just typing a couple characters into the deskbar.
I want to play the album "crash"? I type "cra" into the deskbar, right-click on the "Crash" folder, and click "Play."
Better yet, I can search our source tree instantly. Don't remember where a certain function is? I could use findstr /s - but it takes forever over a 10+ GB source tree. It's much faster to type ParseDisplayName() into desktop search and find what I'm looking for instantly.
And there's a lot more potential in desktop search that's so far untapped.
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#4.3 Posted by karmakillernz on 17 Nov 2005 - 07:17
- Not sure about you, but where I work we have around 150,000 emails plus countless files across our network. Despite the fact that they're well organised, the sheer number means that we need a good search tool. WDS - especially the Enterprise edition - suits us perfectly.
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(1 reply)
#5 Posted by LTD on 17 Nov 2005 - 06:47
- So is this better than the MSN Desktop Search deskbar? It seems like the same thing, but more functional (enterprise functionality, I supose.)
I had to uninstall my MSN search deskbar in order to install this.
Any ideas? Which one should I have? -
#5.1 Posted by threedaysdwn on 17 Nov 2005 - 07:14
- Windows Desktop Search includes the "Windows Deskbar" - which is just the latest version of what used to be labeled the MSN Search Deskbar.
This release has seperate installers for the MSN Toolbar and for Windows Desktop Search. It cannot upgrade the previous "Toolbar Suite" package at this time. This release is intended for corporate customers. When a consumer release happens, it should upgrade the prevoius version.
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(2 replies)
#6 Posted by Galley on 17 Nov 2005 - 12:56
- I tried that MSN Desktop search, because PC World said it was better than Copernic. God, what buggy softwre! We desperately need desktop searching software at work. We got zillions of files scattered throughout a bazillion folders.
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#6.1 Posted by LTD on 17 Nov 2005 - 14:12
- Buggy??
It's not buggy at all - not for me at least. I installed MSN Desktop Search months ago and have been using it up until now. Worked beautifully. And this Windows desktop Search version works just as well.
Probably something else going on at your end . . . . no? -
#6.2 Posted by threedaysdwn on 17 Nov 2005 - 18:49
- Are you saying Windows Desktop Search is buggy or Copernic?
Are you referring to the latest version (consumer or enterprise) or the beta that shipped last year (and was branded MSN Desktop Search).
Could you give an example of what kind of bug you're seeing?
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(1 reply)
#7 Posted by Pride on 17 Nov 2005 - 13:52
- Anyone else having difficulty installing this? It seems to install fine, rebooted... but I dont get the search bar showing up in the taskbar upon reboot...
Edit: Turns out the service wont start because it cant find the specified file (though it doesnt specify which file)
Last edited by 3989 on 17 Nov 2005 - 13:57 -
#7.1 Posted by threedaysdwn on 17 Nov 2005 - 18:50
- Umm, you shouldn't need to reboot after an install.
Did you install WDS or the MSN Toolbar? Or both?
Did you have a previous version of the MSN Toolbar installed?
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(1 reply)
#8 Posted by Gibwar on 17 Nov 2005 - 18:20
- Still no x64 support... this is sad.
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#8.1 Posted by threedaysdwn on 17 Nov 2005 - 18:54
- This is a feature that's very important to me as well. Unfortunately it's not as simple as just flipping a switch and building a 64-bit version. And it wouldn't make sense to hold back 32-bit releases (since that's what 99.9% of our customers are using) until 64-bit support is ready.
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#9 Posted by filter04 on 18 Nov 2005 - 08:12
- wow, i agree that this is really buggy. for one, when WDS is indexing my page file just keeps increasing, i left it indexing for about an hour yesterday and my page file was at 1.2gb. also, i did a search while it was indexing to see if it was any good, and after i exited the wds window firefox randomly popped up with 'c:' and a bunch of slashes and what i had just searched in the address bar. weird.
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#10 Posted by Ghost96 on 20 Nov 2005 - 18:33
- Working pretty good for me. I just installed it now and started doing some searching. Pretty nice results, fast and easily accessible and categorized. I'll admit that I find it pretty handy since I have plenty of nested folders that I'm normally drilling into to find things.
This supports a powerful and intuitive search experience that can be integrated with familiar environments such as Microsoft Office, SharePoint Portal Server and other third-party enterprise products. Enterprise customers have the option to deploy the MSN Search Toolbar, which provides a new beta feature that gives people the ability to see integrated Windows Desktop Search results within Microsoft Office Outlook.
Changelog for v4: