Friday, February 03, 2006

Why not to use MSN Desktop Search

The latest version of MSN Desktop Search that came out a couple weeks ago is not too bad at first, but as time goes by problems start surfacing:

Problem Number 1:
The new tabs which are supposed to be like Internet Explorer 7 looks nice, but it tricks Internet Explorer 6. The entire window ends up being refreshed on occasions, and the simulation is not always going great (notably with the favourites icon). After half an hour to maximum two hours, the browser just freezes totally. Disabling this feature gets rid of that problem. Internet Explorer 6 was never designed to suddenly have such a burden.

Problem Number 2:
The integration as a search toolbar into Outlook went quite well at first, but now it came to the point where Outlook died. The system tray icon of Outlook indicated, that there was a problem. Starting Outlook since it was still running didn't work. The moment, that the MSN Desktop Search icon in the system tray was closed, Outlook popped up as it was supposed to.

Problem Number 3:
After the above problems, I decided to uninstall MSN Desktop Search, since I am using the Google Desktop Search still with no hassles. After the uninstall, I was forced to reboot. I don't think that would be needed, even with the service that was installed there. The service can be removed without a reboot, but the entry would remain, until the reboot has been done. Forcing somebody to reboot is a bad thing to do.

Conclusion:
Stick to Google Desktop Search, MSN Desktop Search is on the search part close, but not good enough. All other Desktop Search tools that I have tried, have fared a lot worse.

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