This time, another stealth update that “pimps” your computer with Windows Desktop Search. It happens on all MS update configurations, basically the user isn’t asked for confirmation. The utility uses the (in)famous indexing feature and goes through almost all files on your HDD for faster searches in the future. Of course, lots of people started to throw rocks at MS, marking 2 big concerns: 1 - the procedure is not moral, users should have full control of their PC behavior and files shouldn’t get on their HDDs without confirmation and 2 - computers cripple/slow down after the Windows Desktop Search is installed and running.

I totally agree with no. 1. This force-down-your-throat update procedure shouldn’t even been considered by MS. And given the fact that there are already tons of accusations regarding the policies of the software giant, caution is advised. I don’t know if this “move” is defined in their licence agreements as being accepted or not, but still, it sucks. Luckily I only use manual updates and…I already have Windows Desktop Search installed. This brings me to the second point - the computer slow downs.

Lots of PC users and network administrators complained about the indexing feature, that start immediately after install and makes the computers almost unusable. Leaving the productivity aspects aside (I agree it sucks to have 1000+ computers suddenly crippled by an un-requested update…), I like the MS tool. I’ve been using it for many months on both my desktop (XP) and my laptop (XP->Vista). What people don’t know is that right clicking on the search box in the taskbar shows a menu which has a magic option “Index only when computer is idle”. I used that in the beginning and after a day or two the utility indexed all files, without getting on my nerves. And only after that came the best part: every search for information I perform with Windows utilities is almost real time. Most useful when searching my 9000+ inbox in Outlook (yes, the utility also comes with Office 2007) - usually it took me from 20 seconds to 1 minute to perform a search and if I used wrong keywords, I had to wait again for a new search. Well, with everything indexed it takes about…3 seconds. quite a difference. Same with the computer files - very fast. So blame, but I like Windows Desktop Search and I strongly recommend it, but only if it’s YOUR CHOICE…and stop whining about the indexing slowing down the computer, it goes away in a fair amount of time.