Windows Desktop Search 3.0 is the technology which enables instant search on your computer.

It helps you to find, preview, and use your documents, e-mail, music, photos, and other items. The search engine in Windows Desktop Search 3.0 is a Windows service that is also used by applications such as Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 and OneNote 2007 to index application content and deliver instant results when searching within that application. Windows Desktop Search 3.0 provides fast indexing, improved performance, and improved file type support.

If you choose to install and use Windows Desktop Search, you can search for e-mail, documents and other files located on your computer. No information about the files on your computer will be sent to Microsoft as part of this process. Instead, Windows Desktop Search will index the content of your computer and store the index file on your computer. You can customize Windows Desktop Search to index only specified folders on your computer. Windows Desktop search will not store copies of e-mail or documents after they are deleted. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer.

Download: Windows Desktop Search 3.0 XP (32 Bit) | Server 2003 (32 Bit) | XP (64 Bit) | Server 2003 (64 Bit)
News source: In-House

How lazy have people become

Anyone gave it a try ? the earlier version was taking alot of memorey, anyone tried this version and find it any better ?

It seems to index faster, and it looks slicker (smaller, more convenient settings windows).

As for memory consumption: I'm rebuilding the search index (and still busy with that), so I have to wait and see how it performs under "normal" conditions (i.e. only the new items to index).

But the fact that it seems to index faster is already a good sign for me.

I'm going to give it a try, thanks.

Update for the interested ones: it sure indexes damn fast, BUT... despite the ifilter pdf plug-in, WDS 3.0 refuses to index pdf files!

It appears that this is a known issue, and adobe is working on a patch.

So if you really need that functionality, keep using the older desktop search versions!