Microsoft Instant Search – Ready for Prime Time!

I’d been a pretty happy user of Google Desktop search for quite a while. It was fast, easy to use and configure, and most of all – found what I was looking for. I tried MS Instant Search as well, and tried a few searches in both tools. More frequently than not, I couldn’t find an email with the MS search tool that popped up right away in the Google search. I’d often be looking at an email, type in a few keywords, and have Instant Search come up empty. After a while, I simply deleted the MS tool and moved on.

I’ve never been thrilled with the Google tool though, it doesn’t reindex items when they are moved in your mailbox, and doesn’t offer the level of control I’d prefer in configuration. Also, once the index gets large ( ~ 1 GB), it really slowed the performance of Office, and Outlook in particular.

Recently I decided to give MS another shot. The new version indexes faster, has better performance with Office, and most importantly, finds what I’m looking for.

Goodbye Google, hello Instant Search.