Filed under: Business, Windows, E-mail, Office, Productivity, Microsoft, How-Tos
Outlook 2007 Tip: Remove Windows Desktop Search prompts
by Jason Clarke Jan 23rd 2007 at 4:00PM
Outlook 2007 is a pretty great upgrade to Outlook in terms of user interface, but is not without problems. Chris Pirillo describes a few here, and personally I'm still underwhelmed with Outlook's performance on my machine. Even when I turn off all of my Outlook add-ins (and I run a few of them), my dual-core machine still hesitates noticeably when Outlook is sending or receiving messages. In fact, it hesitates to the point that the mouse will stop moving for a moment or two. Very frustrating. Unfortunately that's a problem that has been plaguing Outlook for years, and I don't yet have a fix for it. I do have a fix for another Outlook 2007 annoyance, however.
Microsoft seems to think that if you're using Outlook 2007 on Windows XP, you should also be using Windows Desktop Search to index your email and files. That's fine, but I've done some pretty extensive testing and in my opinion Windows Desktop Search is not the best desktop search option out there. In fact, I wouldn't put it in the top three. If, like me, you have a different desktop or email search preference (like Google Desktop, Copernic Desktop Search, Yahoo! Desktop, or my personal preference Nelson Email Organizer which is not desktop search, but the best email search tool I've found) you get stuck looking at a yellow bar in Outlook 2007 that sits at the top of every message window, prompting you to download Windows Desktop Search.
Luckily, the fix is easy, and just requires a quick delve into Outlook's options. On Outlook's menu simply navigate to Tools, Options, Other tab, Advanced Options under General and uncheck "Show prompts to download Windows Desktop Search". That's it!
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Mark Van Horn said 5:38PM on 1-23-2007
Thank you for your tip. It was annoying me to have that instant search always asking to be installed.
I have been using MS Desktop Search 2.3 which I think works very well with the office applications. But 2007 wants me to download 3.0 which would spectacularly crash my office apps at very inopportune times. It also only would want to "instant search" the folder that I was in, where as the task bar search would search everything and allow me to sort by location. Instant search felt tacked on to me.
Best Outlook 2007 feature for me has to be the task to-do bar and daily tasks at the bottom of my calender. I can get rid of my Franklin Covey Plan Plus software.
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Chad McNees said 8:18PM on 1-23-2007
Don't miss this major issue with Outlook 2007 when proclaiming it a "pretty great upgrade in terms of UI":
http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2007/01/10/microsoft-breaks-html-email-rendering-in-outlook/
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kidcodea said 8:32PM on 1-23-2007
the fix is called thunderbird.
haven't returned to outlook for 2 years now...
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hhh said 2:27AM on 2-04-2007
Outlook??!??!%$#!@@!%&%$# THUNDERBIRD!!!!!!!!!!!!
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christopher said 9:28AM on 1-25-2007
If you want to keep Outlook 2007 or any other program from locking up your machine, *and* you have a dual-core machine, you can set the processor affinity to one CPU for the application in question. With only one CPU to burn up, the other core will still be free to handle your mouse input, etc.
Microsoft also has an application compatibility toolkit to set the affinity for an app "permanently" by adding the app profile to a startup routine, run on boot, that intercepts calls to launch the app and configures it with your settings.
-C
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D Patra said 1:27PM on 3-22-2007
The Outlook 2007/Desktop Search combination is an unmitigated disaster. I have been using Outlook for over 15 years and for the first time it crashed on me so hard, it will take weeks to recover. At first, the Desktop Search starting crashing while accessing Outlook (Outlook 2007 trial, new IBM Thinkpad with dual core, Win XP latest version). This morning I removed Desktop Search and when I started Outlook 2007, it exploded all around me, finally prompting me to run scanpst.exe. Which I did, and to my absolute horror, calenday entries were now emails, many folders had disappeared and the 500Mb odd Outlook file is now complete jelly. The last backup is over 2 months old, so it is dark days ahead.
Well done Microsoft! Keep milking your customer base with half-baked products.
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Luke Flegg said 6:21AM on 4-06-2007
I'm glad we've established that WDSearch is not for everyone (to say the least) in which case, am I right in believing Outlook has removed ALL of its Search funtionality?? I seem to only be able to search words, all the criteria (date, sender, attachment, etc) are all greyed out - i presume because i'm not stupid enough to install WDS..? Ahh this is really annoying! any ideas would be incredibly appreciated.
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