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!