Microsoft built a lot of new functionality into Windows Vista's search feature, but what about those of us that are still sticking with our trusty old XP installs? Our default search is a decrepit old fart of a program, and one that still resembles the version from a decade ago.

Well, it's time for a change. Two great freeware programs do the job much better, so why keep dealing with a slow, lackluster search?

Portable application buffs should check out Locate32. When you launch the app for the first time, you'll need to tell it to build a database file. After that, it'll take a seat in your system tray and run updates on your specified schedule. You can further tweak by specifying a maximum CPU usage before starting the job to ensure indexing doesn't bog down your system during busy periods.

Indexing took just a minute and a half on my notebook's 120GB hard drive, and subsequent searches displayed results in a flash. Searches you want to execute frequently can be added to the presets button.

Google has released a version of Google Desktop for Linux. While the PC version of this software includes a gadget engine, Google Desktop for Linux, like the relatively new Google Desktop for Mac is pretty much just a desktop search engine.

Google Desktop will index OpenOffice.org files, HTML, PDF, PS, MAN, and INFO documents among others. It'll also track your web history if you use Firefox, and emails from Thunderbird and Gmail.

Google had previously released Google Earth and Picasa for Linux.

This isn't the first desktop search product for Linux. But the ability to integrate with Firefox and Gmail is nice. And while we don't expect anyone to switch from PC to Linux solely because Google Desktop is now available, it's always good news for those who have made the switch when a Windows application is ported to Linux.

[via Google Desktop Blog]

Earlier this week Microsoft promised to make some changes to the desktop search feature in Windows Vista. The move came in response to a complaint filed by Google that alleged Vista's desktop search was anti-competitive and caused computers to run slowly if Google Desktop and Vista were both constantly indexing files.

If you weren't satisfied with Microsoft's response, you're not alone. Google's top lawyer David Drummond released a statement saying that Microsoft's promises " are a step in the right direction, but they should be improved further to give consumers greater access to alternate desktop search providers."

Basically, while Google wants users to be able to disable Vista's desktop search altogether, Microsoft said there's not problem running two desktop search programs at the same time. Microsoft's position is that indexing takes place in the background, and all third party applications, including Google Desktop take precedence.

The New York Times is reporting that Microsoft has agreed to make some changes to the desktop search feature included in Windows Vista.

Google had filed a complaint against Microsoft, claiming that Windows Vista's search feature was designed so that it wouldn't play nice with Google Desktop search. In a nutshell, Google was making a familiar complaint about Microsoft software: that it was anti-competitive.

At issue is the fact that users who run Google Desktop on Windows Vista might notice their computer behave slowly. This is because the two desktop search programs are both frequently scanning your computer for new and changed files to store in an index.

At this point, it's not clear exactly what changes Microsoft has agreed to make, but there will be changes. Oh yes, there will. We think.

Update: Winxperts reports that some of the changes will include:

• Microsoft will create an option for users and PC makers to choose a default desktop search program.
• The default desktop search program will be accessible form the Vist start menu and windows explorer boxes.
• Microsoft will inform computer makers that its desktop search will run in the background, giving preference to all third party applications, including third party desktop search programs.
• Microsoft will release information enabling other desktop search companies to optimize their programs to run on Windows Vista without degrading performance.
  

X1 has long been considered the Rolls-Royce of desktop search applications, but unfortunately was often left out of desktop search roundups due to the fact that it was a commercial product (and an expensive one at that), competing against a number of very good free offerings. Well it turns out that X1 realized they were losing out to all of the free offerings, and finally decided to release their product for free as well.

You could actually get X1's technology for free for awhile now, under the guise of Yahoo's desktop search product. Yahoo's version is very unfortunately branded purple everywhere, and personally I had some system performance and stability issues while running it, which is not uncommon amongst desktop search indexing software. Unfortunately, the forum Yahoo provided for users to discuss issues and help one another was terribly inadequate - it lacked some basic features like message threading. I gave up on Yahoo's version at least 6 months ago.

I installed X1's latest version 3 days ago, and I have to say I'm impressed by both the speed at which it indexed my system, and how little impact it appears to have on my system's performance. I can't really comment on system stability yet, since those issues often don't show up immediately, but so far, so good.

X1 really shines when you actually have to use the interface to search for something. It opens quickly and is very responsive, searches as you type without slowing you down, and offers a number of graphical ways to adjust your query. While you can learn the syntax to search based on specific fields, for example all messages "to:jason", there's really no need since all of the most common fields are provided, and you can simply type your search term into a dedicated search box for the field you want to use. Sorting your results is a simple matter of clicking on the column heading that you would like to sort by. Compare this with the rudimentary results listing you get from Google Desktop. It certainly makes finding what you're looking for much faster, with less time spent trying to tweak your search query just so.

X1 also has a commercial version that will allow you to index folders on your network. I haven't had a chance to test this functionality, but I would like to in the near future.

Windows Desktop Search has unfortunately had a bit of a spotty record as of late. Those of you early adopters that have been running the Office 2007 beta have been subjected to the previous version which had the UI stripped out of it. This wasn't a problem for searching Outlook, but otherwise it was pretty neutered. Worse, the indexer ate up a ridiculous amount of resources, and performance was pretty spotty.

Finally Windows Desktop Search 3.0 Beta 2 has been released, and the GUI is back, along with improved performance and more modest resource usage. The indexer is happily grinding away on my workstation, and although it tries to stay out of your way by only indexing aggressively when you're not actively using your computer, you can set it to go ahead and index anyway, which I've done. So far I'm pleasantly surprised that doing this hasn't caused any sort of noticeable lag - of course it remains to be seen how it performs once the index is up to a more realistic size.

This is a must download for any of you that are currently limping along with Office 2007 and the previous hobbled version of Windows Desktop Search. For the rest of you that are actually using WDS rather than one of the better free alternatives like Google Desktop, Copernic Desktop Search, Yahoo! Desktop Search (there's no shortage in this category of software), you'll probably want to have a look at this version as well.