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MSN Desktop Search becomes Windows Desktop Search

From: Office watch

The latest desktop search tool from Microsoft drops the MSN moniker in part and becomes just Windows Desktop Search.

Microsoft has finally realized that there was nothing to be made out of desktop search tools with Google providing a better product for free. So the latest desktop search tool from Microsoft drops the MSN moniker in part and becomes just Windows Desktop Search.

Or fully known as MSN Search Bar with Windows Desktop Search (WDS) – though you can’t have one without the other so the difference seems to be more in the mind of the marketing dept than anything substantive.

WDS is available for free from desktop.msn.com with the choice of three toolbars. There’s an Outlook search add-in plus toolbars for Windows and Internet Explorer (the last two seem to be the same).

As usual there’s more enthusiasm than accuracy in the Microsoft promotion – they are still saying that the WDS can “find anything on your computer,” which is not correct at all. While they have greatly expanded the types of files that can be searched – it is still not everything, with some notable exceptions from Microsoft’s own stable of products.

The highlight words feature can be switched on to make obvious the words that appear in web pages. But curiously it is only for web searches – the same feature doesn’t seem available for desktop searches – go figure.

 

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