I decided to try out the new desktop search tool from MSN when it was released two days ago.

This tool is billed as the MSN Toolbar Suite, that consists of a search toolbar for IE, one for Outlook and a tool that sits in your taskbar.

I'm having problems with it so far, but from what I've seen of it in action, it seems very useful.

After you install, it begins its indexing cycle - the length of time this takes depends wholly on your system, but it was fairly quick to index my files even though I had my usual programs open (Firefox, IE, Y! Messenger).
You're probably best giving the program some time to index without interruptions, it will stop indexing if the computers resources are being used up too much by other apps, though you have an option to force the indexing if you wish.

The indexing status is slightly confusing, it gives you how many files that have been indexed so far, but also how many are left - it seems to detect the total amount of files it has to index in increments, so you can't see an overall total of how many files are left to index.

Once that's done, the program monitors your files for new additions, emails etc to add to the index as it detects them.

You can specify the locations you want indexed, but not the different file types - my own test of Copernic was whether it could index the text within my .hjt files from Treepad - MSN finds the file if what you searched for is in the file name, but doesn't index the contents at all.
This is an obscure file type to index, but the main attraction of Copernic for me was I could pick and choose myself what was important for me to be able to find.

Another crucial feature of Copernic that I like is the ability to preview any file from within it; I don't have Adobe Acrobat or Power Point installed, but have a lot of .pdf and .ppt files, I can easily view these files in Copernic without having to download any other apps.
MSN has no preview ability like this, except for the snippets of text you get in the results when you search.

For the types of files it does index though, it is very useful - all your program shortcuts are indexed, images are represented by thumbnails in the results and in music files, info in id tags is included.

The IE toolbar has also been updated - it looks more stylish, with a blue gel button for different parts of MSN, the highlight viewer (this was my main reason for using the MSN toolbar previously) has been polished up and given more prominence .
There is now a new MSN Spaces button as well, allowing you to Blog It straight from the toolbar, exactly like the Blogger option in the Google toolbar.

The taskbar tool has an excellent design in my opinion, just a text field and two small buttons that give you everything you need to use it, in a design that's pleasing to the eye.

This simple-looking tool is by far the most useful in the suite, enabling you to search your disks and the web without the aid of a browser, and it's also done in a search-as-you-type interface that is very convenient.

But the feature I thought was most interesting is the ability to run commands from the tool, and create your own shortcuts, either to webpages or to programs.

If you watch the demo video posted at the same time it was released, you can see the usefulness of this - the developer has an absolutely blank desktop, no files and no shortcuts (unlike my own which can't hold all the stuff that has built up).

He's able to access all his programs straight from the taskbar by entering commands (just put an equals sign before the program to run, eg =notepad) or through his custom made shortcuts (see the image for how to create these), and if he hasn't created one for the program he's looking for, the search should be instant to find whatever he's looking for.

This gives the MSN search an enormous advantage over the other apps, because it makes it much more than a search tool, replacing one of the more time-consuming tasks people have gotten used to on their PC's - eg having to go Start>All Programs>Folder of what you're looking for>Program to startup your programs.

My guess is that this won't take off very quickly, because it takes a change of behaviour that every Windows user has become used to, but its a very cool innovation.

You can see this integration with Windows Explorer in the results page also - the right-click menu on the individual results gives you the options you would get if you right-clicked that file within Explorer.
So for instance right clicking an mp3 in the results will give you options to play the file in your media player, an image will give you the option to edit with your graphics editor etc, all depending on your own set of installed programs.

The results display also uses a top idea from Google Desktop - integrating the desktop into the regular search.
If you go to http://beta.search.msn.com/, you will see a tab for your Desktop, clicking through to this shows you a set of options for limiting your search to certain types of files, such as Documents, Email, Music etc
Clicking the More dropdown breaks those down even further.

This was a very cool idea from Google, but they do it in a more secure (it seems to me) way than MSN.

The results page of MSN Desktop is a modified Windows Explorer window, which allows you the extra context menu options I mentioned, but if you decide you want to switch to a web search from your results page, as far as I can tell it's Windows Explorer connecting to the Internet and not IE.

I am not expert on the matter of Windows security, but I do not like the idea of a tool used for accessing the files I have stored on my computer being necessary to do a web search.
I've always had Windows Explorer blocked in my firewall from connecting to the Internet, I can't see a reason for that to connect at all. That's a small gripe I have about it, but it still works perfectly well for me as a hard drive search if I block its net access.

I haven't been able to use the email search yet, I have Outlook Express installed, but when installing the Suite, I'm told I must have Outlook 2003 installed, contrary to the specs posted on the download page.

There seems to be a problem with the auto-start or starting the app by typing in the taskbar tool for me, it takes over 5 minutes to load , but is instant if I manually start it up from the Quick Launch or program menu.

I thought this might have been because I had Copernic installed, but after uninstalling that MSN is still very slow.
It may also just be my system, but I don't think so, 1.6ghz 512mb ram w/ 4gb of hard drive space is well within the specs.

These problems I have with the email and startup times are probably bugs, that can be forgiven in a new beta tool.

Overall this is an impressive tool from Microsoft, my favourite feature being the commands you can specify yourself and the whole range of options you get from the right-click menu in the results.

For more info:
· Download the MSN Toolbar Suite
· Introducing MSN Toolbar Suite - Silicon Valley team (and demo!)
· MSN Toolbar Suite Beta First Impressions
· MSN Desktop Search vs Google Desktop Search
· More MSN Toolbar Suite reactions from the blogosphere