| Windows Desktop Search |
Article Index for Windows |
Website Links For Windows |
Information AboutWindows Desktop Search |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT WINDOWS DESKTOP SEARCH | |
| microsoft software | |
| desktop search engines | |
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BACKGROUND INFORMATION Upon installation, Windows Desktop Search builds an index of the files on a user's hard drive. The initial creation of this index can take up to several hours, but this is a one-time event. Once the index is complete, Windows Desktop Search returns search results almost instantaneously. Searches are performed not only on file names, but also on the contents and tags of a file. For example, searching your computer for The Beatles would return a list of the Beatles music on your computer, as well as any e-mails and documents that include the phrase "The Beatles" in their titles or contents. Desktop search programs are widely seen as a panacea for the extremely slow search capabilities that are built into the Windows XP operating system. Users of Windows XP can download Windows Desktop Search from Microsoft for free; most of the competing desktop search programs are also free. Microsoft's upcoming Windows Vista operating system will include built-in indexed search capabilities. In addition, Apple has included desktop search capabilities in recent versions of Mac OS X under the name of Spotlight . Like Windows XP, prior versions of Mac OS also suffered from slow searching. SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS
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