[Sigia-l] RE: Google desktop search now available

[Elizabeth Fuller]

Karl Fast wrote:
> To enable the indexing services in XP:
>  - Start > Search > Files and folders...
>  - click "Change preferences" in the menubar on the left.
>  - click "With Indexing Service (for faster local searches)".
>    Then you can enable it with the defaults or custom config.

Ah, OK, that's different.

But I tried this, and then did searches for the same thing (the name of 
a Word document stored on my hard drive) in both WinXP's search with 
indexing services turned on and in Google Desktop.  Google returned its 
results in less than 2 seconds.  WinXP's search ground on for several 
*minutes,* and constipated my computer for the entire time it was running.

To me, there's no contest.  And the WinXP search doesn't appear to 
search the contents of files the search term, just the file names.  It 
also doesn't search e-mail messages or chat transcripts.

The one thing that WinXP's indexed search does do that Google's doesn't 
is partial word searches.  For example, if you have a file named 
mybighonkingfile.doc and search just for "honking," the file won't show 
up in a Google Desktop search (unless the document contains the word 
"honking" somewhere in the content), but it will probably be found by 
WinXP's search. (That follows the pattern of regular Google, which also 
goes by the full keyword and doesn't provide results for partial word 
searches - i.e. if you do a Web search for "honking" on Google, you 
wouldn't get any results that contain only "mybighonkingfile" and not 
the separate term "honking.")

Liz