Find Your Local Files the Web Way in Windows
The new (and free) MSN Toolbar Suite beta offers fast file searches, and more; plus, the Copernic Desktop Search alternative.Scott Dunn
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Illustration by Headcase Design
The three programs that make up the MSN Toolbar Suite search your disks and provide the same results based on a single shared index of your e-mail and local files. MSN Desktop Search is a stand-alone search application; the MSN Toolbar appears in your folder and Explorer windows; and the Deskbar resides in your taskbar (at the bottom of the screen on most PCs). They search Outlook and Outlook Express e-mail and attachments--after you change the default setting, as discussed below--as well as Word, Excel, and other Office files. They also index PDFs, text files, and HTML files.
Index the folders you choose: The MSN Toolbar Suite searches only for items in its index; and by default, it indexes only your e-mail and the contents of your system's My Documents folder. To expand the search to include any or all of your system's hard drives, click the butterfly icon on the Deskbar to open the MSN Toolbar Suite Options menu, and then choose Options, Deskbar Options. To reach these options from Internet Explorer or from a folder window that displays the MSN Toolbar, click the down arrow that's to the right of the toolbar butterfly and choose Options, Toolbar Options (there's also a 'Change MSN Toolbar options' icon to the left of the Help icon on the far right of the toolbar). But the fastest way to get to this dialog box is to right-click the MSN Desktop Search icon in the system tray (to the left of the clock on the bottom right), and choose Indexing Options.
Once the dialog box is open, select Desktop Search in the tree diagram in the left pane (if necessary). Click Email and all hard disks under 'Search locations' on the right; or for speedier searches, set the program to index only selected folders: Click Specific locations, Browse, and check the drives and folders you want the tools to search (see FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1: Speed your local file searches by indexing only the folders that you pick.
). You can add Web addresses to the index by entering the appropriate URL in the field at the bottom of the dialog box and clicking Add. When you're done with your choices, click OK.
Type in the taskbar: If you don't see the Deskbar on your Windows taskbar, right-click the taskbar and choose Toolbars, MSN Deskbar. Or right-click the MSN Desktop Search icon in the system tray (to the left of the clock on the bottom right) and choose Show Deskbar. The first time you type in the Deskbar, you may see results for a Web search rather than for a search of your own files. If that's not what you want, click Desktop Items at the bottom of the pop-up window that appears when you click in the Deskbar text box (see FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2: To search your PC rather than the Web, click Desktop Items at the bottom of the Deskbar window.
). From now on, you'll be searching files on your local hard drive; but you can still do a Web search by pressing Shift-Enter instead of Enter after you type in your search term. Or click Web Items at the bottom of the window to change the default behavior back to Web searching.
If you keep your Windows taskbar on the left or right edge of your screen (as I do), the Deskbar may be too narrow to be of any use. Right-click the taskbar and make sure 'Lock Toolbars' is unchecked. Now grab the toolbar handle just above the MSN butterfly and drag it to your desktop. You can keep it there as a floating toolbar (see FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3: Drag the Deskbar to your desktop to make it float anywhere rather than remaining docked.
), or dock it at the top or bottom of your screen.
Search from a window: To search in a regular application window rather than from the taskbar, click or double-click the MSN Desktop Search icon on the desktop to open a search window. Unfortunately, you'll have to do without some features of the Deskbar, such as support for text shortcuts or aliases (see "Create and use aliases" farther down in this article). But at least you will get the same indexed search results. To search files on your computer, click the Desktop or Files link just above the search text box; the other links in this window are for doing Internet searches.
If you prefer to save desktop space, you can move the MSN Desktop Search icon to your Start menu (though there is probably already an icon for the program in your Start, Programs or Start, All Programs menu), or place it in the Quick Launch toolbar at the bottom of your screen--or anywhere else you can put a shortcut.
Search from any folder: To see the MSN Toolbar in Explorer or in a folder window, open such a window and choose View, Toolbars, MSN. Or right-click a toolbar and select MSN. Make sure the pop-up menu at the left end of the toolbar is set to Search Desktop when you want it to look for files on your system and to Search Web when you want to search the Internet.
Note: This is not the same as pressing F3 or Ctrl-E, or choosing View, Explorer Bar, Search to open Windows' built-in search tool. By default, the built-in applet lets you start the search just in the folder currently displayed. But the MSN Toolbar, like the other MSN search tools, always searches all the files that are in its index, regardless of their location.
Get results: Press Enter after beginning a search to see the results in the MSN Desktop Search Results window (basically, an Explorer window). This window displays graphics and other file types as thumbnails to give you a sense of the file content. For text-based files, it displays a snippet of text showing the keyword(s) (see FIGURE 4
FIGURE 4: Capsule summaries and thumbnails help you spot a document without having to open it.
). You can use the links or pop-up menu found beneath the search text box to filter the results by file type.
For quick searches, however, just start typing your search query in the Deskbar's text box on the taskbar; as you type, a window will pop up to show results sorted by file type (see FIGURE 5
FIGURE 5: Get quick results without opening a full window by typing directly in the MSN Deskbar.
). Click any file in the results window to open it in its associated application, or right-click a file to see the same context options you would find in Explorer. If you can't find the file there, either press Enter (if the cursor is still in the Deskbar) or click more at the bottom of the appropriate file type category to see the results in the usual MSN Desktop Search Results window.
Create and use aliases: In the November 2003 Windows Tips column, I explained how to launch applications and open files from the Windows Address bar. The Deskbar makes creating and deleting these shortcuts (which the Toolbar Suite calls "aliases") much easier. For example, if you expect to be working with the file "My Q2 Report.doc" for the next few weeks, you can open it quickly by typing a couple of characters (like q2) in any MSN toolbar. To create an alias, go to the Deskbar and type @ followed by the letters you want to use--a few characters that are easy to type and remember. Next, type a comma, followed immediately by the path to the document, folder, or Web address that you want to open; then press Enter. In our example, if you would like to set the alias "q2" for "My Q2 Report.doc" in the folder "C:\work\reports," type @q2,c:\work\reports\My Q2 Report.doc in the Deskbar and press Enter. (Your path and alias name will vary, of course.) The next time you need to open the file, type q2 (or the alias you devised) in the Deskbar and press Enter. When you no longer need the alias, just click in the Deskbar and type @ plus your custom alias name followed by Enter (in this case, @q2Enter) to delete it from the alias list.
You can add a command-line switch or parameter to the end of your alias by typing $w in the appropriate place. For instance, if you want to open Google and search for one or more keywords, type @goo, http://www.google.com/search?num=50&hl=en&lr=&q=$w and press Enter (your alias name may differ, of course). The next time you want to launch a browser and begin a Google search simultaneously, type goo (or whatever you named your alias) followed by a space and your keyword or words--say, goo DVD.
Application aliases require a comma and an equal sign. For example, type @c,=calc.exe Enter to launch Windows' Calculator app when you type c-Enter in the Deskbar. Finally, if you forget your aliases, type @ in the Deskbar to view a list of the aliases that you've created.
Windows Toolbox: Look Farther and Wider With Copernic Desktop Search
Copernic Desktop Search.
The MSN Toolbar Suite isn't the only indexed searching game in town. Copernic Desktop Search provides many of the same features, including the ability to search local hard disks, the Web, and Outlook and Outlook Express e-mail. Copernic also lets you conduct searches using either an application window or a taskbar toolbar, choose the folders you want to have indexed, set indexing to occur in the background, and use Boolean operators to refine your search, just as you can with the MSN toolbars. But Copernic Desktop Search also lets you filter search results based on such attributes as file size and date; and it gives you a preview pane for seeing a file's contents without launching a separate application to open it. In addition, you can store the index file in the folder of your choice; set the time and interval for index updating; and search Outlook contacts, as well as bookmarks and browser history in Internet Explorer, Firefox, Mozilla, and Netscape. And like the MSN Toolbar Suite, Copernic Desktop Search is absolutely free.