I have been running this for a few weeks now and the updated search engine does not "hammer" your hard drive like the earlier versions.
This will update the built in search engine/index engine inside Vista (
x86 /
x64). I highly recommend this update - please give it a test drive. Please note that the Vista updates will also work for Server 2008.
There are preview versions available for Windows
XP and
2003/Home Server that will eventually replace Windows Desktop Search 3.01.
You can read about the Windows Desktop Search 4.0 Preview release
here.
The official description of this new version from Microsoft:
Windows Search 4.0 lets you perform an instant search of your computer. Windows Search 4.0 helps you find and preview documents, e-mail messages, music files, photos, and other items on the computer.
The search engine in Windows Search 4.0 is a Microsoft Windows service that is also used by programs such as Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 and Microsoft Office OneNote 2007. You can use this search engine to index a program's content and to obtain instant results when you search in a particular program.
Windows Search 4.0 includes the following improvements:
1. Support for the Encrypting File System (EFS)
2. Reduced affect on Microsoft Exchange when you index e-mail in online mode, and there is no local cache (.ost)
3. Support for indexing online delegate mailboxes
4. Support for client-to-client remote query to shared indexed locations
5. Improved indexing performance (I have noticed quite a difference)
5. Faster previewer updates for Windows XP
6. Per-user Group Policy settings
7. Windows software updates for Watson errors
8. Enterprise Group Policy settings
