I’m a huge fan of Windows Desktop Search. It’s been as life changing for me at work as a Tivo was at home when we first got one years ago. Not too long ago I ran into the various announcements for the Enterprise version of Desktop Search and saw that there was some new “tighter” Outlook integration features. So I installed it and am even happier with everything. All of my archive PSTs seem to be available in every search whereas I remember having some cases with the earlier versions of it where an email I was searching for wouldn’t show up in the results even though I knew it existed. It’s so much more powerful when you can trust the results are completely accurate. The other seemingly minor change but huge for me has been how the results pane shows up within Outlook now–this makes it so much easier to work with.

That said, I’m actually sort of confused as to how I installed it and which piece did what. I’ve done it on three different machines now so I’ve made it happen consistently but it is somewhat confusing as to what gives you what. My steps were as follows: uninstall MSN Desktop Search, install Windows Desktop Search for the Enterprise, and then install MSN Toolbar. I think it’s actually the last item on the list that actually made the Outlook integration feature work but not 100% sure.

Highly recommended though. If you haven’t tried it in a while, you should give it another shot and see if whatever made you give up on it originally still applies.