It’s taken ages to get to the point where you can instantly search for a file or folder on your hard drive. You would have thought that it would be a given cert in any modern operating system, but it has taken Vista to get to the stage where we can find our files, quickly. There have been alternatives from third-party developers, such as the fantastic Copernic Desktop Search, but quite frankly who wants to have to install additional software to perform a basic search on our PC?

Vista now includes instant desktop search from within the operating system. Mac OS X does too. Once you’ve got used to finding files quickly, going back to the old search tool within Windows XP is like watching paint dry. Search through a large hard drive and you’ll wait a fair while before you find the data you require.

Luckily for Windows XP SP2 users, Microsoft have released a version of the Vista search tool called ‘Windows Desktop Search’. Although it’s a tool that resides on top of your operating system – much like Copernic Desktop Search – some users may feel happier installing a search tool from the company that produced their OS.

Windows Desktop Search not only enables you to find files, quickly, you can also search through Office 2007 files, including emails through Outlook 2007. One thing it doesn’t do, however, is search through your private and personal data collected through your web browser. It won’t show browsing history information or other similar data.

This new Windows Search 4 is a preview version and enables you to search for files across computers on your network.