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It was hard to pick the #1 best, must-have utility, since all on this list are so good. But when we thought about which one has the most impact on our daily (or hourly) experience with Windows, Copernic Desktop Search came out on top.

Copernic has a lot of competition: X1, Google Desktop, and Windows Desktop Search. We’ll briefly discuss each of the competitors and why they weren’t selected:

X1 – There had been a shootout between Copernic Desktop Search (”CDS”) and X1. In fact, we prefer X1’s interface over Copernic’s. But two things lead to its dismissal:

1. Stability – We’ve had off and on problems with stability of the program. Crashes. Slowness. Not acceptable when the point is to find things fast!
2. X1 standalone does NOT allow you to search mapped network drives. Big problem. We’ve got lots of stuff on our server, and we need to be able to index that material from our desks. You would have to buy their enterprise solution, which includes a server-side component, to get this functionality

Google Desktop Search – Well, what works great on the Internet isn’t necessarily the best solution for the desktop. We find that it’s a bit of a memory hog. But the biggest problem is that it produces simple Google results – a hyperlinked list based on keywords you’ve entered. There’s no ability to refine you search to pinpoint what you’re looking for. You simply need to slog through the list of results, or try to come up with better keywords. Again, we love Google for its simplicity in web searches. But that doesn’t play the best on the desktop

Windows Desktop Search – Unfortunately it suffers the same issues as Google Desktop Search. It is very limited in its ability to refine searches. Also, as with most Microsoft products, Windows Desktop Search tends to inject itself into many different aspects of the OS, and into Outlook. Generally, we prefer an indexer that is looking from the outside in. It’s faster.

So, with those three contenders dismissed, we’re back to Copernic.

Copernic Installation

Go to www.copernic.com, and click on the Free Download button at the top. Next screen you’ll need to click Free Download again. Select Copernic Desktop Search 2.1, their just-released upgrade, which works well with Vista and Office 2007. Download it to your desktop, and then double-click to run it. Then:

• Accept the License Terms and click Next
• Select the installation folder and click Next.
• Select the type of configuration – choose Typical
• Once it’s done, click Finish, and the interface will open up:

(click to Enlarge)

Default Settings

By default, Copernic will:

1. Index any Outlook or Outlook Express email boxes you have on your machine
2. Index your Desktop, you’re My Documents, My Music, My Pictures, and My Videos folders, and will index everything on the C: drive except your Program Files folder and the main Windows folder.
3. Index your Outlook and your Outlook Express contacts
4. Index browser Favorites and History for your default browser
5. Suspend indexing while your computer is in use (keyboard or mouse activity)
6. Index new and modified files, and received and sent Outlook emails “on the fly”

There are a lot of changes you can make to the default settings. Click on Tools > Options to see them all. Read the documentation to tweak the settings to your liking. The one thing we will mention is, this is where you can add your mapped network drives for inclusion in indexing.

To see a list of all the types of files it indexes:

Tools > Options > choose Advanced on the left side. On the right side at the top, you see a list of all the file types it indexes. Need a special file type indexed that’s not on the list? Click the Add button.

Initial Indexing

The initial indexing will take an hour or more. We suggest you set it up at night and let it run overnight. In the morning, you’ll come back to a fully populated CDS.

Conducting a Search

You start your search much like you do in any search engine: by entering keywords, but then you can refine your search in multiple ways. The best way to explain is by example.

[Hint: Understanding the syntax of a keyword search will still help you tremendously. For example, if you wanted to find a document that contained either the word “meeting” or the word “appointment, you would type: “meeting OR appointment”

See the whole page of syntax for the Copernic keyword field on this page:

http://help.copernic.com/topic/desktopsearch21en/CDS2.htm#]

EXAMPLE #1: I’m looking for a document that I wrote this week. It was written using Word, and it contained the phrase “IP Address”

Here’s how I think about searching for this:

1. I first enter the phrase “IP Address” iin the Search box. I get 1,425 hits. This might be where Google or Windows Search stops. But we can refine our query with the additional information we have:
2. At the top of the search window, I pick the File Category, since I know I’m searching for a file – 866 hits
3. On the left side, I enter the file type Word Document, since I know I wrote it in Word – 118 hits
4. On the left side, I enter the Date This Week, since I know I edited it this week – 6 matches

(click to Enlarge)

And there, I have my short list! Now I can preview the document, double-click it to open it and work on it, open the folder it’s contained in, and more.

EXAMPLE 2: I want to look up contact information for Joe Anthony. Instead of opening Outlook, or Outlook Express, or any other program that might contain contact information for Joe Anthony, I just use Copernic:

1. Select the Contacts category
2. Enter “Joe Anthony” in the search field

I see this (click to Enlarge)

And I can Send Joe a Message right from here – Copernic calls my default E-mail client for me.

Summary

I don’t go a day without using Copernic to “find stuff.” Let’s pray for the day when we can banish hierarchical folders as our main way to organize and find information, in favor of flexible, comprehensive, easy searches that let us find what we need, wherever it may be!

Enjoy!

Randy Garland, 123 Technology