http://www.windowsmarketplace.com/track/TrackItemClick.aspx?u=http%3a%2f%2fwww.download.co m%2fMSN-Toolbar-Suite-with-Desktop-Search%2f3000-2379-10359073.html%3fpart%3dwinmp%26subj%3ddl%26tag%3df eed%26jump%3dwinmp&p=0:0:1:4433:1531422:S:369:-1:7:1531422:-1:-1:-1:100:-1:5&stext=MSN+Toolbar&hsv=iP2MqgKu%2fYg%3d



Pros: The main draw - for me - is the MSN Desktop Search. Frankly, this product works wonderfully well, and has some excellent features.

It ties into the new MSN Search Engine (on par with Yahoo!) very well, yet retains a decent UI - you have the extensability of the Windows Explorer right-click menu.


The Toolbar Suite also comes with my most-used feature; the MSN Deskbar. This deskbar features search-as-you type results, and an array of customizeable shortcuts to, say search Google, stocks (or aything else) with merely an extra word (although you have to set up the shortcuts yourslef). The Deskbar also actions as the Run command, by inserting "=" before any query; say, "=cmd" to oppen the command shell.


Perhaps the most gratifying set of features is the Advanced Search Syntax - you can search, quite literally, ANYTHING you want. It indexes everything from the author of your word document to the camera that DSC00033thns picture came from.


This fine-toothed control makes MSN Desktp Search useful whatever you have to find - and far more useful than others.

Cons: The MSN Toolbar Suite is slightly difficult to uninstall - you have to use the Add/Remove Programs in the Control Panel to do so. There is no automatic controller. However, I found this a minor inconvenience and was able to reinstall the program several times on my machine with no difficulty

Perhaps the most gratifying set of features is the Advanced Search Syntax - you can search, quite literally, ANYTHING you want.

hahahaha
Damn. Statements like these remind me how deprived users of windows are when it comes to basic functionality.

We've had that 'feature' on unix for years. Its called GREP.

Tell me, does the deskbar allow you to enter your own regular expressions or do you have click things like radio buttons?

The Deskbar also actions as the Run command, by inserting "=" before any query; say, "=cmd" to oppen the command shell.
command.com? yucky

We've had that 'feature' on unix for years. Its called GREP.

Soze windows, to be fair. The trick is delivering regex like functionality without having Joe user learn regex.

Most search engines have utilised some of the switches for applying decent searches.

For instance placing these lines into some of the search engines would cause certain reactions:

pop music -crazyfrog
Would search all sites for "pop" and "music" however would attempt to not pick sites that have "crazyfrog".

"electron flux"
Would search for the each line of "electron flux" rather than just the occurances of "electron" or "flux"

Admittedly they are the only few I use during searches and they only work on some engines. (Originally engines would have been built on GREP however over the years the languages used have varied altering the pattern matching switches used)

However even with correctly functioning switches, there is still the problem of how the search engine has been developed to return it's findings. Some use a "Links to: Links from" ratio to work out where they should be located in the returned list, others utilise payment plans to gain placement, some purely generate a word weight of a document to decide which searches it should be applied to.

(The problem with a weight document is that if you use the name of something thats only used 3 times in the document you want, it will come very low down the list, where other search engine sites that that have that name at a higher weight level but contain no actual content that you want to access will appear at the top.)