Okay, so 15 minutes in is one of the critical points when evaluating a new piece of software. It’s when software is made or broken.

So, there are several pieces to the MDS (MSN Desktop Search). Outlook integration. IE Integration. Regular old search of your hard drive through the “Deskbar” (a toolbar in your taskbar).

IE Integration

Okay, so the interface is nice. Search the web or the desktop. Standard highlighting and such. Integration to Hotmail (not applicable, turned it off). Popup blocker (turned it off, I like IE’s in XP SP2). My MSN (turned off). Integration into MSN Messenger and MSN Spaces (left on).

Speed of search is great. Integration into Windows Explorer is great (open a file from search… something that right pissed me off about Google’s search).

Ability to simply open all my Eminem music into Windows Media Player or Winamp. Awesome.

Outlook Integration

Nice integration. Fantastic searching. Love the views (show conversation, show all from user, etc).

Deskbar

Okay, who the hell decided I needed to press CTRL+ALT+M to get to the deskbar (I switched it to CTRL+S)? Apparently there are reg hacks to make the Deskbar simpler (space is at a premium… I want to search and go).

I’m impressed. I’ll leave the Deskbar on. I’ve uninstalled my Google Toolbar in favour of the MSN one. I like it that much, and Google’s search isn’t “all that” anyways.