Desktop Search Beta Refresh

We have posted a new version (02.00.0001.1203) of the Toolbar Suite for download.  Some of the fixes and enhancements in the latest version include:

 

  • Eliminated the virus pop ups and increased performance (more below)

  • Ability to index Outlook items when it isn’t your default email client

  • Clear Deskbar text after performing searches

  • Fixed a majority of reported Watson bugs

  • Several bug fixes to improve overall stability & robustness

 

In order to make email attachment handling better, we implemented a change in how we process them. In the earlier build if you opted to index email attachments we would save the attachment to a temporary file and then index it. This has two negative side effects:

 

1.      Performance. Copying a stream to disk and then reading it is a largely unneeded step and one that caused extra disk IO

 

2.      Anti-virus scanners would pop up on file creation. In other words even though you never opened the file, the file would get written to the disk. NOTE that no virus would occur as a result of this because the file wasn’t opened, but it was annoying to get the pop-ups.

 

With the adoption of this interface we can stream the attachment directly to the filter. Many IFilters had already implemented this interface. But if you have written a custom one, you will need to add it.  See more information on our Wiki.  

 

We are not planning to Autoupdate existing users, but if you are seeing any of the problems above or want to be running the latest and greatest bits download it today!  You don’t have to uninstall your existing version – just run the new installer and it will keep your settings & existing index! 

 

-Paul Steckler & Bubba Murarka, Program Managers

 

Update: Edited the text to reflect that we use Watson for crash reporting, not Dr. Watson!  Thanks to Aaron for clarifying.  :)