Entered CNET Catalog: 03/15/2005
SKU: SERVMSNDESKTOPTOOLBAR
Manufacturer: Microsoft Corp.
Manufacturer description
Make the most of your surfing time. Search the web, start MSN Hotmail, or open MSN Messenger - all without leaving the page you're on. It's fast and it's easy.User opinions
Select a User Opinion to view: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
User Rating: 
4/10
Looks good but lacks a lot
Pros: Looks really cool and very up to date with easy access.
Cons: Buttons for email and images have extra steps and must have bar flipped. Buttons do not take you directly to searches but ask questions first. Don't want computer making decisions for me -- just give me what I'm searching for --Thank you.
User Rating: 
1/10
Hard to remove
Pros: Reset All feature
Cons: Compatibility
WAY TO GO MICROSOFT. Another great product to teach people on how to back up data and learn to do a clean installation. WHOOHOO!
User Rating: 
2/10
Rip off of Mozilla and opera
Pros: reset all feature
Cons: unable to install many programs
Opera and Mozilla both have tabbed browsing
and actually work
Microsoft can you design anything that works
User Rating: 
3/10
OK, but tabbed browsing didn't work correctly
Pros: Great features
Cons: Tabbed browsing problems
User Rating: 4/10
Slows down computer - need to separate good features
Pros: Like the Tabbed Browsing and Password feature.
Cons: Slows down computer too much no unistall option.
User Rating: 3/10
sluggish, expected better synergy w/ office products
Pros: indexes outlook and onenote, unlike yahoo, plug-ins
Cons: yahoo/google leave msn file indexing in dust. bring back Lookout!
I held out for a year then rudgingly installed MSN toolbar -- choosing it over google and yahoo for ability better support Office Application.
The Bad: it's been 2 days and the program is still going through initial indexing my 20gb HD. No option to limit indexing to specific time of night/day. Unreally sluggish indexing. No realiable indexing status - I was thrilled after 18hrs of churning status said 321 items to go, finally it reached 0, changed its mind and started indexing 18k more items. Overall, when indexing, system slows to a crawl. I just want indexing, don't want all that IE integration and massive application overhead.
The Good: unlike Google, results are presented in a file manager fashion. Add-ins to expand indexing (though they might be slowing down the process). Presumed better integrating with office products, but knowing MS products, 3rd party typically interface with their applications better.
I love CNET, read it every day for many years. Running the risk of being censored, I don't understand how this product got an 8 on their review.
User Rating: 
8/10
Worth having
Pros: Integrates well with Outlook
Cons: Right-click menu not as powerful as Firefox
MSN Toolbar at first glance appears to be a lot better and had brought me back to IE from Firefox, for the moment. There are some features and extensions for Firefox I miss, ie. nuking ads, right-click to open in new tab.
Nearly all advertising can be disposed of by using in conjunction with Mike Skallas's ad blocking hosts file.
User Rating: 3/10
Indexing slows down PC
Pros: Tabbed browsing is OK. Needs more options
Cons: Indexing accesses HD too much. Slows PC and eats CPU
User Rating: 
5/10
Stops outlook working
Pros: Potentially useful and free
Cons: Slow and stops outlook working (unusable)
At least it is easy to uninstall.
Nice concept, faulty execution.
User Rating: 2/10
Unstable and poorly constructed
Pros: tab browsing
Cons: unstable, crashes
User Rating: 
10/10
Excellent product from Microsoft..googles google and yahoo
Pros: it goes to atomic levels
Cons: none to report
User Rating: 8/10
Unrest on IE side
Pros: Good searching options, user-friendly
Cons: Problems with tabbed browsing
2- No right-click option for the links in the favorites sidebar to open a link in a new tab.
3- More customization like in Firefox/Netscape could have been added to tabs.
User Rating: 8/10
Good update for IE users
Pros: TABS, Nice layout, Popup blocker, integrates MSN messenger & MSN Spaces, automatic importing of popup whitelist, Desktop search from IE itself, you can edit search engine, tabs can be disabled
Cons: Comes bundled with desktop search
User Rating: 
9/10
immediate search results. the best now.
Pros: easy to sort results, instant results
Cons: slow indexing
however, indexing really is a pain. while you can start searching before indexing is complete, not sure why it is so non-aggressive in using system resources. it took one night to index my 60GB HDD.
User Rating: 
6/10
Better UI and integration than Google, but slower
Pros: Great Outlook and Office Integration, better UI than Google
Cons: Search results are slower than Google, indexing slow
I prefer Google's layout for web search results, but MSN's layout for desktop search results. With MSN the search results view is much more customizable because it is not entirely web based. You can sort by a number or properties and see a preview of the item for a variety of filetypes.
The biggest paint point with MSN Desktop search was performance. Google indexed my 500 gig hard drive in less than 24 hours. MSM Search took three days. Actual search results come up much slower with MSN as well. Google aways feels instantaneous to me. MSN takes 1-3 seconds on my new computer. Another grip is MSN search takes several minutes after your computer boots to actually start up and be usable.
So I haven't decided which app to choose for my permanent desktop search utility. If you are a heavy Outlook, Office, or OneNote user you will probably prefer MSN Desktop Search, otherwise I would stick with Google.
I still ultimately haven't decided yet which
User Rating: 
7/10
Slower than Google but better presentation
Pros: Integrates into Windows & Apps better; presentation cleaner
Cons: Results seem slower or not as accurate
