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Deep File Divers

We test six powerful desktop search utilities that scour the vast recesses of your PC to uncover long-lost file treasures.

Scott Dunn

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Yahoo Desktop Search

This free program claims to support more than 200 file types, although it searches just the file names (not the metadata) of music, image, and other media formats. So, as expected, it found image and music files only when their names included the specific term that we searched for. Apart from this limitation, Yahoo Desktop Search performed very well, even peeking inside PDF and compressed files.

Among numerous advanced options, the program's Favorite Searches pane lets you access previously stored searches. You can also start, stop, and schedule its file indexing (see FIGURE 4) and specify the folders and file types to be indexed.

You can choose which of 50 file attributes (such as .msg, .doc, .pdf, and .html) you want to display. You can sort your results by each attribute with a single click, or narrow the search by selecting the Refine button to enter a keyword in a text box under the heading.

The results preview pane can show PDFs and can play media files automatically. It lists the contents of compressed files and folders, but it can't open them.

If you need to search for mail in a program other than Outlook, OE, or Mozilla Thunderbird, you'll have to spend $75 to $130 (depending on the mail programs) to obtain a version of the application from Yahoo's partner, X1 Technologies.

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