Finding Items and More with Instant Search

If you used Outlook 2003 (or earlier), you probably had the experience of typing something in the search tool and then watching the little magnifying glass rotate around and around and around for quite a long time before finally bringing your results. With Outlook 2007, Microsoft has integrated the Windows Desktop Search (WDS) technology so that WDS is constantly indexing your Outlook items in the background. You'll be prompted to install WDS when you install Office 2007. This means when you type a search term in the new search box (see Figure 17.9), Outlook returns the results almost immediately. In fact, you can perform what we call a type-ahead search in which you start to type your search string and Outlook presents you with a list of results almost immediately. As you continue to type, the results list will narrow further until you complete the string.

Figure 17.9: Instant Search helps you find your items

You can search the current folder or perform an All Items search that will search across all the folders of a specified type. That means you can find contacts, notes, e-mail messages, and more that contain the term you're looking for in a matter of seconds.

If you're having problems with the index, such as content you know exists but doesn't get returned by a search, you may need to try rebuilding the index. Here are the steps to do so:

1. Right-click the Windows Desktop Search icon on the system tray.

2. Select Windows Desktop Search Options.

3. Click Advanced.

4. Click Rebuild.

Keep in mind that a full rebuild of the index can take quite a while. Depending upon how many items you have and how fast your computer is, it could be on the magnitude of hours to get the index fully rebuilt and usable.