Since the 'best desktop search' thread is sort of dead, mostly since there's nothing new, I thought I'd start one to list what I really want, and hope something comes close.

- Searches must support phrases, boolean (and/or/not), similarity/fuzzy, near    *
- Must be able to define multiple indices, which contain different collections of folders
- Index many sources such as files, email  *
- Option to choose fulltext vs file name based on source, so e.g in my start menu I don' care about contents
- Indices must be portable and program must have ability to export/import data
- Limit searches to certain file types/folders/dates *
- real time updates  *
- much faster instant updates based on e.g. MFT
- support for offline catalogs and sources
- synchronize across multiple pc's
- saved searches *
- federated searches (search across intranet, databases etc)  *
- customizable caching strategy and speed vs size options
- Find As You Type
- previews for all common file types, support for IFilter *
- group search results based on multiple criteria such as location/similarity
- drill down into existing searches
- search results visualization using 3d graphics, full fidelity previews and sorting/filtering
- good integration (like Spotlight) into all applications and OS (explorer, start menu)
- modular, programmable, command line support, scriptable, extensible
- open source (yes I had to throw this in here!)
- portable
- speed speed speed

(* = features already present or even common)

So what we're talking about here is the unholy love child of WDS, X1 search, Everything and Cathy :)

I don't think any of this needs tech that is not available or is too hard. Someone just needs to make a usable interface which admittedly is a hard problem and then focus on performance.

http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/ff_pcsafeguard.asp

Short summary - Windows SteadyState is now a feature of user accounts, and can be used to prevent a 'Guest Mode' account from making any permanent changes/damage to the system.

This is a cool and useful feature, I can already imagine it being useful for some of my friends and family members who manage to keep infecting their pc's. I would set it up so that programs that need to write data can do so to an unlocked drive, and the system drive remains clean. For many users its more harmful to give them the ability to install any random crap they want.