I’ve been a big fan of LookoutSoft’s Lookout Outlook Search Plugin for a couple years now, and with Microsoft buying them it was only going to be a matter of time before Microsoft yanked the free download from the LookoutSoft site. Well, today I was talking to someone about this cool Outlook search plugin, and navigated over to the site to pull it down for them (I have a backup somewhere, but didn’t have it with me), and to my surprise, no love, just the free download for the MSN Toolbar Suite Beta. Well I don’t want a desktop search, just a better Outlook search. No, I don’t want to try the MSN Toolbar Suite, thank you very much, I just want my Outlook search. So, what is a person to do? Well, you go over to Google and run a search on Lookoutsoft, and the 2nd result, bingo, what I was looking for, a link to the currently still active, but hidden download page for the Lookout Outlook Search plugin. Just for giggles I went over to MSN and used the Microsoft search engine on the same query, no love. Either the Microsoft search engine isn’t as good as Google’s, or the folks in Redmond made sure that the hidden Lookoutsoft page doesn’t come up in a search, or the folks at Google made sure it does show up. Pick your favorite answer (I’m sure it is a combination of various things, but using my Google Juice maybe the hidden page will not stay so hidden).
I’m sure once I can put Office 12 on my daily machine I will not need something like a third party tool to get decent search in Outlook 12, but at the moment, Lookout is the best option out there. Please don’t kill this plugin until Office 12 ships!
Update - Office 12 (aka Office 2007) has shipped, and Microsoft has removed the LookoutSoft Outlook Search Plugin download. I don't have a copy of the installer that I can make available, and I don't know of (and would not link to) a 3rd Party site that still has the download. I have moved on to Office 2007, and prefer it over Office 2003.