I've found this search to be a hell of a lot faster than even googles desktop search once I set it up. Hope someone finds it useful:

1) Click start and run.
2) enter mmc and click okay.
3) Click file->add/remove snap in
4) Click add, indexing service and click finish making sure local is selected.

5) Click okay.
6) Goto directories and delete any directories listed that you don't want indexed. Right click and select new->directory to add more location.

7) Make sure indexing service is running in services found through control panel->administrative tools.
Select properties of indexing service and set to auto.
9) Leave your computer to index the directories.

10) Once it's indexed you can run queries from the query the catalog view.
11) Now click file->save as with the query view open and select a location to save the file. This way next time you open the search it will default to this view.

This method allows advanced queries and finds documents in seconds. It's a great feature which most people I know don't know about. Hope you find it useful and if not well this was one waste of them then wasn't it.

Oh and yes I am as surprised as you to find that MS may actually have programmed something properly although when I was writing the tutorial the MMC crashed (typical).