Looking for Lookout? Want to make it work with Outlook 2007? My thanks to Frank Taylor over at vmware for raising my awareness of this fix.

Lookoutsoft created Lookout – a lean mean search machine -years ago. Then, back in the summer of 2004 Microsoft made creators Mike Belshe and Eric Hahn an offer they did not refuse and bought Lookout into the Microsoft machine. On the day it was downloadable with Microsoft credentials, I personally mailed over 3500 people working for corporate clients to tell them to download it. Previously I had restricted advocacy of this to individuals and small businesses where freeware was not seen as an issue.

People loved Lookout’s lean purposefulness. Over time Microsoft fattened it up as they incorporated it into  their stable. Many people (especially tech savvy ones) stuck with the original.

So, if you loved it but since got hold of a new laptop and lost Lookout, or migrated to Outlook 2007 and found it did not work, here’s how to get hold of this lean, light and lightening fast search tool.

First: If you have Outlook 2003 you should be OK with a standard install; if you have Outlook 2007 check out this link to see what you have to do to make it work properly. Do scroll down to the end of the comments area to check recent developments. Here’s the link: http://bit.ly/13l9Xt

Second: you can hit this Google search http://bit.ly/LtaB6 and select a download site that grabs you. My suggestion is Major Geeks @ http://bit.ly/d6xE8

Of course, there is always the current crop to choose from:-

Copernic  http://www.copernic.com/  is probably the lightest and nearest to Lookout

Xonbi (inbox backwards) http://www.xobni.com/ is more feature rich and displays additional info that can be useful but it is a little heavier in resource.

Both the above – in my opinion – are preferable to Google Desktop and Windows search