Desperately seeking windows file "tagging"

Recently I've been seeking an easier and quicker way to find files on my hard drive. I find that the tagging feature of all these hip and new Web 2.0 websites[1] super helpful (you know... like Flickr and del.icio.us). Why can't I have that right in Windows file explorer? I'd love to be able to tag files and then search for files using these tags.

I know... I know... I must be crazy. A nice, organized directory structure could work. Well, yeah it could if I would keep up with it. Instead I end up with a c:austindocs directory that is littered with pdf's, doc's, xls's, etc... For me, it would be much easier if I could just right-click on a file and add some tags.
So far I haven't found a whole lot like this out there. Not sure why I thought there would be a lot of options.
And yes I know that Google Desktop is GRRRREAT!! However, I just didn't like. Took up too many system resources and I just don't trust it.

So far I've settled on a couple of options that I'm playing with. Docsvault and something simply called Tag.
Docsvault

I found Docsvault linked on Lifehacker quite some time ago. On their site, there are a few different versions of the application. The Personal version is free. I downloaded it then, but didn't really give it a go until now. It is a standalone application, and doesn't really allowing tagging per se, but allows you to put a one line description for each file that you add. I've been using this line to just add a bunch of space separated tags.

The search functionality is quick and easy. I can search for one of my "tags" and get a list of files that match.


There are a couple of other cool features that I like.

1. It adds a Save to Docsvault Home option to Microsoft Office applications so that you can save files direction into Docsvault.
2. The application has a really good Scan feature where you can scan documents in directly. Scanning docs is something I've starting getting heaving into. I'm sick of all the paper laying around.

There is also a Tasks feature which provides you with a to-do list. I haven't used it because I keep my to-do's elsewhere and honestly think it is sort of out of place in this app.

Now the bad...

When you add a document to Docsvault, it makes a copy. So making a change to your original document does not change the document in Docsvault. No biggie I guess because you can open your file via Docsvault, change it, and the changes will be saved.
There is, however, one big thing about this that bugs me... I cannot find my files anywhere. Example, here is the properties screen for a document:



Notice how it makes it appear that the doc is in a "Document RepositoryWorkBilling" directory. This directory does not exist on my hard drive anywhere. The file ecs115.pdf does not exist on my hard drive anywhere. So is Docsvault using some type of database or proprietary file format to store all my documents? Not sure, and really have not had the time to research this further. This is a big deal to me though and the #1 reason I haven't started using this application heavily. What happens if Docsvault's file gets corrupted? Are all of my documents lost?

Tag
Tag (titled Stored Tagging File Utility on the website) appears to be an application developed by a senior design project at the Milwaukee School of Engineering. I found this application in the comments on this techcrunch post on an upcoming application called tag2find.
This is getting closing to what I was looking for. You install the app (reboot or logout/login required) and now when you right-click on a file you will have a "Modify tags..." option on the menu. Following is an example of what the modify tags interface looks like:


Simple, but with one issue that made it slow to me (in the beginning). I'd like to be able to just enter in a big long list of tags and click save. Then have the application parse these into distinct tags. However, you have to enter them in one at a time. This isn't really quick until you get some keystrokes down so that you don't have to use the mouse a lot. Enter tag, tab, space, shift+tab, enter tag, tab, space... etc...
When you want to find something, you double click on the Tag icon in the system tray to launch the Tag Browser.


This gives you a handy list of all tags, and a way to search for files by tag(s).
In a perfect world I'd be able to assign tags to a file and use the normal old Windows search find them... but this may work in the pinch.

What now?
So far I'm leaning towards Tag. The flow of using it took a bit to get used to, but so far it is doing the job. Plus, if Tag goes away... my files aren't affected. That is something I'm not 100% sure about with Docsvault.

[1] Yes that is sarcasm.