Microsoft launches improved desktop search for Windows XP and Vista

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Microsoft, Freeware, Beta

Microsoft launches improved desktop search for Windows XP and Vista

by Brad Linder Mar 28th 2008

For well over a decade, Microsoft has included a nearly useless search feature in Windows. Sure, you could type in a query and maybe even get an accurate response. But you might have to wait five minutes to get your results. Things changed with Windows Vista, which includes a nearly instantaneous desktop search function. Just type a query into the Start Menu search bar, and you should be able to find what you're looking for in a matter of seconds.

The desktop search feature in Vista is based on an application called Windows Search, and Microsoft has just released a preview of the next version of the utility. And best of all, Windows Search 4.0 Preview runs on either Windows Vista or Windows XP.

Aside from support for Windows XP, Windows Search 4.0 has a few other significant updates:

A number of bug fixes
Get your results 33% faster
Remote Index Discovery now works with every version of Windows, meaning you can index files on any Windows machine on your network
If an error occurs, Windows Search will rollback to your last known working state rather than starting the entire indexing process over again from scratch
Encrypted files can now be indexed

[via Windows Vista Team Blog]

Tags: windows-search, windows-search-4.0, windows-search-4.0 preview, Windows-search-4.0Preview

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

ronin691 said 1:26PM on 3-28-2008

Also available:

http://desktop.google.com/

I would like to see head-to-head cage match between the two, conducted objectively by The Download Squad...

What say see Mr. Linder?

Brad Linder said 1:44PM on 3-28-2008

For now, I can say that I prefer Google Desktop solely because it allows you to hide the taskbar search box and pull up a search box using a keyboard shortcut. Unless I'm missing something Windows Search 4.0 doesn't have this feature, which means it takes up a bit more screen real estate than I'm willing to give it.

Overall it does a nice job of indexing and locating files. The results are broken down into categories, and the results window is a bit cleaner than Google Desktop's search. It hasn't finished indexing my entire computer so I can't say for certain what kind of disk space the index file uses.

burnblue said 5:56PM on 3-28-2008

In my opinion, WDS has always been better than Google Desktop. Think about it; integration with the OS is going to have a lot of advantages over any other feature they might compete with.

I hated seeing my results in a browser.. with WDS's instant popup I can right-click on results and treat them like a part of the regular file system.

lazyb said 1:27PM on 3-28-2008

hmmm ill try this out I find my self using the search a lot to find things on my external drive.

RP said 1:31PM on 3-28-2008

I'm using AvaFind, which works pretty well. Simple and fast.

Although I'm a bit annoyed that I actually paid them $19, and they don't even reply to my detailed bug submissions. You'd think a small company would be more responsive than Microsoft.

eppyjerk said 1:33PM on 3-28-2008

Word of warning...It looks like they dropped support for Outlook 2003.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/desktopsearch/overview/featurecompare.mspx

Mark said 1:34PM on 3-28-2008

Yet one more thing backported to XP, and another reason why Vista is a waste of money.

Todd said 2:59PM on 3-28-2008

Yeah, I have been noticing that too. There was that big, ridiculous announcement by Ballmer that Vista is the most successful new product in the history of commerce ( complete with the press in attendance ALL using Macbooks ) a few months ago - then nothing. Plenty of news about Vista features being back-ported to XP, lots extensions on XP support and PR News wire bulletins about "Windows 7".

It seems to be a slow motion erasure of the fact that Vista ever existed. No one in my circle of 20 odd XP users has any intention of upgrading and an informal poll at my Local Best Buy has the employees telling me the only reason anyone buys a computer pre-loaded with Vista is because their XP crashed to an unrecoverable state.

Is Vista Microsoft's version of Japanese the internment camps? Just try to pretend it never happened?

Christopher Walton said 1:45PM on 3-28-2008

have to say that X1 Professional Desktop Search Client has had most of these features for years.

The X1 Professional Client is lightning fast, supports more than 400 file types for indexing, preview, and action.

For big businesses, it also federates with Enterprise repositories like SharePoint and email archiving systems like Symantec Enterprise Vault.

Check it out for yourself.
http://www.x1.com/

Costas said 3:27PM on 3-28-2008

I second the X1 recommendation. I've been using it for years, tried the rest, only to always go back to X1. I'll give this one a shot too though.

Gabriel said 5:38PM on 3-28-2008

Doesn't Yahoo desktop search use X1? I 'm pretty sure it does - it works great - especially like the preview box.

Christopher said 6:16PM on 3-28-2008

Ummmm. I dont know if it is just me, but after installing this update, i tried to search for files and nothing would show up. I tried multiple files and directories but it was as if nothing was indexed to be found. I would not reccommend this update at all. I had to uninstall the update and afterwards my computer and the search function returned to normal. Waste of my time. Windows search in Vista is still better than Google Desktop though.

Brad Linder said 6:04PM on 3-28-2008

It does take a while to index your files, especially if you're using your computer. It speeds up the process when your PC is inactive. Until it builds an index your search results box will be pretty sparse.

Christopher said 6:28PM on 3-28-2008

Ahhh. Thanks Brad. I didn't realize that it had to re-index everything again. I supposed that it just used the old index results. Maybe ill give it a shot again. Do you or does anybody see a major difference worth updating though? Thanks.

Vitaly Belman said 8:50AM on 3-29-2008

It might be no the standard choice but I found "Locate32" to best suited for my needs. It is tiny and blazingly fast and has a good plugin for "Find and Run Robot" (Launchy alternative).

The only downside that it doesn't reflect changes that were made since the last indexing =(

Featured Time Waster

Civiballs is a beautiful, soothing physics puzzle Time Waster

I have an absolute weakness for physics games, and while Civiballs isn't the strongest physics-based game, what it lacks in the physics department it makes up for a few times over in style and fun.

In Civiballs, you are presented with a few colored balls, and your goal is to get those balls into the same-colored urn on the level. The "civi" part of Civiballs is that there are 3 sets of levels to play, each representing a different civilization. While the civilization doesn't affect gameplay, the artwork for each level is beautifully themed to it's appropriate era.

To play the game, you are given only one tool - a sword with which to cut the chains that are holding the balls. The puzzle part of the game is in figuring out what order, and with what timing to cut each chain. Do it right, and all the right balls end up in the right urns, with no stray balls entering an urn (a no-no). Do it wrong, and you get to start over again.

Civiballs is not terribly deep on gameplay; the entire game can be completed in about 15 minutes. But if you enjoy this type of game, it will be a very enjoyable 15 minutes.

View more Time Wasters