Microsoft released documents on Wednesday that detail changes it will make to its desktop search and indexing feature in Windows Vista that will be included as part of the Vista SP1 (Service Pack 1) update. The changes are a response to charges from rival Google that Microsoft built the feature in such a way that it slowed down competitive offerings from rivals. Microsoft agreed to make the changes as part of its ongoing antitrust proceedings with U.S. and state officials, and they were detailed as part of a status report filed in the case in June. To provide more information to the general public, the company posted documents online Wednesday that detail how third parties can help modify desktop search applications to work with the changes being made in SP1. Microsoft has said it will release SP1, a roll-up of updates to the Vista OS, in the first quarter of 2008.
Microsoft said it made the changes so that a customer who uses a third-party desktop search product instead of Vista's built-in feature can have "easy and direct access" to those offerings through the Windows user interface. "That means that in addition to the numerous ways a user could access a third-party search solution in Windows Vista, they can now get to their preferred search results from additional entry points in the Start Menu and Explorer Windows in Windows Vista SP1," the company said.
View: The full story
News source: InfoWorld
Microsoft said it made the changes so that a customer who uses a third-party desktop search product instead of Vista's built-in feature can have "easy and direct access" to those offerings through the Windows user interface. "That means that in addition to the numerous ways a user could access a third-party search solution in Windows Vista, they can now get to their preferred search results from additional entry points in the Start Menu and Explorer Windows in Windows Vista SP1," the company said.
View: The full story News source: InfoWorld
Since Paintbrush/Paint has been a Windows applet since at least 3.0, I doubt that very much.
What the issues seem to be related to is that the APIs are not accessable for 3rd party applications to interface with. I'm not a programmer/software developer, but even I can understand and agree with that.
Since Paintbrush/Paint has been a Windows applet since at least 3.0, I doubt that very much.
What the issues seem to be related to is that the APIs are not accessable for 3rd party applications to interface with. I'm not a programmer/software developer, but even I can understand and agree with that.
Actually WMP has been a Windows applet since 3.1 but yep they did get in trouble for that one!
Just joking
Microsoft made Windows.. IMO why should they give other companies access to the application programming interface of the whole OS?
I know it's not healthy for competition.. But did Google create Windows? No.. So Microsoft should have the right - if they want to - to not give them "easy and direct access to the Windows user interface".
If this is the case then we should force Apple to make similar moves and also force Apple to allow music bought from all music sites to work on the iPod? Is it going to happen? NO, because we seem to be anti-microsoft not really anti-monopoly
Microsoft’s much touted vista search leaves a lot to be desired. The front end is pretty nice, I like the search field in the start menu and the advance search options are not that bad the fatal flaw is the indexing options dialog. It’s a pain to work with and doesn’t have alot of options. These are the features that it should have come with:
1. The ability to index filenames only and to do it immediatly not when the machine is idle.
2. Indexing all filenames on the hard drive, dozens of file types are left unchecked and it’s time consuming to try and include them.
3. Seperating Filename search from Content search. I would say 90% of all searches are just users looking for where they put a file.
4. The ability to schedule a index rebuild.
5. Speed: Avafind can index 200 gigs in a few minutes while Vista indexing takes days.
6. Better include and exclude: I’d like to include file types by groups like documents and pictures and also be able to exclude them as well.
7. The one thing I would love but will never happen in a million years is the ability to install a better indexer from another company and still use the front end search fields. I’m sure another company could build a faster more feature rich indexer but Microsoft would never allow them to implement it. This is the true fatal flaw of Windows and Microsoft, using their monopoly power to stop others from actually improving Windows features.
Last edited by hardgiant on 13 Sep 2007 - 20:56
I used avafind for to do this on XP, but it's not been updated in years sadly, has some bugs, and is a pain on vista. It has to have admin rights or wont index all files, only way to get it to run on boot with admin rights is to manually add it to the task scheduler yourself, could be a security risk. it keeps seeming to just vanish from my systray all the time with no warning or error too, only on vista, I just find it magically not running any more. it often leaves error logs after reboots.
Avafind's awesome otherwise, it's 'scout bot' hits CPU for nothing but keeps the index up to date on any I/O operation. I'd dearly love an up-to-date vista app that could do this properly, or simply the windows indexer to be properly configurable.
In the indexing control panel applet you can go into advanced options, and set it to 'properties only' or 'properties and file contents' for each filetype, BUT there's no way to edit more than one at a time, and there are hundreds, it's ridiculous!
Commenting has either been disabled on this article or you are not logged in. Click here to login or register, its free!
Note: Anonymous commenting is disabled in order to keep the quality of responses to a high standard.