OpenSearch

By -Hiroshi-
in The Fast Ring (Insider Previews)

 Share

Recommended Posts

Veteran

-Hiroshi-

Posted
Posted (edited)

Recently stumbled across an article detailing Windows 7's OpenSearch technology, which basically adds search capabilities into explorer.

Article

Decided to cook one up for Neowin, with this little .osdx file you'll be able to search Neowin's forums from within Explorer. :)

Download - 1KB

Blog post with additional OpenSearch providers.

Edited by -Hiroshi-
Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/717288-opensearch/
Share on other sites
Grand Master

Calum Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted

Again, another feature not many people know about and certain people disregard when saying Windows 7 should be a service pack to Windows Vista :rolleyes:

Thanks for notifying everyone of this -Hiroshi- :) I remember this from one of Long Zheng's blog posts where he incorporated Flikr into Windows Explorer - very nice! :)

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/717288-opensearch/#findComment-590360456
Share on other sites
Veteran

-Hiroshi-

Posted
  • Author
Posted
Again, another feature not many people know about and certain people disregard when saying Windows 7 should be a service pack to Windows Vista :rolleyes:

Thanks for notifying everyone of this -Hiroshi- :) I remember this from one of Long Zheng's blog posts where he incorporated Flikr into Windows Explorer - very nice! :)

No problem, I'm working on a few others from various different websites like Arstechnica and Activewin. :) I'll post them if anyone wants them.

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/717288-opensearch/#findComment-590360478
Share on other sites
Grand Master

Calum Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted
No problem, I'm working on a few others from various different websites like Arstechnica and Activewin. :) I'll post them if anyone wants them.

Well I'm sure I'll find them useful (for many of the sites I visit, including Neowin) for when I finally install Windows 7. So, thank you in advance :D

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/717288-opensearch/#findComment-590360528
Share on other sites
Veteran

-Hiroshi-

Posted
  • Author
Posted (edited)
Is it time consuming making these scripts? Or are they flexible with different sites?

Takes me half a minute to create a new search, only restraints is that the page needs to support RSS. What it basically does is that the websites themselves don't support OpenSearch, but Windows Live Search does, and so it uses Live Search to search the pages which feature RSS.

Brandon already created one for Deviantart, you can find it in the article.

Made a Wikipedia one.. - Download

I could be wrong, or it could be a bug in firefox, but it doesn't look like Wikipedia has RSS but it still works..

Edited by -Hiroshi-
Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/717288-opensearch/#findComment-590360542
Share on other sites
Grand Master

Brandon Live Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted
Oh wow, is that the feature you were appointed to develop? Or one that you helped think up? etc. (I don't know how Windows development works :p )

Using OpenSearch was my idea and I built the original prototype, but not without some crucial help from a couple other brilliant folks :) Because of that work I'm the dev owner of the feature for Win7. Of course it takes a lot of work from people all around the Find & Organize team to actually make it happen. Lots of pieces had to come together to pull it off.

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/717288-opensearch/#findComment-590364450
Share on other sites
Grand Master

Calum Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted
Using OpenSearch was my idea and I built the original prototype, but not without some crucial help from a couple other brilliant folks :) Because of that work I'm the dev owner of the feature for Win7. Of course it takes a lot of work from people all around the Find & Organize team to actually make it happen. Lots of pieces had to come together to pull it off.

Well I don't know how often this happens in Microsoft, but you must be proud that the idea you thought of (and later built a prototype of) was implemented into Windows and will become a very handy feature? :) (obviously when Windows 7 RTMs and is adopted by more people).

My dream job would be to work in Microsoft on one of the Windows teams, in the future, after I've learnt much more and graduated university... I can only dream though :p

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/717288-opensearch/#findComment-590364476
Share on other sites
Collaborator

burnblue

Posted
Posted

I hope you guys have tried the Flickr and DeviantArt osdx plugins that are out there.

http://www.downloadsquad.com/2008/12/30/a-...rch-connectors/

Opening DeviantArt images directly inside Explorer and setting them as your background wallpaper really shows you how cool / effective this feature can be. Unfortunately I couldn't find cool uses for it beside image stuff just yet -- most plugins are just searches for web pages on websites which I am quite fine with doing on the browser. I'm not part of an enterprise with Sharepoint where I would get utility out of searching for Office docs on a company share. Obviously you can't have stuff like YouTube videos looking like regular video in Explorer (or can you? Someone please do this).

If Federated Search can do such a good job with images, can we also interact with other files in Explorer instead of just finding the containing webpage?

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/717288-opensearch/#findComment-590366064
Share on other sites
Grand Master

Brandon Live Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted
Is it like the Keyword feature in Firefox ?? Just a question because I still don't understand it

Not sure what you're referring to. Most browsers use OpenSearch Description Files to add custom search providers to their search boxes. This is a bit different, as the browser just takes you to the HTML view of the results. In our case, we use OpenSearch to add the location and then RSS or Atom to enumerate the results and display them in a rich client view, the same view we use for desktop search results. There's also a lot of fancy behind the scenes work to make the items work as if they were local or on a network share (so you have drag-and-drop, open / right-click, previews, etc).

We're working on an in-depth blog post, so keep an eye on the E7 blog over the coming weeks.

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/717288-opensearch/#findComment-590366502
Share on other sites
Grand Master

Brandon Live Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted
Wow Brandon, I love this feature (:

Very cool. If I wanted to add a website, would it need to support RSS or Atom, for it too work?

Yeah, the site will need to expose the results as either RSS or Atom. Either that, or you'd need to write a proxy that can generate the RSS or Atom feed, as Long Zheng did with his Flickr prototype.

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/717288-opensearch/#findComment-590368894
Share on other sites
Veteran

Snowl

Posted
Posted
Yeah, the site will need to expose the results as either RSS or Atom. Either that, or you'd need to write a proxy that can generate the RSS or Atom feed, as Long Zheng did with his Flickr prototype.

Hmm... How does the wikipedia one work? S:

Anyway, thanks for the info. :)

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/717288-opensearch/#findComment-590370236
Share on other sites
Proficient

Chaks

Posted
Posted
Nice.. it would've been cool if you guys had posted the scripts I had made up on the front page, instead of stealing the links from my first post that I spent some time investigating for...

I am not a regular visitor of forums and I noticed this thread only after you posted the link in the comments. Will keep an eye on the forums :)

And FYI I did not steal the links, Google will anyhow take you there ;)

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/717288-opensearch/#findComment-590373494
Share on other sites
Grand Master

FiB3R

Posted
Posted

Awesome feature :)

Loving the DeviantArt Connector

www.istartedsomething.com seems to be down so can't get the Flickr Connector yet.

Would it be possible to make a YouTube Connector that only searches for videos that are HD, and also have the option to download? That would be sweet. :)

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/717288-opensearch/#findComment-590373774
Share on other sites
This topic is now closed to further replies.
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

  • Posts

    • Linux 7.1 arrives with an NTFS overhaul and major hardware performance boosts

      By Max Norris · Posted

      Nice, hope they *finally* fixed the issue with the NTFS driver where the system would completely brick during large file copies using the built in driver. It's been broken for years requiring me to use the older, slower, NTFS-3G FUSE driver.
    • Windows 11 KB5094126 BSODing, freezing, forcing BitLocker lockout, breaks OneDrive, and more

      By hellowalkman · Posted

      Windows 11 KB5094126 BSODing, freezing, forcing BitLocker lockout, breaks OneDrive, and more by Sayan Sen Microsoft released Windows 11 KB5094126 and KB5093998 last week as the latest Patch Tuesday updates. Following that the company also published the accompanying dynamic updates under KB5094149, KB5095971, and KB5094156. While Microsoft has so far not acknowledged any major problems with the release, some users online are running into problems. These range from OneDrive and Dropbox access issues, BitLocker recovery lockouts, to blue screens and BSODs. The most common one seems to be happening with HP systems wherein affected users say they hit 0xc0430001 BSOD (blue screen of death) error code after the KB5094126 update. We wonder if this could be related to the recent bug we covered on HP devices wherein the ongoing Secure Boot certificate updates are leading to similar issues. While we are not certain, users affected by this issue likely need to ensure that the boot.stl file is included on the installation media (such as a USB installer or ISO), if the above-mentioned dynamic updates are deployed. If this file is missing, computers may fail to boot from the installation media and could display the error 0xc0430001. This STL file is used by Secure Boot to verify that the boot files are trusted, so it must match the same Windows version and system architecture. To ensure the file is included, Microsoft recommends using the Update WinPE script, which automatically updates the image and handles the required files. Alternatively, you can manually copy the boot.stl file from the Windows\Boot\EFI folder on a Windows device and place it in the matching folder on your installation media before deploying the updated image. Aside from blue screening some users also note their systems have been freezing following the update. This could be happening to Lenovo PCs specifically. In the case of the OneDrive and Dropbox access issues, a user figured out that there could be a conflict with UAC. He explained: "Okay, so I did some digging, and in our environment KB5094126 breaks OneDrive and Dropbox in Explorer. I went through all our GPOs and found out that the combination of disabling UAC and having my user being a local admin breaks OneDrive in Explorer. ... If I enable UAC again, then it works, even with KB5094126 still installed." Hopefully, Microsoft will look into these issues. Source: Microsoft forum (link1, link2, link3, link4), Reddit (link1, link2, link3, link4)
    • Here is how I fixed Windows 11 not booting after clean installation

      By rseiler · Posted

      It is when it's a desktop in my house though for a PC that's lightly used and not really important when it is. If it was a laptop, it would be a different story. The real solution is varied and begins starting at post #22 in that thread.
    • Microsoft hides these secret Windows 11 performance boost settings available on every PC

      By hellowalkman · Posted

      well that's the plan
    • Win11Debloat 2026.06.14

      By Copernic · Posted

      Win11Debloat 2026.06.14 by Razvan Serea Win11Debloat is a lightweight, easy to use PowerShell script that allows you to quickly declutter and customize your Windows experience. It can remove pre-installed bloatware apps, disable telemetry, remove intrusive interface elements and much more. The script also includes many features that system administrators and power users will enjoy. Such as a powerful command-line interface, support for Windows Audit mode and the option to make changes to other Windows users. All changes made by Win11Debloat can be easily reversed, and most removed apps can be restored via the Microsoft Store. A full guide on how to undo the changes is available here. Win11Debloat features: Below is an overview of the key features and functionality offered by Win11Debloat. Please refer to the wiki for more information about the default settings preset. Remove a wide variety of preinstalled apps. Click here for more info. Disable telemetry, diagnostic data, activity history, app-launch tracking & targeted ads. Disable tips, tricks, suggestions & ads across Windows. Disable Windows location services & app location access. Disable Find My Device location tracking. Disable 'Windows Spotlight' and tips & tricks on the lock screen. Disable 'Windows Spotlight' desktop background option. Disable ads, suggestions and the MSN news feed in Microsoft Edge. Hide Microsoft 365 ads on the Settings 'Home' page, or hide the 'Home' page entirely. Disable & remove Microsoft Copilot. Disable Windows Recall. Disable Click to Do, AI text & image analysis tool. Prevent AI service (WSAIFabricSvc) from starting automatically. Disable AI Features in Edge. Disable AI Features in Paint. Disable AI Features in Notepad. Disable the Drag Tray for sharing & moving files. Restore the old Windows 10 style context menu. Turn off Enhance Pointer Precision, also known as mouse acceleration. Disable the Sticky Keys keyboard shortcut. Disable Storage Sense automatic disk cleanup. Disable fast start-up to ensure a full shutdown. ...and more. Once you’ve downloaded the Win11Debloat file (Get.ps1), just follow these quick steps: Locate the Get.ps1 script file. Right-click the file and select Run with PowerShell from the context menu. If prompted by User Account Control (UAC), select Yes to grant the script the necessary administrative permissions. Win11Debloat 2026.06.14 changes: This is a minor release that hopefully addresses the false positives in Windows Defender and Bitdefender that prevented users from downloading and/or running Win11Debloat. Refactor Get-RegFileOperations.ps1 to address false positives by @Raphire in #626 Add logging around WinGet app retrieval and increase timeout to 20s by @Raphire Download: Win11Debloat 2026.06.14 | Open Source View: Win11Debloat Home Page | Screenshots 1| 2 Get alerted to all of our Software updates on Twitter at @NeowinSoftware

  • Recent Achievements

    • Week One Done
      Jeroen Wilms earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • Week One Done
      rolfus earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • One Month Later
      Leroy Jethro Gibbs earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Conversation Starter
      flexorcist earned a badge
      Conversation Starter
    • One Month Later
      AndreaB earned a badge
      One Month Later

  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      508
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      198
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      138
    4. 4
      ATLien_0
      90
    5. 5
      Steven P.
      81
    Show More

  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!