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Microsoft Finalizes Its Desktop Search Software

Posted by Zonk on from the nope-no-influences-here-none-at-all dept.

Smelly Toejam writes "After a five month testing phase, Microsoft has released a final version of its much hyped desktop-search software. Major updates cited include the ability to pick and choose which files to index, and how often." From the article: "Microsoft is vying for new credibility in the multibillion-dollar Web search market dominated by Google and Yahoo--and central to its campaign is the desktop. With its Longhorn launch slated for next year, Microsoft is developing enhanced search software that combines navigation for Web and desktop files straight from the operating system. The toolbar is a step toward that goal."

7 of 244 comments (clear)

  1. Re:How does it compare to Google's desktop search? by Stibidor · · Score: 5, Informative
    It's been a while since I tried Google's tool, so my memory of it is surely a bit foggy. The two differences I've noticed so far are:
    1. Google runs in the web browser on a special port, MS runs in Explorer, Outlook as toolbars.
    2. Maybe I haven't played around with it enough yet, but unfortunately, the MS tool doesn't seem to be capable of showing me where in the file it found my search term! It shows me a list of files it thinks are relevant, with lovely little stars indicating the level of relevance, but it doesn't show me where in the (potentially large) file, the term I searched for appears. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
    --
    http://nerdfortress.com/
  2. Ars review by enjahova · · Score: 5, Informative

    Arstechnica has a nice review of all the windows desktop search tools:

    http://arstechnica.com/reviews/apps/desktop-search .ars

    Of course it has the beta of the MS search, but a pretty good guide I think.

    --
    "how can they call it a MINE if everything here is THEIRS?!?!" -Straight Jacket
  3. Re:It's about time. by Dr.+Mutex · · Score: 3, Informative
    Microsoft should have had this built-into the OS a long long time ago!

    They did, it's been in the OS since Windows 2000. It's called Indexing Service. Most people never learn how to use it, though.

  4. permissions flaw and other Spotlight problems by SuperBanana · · Score: 4, Informative
    This doesn't seem to generate much of a performance hit, so I wonder why Microsoft is going for a different approach? Apple's seems to make more sense.

    As a mac user (not "Mac nutjob"), there are several caveats to Spotlight and its indexing.

    • there can't be a one-to-many relationship, ie, no database files. This is why you don't have any access to Entourage email. Apple said "redo your storage of email", MS said "take a flying leap". I'm with MS on this one. You don't tell people to redesign their data storage because your architecture was short-sighted.
    • Indexing is pretty clever about waiting until things are quiet (and happens quickly enough even on a 1Ghz G4 powerbook) but it doesn't come with a set of built-in rules of what NOT to index, so things like web browser cache files are included in the index. If you're on battery power, that's wasted CPU cycles and disk I/O.
    • You can't exclude directories you don't have write permission to. Want to exclude all of /Developer, /Library, and /System, because most likely you won't be looking for files in there? Too bad.
    • The Spotlight index tends to get extremely fragmented within a week or two of initial use, even if there's plenty of free disk space and gigabytes of contiguous disk. It's not clear why, but after two weeks, the two spotlight index files were in over 400 fragments. A quick "on line" defrag with one of several defrag tools will fix this and it doesn't seem to get as bad from then on.
    • Smart Folders in both the Finder and programs like Mail are half-assed. For example, I made a Smart Folder that was "every file opened today", which worked -mostly- OK (there was stuff opened by the system, but that's OK). Except then I couldn't sort by atime, no matter what view I picked. It gets worse- you can't use nested conditions like you can in, say, Eudora or Firefox. Nor can you do a smart folder on arbitrary headers. It gets even worse- you can search for "read" as a boolean, not 'status' being either read, unread, replied, or forwarded. Want a smart folder that contains messages today you haven't replied to? Tough shit.
    • Want to see more than the document name? Have to click on the + every single time. There's no "show more info" view.
    • Spotlight isn't attached to any program, which makes managing its widow a royal pain in the ass.

    In short, Spotlight is nice, but infuriatingly dumbed down more than usual.

    --
    Please help metamoderate.
  5. Re:It's about time. by AlexTheBeast · · Score: 3, Informative

    If you name your text files with non-standard extensions (not *.txt), then the default search leaves them alone. Here's the hack one would need to get XP's default search to search all files...

    XP: Have Windows Perform Word or Phrase Searches within Unknown Filetypes

  6. It actually supports multiple users, for one thing by Kagami001 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Sorry, this is more of a Google search bash than a comment on MS's, since none of the other desktop search utilities have this problem, either:

    "Google Desktop Search can be installed under only one Windows username per computer"

    Pretty sad, really. Google may produce nice web apps, but they apparently have no clue how to program for Windows.

    Maybe they're not bothering to learn Windows programming because everybody will be using GoogleOS in a few years anyway. :)

  7. Re:Whoopee! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    The answer is yes... http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20050 504012104186&query=spotlight