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Microsoft Finalizes Its Desktop Search Software
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."
How does it compare to Google's desktop search? Has anyone compared them side-by-side? Alas, I don't have access to a Windows machine, so I cannot.
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
...so that parents can't find your porn.
I don't get it.
Maybe this will finally put an end to the market domination of the evil Google?
;-)
It will happen.
You need to upload your files to M$ cluster for indexing.
File search intergration bundled with web searches, and tabs on the browser. 90% of Windows users are too befuddled to read any further.
P.S. Sorry. I forgot that Microsoft is now committed to security.
next time I need help finding my desktop I'll give'em a jingle jangle.
Even if it's from Microsoft, competition is _always_ good. I use linux so I don't really care who releases desktop searches for windows, but I support Microsoft's and Google's efforts to make the windows desktop easier to use.
I have tried the Google Desktop Search and I was not impressed with the lack of options. I know google tries to simplify things, but this was way too simple. The main problem is the lack of Access Control Options. I don't trust anything indexing all my files. It just a privacy issue I have.
The searching for the web would of course direct you to microsoft sites just like smart tags.
Evolution or ID?
...That I've been using is Blinkx, which can be found at http://www.blinkx.com/overview.php. Very slick.
Otherwise... It's MS. Better not let it send anything through your firewall!
...but since we haven't had a Google story today (And it's nearly noon EDT! And the only Apple "news" is from 1981! Is something broken at OSDN?):
1) I'm so used to the minimalist Google page that the Google Toolbar banner they're running now is as intrusive as a Punch The Monkey ad.
2) Are the new Google ads here context-driven? If so, what on earth about "Microsoft Finalizes Its Desktop Search Software" makes their system think "Meet Eritrean Singles" is relevant?
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Although this is clearly a direct response to Google's Desktop Search, I feel that Microsoft should have had this built-into the OS a long long time ago! It's their own OS for crying out loud.. The default Windows OS file search function was ridiculously slow and had severe limitations.
Disable this on your IIS servers, mmmkay...
What about the seachdog? How has it been improved?
Major updates cited include the ability to pick and choose which files to index, and how often
Interesting...Apple's implementation is integrated into the filesystem layer, so it indexes everything as it is written to disk (or at least, very soon after, once I/O load has gone down).
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.
This space intentionally left blank.
This software was unable to find the biro on my desktop. I had to search for it manually and eventually found it on the floor behind a piece of pizza crust.
Does it take less than a half hour to search a full disk drive? If so, why not wire it into the OS in a service pack? The current Win XP search capability is abysmal and borderline useless. I don't care whether the search is on the desktop or not (I'd probably prefer not), but I'd like it to work.
Seen any BadMarketing lately?
...it's part of MS Office, and it slows a machine as it constantly indexes the living fark out of your machine's docs and everything else for no better reason than MS thinks it should and that it should be part of the default Orifice install.
.dll and other code file on a machine and note their versions, CRCs, signatures, etc...
I turn off this indexing feature every single time on every single machine to improve speed of use by a good 5%-10%.
A full-depth indexing and searching service covering my entire machine would take up more space than the registry, be single massive point of failure for privacy should my machine be compromised, and a drain on my resources. If I am fairly competent at deciding where to put files and keep to that scheme, I shouldn't need to worry about indexing them.
MS if anything should come up with a system file indexer to keep track of every copy of every
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
Ok, I think we'll need to draw straws to figure out who here is going to install it first.
I noticed yesterday that Google's front page shows a big link to the "Google Toolbar" when loaded in IE, but not when loaded in Firefox.
Arstechnica has a nice review of all the windows desktop search tools:
h .ars
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/apps/desktop-searc
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
a desktop and web search software integrated and bundled with Longhorn. Bye, GoogleDesktop and competition...
I don't feel like it...
Microsoft's first priority should be to close the holes in its products that let viruses, spyware, spambots, mushrooms, toadstools, or whatever grow in their customers' computers.
This desktop search tool will just be one more thing to have to shut off.
If left on, it will
That last point is arguably Not Completely Bad, since the machines are supposed to work for us, and not the other way around. The trouble is that it encourages the user to be lazy, putting all of their files into one big bucket. Then, when it comes time to upgrade or migrate to another machine, you've got to move all of that stuff, whether it's needed or not.
Microsoft as a company can't stand it if someone else has a feature they don't have. Couple that with the mindset that adding a security applet or layer on top of what's there already is the way to go, and you get insecure bloatware.
How long before Windows collapses under its own weight?
sigs, as if you care.
but theres a nice version of locate which runs in the windows taskbar. I cant remember what it was called anyone know?
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
I've been using CollectiveCortex on Linux and it works very well. A lot of useful tools built in for free which actually cost a fair bit in competing products. Should be a revamped new version out shortly apparently.
"You need to reboot your computer for these changes to take effect."
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Is it me or is the standard Windows search utterly useless? Searching for text in files *never* return results even though I'm sure the text exist. That's why I've switches to Agent Ransack that does the job right. I'll bet this new super search enginge is nothing more than a fix to the pointless search tool in Explorer.
Is the puppy still there?! It's gots to have a puppy! EVERYONE knows that puppies are great at finding stuff. I hope Microsoft doesn't screw this up and use a kitten instead!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
hi
you can find a whole slew of deskbar shortcuts for microsoft desktop search at:
deskbarshortcuts.com
peace
What I would really like to see on my lone Windows machine is something like:
You missed the key word. Microsoft uses their illegal monopoly to further integrate a tool into their own operating system (which btw does give independant developers trouble). Google has to settle for integration in IE.
Neither solution is good, and will probably end up with more people using a toolbar. These toolbars will be open to exploits, therefor they are bad.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
Cos you can simply run the indexing under a less privileged user account and set up the filesystem permissions on your files to disallow other people from reading them, keep your own documents to yourself.
Wait. I bet you're running Windows XP with a FAT filesystem, aren't you.
Deleted
http://desktop.yahoo.com/
So competition is looking up on this item, at least.
I'm sticking with Copernic Desktop, which indexes at least as well, doesn't require IE (I use Firefox), and has a fast, integrated document viewer.
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.
Microsoft decision process:
Security is number one for Longhorn.
A Microsoft branded search is TOP priorty for Microsoft.
Software issues continue to push back the release date, resources are limited.
OK, drop the security features and keep working on the search addition...
Let's see if I am wrong...
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
Copernic desktop search let's you select the extension of the files to search for each category. It has a very nice and polished interface and personally like it more than google or msn or yahoo desktop searches.
As a mac user (not "Mac nutjob"), there are several caveats to Spotlight and its indexing.
In short, Spotlight is nice, but infuriatingly dumbed down more than usual.
Please help metamoderate.
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.
Both designs have been around for quite some time. Updating the index immediately when a file changes may be OK for desktop use, but it has unpredictable consequences for other kinds of uses. The conservative and safe thing is to update on a schedule unless the user explicitly requests otherwise.
Apple's implementation is integrated into the filesystem layer, so it indexes everything as it is written to disk
"Integrating" any of this in the file system layer is unnecessary. All you need is update notifications from the kernel to a user mode index server, a tiny addition to most kernel, and one that Linux has supported for a while now.
...which IMHO is a disaster.
I've no doubt the technology under the hood is good, but the user interface is awful.
I and many other users have noticed that Spotlight frequently fails to find files that I know are on my hard drive. I don't know how much of that is because nobody understands what, exactly you're searching for (does a query for "time" match QuickTime or not?); how much is because of poorly documented exclusions (big areas, like the Library and System folders, that are excluded by default); and how much is because it hasn't actually completed indexing when it says it has.
It has a weird habit, even on a fast machine, of locking up the entire Finder and spinning the pizza wheel after you type about three characters. Apparently it insists on finding every file that matches the search fragment before it will let you type more characters to refine the search. The lockups can take a big fraction of a minute.
In many cases Spotlight will fail to find files that the old Find facility would have found... and take longer to do it.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
I've tried it, apperantly it's just a textbox that says "Right infront of you, dumbass!"
The ad about multiple sclerosis (MS) I can understand, but the Italian travel and Eritrean single ads I just don't get. I don't see any keywords or related keywords that would be triggering those particular ads, unlike the MS one.
Between this and tabbed browsing, MS will be up on all the latest trends of 2004(and earlier)! We are so proud of you guys!!
The thing about these Desktop search features is that you don't think they are worth all that much until you acutally start using them. Being a Mac user didn't sit around holding my breath waiting for 'Spotlight'. I Installed OS.X 10.4 mainly in the hope for more stability, obtimization and bugfixes. Now that I do have 'Spotlight' at my fingertips I can not tell you how much time it saves to just hit [Command]+[Space, inputing the name of a file, folder, Application etc.... scrolling down the list with the arrow keys and hiting [Enter]. Compare this to clicking your way through an endless sequence of directories or menus or trying to find what ever it is you want on an overcrowded desktop. Desktop searching is easily one of the best time savers I have yet come across. I imagine this applies equally on a Windows or Linux boxen.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
...or is the ability to selectively index file system objects just a way to avoid the long initial indexing process that would otherwise take place, as it does in Apple's Mac OS X 10.4?
If it is, I think it's a rather short-sighted "feature." You wouldn't necessarily want to index your system files, but it seems to me that other files you choose not to index are the ones you're bound to want to search some day, some time.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, write technology blogs.
i typed korean into the search box and it immediately crashed the language bar, explorer, and MSN search.
XP's foreign language support could be improved. my mac handles it much better. don't know about linux...
I uninstalled Google's desktop search and went to give this one a shot. However, after I installed it, it said that the search failed to start and to uninstall and reinstall it again. I did so, only to be presented with the same message yet again. When I tried to manually invoke the indexing, the only thing it would index is subdirectories of "My Documents".
It looks like Microsoft has dropped the bomb yet again. At least, for me....
A community-oriented lyrics site
Yeah. BTW, who wants to bet on how long it will be before Microsoft asserts that Desktop search is an "integral part of the operating system".
I see you've been reading about WinFS.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I've been using this for the past half year and it works fantastically well. It had all the features that was missing from Google.
It integrates very well with Outlook, supports firefox, is extensible by allowing the addition of new filetypes, very fast, and has a slick interface. I must use it dozens of times a day.
Does anyone know if you can choose the database folder location? The beta is fixed to c:\documents and settings\... My c: drive is just about out of space.
get nemulator
I went to the MS site and considered downloading the new search tool. There was a whole list of "partners" offering plug-ins to the search tool so I could index other types of files. I have enough trouble trusting MS - now they are asking me to trust all the plug-in vendors to not abuse me. No thanks MS! I'll stick with my Google Desktop search.
They did not test for five month, they tested for one month and then it took four month to find the executable on the drive ... mmm
couldn't MS just make a Spotlight plugin that allows Spotlight to search within its Email database file?
Kind of. The way Calendar (and I think Mail) cheatss to make this work is to create a file in a hidden directory for every contact/calendar/mail. Now note these files do not actually have to have content in them - they can be empty, they just need to exist so Spotlight can "index" them. When it does then the metadata rreader can look in the real store.
So it's a bit of a hack but at least it's not all that detrimental to storage.
Apple may add in support later for finding parts in large files though, I think it's pretty inevitable as a next step as many things could make use of it.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
All that computing power, and it still can't find my car keys. They were on the desktop, after all.
And they said zombies weren't real!
Hang on, let me use Spotlight to search my new Mac to see if I have any more info on this...
Nope, don't care.
Developers: We can use your help.
What about our linux indexing options?
I've looked at Beagle, but it seems to require the whole mono install (haven't gotten around to that yet), and some kernel patching, meta info enabled file systems, and doesn't quite help when dealing with NFS mounted home directories.
Are there any other choices?
Why is MS making a desktop search tool? They ARE the desktop. Why don't they just improve the Windows search tool?
But Microsoft has a history of always having to catchup right?
I mean, Microsoft is not a great leader, but a great follower, and then it crushes it's competition with it's monopolistic practices.
What chance really does have GDS and the others, if MS integrates this into the OS?
Most of the folks use the things because they are already there.
Most of my friends use Windows Media Player because it's already there, IE because it's already there, and don't bother looking around because the're used to them, even if the features they have are not great or even insecure.
Why spend 5 minutes opening IE (It's already there, remember?), browse to www.getfirefox.com, wait for the installable to download and *then* start browsing?
They don't care it's more "secure", nor want to wait the download.
It even happened to me. I was an avid ICQ user, and once, just once, tried messenger because i was on dialup and didn't want to download ICQ. Now, i don't use ICQ anymore, but messenger. Damn it. And I like it.
So, even if a piece of program has nice features, and *it's free* (thats important), how can it compete if the average user don't care about the "niceness" of it?
Fiu.
I dont have any files you insensitive clod!!
I am a mac user and of course I am seeking some sort of comparison to spotlight.
Has anyone used both? Are there any articles on this out there?
Could Jesus microwave a burrito so hot that he himself cou
I'd be curious as to the size of MS's indexes.
I was trying to free room on my 36GB laptop HD and discovered GDS taking 1 GB of disk space for it's index's. On my desktop that'd be fine, but it's way too much for my laptops small hard drive. though I then turned around and installed 4GB of WoW...
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
If this happens, and if IESearch works easily, then Google will slowly be replaced on he Desktop, just Like Netscape was replaced. (By standard, I mean most used by default, good or bad)
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.
I want to index at 3am... why can't they just let me set a @#%@#$@#ing time?!?!?!?!?!??!
Morons. All those brilliant engineers and they can't figure out simplicity.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
I've got ls, grep, whereis, and locate. They seem to work okay.
The days of the digital watch are numbered.
I am honestly trying to wrap my brain around why "desktop searching" is such a big deal, and I can only think of a few possibilities.
a) MS will copy Gnome in future versions and users will be stuck with Spatial file navigation.
- rendering any file/folder deeper then 3 levels a nightmare to get to.
b) Mom&Pop Users have become such cattle that they refuse to learn how to find stuff that they download or save, and search companies see $$ with all those helpless Baby Boomers now that the geeks have moved out of the home (or they are now in nursing homes and we got kicked out).
c) Through a magical process that has eliminated the need for human intervention and good IDv3 tags, these new searches have indexed all the lyrics to your MP3/movie collections so you can now search your collection for:
"That song with the girl who tries to act like an '03 version of Madonna"
"that tune that had "some day I'll get laid" in the chorus".
Programs like iTunes that are a Db are fine and good, but only if all the data needed to search is there in the first place.
Teaching end users proper file structure will last a lot longer then this hand-holding, because at the end of the day the folks being "helped" are still idiots.
Lets just give them a remote controll, and scroll the programs/files on the PC like the TV-Guide does for thier TV shows. "OOh, freecell is on at 7:30!"
-------------
c:\mp3\rock\ACDC\Who Made Who\ACDC - Shook me all night long.mp3
Result: music (to some)
Start -> New Search -> Music -> ACDC -> Who Made Who -> Shook Me all night long.
Result:
Would you like to buy ACDC music online?
Are you interested in an ACDC Concert?
Search Ebay for ACDC stuff?
Would you like to know who made you?
Are you searching for God?
Would you like to meet others who have bad taste in music too?
Are you stuck in the 80's and need help?
Do you want $$ to get out of your parents basement?
yeah I can't wait to see the financial models that predict Desktop Searching being profitable.
A little education sure will go a long way to avoiding pain.
Yes I am biased, I hate stupid people. Can somebody please help me to understand WHY?
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
Seems like some are contextual, others aren't. I get the Eritrean / Christian dating ads on other stories.
Isn't this supposed to be when you go Start Menu> Find> Find Files? Did I miss something here. This is supposed to be implemented into Windows?
$sig$
So M$ bashing aside, i installed the app. and used it, and i found it quite good. Its too early to say a lot, but have surely made me switch atleast for evaluating it.
Here are the main advantages i found over google desktop search:
1. Its an application, so dosent open browser pages for search.
2. It has search-as-you-type
3. It has an awesome support for shortcuts, i have programmed all my firefox keywords in search desktop
4. It has a very good feature for previewing the documents in search application itself, so you dont have to open it at all (Preview of office docs. is disabled by defualt, u will have to add the extensions).
5. You can change the default web search engine to google, so dosent suck that much. It also dosent pop IE, uses the default browser.
6. You can start applications from it by creating shortcuts.
So basically, this feels more like a decent "application" than just a "web page", and has a few really neat tricks for keyboard users.
Reviews are nice, but so far, all of the search apps I've tried had serious limitations, and they never seem to be mentionned in any of those reviews. They only seem to scratch the surface.
...) and none of them could do that (even tried some document indexing/storage systems). And very few would actually index "code" files.
... but I know that's asking a bit much.
:(
What they index: some make use of the installed 3rd party IFilters, some just don't-like GDS (although they have their own extensions now). It's pointless if it only indexes a small portion of your files.
What you can search: PUNCTUATION or SYMBOLS!!! That's by FAR the biggest limitation of those apps. Ever tried to search for a chunk of code/script/css or something like it? Most just strip everything else than the letters (sort of like searching on google). That alone makes the whole thing mostly worthless to me. I've tried them all (MS Desktop Search, GDS, Coppernic, X1,
Some can't (or not easily) index mapped drives (over network). Some only seem to work for a single user. Lots of issues like that...
It's nice to have something that can index my email, word documents or EXIF/IPTC info, but quite honestly, I don't use those features at all (and I already have other apps that do it anyways that I don't use either). That's the stuff those reviews seem to cover mostly, and all seem to do a half-decent job at it.
These apps will hopefully mature and get more useful features. Like perhaps central/shared indexes? I have several gigs worth of stuff on a server which is mapped on several workstations. Even if the app can search it (or be forced/tricked into doing it), do you still want several PCs indexing many many gigs of stuff across your LAN? My workstations * size of documents makes about 200GB of data to index over the network (and it's really redundant). If you format (or dual boot) then you'll have to reindex everything again (no ways to back the indexes up AFAIK). That's why I'm using a homemade solution using the old MS Indexing Service (and it also searches some SQL tables on the same page). One index kept on the server, only need to index the data once.
I'd like other functions like indexing/searching SQL servers, FTPs, shares, LANs, intranets,
If GDS could make use 3rd party IFilters and search code (text with symbols and punctuation) then it would be a invaluable tool. Until then I have no use for it and will stick to my (better imho) homemade solution
///<sig
Now you can find the linux iso you want to install on top of windows much more easily.
Isn't this suspiciously similar to how Internet Explorer took market share from Netscape?
"Oh, I'm sorry. MSN Search is so tightly integrated into Longhorn that our customers cannot use Google without crashing Windows. That's why we're blocking Google by default in the Longhorn firewall. No other reason."
'What ever Google does I can do better!' -- What a joke.
[%] Cingular Ringtones
Google already has it available. As I write this I am using MACOSX Tiger with spotlight, and when I get to work tomorrow I'll have Beagle and Kat (gnome and KDE respectively) at my disposal. There is nothing revolutionary about this and its hardly news that m$ would be ripping this off.
I can not believe what happened -- I installed the Microsoft desktop search engine today and was playing around with it, setting various starting points for the indexing. The last marker I set it at was the root of my data directory. For some reason it would only scan about 600 files and then stop (I had about 18000 files there) So i figured maybe I should delete the temp index directories that it created in an effort to get it to start fresh. When I did that the desktop search application crashed and so I tried to start it up several times. Sometimes it would actually stay up for a while and then crash when I would get ot the settings page.
:( ... And so to the genius who engineered this piece of shit -- all I have to say is FUCK YOU and FUCK YOU again, for ruining my beautiful afternoon/evening and fucking up my files.
Then I got tired of it and decided to go back to what I was doing before I got mixed up with this piece of shit. Before I know it, my editor pops up a message saying the file I was modifying has been deleted! WTF? I look at my c:/data directory and realize it's fucking gone. I could not believe my eyes.
I have been undeleting my files ever since
Mod Parent UP
-- Boycott Shell
Collective cortex - Java based, but not open source, http://www.collectivecortex.com/ Nariva - Java based, GPL, http://nariva.sourceforge.net/ Terrier - Java based, MPL, http://ir.dcs.gla.ac.uk/terrier/
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"The looser the waistband, the deeper the quicksand", or so I have read.