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Microsoft To Change Desktop Search After Google Complaint
Raver32 writes to tell us that Microsoft will be making changes to their desktop search tool in Vista after a 49-page antitrust complaint was filed by Google. "Microsoft initially dismissed the allegations, saying regulators had reviewed the program before Vista launched. However, Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel, said in an interview last week that the company was willing to make changes if necessary."
They're putting in a link for other search providers! Boy, aren't we glad that MS obeys the spirit of the law, and not just the word.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
( "what? We did it because we were told to! Not our fault your desktop is all broke now!" )
Okay, so prolly not like that. But seriously; they could've avoided the bad PR by just responding to a quiet request in the first place, instead of being pushed into it... as usual.
I realize there's prolly some sort of 'we only do it when we have to' mentality prevalent in Redmond, but when is someone there going to realize that maybe, you know, they can take a chance and do The Right Thing - when the asking is being done quietly and politely, and not finally and grudgingly do it later when there's a big fat lawsuit or four hanging over their heads?
I know, I know... but I still have some small bit of dreamer left in me.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Also I am reminded of the fights between AOL and MSFT about allowing the PC makers to install additional icons in the desktop touting services that competed with MSN etc back in the Win95/98 time frame. AOL won, but it became irrelevant eventually. Will the scenario repeat? Has google jumped the shark?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
"In response to claims that Vista's "Instant Search" slows competing products, Microsoft agreed to give competitors technical information to help optimize performance."
Considering how MS is reluctant to give the requisite technical information even to companies that are developing software and drivers in cooperation with MS, I am skeptical of this. More likely, they mean that by "provide technical information" they throw them a copy of "Microsoft for Dummies" and say "Deal."
Is that marketing-speak for File manager/Windows explorer search function?
Sounds more like MSFT Desktop Search is going to become an essential part of the core O/S.
IIRC, it's called the "Netscape Offensive".
Desktop search is a name for a program that constantly indexes your hard drive so the results come up instantly when you search for a file. Examples include Google Desktop Search (Win/Mac), Vista Desktop Search (Win), Spotlight (Mac) and Beagle (Lin)
"I think an etch-a-sketch with an ethernet port would beat IE7 in web standards compliance."
That just raises further questions!
1. WHY such an odd (pardon the pun) number of pages?
2. What does it matter? Does anyone think that more pages = better? Did MS' lawyers see the brief and go "Shit guys, it's over 47 pages long. We better settle!"?
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
Either Google wants to control our OS or media search engines have turned into whiny conglomerates that fight over whose right it is to search what. I am more concerned about Google throttling competition than MS.
...so it takes only 49 pages to make Microsoft obey the law, now?
Kneel before Google!
The omnipotence of GOOG is starting to get just plain scary.
Currently bidding on sig
Contrary to the title of the article...
Microsoft To Change Desktop Search After Google Complaint...MS hasnt agreed to do anything...
However, Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel, said in an interview last week that the company was willing to make changes if necessary.(Micorsoft,) Please define "if necessary"... is it:
Until such a definition is announced by MS, this statement doesnt mean much of anything - except perhaps as an attempt to make the general public think they are addressing the issue of choice on the public's behalf (as most of the general public will probably read into their statement in the same way that happened when the article title was created).
Just my thoughts on the matter...
-Robert
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
... but now fear another high profile ant-trust case across 50 states with a government likely to change from GOP to Democrat in the next year. They got away with murder with the last anti-trust case due to a change in legislative control - they don't want to risk getting hit by the other side of the swinging bat this time, hence the "sure we will make the changes if that's what people really want".
I'm not saying they conspired to do this but it will be almost a year from now before this is fixed. In the mean time people will get used to the built in search features created by MS. After that manufacturers can install Google desktop search and it will be easier for the user to switch back to default one. I'm not sure what exactly the problem was though. My dell came with Google search and tool bar which was an abomination before they updated it to look more like the Microsoft one.
From TFA:
The bit most interesting to me was this. Does this mean that Microsoft have done again what they were penalised for in 2000? Two of the restrictions placed upon it then were:
So, I imagine they're back to using the secret API for the Microsoft search, while slowing down the 'official' APIs third parties must use. Although the press item only has one sentence on it, this 'optimisation' issue is as important as Microsoft providing a competing product to Google Desktop Search in my opinion.
I assume the technical information handed over to Google will be details of how to access key parts of Microsoft's hidden-hook goodies?
I'm going to transform myself into a mighty hawk. Either that or I'll just go and work at Dixons, haven't decided yet.
The issue here is that Microsoft does not include a way to turn off its own desktop search, or to make a competing product the default. If you want to use Google Desktop, you can, but you'll still have the MS version running at the same time--which is obviously a waste of resources, on an already resource-hungry OS. According to TFA, they still haven't implemented a way to turn their own version off. I don't use Windows, and I don't care much for Google as of late, but they do have a very valid argument. This is anti-competitive behavior, and needs to be changed.
$: locate
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
Man, ya'll must be sheep. Seriously.
Look. MS wrote the OS. MS owns the OS. MS can do whatever they want with it. If that means integrate whatever the **** they want, then piss off. If you don't like it, don't use it. It is not drinking water. Yes, you can live with MS. I don't use Windows, but I will do whatever it takes to make sure MS does not loose this fundamental freedom.
I find it quite unbelievable some people's feelings of entitlement. No, you are not entitled that somebody provide an OS that does what you want how you want it.
Your job depends on using Windows? Quit. It's not that hard. You are not under threat of violence. There are other jobs out there. Start your own business. Mow a lawn, I don't care. You are free people in a free society. Just choose not to participate in what you disagree with. What are you, sheep?
No, mostly you're just arm chair pundents. Debating the evilness of some entity but not getting up long enough to do something about it.
"Desktop Search" is what you turn off to gain HDD access speed, because you actively organize your personal files (unlike other schmucks).
I'm curious as to why it's so wrong for Microsoft to have its own desktop search when OS X has its own...
It creates so much IO load that so far every machine I used it on got down to a crawl once it indexed a couple 100,000 files. I guess that's why they turn it off automatically once any user interaction is noticed. But by then it has consumed so much virtual memory that every other app has to be paged back in slowly. That gets better with 2 GB of memory but not much. Oh well, I guess I need 64bit and 4GB.
It helps to put the index on a different disk than your OS and your page file, but not a lot.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
Well, no, not exactly.
Though I just love locate, this is a wee bit different. For one, these programs index the content of your documents as well, not just their names. As practical as locate is, it only matches your search to the list of names in the database; I cannot search for a document containing some word.
Of course, that's where grep comes in, but then, grep's database is the fscking filesystem, so it may take a while.
Besides, I can teach my father how to use Beagle. I cannot teach him how to grep.
OK, I could, but I don't have the time.
Ignore this signature. By order.
"OSX supported hardware" is not a market, it's a product. You can legally have a monopoly on a product (patent, copyright, trademark), but you can not (unless otherwise specified) have and use a monopoly on a market (Desktop computing) to give you an unfair advantage in another market (Internet Search).
Here Microsoft is using their Desktop monopoly to boost their online search business and (this is the illegal part) restricting their monopoly product from using someone else's online search business.
http://www.mhall119.com
a) The fact that it's called Desktop Search implies that it's directed at Joe User, who doesn't want to be anywhere near *sh
b) locate ain't exactly instant, it doesn't pull metadata, etc...
"I think an etch-a-sketch with an ethernet port would beat IE7 in web standards compliance."
less than 10 seconds to switch the default ie7 search to google after a fresh install... whats the problem?
note: i don't use ie7, im a firefox user, but still... seems like a pretty silly thing
EXACTLY.
You deserve to lose all of your data if you stuff all of your files into My Documents. Or worse, C:\WP51\DOCS\
Threw (verb): Past tense of throw.
Through (preposition): In at one end, side, or surface and out at the other. All the way; along the whole distance.
** The More You Know! (tm)
All proceeding as planned, it's a tempo move.
Que? Why? What's wrong with dumping all of your documents in "My Documents". Can't Windows handle that? I mean, if you have a little OCD and have the need to put all of your files into neat little folders, that is fine. But for the rest of us, saving into one big folder is just peachy as long as the OS can handle it. I do sort mine into business and personal folders, but that is about the extent of my filing. If I have a big project, it gets a folder as well.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
EXACTLY.
You deserve to lose all of your data if you stuff all of your files into My Documents. Or worse, C:\WP51\DOCS\
Or if you put them inOh, wait...
:%s:work:/.:g
Since when has finding user files been a core function of the OS?
Cheering for either company is ridiculous. So Bill Gates has a few more billions than Sergei and Larry, but so what. It's not like any of us have our own private 737 to fly around in.
I like an OS to come with more stuff out of the box with every release. It's just less complicated to put in one CD and get everything - that's why I like Linux and OS/X. People have a right to make their products, however they want them. It sucks to bolt rear views on a car after the fact, and it sucks to go and download a bunch of unintegrated utilities onto your drive.
Google could have been proactive and released a Vista Upgrade for their search, with an Aero look, that shuts of Microsoft search. They could go and see every OS out there, and for Vista owners, drop down a new FireFox and a new Google Search FOR VISTA. But instead of being agressive, they cry to lawyers just like Netscape did. The result will be the same.
Microsoft delivered a new search experience with their new OS, and it is time for Google to respond with product.
I'm waiting for a new Google Search for Vista.
This is my sig.
I mean, they have Spotlight and that's Apple-only and bundled, right?
To have an embedded search utility on an OS just seems logical. Microsoft may be hated around here, but for an OS maker to change the default search to something else just seems stupid. They are bundling it because it's an OS and it needs a desktop search.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
> I mean, we're not talking about middleware like WMP here -- we're talking about finding files on the user's hard drive.
Well, that's not ALL we're talking about. Remember, this was an MS-made replacement for Google's desktop search and Microsoft only made it AFTER seeing Google's product, at which point they merged it into Windows at a fairly deep level.
In other words, I don't really care what they put into their OS, but WHY they put it in there: to kill off competitors (Google) and their products.
Why is Google worried about the WDS? Can't you install their desktop search in Vista like you can in XP? If so, then users have choice already.
And why aren't they suing Apple for Spotlight? It's way more integrated into OSX than WDS is in Vista? Really, I don't understand the double standard.
Squeaky wheel gets the grease.
Neihter locate nor find is a core OS function...
By resurrecting the old "forcing Coke to distribute Pepsi" canard, you've shown us just how deeply you buy into MSFT's P.R.
The real analogy here is, if Coke owned the refrigerators at 89% of all stores, and added locks to the fridge so that only they could add new product.
Microsoft "owns" the fridges, and because they're an O/S monopoly, they can't block competitors from adding similar features to the O/S. Period.
O lord, bless this thy holy hand grenade, that with it thou mayest blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy.
There seems to be alot of MS hatred on /. - Microsoft IS the major OS creator for PCs. There is no good in complaining about it. Many /.'ers use Linux based OSes ALONG with MS. So why all the hatred - MOST people want to go to the store buy a computer, go home set it up and get doing what they intend to do. MOST people don't buy a PC to complain about what MS has done!
With that said, I am a developer for a corporation and we have a team of developers, each assigned a task in the application we are creating. I don't have to ask my boss for every line of code that I write or for every function that I add... Should MS ask their group of laywers if the can implement a search function to the OS they are developing??? Did MS intentionally set up the desktop search with NO provision for disabling it???
The answer to both of those questions is NO. If MS had to ask if they could develop a new function, we wouldn't be where we are in the pc world. The fact is that MS wrote a disable function - whether it was for end-user use or 3rd party use isn't known by us, but this time MS should not have backed down so quickly.
I am a user of BOTH Linux and MS VISTA & XP user... I have no loyalties to either, they both fit the need that I have for them. I'm not for MS and against Linux, I'm just saying this time Google needed to step it up...
Here I stand, I can do no other, God help me. - Martin Luther
if (searchEngine != MS) {
thread.sleep(1000);
executeSearch();
} else {
executeSearch();
}
If people are complaining about not being able to use a Google search in a non-Google product, I don't see where there's a problem(other than Microsoft being gun-shy from the word 'Antitrust'). What I'm wondering now, is if it's time to try Vista? I was waiting for the bugs to get ironed out, and if people have nothing worse to complain about than the HDD search in the OS, all of the more serious issues and downfalls must be fixed, right?
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
From the article:
Google filed a 49-page document with the Justice Department in April claiming Vista's desktop search tool slowed down competing programs, including Google's own free offering, and that it's difficult for users to figure out how to turn off the Microsoft program.
Emphasis mine. This was not about choice--users could install alternative desktop search software regardless of whether the MS search was turned off. The point was that something in the OS was degrading the performance of those alternatives. Based on how quickly MS has backed down, I'm guessing it was deliberate, or at least known and accepted.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
There appears to be a misunderstanding of the dictionary definition of the term "monopoly" ( http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/monopoly ), which, to paraphrase is "Exclusive control by one group of the means of producing or selling a commodity or service." By this definition of the term "monopoly" it means that there no alternatives to a product or service to choose from.
o n/monopoly_power.htm ).
This is compared against the legal definition of "monopoly" under the Sherman Act - which, to simplify is "a monopoly is where nearly all of one product type or service is owned by one person or group of people within a community or area." ( http://business-law.freeadvice.com/trade_regulati
You are saying that you have alternatives to Windows, so they don't have a monopoly - which is correct in the conventional, non-legal sense. But under the defintion of monopoly power based on the more recent interpretations of the Sherman Act, the fact that "nearly all" of desktop computers run Microsoft Windows means that Microsoft has monopoly power over the computer desktop market.
You know you're big when Microsoft becomes your bitch.
No but seriously, they'd just steamroller anyone else.
So they arent allowed to add valuable features to their OS any more? Maybe they should just go back to selling DOS to make sure there arent *any* of the last 20 years innovations in it.
I call shenanigans on your claim anyway. I believe indexed search was introduced into Windows with Win2k. Google's version may have been superior, but its not like they invented searching for stuff.
Well, that's not ALL we're talking about. Remember, this was an MS-made replacement for Google's desktop search and Microsoft only made it AFTER seeing Google's product, at which point they merged it into Windows at a fairly deep level.
Rubbish. Microsoft first said Vista (Longhorn at the time) would have "Desktop Search" a year before before Google's first GD beta (and two years before Apple released Spotlight). Further, they'd been talking about the broad concept since at least the mid 90s.
In other words, I don't really care what they put into their OS, but WHY they put it in there: to kill off competitors (Google) and their products.
The idea that it was a "response" to Google's product (and hence some deliberate, targeted attack), doesn't even pass the laugh test.
As practical as locate is, it only matches your search to the list of names in the database; I cannot search for a document containing some word. ... I can teach my father how to use Beagle. I cannot teach him how to grep.
There are dozens of GUI front ends to grep that deliver most of the functionality. One of the easiest to use is the KDE find utility, which can search by content, file dates and all of that. Used in conjunction with a reasonable directory structure, you can get most of the benefits of an indexing search engine witout the performance hit. Real data mining this way is tedious, however, so I'd expect there are already free tools that someone has or will make a KDE interface for.
At the end of the day the real question is if you trust Google or M$ to mine your files for you. M$ will sell you for a nickel and Google can be forced by governments. This is why free software is the answer where you are doing anything you care about.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
oooh I was wondering about this whole thread then I saw a glimmer of sanity.
Why do I need constantly running hard drive search? Rather have the processing power thanks.
I put the stuff there, I don't need Mocrosoft or Google to remind me where I put it; it's my hard drive not the internet!
As they should. Their search violates 236 patents held by Google :p
Right, by paying firefox (and others) to default to google search.
If this is false and you know it and M$ paid you to put it here, you have just libled Google on M$'s behalf. That's nothing new to M$, which is a good reason to take a large grain of salt along when anyone starts defending M$ about anything.
I mean, really. Does Google pay KDE to make them the default search engine in Konqueror? Do they then pay Debian to do the same thing to Iceweasel and Konqueror? Do they pay me? No, I just know that Google rocks and no one is even close when it comes to quick and accurate searches. The same logic walks back up the free software chain though distributions to the actual coders. When a better search engine comes along, it's going to replace Google as the default or it will be easier to chose between them.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
>If this is false and you know it and M$ paid you to put it here,
Wait, yuore telling me the Mozilla foundation does not get money (72 million) from google to make it the default search AND I'm paid by MS because I mentioned this fact?
Are you just stupid or crazy and stupid?
It's not false at all. Google pay the Mozilla foundation for each search that's made using that search box, just as Yahoo pay them for each search made on the Asian version of Firefox, which has a different default.
Sources: Here and here.
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
Hold on here. Ignoring the usual "if you don't hate M$ then you're in their payroll" drivel, are you actually denying that Google pays the Mozilla foundation for defaulting the start page and search provider to them? Seriously?
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
>Here Microsoft is using their Desktop monopoly to boost their online search business and (this is the illegal part) restricting their monopoly product from using someone else's online search business.
... desktop search... business.. hrmmmmm
No... here Microsoft is using their Desktop monopoly to boost their
Apple has a near monopoly in MP3 players and in their itunes jukebox. so is bundling safari with itunes using leverage in one (admittedly not illegal) market to gain market share in another legally problematic?
--Sam
Who mods these up as "interesting" anyway?
Actually, it's entirely true. See http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,3918 9475,00.htm
You, perhaps, need to research stuff before shooting your mouth off. In some cases it's justified, but you have just libeled Microsoft for no apparent reason. Find something new to complain about, like Office Open XML (ugh!) or something.
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
Neither Konq or Iceweasel (or Debian or KDE for that matter) have a ~100 million user base like Firefox (thankfully) does. I would imagine that if and when they do, maybe Google will pay them, but for the time being the fact that Konq doesn't get paid to default to Google is irrelevant.
The Bartko thing, really, happened like two decades ago. Get over it.
And by the way, using those lame dollar signs makes you look pretty dumb, never mind that your entire premise for crying foul is completely incorrect to begin with.
How is this modded interesting ?
remember that the old anti-trust alegations were brought on after the snowball got rolling with a press release saying that they would be holding windows back in the market?
this is a clever ploy by google, enough people are going to be screaming LINUX PATENT FUD!!!!!!
throughout the industry, that an investigation would follow.
Well then it's a good damn thing that it's true. The Google/Mozilla deal is well publicised and it has made Mozilla a LOT of money. It is aksi the reason why the Mozilla Corporation was created.
Google and Apple have a similar deal for Safari.
I use Google because it's good. But that doesn't mean that these well-known deals don't exist.
I have to admit this makes the average YouTube comment look actually balanced, intelligent and appealing.
GDS completely kicks ass.
Compared to XP, sure. Compared to Vista's built-in search (ie: what Microsoft were talking about back in 2003, a year before GDS was even in beta), not so much.
Now that GDS is available, MS have upped their game and built it into Vista, nice and deep.
No, Microsoft were going to do it long before GDS was available.
If MS address this in a future service pack, you can just bet it will be a command-line config or a registry setting that will obey the letter of the law, but be utterly useless in addressing the real complaint.
There is no "real complaint". There's just Google's baseless whining about "problems" that don't exist.
You, perhaps, need to research stuff before shooting your mouth off. In some cases it's justified, but you have just libeled Microsoft for no apparent reason.
Uh, no. First, I asked IF it was true. Second, that money is not the reason Google ends up as the boxed search engine because Firefox, Konqeror and friends are free software and the choice can be changed at any step of the way from Mozilla.org to my desktop.
This Gadzuki character was trying to make a big deal out of nothing, much like Barkto would. It's all noise and bullshit when M$ is involved.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Noise and bullshit - you'll find plenty of that up there in your post.
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
That is incorrect. IE's search field is customizable; it defaults to Live Search but I can easily use Google, Yahoo, or whatever else I want. Google's issue is with Vista's desktop search through Explorer, which is currently tied to the indexing service built into Vista. It's easy to disable that service, but there's currently no way to tie the Explorer search box to another desktop search engine. Note that this has nothing to do with online search.
--- "The idea is to die young, as late as possible." -- Ashley Montague
From what I gathered about the ruling (which is old, I know, but I'm a Mac guy and so not up on some Windows stuff) Microsoft has to help companies integrate products well with their OS. Does that mean that if anyone wanted the details on any part of Windows, all they'd have to do is create a competing product that duplicated or hooked into that feature, then demand that Microsoft expose the underpinnings so that the 3rd party product would be able to work just as well as theirs? (thinking about network tools, security, DRM, etc.)
Well, that's not precisely true right there. You did realise that the statements that Gadzuki character made were based on quotes by Mozilla Corporation executives? I suppose it's also worth pointing out that you can't actually change the search engine from Google AT ALL on some localised builds. How "free" is that?
Don't get me wrong, I like Firefox, and use it daily. And I sure as hell test any websites I make in it. But after the shenanigans Google's been pulling lately, I just don't trust THEM.
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
Wikipedia can help you. The first step in the process is recognizing you're ignorant. Everything is easy after that.
I'm really not trying to troll, but wasn't that based on the DB-like filesystem, which didn't make it into Vista?
Probably. Although it's not really relevant.
Also, WinFS wasn't a filesystem. It was a layer that sat on top of the filesystem. It's also (allegedly) going to be part of Longhorn server.
We are a constitutional government, which means it is not that easy to just elect leaders to change the basics. Thankfully. But corporations are an artificial construct of the Government. They are fundamentally different from other business forms. The whole "limited liability" thing is very, very powerful, and very dangerous. I do not feel bad asking my elected officials to place tighter strictures on corporations. Originally, they had much tighter restrictions than they do now.
And control of monopoly situations is one of the prime purposes of government, outside of the question of corporate power. The free market fails under monopoly conditions, as it does when there are imbalances of information, or externalities. We need government to keep the free market free, like we need a police force and government to keep us and our country free.
All the GP post is trying to say is that corporations can not run roughshod over the citizens of America. Or are you in favor of a return to some kind of feudalism?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
that would have been enough!
Engineering is the art of compromise.
It is relevant, to your comment, because you compared it to Vista's built-in search (i.e., current functionality) and said MS was talking about it in 2003 (while they were talking about a comparatively different thing).
I think I understand what you mean, but, in my view, there's a big (and really relevant) gap between talking about "science-fiction" stuff (which Google is also very guilty of, in other realms) and actually delivering a first-class product, like GDS in this case.
--- "The idea is to die young, as late as possible." -- Ashley Montague
It is relevant, to your comment, because you compared it to Vista's built-in search (i.e., current functionality) and said MS was talking about it in 2003 (while they were talking about a comparatively different thing).
No, it's irrelevant, because it's a back-end implementation detail (eg: like whether the 2GB of RAM in a computer is 4*512M sticks or 2*1G stick). What Microsoft were talking about is exactly what GDS (and WDS, and Spotlight) delivered - an indexed, computer-wide search facility.
How this was going to be achieved behind the scenes is, in the context of saying "Vista will have a search facility", not important. The important, and relevant, issue is the end-user-visible functionality of GDS/WDS/Spotlight in Vista (then Longhorn), that Microsoft announced way back in 2003. Hence, the presence of that feature in Vista can not, by definition, have been in response to GDS (or Spotlight).
Obligatory slightly dodgy car analogy: In 2003, Microsoft said their next car would have 300kw of power, and a V8 engine. In 2004, Google release a turbocharger aftermarket modification kit for Microsoft's existing 4 cylinder car, boosting its output to 280kw. In 2006/7, Microsoft actually released their new car, producing 300kw, only doing it with a turbocharged V6 instead of a V8.
Point being: same functionality, different implementations.
For that significant proportion of the world that hasn't upgraded to Vista yet - there is also the problem of the IE7 search utility - it skews Google results to the US centric SERPS whichever version of Google is seleected as the search provider. Even Google seems blind to this. See http://www.turnerdow.com/seo-IE7-Search-Steal.htm for the detail.