Microsoft updates Windows Vista search to version 4.0
By Jonathan Schlaffer
The built-in search feature of Windows Vista is no match for the Spotlight search feature of Mac OSX which is unobtrusive when indexing, fast to find your files right off the bat and just smarter. Microsoft is playing catch-up with its search feature and with the latest update may just be getting there.
Windows Search 4.0 is available for almost every modern 32-bit or 64-bit version of Windows including Vista with SP1, Windows XP SP2, Windows 2003, Windows Home Server and Windows Server 2008. The update is not available via Windows Update and must be downloaded manually from Microsoft.
The search isn’t necessarily any smarter and in that respect is no match for Spotlight but there are a couple new features worth noting. According to ZDnet, Windows Search 4.0 improves indexing speed and support for indexing encrypted files has been added. It also supports indexing files on networked computers and drives.
Important changes to be sure but the engine powering Windows Search just isn’t that smart. It’s speed has improved, it’s not so intrusive when it’s indexing as to be annoying anymore and now it’s time to work on improving how smart it is. It needs to be tweaked so it can give instant results for a keyword on all files scattered all over the hard drive as opposed to several specific locations or one single specific location or having to actually scan the whole hard drive; which is time consuming.
In fact, why can’t Microsoft just rip off Spotlight? Yes, that option is probably best and then it can deny doing so and say that version of Windows Search was always in the works.
[UPDATE:] A reader pointed out that in order for this to work on Vista, SP1 must be installed. I have updated the post to reflect this, apologies for the slight confusion.
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June 5th, 2008
By the way, I just looked at the article from microsoft, an for vista, you need SP1. I’ll have to live without this update, because sp1 created more problems than it fixed.
June 6th, 2008
What you want is to a search without doing any spidering…
June 6th, 2008
I want Windows search to work more like Spotlight… and somehow Spotlight brings results with very little spidering… like magic… not to mention being smarter.