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Microsoft Businesses Google The Internet

Microsoft Finalizes Its Desktop Search Software 244

Posted by Zonk 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."
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Microsoft Finalizes Its Desktop Search Software More

Microsoft Finalizes Its Desktop Search Software

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  • How does it compare to Google's desktop search? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Karzz1 ( 306015 ) on Tuesday May 17, 2005 @11:53AM (#12556054) Homepage
    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.

  • Make sure it can exclude items... (Score:5, Funny)

    by rob_squared ( 821479 ) <rob@rob-squared . c om> on Tuesday May 17, 2005 @11:53AM (#12556056)
    ...so that parents can't find your porn.

  • Interesting (Score:5, Funny)

    by oKtosiTe ( 793555 ) on Tuesday May 17, 2005 @11:53AM (#12556060)
    Maybe this will finally put an end to the market domination of the evil Google?
    ;-)

    • Re:Interesting (Score:3, Funny)

      by VJ42 ( 860241 )
      Google's not evil, it's a big and cuddly company, that just happens to be taking over the world. M$ on the other hand is a big, evil company bent on world domination. ;-D

  • Only issue is (Score:4, Funny)

    by anandpur ( 303114 ) on Tuesday May 17, 2005 @11:54AM (#12556063)
    You need to upload your files to M$ cluster for indexing.

  • Whoopee! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JadeNB ( 784349 ) on Tuesday May 17, 2005 @11:55AM (#12556071) Homepage
    Microsoft is developing enhanced search software that combines navigation for Web and desktop files straight from the operating system.
    Great. Because, my biggest complaint about Microsoft is that the Web browsing isn't tightly integrated enough with the operating system yet. Now the innards of my computer can be thrown open to exploits like never before!

    P.S. Sorry. I forgot that Microsoft is now committed to security.

  • desktop search (Score:4, Funny)

    by Pike ( 52876 ) on Tuesday May 17, 2005 @11:55AM (#12556074) Journal
    next time I need help finding my desktop I'll give'em a jingle jangle.

  • Competition is GOOD (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 17, 2005 @11:56AM (#12556094)
    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.
    • 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.

      • Re:COMPETITION is good (Score:2, Informative)

        by DrPizza ( 558687 )
        Except that Google could provide the exact same level of integration as MS have, if they so desired. MSN Desktop Search uses documented APIs in documented ways. The extensibility interfaces it uses are open to anyone who wants to use them. If Google's search doesn't use them, that's no-one's fault but Google's.

        You'll further notice that the search bar isn't integrated into the OS. It's a separate download from msn.com. It's doing nothing that third party developers couldn't do.
    • Indeed, MSR [microsoft.com] and Google Labs [google.com] are starting a great rivalry. It will be fun to sit back and enjoy the results! (or at least eat some pop-corn).

  • Privacy Issue (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bhadreshl ( 841411 ) on Tuesday May 17, 2005 @11:56AM (#12556096)
    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.

  • Another desktop search (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ralphart ( 70342 ) on Tuesday May 17, 2005 @11:56AM (#12556100)
    ...That I've been using is Blinkx, which can be found at http://www.blinkx.com/overview.php [blinkx.com]. Very slick.
  • I want it to search my javascript files, my html page code, and other source code files. Other than that, there all the same. When a desktop-search tool does that, I'll pay 20 dollars for it.

    Otherwise... It's MS. Better not let it send anything through your firewall!

    • Re:As far as I can see... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by youngerpants ( 255314 ) on Tuesday May 17, 2005 @12:06PM (#12556202)
      Simple, google desktop search with the "Larry's Any Text File Indexer". On installation you have to specify what file extensions to include in the search (e.g. *.HTML) et voila!


      Both available from the GDS page


      younger

    • 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.
      • 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.

        I tried Copernic for awhile. I had very little luck with it.

        It missed over half the files (of multiple types) on my workstation and it routinely dragged my workstation to a screeching halt. I tried setting it to only index when idle, but it's never idle. There didn't seem to be an option to s

  • Zero interest in this... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Otter ( 3800 ) on Tuesday May 17, 2005 @11:57AM (#12556116) Journal
    ...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?

  • It's about time. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by unk1911 ( 250141 ) on Tuesday May 17, 2005 @11:58AM (#12556129) Homepage
    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.

  • Just remember (Score:2, Informative)

    by killmenow ( 184444 )
    Disable this on your IIS servers, mmmkay...

  • Err...how often? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by avalys ( 221114 ) on Tuesday May 17, 2005 @12:01PM (#12556167)
    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 doesn't seem to generate much of a performance hit, so I wonder why Microsoft is going for a different approach?"

      They aren't. Both MSN desktop search and the fast search in Longhorn use the built-in API calls in Windows that allow you to monitor filesystem operations. There's no need for integration into the "filesystem layer" because that functionality is already built into the OS.

      • Re:Err...how often? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by avalys ( 221114 )
        Yes, but the fact that Microsoft is talking about letting the user specify how often indexing occurs makes it sound like they're not indexing on the fly, as content is created / changed on the filesystem, but rather on a fixed schedule.
        • And one of the cool demos of Spotlight shows a "Smart Search" being updated the second a new file fitting the search parameters is saved on the disk.

          So if I tell Microsoft Search to update every ten minutes, I have to wait a while before I can figure out where I put that document I just saved.

          OTOH if you have it update too often, you get a performance hit.

          I really like Apple's solution better. You update the index when the file changes and only worry about indexing if a file changes. The difference is we
          • There is no option to "tell Microsoft Search to update every ten minutes". The option is to prioritize indexing, this means that indexing takes places as soon as a new file appears or is modified. By default indexing only the computer is not busy or being used.

            If you want near-instant indexing then you would turn the prioritize option on.

    • permissions flaw and other Spotlight problems (Score:5, Informative)

      by SuperBanana ( 662181 ) on Tuesday May 17, 2005 @12:26PM (#12556449)
      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.

      • I really like Spotlight, but you've hit on a couple of the things that annoy me as well. I mean, why in the hell doesn't Command-Q work on the full Spotlight window? Oh yea, because you can't close it. It really IS a pain to manage. The fact that I can't easily see the path is a major shortfall.

        But about your first point... couldn't MS just make a Spotlight plugin that allows Spotlight to search within its Email database file? You'd think Apple would have anticipated such a case, and included some hoo
    • 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 l
    • I've been using GDS for awhile, and have played with MSN's equivalent. I have complaints for both, but that's a different post. As a Mac user, I was very excited about Spotlight. I thought "finally Apple will show these guys how to do this right!" I was very disappointed.

      Spotlight is a completely file based technology. It can only index files. Apple knows this is stupid. Just look at iTunes and iPhoto. Both of these are great tools for organizing large numbers of files, but both of these tools create data

  • Doesn't work (Score:5, Funny)

    by The 13th Duke ( 753107 ) on Tuesday May 17, 2005 @12:05PM (#12556193)
    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.

    • Re:Doesn't work (Score:5, Funny)

      by jpetts ( 208163 ) on Tuesday May 17, 2005 @12:18PM (#12556351)
      eventually found it on the floor behind a piece of pizza crust

      You're lucky: mine keep slipping away quietly through wormholes in space to a world where they know they can enjoy a uniquely biroid lifestyle, responding to highly biro-oriented stimuli, and generally lead the biro equivalent of the good life.

  • Speed performance? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rkischuk ( 463111 ) on Tuesday May 17, 2005 @12:06PM (#12556204)
    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.

  • We already have this... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by suitepotato ( 863945 ) on Tuesday May 17, 2005 @12:07PM (#12556211)
    ...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.

    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 .dll and other code file on a machine and note their versions, CRCs, signatures, etc...
  • Ok, I think we'll need to draw straws to figure out who here is going to install it first.

  • Stop the madness (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RealProgrammer ( 723725 ) on Tuesday May 17, 2005 @12:13PM (#12556301) Homepage Journal

    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

    • slow down the system
    • form another avenue to attack the OS
    • expose private data
    • facilitate user lock-in, since the user is trained to use the Microsoft interface and not the universal file/folder metaphor
    • further separate the user from how things work

    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?

    • 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.

      Let me guess. You're one of those people who believe the FBI and CIA should stop doing everything they do because the #1 priority should be to catch Osama?

      Software is a complex beast. They probably have as many people working on security as the codebase can handle. You can't expect to increase productivity simply by throwing mor
      • Software is a complex beast. They probably have as many people working on security as the codebase can handle.

        That's not my point at all. Their mindset is all wrong. They're driven by features, because they believe, rightly or wrongly, that features are what sell. Since their focus is on generating revenue with features, and not by improving their product as a whole, you get this patchwork system of add-ons and "security features".

        Consider the "firewall" feature in Windows 2K/XP. You can enable o

    • expose private data

      Actually, Google Desktop Search is the one guilty of this. It indexes the whole system, including every user's folders. With Google Desktop, user A can search for a term and through the result preview peer into the contents of user B's folder, even if A is a limited user and is normally denied access to the folder.

    • Microsoft software enables spywhere, but Google software IS spyware. Google reads your email via GMail, monitors your browsing behavior via search history & Google Web Accelerator, and likely logs searches for data on your own PC with Desktop search!
  • but theres a nice version of locate which runs in the windows taskbar. I cant remember what it was called anyone know?

  • Is it me? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by sn0wflake ( 592745 )
    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 [agentransack.com] 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.

    • Re:Is it me? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anita Coney ( 648748 )
      I find it hilarious that Windows' built in search ignores the "Program Files" folder by default. That's where most programs store their files by default. Also it won't search subfolders by default.

      I seriously think that Microsoft WANTS its built-in search engine to suck. That way it can hype the search feature in Longhorn and get us to switch.

      Thankfully, third parties such as Google as showing us we don't need a new file system to search our own hard drive. That is forcing Microsoft to fix its own sea

    • Re:Is it me? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by sn0wflake ( 592745 )
      Another funny thing about Windows is the calculator. Try to calculate 1+2*3 in standard mode and the repeat the process in scientific mode. Different results :)

    • Re:Is it me? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by AlexTheBeast ( 809587 )
      Gesh people... this hack has been around forever. Just "Change Indexing Service Settings" in XP's search... and it will happily search through every file on your computer...

      The default XP just expects people to always name their text files either *.txt, *.doc, or whatever. For the rest of us... you need to tell it to search everything:

      XP: Have Windows Perform Word or Phrase Searches within Unknown Filetypes [tech-recipes.com]

  • Just one question... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anita Coney ( 648748 ) on Tuesday May 17, 2005 @12:16PM (#12556327) Homepage
    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!

  • Why link desktop and web searches? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Mille Mots ( 865955 ) on Tuesday May 17, 2005 @12:16PM (#12556332)
    I can't really see much point in integrating desktop searching with 'web' searching. For instance, if I'm looking for files on my local drive that contain the words 'weekend' and/or 'beach,' I don't really want results linking me to this [imdb.com] or, worse yet, this [imdb.com].

    What I would really like to see on my lone Windows machine is something like:

    C:\> find ./ -type f -exec egrep "weekend|beach" {} \; -print

  • WARNING Sticky Software (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 17, 2005 @12:21PM (#12556389)
    I installed it, let it index overnight, tried it, and not satisfied I then tried to uninstall it. Add/Remove said it couldn't uninstall because the installer was still running. Restart stalled and the Task Manager could not be invoked, so a forced powerdown was necessary. After rebooting, Add/Remove would let me uninstall, but the uninstall progress stuck at 100% for 30 minutes with no disk activity. Task Manager could be accessed this time, though, and the "running" MSN Toolbar was killed. What a pain!

    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...
  • ...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
    • Before you break out the pitchforks with regards to Spotlight, I have to ask the question: have you tried the newly released 10.4.1 patch for Tiger? A LOT of the Spotlight problems that I had are now no longer an issue at all after applying the new patch.

      I'd recommend forcing Spotlight to reindex your drive after installing the patch. I imagine it would get around to doing that eventually, but do so by opening Spotlight's preferences and adding your Macintosh disk to the privacy list, then closing pref
  • 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!!
  • ...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.
  • 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.
  • All that computing power, and it still can't find my car keys. They were on the desktop, after all.

  • 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.
  • If MS bundles a search function into IE, it will become the same "standard", just as IE became the standard when they bundled it with windows.

    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)

  • 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.
  • 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 hav

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