Posted by Paul

We’ve been a bit slow in updating our blog recently, but rest assured we’ve been busy working! This past Tuesday, we released Windows Desktop Search 3.0 Beta 2. This is the first public release we’ve made since April, when we put out our Engine Preview. Things have improved significantly in the past 4 months:

• Most importantly, the UI is back! We weren’t happy enough with the state of the UI in our prior release, so we had disabled it by default. This confused a lot of people last time, and was one of our largest complaints.
• For the first time ever, we have a working 64-bit version. While most 32-bit applications run just fine on 64-bit Windows, our tight integration with the explorer shell makes this harder than it initially appears. For many of you, the lack of WDS on 64-bit was a reason for staying on 32-bit Windows – now you’ve got one less reason to hold back!
• We've improved the memory consumption, performance, and overall fit-and-finish.

If you’re still running Windows Desktop Search 2.6.5 (or even an earlier version than that), we’ve made even more changes since then:

• The indexer now runs as a system service, and many other applications use the same index. This means you don’t even have to be logged in to have WDS index your hard drive – it all happens in the background. If multiple people use the same computer, there’s only one index and with no duplication of data.
• We’ve changed the algorithm for backing off on user activity – making your system more responsive while you’re using it, but letting the indexer kick into “high gear” when you’re away.

Especially if you’re running the WDS 3.0 Engine Preview, we encourage you to upgrade and give us feedback on this release.

Windows Desktop Search 3.0 Beta 2 for Windows XP
Windows Desktop Search 3.0 Beta 2 for Windows Server 2003
Windows Desktop Search 3.0 Beta 2 for Windows XP Professional x64 or Windows Server 2003 x64

Let us know what you think!

Posted by Brandon

 

On Monday I introduced you to some of the remote-searching capabilities of our upcoming beta release.  Today I'd like to talk about a feature that will allow you search over hundreds of different third-party data sources.  It's called RSS.  Or more specifically, OpenSearch RSS.

 

What is OpenSearch?  It's a simple format for sharing search results, spearheaded by Amazon's A9 search division.  It specifies standard query and results formats, as well as mechanisms for sharing data sources via OpenSearch Descriptions.  In fact, this is the same mechanism that Internet Explorer 7 uses for discovering search providers and adding them to its built-in search box. 

 

However, the search box in Internet Explorer can really only send you to one place.  And most of the time, what you get is a web page.  Using the power of a rich client, we're able to do more.

 

In an earlier screenshot we showed Windows Live Expo working via this mechanism.  But it’s also compatible with RSS output from sites like Flickr, Feedster, Google News, Amazon, PriceGrabber, or countless others.  This feature is still in the early stages of development, and some sources will work better than others.  But we hope to drive the community toward providing richer feeds with more standardized schemas, and you can bet we’ll be talking about that more and more after we release our public beta is released.

 

Now you can search against your favorite online photo store, see a rich web-based preview in the Preview Pane, and take actions using the Action Bar, context menu, or drag-and-drop against the content (not the web page) if the source has provided us with a content/enclosure URL. 

 

What’s more, this means that new and existing services can offer support for our application very easily.  And it’s not limited to the web.  Business applications (like Intranet search solutions, line-of-business servers, etc) need only support simple RSS queries in order to be searchable from within the Windows Live Search client. 

 

We're anxious to start hearing your feedback about these kinds of features.  So be sure to leave us your thoughts in the comment section below!

Posted by Brandon

 

Windows Live Search is about finding what you're looking for, wherever it lives.  To that end, we built a search application the ability to federate to virtually any kind of search provider.  In our upcoming beta release, we will support 4 kinds of sources (and that’s just the beginning!). 

 

The first is your Windows Desktop Search index - which can include your files, e-mail from Outlook or Thunderbird, or other data on your machine like feeds in Onfolio.  The second kind of provider is a Microsoft Sharepoint Portal Server 2003 or Sharepoint Server 2007.  This allows information workers to search not only their desktops but also their company intranet at the same time, with the same familiar interface and functionality like rich previews.

The third kind of search you can perform is a Site Search using the Windows Live Search web index.  For example, I might make a list of web sites with information about books.

   

 

Now when I search over that “place” – I will get results via Windows Live Search from those three sites.

 

 

 

But wait, I said there were four types of search providers, right?  Well tomorrow I'll be back with another post about that very topic.  But if you want, I'll give you a hint.

 

 

Hey all - I have most recently been filling the role as pseudo program manager under the guise of product planner for desktop search which covers both Windows Desktop Search and Windows Live Search (client). Previously I’ve worked in various business related roles around both the portal and products in the MSN division in Microsoft both in the field and at HQ. Anyone who has spoken to me directly realizes that I’m neither a native Seattle’lite, nor American since I’m originally from South Africa – it’s brutally obvious to me sometimes when everyone around me has an accent, does not really know what Rugby is, and has never heard of biltong! (aka beef jerky – but way better!). I miss the sun and the white sand beaches – but I like Seattle’s water and mountain views. I love music and must seriously have the widest range of downloaded (and paid for!!) music out of anyone. Favorite playlist right now includes Sean Paul, T-Pain, Staind all the way through to Rihanna – go figure!

 

Brandon

 

I'm happy to be joining the blog ranks to give you some more news about our product. Check out the new visual of the upcoming UI we expect to release into beta later this summer - this image nicely shows the federation of results from desktop, web and intranet with a more 'formal' type of query - but a typical query in a company where you are searching for information and don't really care where the information is hiding - you get the idea. What do you think?

 

 

UPDATED - link now goes to full-sized screenshot.

 

 

Mary Jo Foley said today that we announced the Worst Microsoft Product Name Ever.  That's because when our application was shown at the CEO Summit, we simply called it "Windows Live Search" - which you might recognize as the name of our web-based search engine.

 

So what's the story here? 

 

It's simple really.  We think it makes sense that our search offering falls under the same umbrella as Windows Live Search.  However, we're still fairly early in the development of our product and we're still working out how our Windows Live Search client gets named and rolled out. 

 

So in short - expect our naming strategy to make a lot more sense when we get closer to shipping the beta!

 

We are a Windows Live product team at Microsoft devoted to helping you find, organize, and work with your stuff no matter what it is or where it lives. 

 

Today our application made its first public appearance at the Microsoft CEO Summit during Bill Gates' keynote.  The focus of this demonstration was on searching in the Enterprise and how Microsoft is developing cutting-edge solutions to problems that information workers face every day.

 

But we aren't only providing a solution for Enterprises!  We're building the next-generation search application for Windows, and we want to take search to the next level for all kinds of users. 

 

Right now we're focused on delivering a public beta release later this summer.  But between now and then we'd like to start sharing some of our ideas with you.  We're anxious to hear your feedback, and once we deliver our first beta release, we hope you'll try it out and help us build the best product we can!

 

UPDATED - Added original screenshot (link goes to full-size version)