Talk:Windows Search

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I't worth noting, that WDS it a user application, not Windows service (like MS Indexing Service). This may lead to a waste of resources if 2 users on same PC want to index the same files.

The greatest problem with it for me is that it includes, in searth results, all files contained in a folder, whose name is mathing a query (results are a list, not a tree).

WDS does not index files in hidden directories (at least by default).

WDS has its advanced searching expressions.

Contents

[edit] Privacy concerns

Does this software ever upload indexed results to Microsoft's servers like in Google Desktop? Shawnc 17:41, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

- I don't think so, and Google will only cache shared information on its servers if you tell it to so that you can access it on another computer. [1] 158.125.9.4 22:55, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wildcard search

I'd like to highlight the fact Windows Desktop Search is one of few desktop search engines that can search using wildcard characters in Windows.--MrBobla 15:55, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Consumer Vs Business

The Microsoft site (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/desktopsearch/default.mspx) mentions two branches of the product: Consumer and Business, but did not actually provide any usable comparison between them. I know that with many MS products that have home vs pro versions, the home tends to be 'dumbed down' and/or assume the user is 'dumbed down'. There are often many advantages to using the pro/business version if you have a server and even more if you have a SQL Server (which is what I was initially curious about), but just as often, the big difference seems to just be in deployment / centralized management.

To make a long story short, I'm thinking that this kind of section may be a valuable addition to this Wikipedia entry, but I want to know if others share it, and/or if I've missed something big and obvious that would mitigate the need for such a section. DigitalSorceress 12:26, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

The basic diff here is that the business edn is centrally (group policy) manageable, whereas the consumer versions are locally managed. --soum talk 07:18, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
There is no difference any more; there is only one version, but two installation packages, the .msi and the .exe. The .exe file actually contain the .adm file needed to provide (under the Microsoft Management Console) the only way to tune the search index behaviour to do things like -not index in battery mode, not index attachments, offline files, etc. SteveLoughran 20:56, 11 November 2007 (UTC)


"Some people have nearly had heart attacks when important files seemed missing (Windows Search couldn't find them), because they searched for a certain string inside the file and had the logical but wrong assumption that for any file for which there is no special encoding or filetype structure known the file would be searched as if it was a plain text file." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 221.187.41.127 (talk) 17:52, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Thats nothing of encyclopedic importance. Its just attention grabbing sensationalistic yellow journalism.--soum talk 14:54, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Windows Search in Vista

This whitepaper is full of information. --soum talk 10:10, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Windows Vista Search.png

Image:Windows Vista Search.png is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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BetacommandBot 23:16, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Power Management/Performance

I'm surprised there's nothing dicussing the impact of WDS on battery life, system CPU load, etc. Here are some observations running WDS on a newly built up laptop, with outlook 2007

  • it puts tangible load on the system when plugged in to power. You can see the search applications near the top of the task list, if you sort it by CPU load.
  • it keeps the fan running more
  • The big issue appears to be indexing Outlook (a 150MB archive). Everything else has been turned off, and even after a week it claims that outlook is not yet indexed.

I dont know what happens on battery mode. Some discussion on the MS developer forums imply that in beta, WDS would index until battery level went down to 25%. This may have changed in production. The management interface has a switch to turn indexing off altogether on battery mode.

Some empirical data would be nice. I know Wiki doesnt like non-printed content, but experimental data is what we need.

What we need is reliable sources showing such behavior without a doubt. For example, I never had the Outlook issue. As such, it cannot be claimed that the issue is due to Windows Search and not any other component. As for processor usage, indexing IS a computation intensive task, and will eat processor time. It becomes an issue only when it takes processor time from other apps rather than using the idle CPU time. This behavior is shared by all indexing systems, ranging from desktop search apps to enterprise content management systems to even database servers. However, the only information available about this is people claiming that it uses more resources. Without any quanitification of the more. If a reliable source makes a statistical comparison, it can definitely be included. As for battery issue, whether or not the indexer runs when on battery power can be configured. --soum talk 07:14, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Name

The article is named Windows Search because the search platfor is named Windows Search [2] and not Windows Desktop Search. WDS refers to the implementation of the platform on XP. The Vista version IS Windows Search. [3][4][5] And the successor is WS4 not WDS4. While the XP port might get the update, the platform is still named Windows Search 4. See the blogs reffed. Please do not invent your own names, or mis-naming the Vista version. And definitely not cut-and-paste moves, the GFDL license does not allow it. Use the usual procedure if you want to move - discuss first and use WP:RM. --soum talk 11:29, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Good Article

I was wondering if we should consider a good article nomination! --soum talk 17:41, 28 March 2008 (UTC)