Microsoft will alter Vista to address search concerns
Microsoft plans to make changes to Windows Vista to try to assuage concerns from Google that its desktop search product is disadvantaged by the operating system.
The software maker is expected to detail its planned changes to the desktop search mechanism later Tuesday in a federal court filing being jointly made with the Justice Department. A Microsoft representative declined to comment on the report ahead of its filing. A Justice Department representative was not immediately available for comment. The planned changes were reported earlier Tuesday by Reuters and Bloomberg.
Microsoft plans to use the first service pack for Vista to make the changes to desktop search, a source told CNET News.com. A beta of the service pack is due before the end of the year, the source said.
Google complained about Vista's desktop search arrangement more than a year ago, but the issue has come back into the forefront in recent weeks, with the Connecticut Attorney General saying he would look into the matter.
With Windows XP, Microsoft's desktop search was an add-on, similar to products from Google and others. With Vista, as with Mac OS X Tiger, indexed searching of the local hard drive is built into the operating system.
During her years at CNET News, Ina Fried has changed beats several times, changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley. These days, most of her attention is focused on Microsoft. E-mail Ina. 
I'm sorry, what about Apple's Spotlight? Why isn't Google upset about that? Because there is no Google Desktop for Mac OSX? Or, why isn't Google complaining about Windows Sidebar or Dashboard for that matter? This is ridiculous! Google has a double-standard and it's stupid.
Google is upset because, contrary to Microsoft's settlement with the DOJ, they [Microsoft] have not created an open playing field on the OS, whereby the consumer could elect to replace the default Microsoft search engine with another, say Google's.
When Microsoft added enhanced security with their firewall to Windows XP, they understood that most personal/desktop security products come with their own firewall, thus the OS recognises a third party firewall such as from Symentac, Checkpoint, etc. and recognises them as THE Windows firewall even when the Microsoft firewall has been switched off.
Googles wants Microsoft to do the same with desktop search. i.e. add desktop search at the OS level, but allow the implementation to float at the consumer's discression. As we have found with the firewall, Microsoft's firewall is not used by most consumers because it is so inferior to that that comes with your internet security software, yet unless Microsoft had built the firewall at the OS level, it would have been harder for internet security companys to integrate their firewalls so seamlessly at the OS level.
Oh, I don't know anything about the Apple's finder, but if it is anything like firefox, it probably already supports third party implementations of the search engine so that they are seamless to the consumer (i.e. they still interact with the third party search engine through the standard and familier OS dialogs and interfaces as before)
different search engine to use the system level index?
This is not entirely true. Indexed searching of the hard drive was built into XP. You could check a box on the disk drive properties UI to allow it to be indexed and there was a rather simple UI that allowed you to perform searches. This feature was "in the box" when you installed XP.
Later on, a more robust tool (branded MSN Desktop search) could be downloaded which used an alternate indexer and UI which is closer to what Vista has today.
The reason that indexed file search was not the releif that proposents had hoped it would be is linked to the difficulties with the document centric human computer interface implemented in the current generation of OSs and how consumers interact with the GUI.
Without going into detail about it: For the same reason that many people lose documents, photographs, etc. on their computer hard disk, flash disk, etc. a file search that returned 38 file hits with the word "Redmond" in them (no matter how efficient the indexing made the search) didn't really help most consumers find the specific document they may have been searching for, and many users would just as readily double click on an executable file as they would on a spreadsheet.
Desktop search, on the other hand, while not able to address the shortfalls of the document centric OS, goes a long way further than indexed file search by knowing something about the classification of the document files, ERP systems and data repositories being indexed. So it becomes easier for Microsoft or Googles desktop search to say, "I found the word 'Redmond' in 3 spread sheets, 8 word documnts, 4 PDFs, 2 MP3, 7 invoices, 1 purchase order, 24 emails, 9 contacts, 4 accounts and in the description of 2 movies".
This is a huge leap forward in search and as one can see with Google desktop, by opening the API to third parties, all sorts of real documnts (as opposed to non-descript disk files) are now being indexed by the search engine, with full knowledge of the internal taxonomy of the document being indexed. File search is not able to index non-file repositories accessible from your desktop, for instance; and neither is it able to search non-text (binary) file repositories (such as Microsoft Outlook, etc.) because the contents are typically compressed and thus even though there may be 24 emails with the word Redmond in your PST file, the actual word may never appear in the physical file itself.
http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9725537-7.html
But even if you could turn it off easily, why on Earth would you? It works great.
- GUILTY as charged
- by technewsjunkie June 19, 2007 7:09 PM PDT
- A kinder gentler Microsoft?
- Like this Reply to this comment
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(15 Comments)Yeah right. Guess that Antitrust suit Microsoft lost did a lot of good for the consumers they claimed to be helping. Right. They didi it for their customers, not for market share. Heck no, not for that.