Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

Domenico — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 23:14:35 GMT

I love search 4.0 in Windows Vista

and I love team find and organize.

AWESOME WORK!!!

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

Rocky Moore — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 03:24:03 GMT

Where there is a lot of power there, I really do not like the new float trees on the left. In Vista the fav links were locked with a "More" button to display more of them and the divider was able to be moved to whatever portion you wanted the tree to take up.

With the new model you are always scrolling up and down to get to the other trees. If I am down browsing the drive and want to switch to a Fav Link, I have to scroll all the way up to get to them. Also, if I want a good number of fav links, then I have to scroll down to get to anything else.

With the current model it would be better to have them in a tab display in that pane to make it "one click" to get to your desired tree instead of scroll all the time to get there. This scrolling seems to defeat the usefulness of the Fav Lins.

Just a little feedback, not to be viewed as offensive as I really love Vista! (Yes, I may be one of the few dozen that have a brain and do like it ;) )

Rocky

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

Jalf — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 03:24:43 GMT

"It has been a long time since most of us could remember where everything is by carefully managing our folder hierarchy and finding things based on file name alone"

Well, you're certainly not making it easier by moving all our folders around with every Windows release... And having the jungle of "access denied" links under \Users and in your profile root folder doesn't help. Or the three different folders under AppData that applications seem to choose between at random... Some of us still try to actually *know* what's on our harddrives though. Unfortunately, that means moving everything away from the user profile folder Windows creates, and then uses as garbage dump.

So yeah, I can see how search is useful under those circumstances.... :)

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

snprbob86 — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 09:27:10 GMT

Cool blog, but please post full-resolution images. Clicking on an image for it only to load an image of the same size is quite disappointing.

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

Aeon-Slayer — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 10:13:33 GMT

<Rant>Irrelevant to this, but it would be nice if you followed some Snow Leopard innovations such as REDUCING the HDD size of each app, as well as its RAM usage! This would be supremely useful to all users, especially those on Notebooks! I realize this would probably require some radical recoding, but honestly, this is a hit you are going to have to take as flash new features (even as cool as they are) are simply not ground for a AU$200+ purchase price. The fundamental framework of your applications needs to be improved, rather than just functionally and aesthetically. Don't get me wrong, the improvements that you have made to this OS since Vista are phenomenal, but I can't help but feel that everything running faster and (for lack of a better word) better would be make the cake that much more delicious!</Rant>

In regards to the new Search functionality, nice work, I think this will be a big help to business users, might I ask if it can be set up on a Home Lan as well? Because being able to search across my 3 PCs at home would be invaluable.

- AeonSlayer / Simon

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

steven_sinofsky — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 10:35:55 GMT

@AeonSlayer / Simon

We have blogged quite a bit about disk footprint which is something we worked on a bunch. Looking back at those posts you can see that the footprint is not consumed so much by the "apps" so that's not where we put a ton of our focus. We did work on many aspects of this though and the feedback on 16GB SSD installations has been fairly consistent in this regard.

To be fair, the competitor you mentioned apparently gained a lot of footprint by removing the support for a whole class of processor. It is worth doing a comparison for some of the issues raised for us as well, since one might find comparable disk footprint (for example printer drivers).

This is an area we pay close attention to and are always trying to balance consuming the least amount of space with recognizing that the vast majority of our customers obtain Windows as an image on a PC and don't have access to a DVD for installation so having drivers and hardware support on disk is important for recovery scenarios.

As far as RAM, this is of course another area we worked very hard on. The feedback we've seen here reflects the work we've done I think.

--Steven

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

Aeon-Slayer — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 11:53:41 GMT

@Steven: Fair point, and I do indeed find that Windows 7 runs much better than Vista on my Notebook, and with less install size. I simply hope that you guys will do all you can to maximize the performance of this OS.

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

someone — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 13:24:54 GMT

MS should provide the cancelled "Live Search Center"/OneView/Casino for XP and Vista users. 7 has so many features that were postponed/cancelled for Vista.

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

sokolum — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 13:48:05 GMT

Steve,

I never tried W7, but with the previous win releases there was never a option to exclude every driver from the installation that wasn't used. Why not now (or there is)?

I wish there was a more advanced installation option (maybe there is and i am not aware of it) to define in more detail what u want or not with a installation.

reg,

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

Wound — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 15:17:25 GMT

++What Jalf said!

I play PC games like COD4 and Armed Assault, which have a lot of user made mods, and trying to work out which folder to place those mods and maps in under Vista 64 is a real PITA, because of the folder virtualisation and so on.

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

sabya_sadhu — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 16:00:34 GMT

Nicely done so far,here i have a suggestion to you.Why not make a virtual system where all running programs will run in virtual environment.or make a virtual user account where all program run in virtual mode,such as when i am surfing if some malware attack my system it will only affect the virtual environment.i can reset the virtual environment and the malware gone for ever.

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

bluefisch200 — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 16:31:38 GMT

Search in the Intranet how cool is that?!!!

If that will realy work so great like search on a local machine....then 7 has one more "WoW" Feature...love Index Searching...but with external ressources it will be extremely great...will you add function to search trought files in shared folders of a network?

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

anonymuos — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 16:50:27 GMT

Is it possible to create an OSDX (search federation) for Google web and image search? AFAIK, Google doesn't directly support RSS feeds for search results.

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

Domenico — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 17:52:08 GMT

Excuse me OT.

@Windows Team

I tried to scratch a DVD video from side to side , I inserted the DVD video on the PC with Windows 7

MAGIC!!! WORK

I inserted the same DVD in OSX (not mine :D )

and NOT WORK.

possible?

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

bananaman — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 19:04:04 GMT

Looks like they're hoping to win over the enterprise XP crowd that held out on Vista. I think if it runs on XP-era hardware and has tangible productivity improvements like this one, 7 will be a winner in the enterprise. In fact I'll bet on it "cleaning the floor" in the enterprise while maintaining a healthy majority on home computers.

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

bananaman — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 19:18:57 GMT

Re: Jalf's comments

In my XP install I keep most of my files on a data drive using my own layout and ignore the default "My..." folders. When 7 is released I'd like to embrace the folder 'system', but not if it remains a mess, and particularly not if it's locked to the OS drive.

With XP I could tell Documents and Settings to reside on D:\ by using nLite. I would like to be able to choose the physical location of my "Users" directory, preferably without "hacking" my own install disc.

It's simply not an option to keep all my data on the OS drive, not to mention a bad practice if multiple drives are available.

The other reason using default folders is somewhat 'hostile' is that while re-installing Windows (XP) it says it may erase the documents folders, or the entire Documents and Settings. (May be fixed in Vista, not sure)

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

Rob Cannon — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 22:25:43 GMT

Is there a way to get the visual search suggestions from the Windows 7 start menu?

I would also love to see a way to use some alias to pick which search provider to use. I am imagining that I could type 'msdn DataContractAttribute' and get results from MSDN.

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

bluefisch200 — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:40:45 GMT

Maybe a little bit OT...but how can we bring in ideas to improve Windows user experience? Dont think that its great to make pictures out of ascii letters in the send feedback tool...is it ok when we send you an E-Mail? Or how?

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

manicmarc — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 01:38:10 GMT

This looks promising. I am thinking we can have <inset favourite search engine> Image Search (for example) right from the common dialogue box, if the provider writes the web service. That would be really cool, although I expect copyright laws would stop it happening!

sabya_sadhu: Look for a program called Sandboxie. It does what you're asking for.

I have a number of issues with this post

Hairs — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 04:31:04 GMT

1) I certainly don't agree that

"It has been a long time since most of us could remember where everything is by carefully managing our folder hierarchy and finding things based on file name alone."

In fact, I would probably not trust someone to operate a computer if they weren't capable of putting things onto it and finding them later.

It's why I hate the Vista/Win 7 explorer with such a passion. The assumption above has resulted in a design choice whereby Explorer (once the shining beacon of file explorers "done right") is now an application that actively tries to prevent me doing what I need and want to do with my own data. The only time I've had a problem with finding data on my PC, in fact, is when using Win 7 and the OS has decided not only that *it knows best* where to store my downloaded files, but that *I shouldn't be allowed to access the folder they're in* - not even as an admin user. I've no idea how that's an improvement.

2) "Windows Explorer is a great tool that many customers know and love."

WAS. Now, it is a nanny which is attempting to tell me how, where, and when I should organise my files. This started with User Directories (good idea, messy implementation) and the My Documents/Pictures/Video system. Libraries, however much they are repainted, are nothing other than a slightly less messy implementation of the same idea.

As others have pointed out above, creating "user" folders for data as part of the OS drive is NOT a functional ideal. It's messy, and has numerous problems (data loss if your OS needs to be re-installed being the most obvious). Not to mention it's very badly policed and the majority of time it's little more than a garbage dump for temp files, installers, and setup folders for the sort of developer who think that all apps should have a constantly running background service.

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

Dan Dar3 — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 05:20:27 GMT

Re: bananaman

"With XP I could tell Documents and Settings to reside on D:\ by using nLite. I would like to be able to choose the physical location of my "Users" directory, preferably without "hacking" my own install disc.

It's simply not an option to keep all my data on the OS drive, not to mention a bad practice if multiple drives are available."

I do that as well for for years in XP, although manually not through nLite - once Windows fresh installed i go and move My Documents (right click, Properties, Move). You can do the same in W7, go into your profile folders, right click My Documents > Location > Move..., you have to do it manually for each folder though. In XP it used that when cutting and pasting to move Favorites around it actually updated the locations in registry as well, you could've done that with XP TweakUI as well...

Would be nice indeed to allow to move the entire profile files/folders to a separate partition in one go...

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

bpaddock — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 06:37:06 GMT

@Hairs -

Thanks for the feedback. I'm a little confused about two points, though.

First, you said:

"the OS has decided not only that *it knows best* where to store my downloaded files, but that *I shouldn't be allowed to access the folder they're in* - not even as an admin user."

I'm not quite sure what you're referring to there. By default, IE will download files to the Downloads folder under your user profile. There is a shortcut to it in the Favorites of your Explorer navigation pane by default. This location requires no special privileges to access. Could you better explain the problem you're seeing?

Second, your comments about the Libraries feature indicate you haven't discovered their full potential. Libraries are designed to let YOU decide where your files are stored. The OS doesn't tell you where to put them, you just add the locations you use to the appropriate Library. Then it provides an aggregated view of those locations, offers instant search and rich views over those files, and allows other applications like Windows Media Player / Media Center (and soon many others) to share those same library definitions, which are all decided by you.

If you want to add a location to a Library, try going to it and then clicking on the link that says something like "Includes 2 locations" to view and change the included locations.

Hope that helps! As we hinted at in this post, a detailed post about Libraries is in the works :)

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

sabya_sadhu — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 08:32:59 GMT

Thanks manicmarc for your reply,exactly that i was talking about.But i want microsoft to integrate that technology into windows.We can't rely upon third party softwares you know?and i do know that microsoft can better implement that kind of technology in their own product.

Regards, Sabyasachi Sadhu.

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

csmikle — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 09:09:28 GMT

Brandon, Steven, all you guys, nice work but I have to complain.

I, like many others, have a NAS on my home network for local storage, which Windows will not allow me to index. I don't believe this is fair. I understand the point about keeping indices on different machines as being redundant, but what am I to do? I have all my important content on a network share, Windows won't let me index it, and my Libraries experience suffers.

What am I supposed to do here? (Don't say buy a Windows Home Server)

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

Aeon-Slayer — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 10:36:45 GMT

I feel the pain that everyone else here is commenting on...

I feel the single worst thing for me with Explorer (slightly OT as many others are...) is I have a dual boot of 7 and Vista set up on my main laptop. Now, accessing my work files from Vista partition results in read-only mode, which is a real pain when trying to edit one of these files! You have to write a new copy to 7 part., make the alterations, and then re-paste it in the Vista part. Simply giving the user an EASY WAY to REMOVE read-only from THEIR OWN FILES would be very nice indeed. There are often similar problems with media playback, and general copying of files where they are read only or access denied when on other Part.s (or even on your main Part. sometimes) even when you are the admin. This is a major problem, as it doesn't put "you in control" at all.

Just my honest thoughts.

- AeonSlayer / Simon

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

Martin Gifford — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 10:57:18 GMT

I'm amazed that there's a "Find and Organize” feature team! I presumed there was a "Lose and Disorganise" feature team! I presumed the complexity and confusion was to avoid lawsuits with Total Commander or something. Or just to get grannies excited with pretty buttons.

We have had to put up with:

User folders

Public folders

My Music

My Pictures

My Documents

Documents

etc.

and now

Libraries

What a confusing mess!

I agree with all the criticisms above. I have the same problem of "access denied" in Windows 7, even to something obvious like My Documents. And I tried fixing the permissions etc. Hopeless.

I just want to put all my files in one place and not have to look at My pictures, Libraries etc. Ever. Again. Please?

Aside from programs, the main things I use are Windows Explorer and the Taskbar, and they are being fiddled with by MS. The most used things should be the most customiseable and revertable.

I wished the filing system was back to Windows 95 where everything was where you want it and there were no distractions and confusions and customisations stayed put.

There should be an option at install to say where you want all your files to go. Alternatively, Windows Explorer and Search should have the Ribbon interface where you can click everything you want and it stays that way until you change it. You should be able to delete My Pictures, Libraries, etc. ...forever!

I want to go back to XP from Vista, but I can't. But the filing is even worse in Windows 7. But I'm glad you got rid of the Documents and Settings folder when you moved from XP to Vista.

And it seems that the Windows 7 team haven't noticed that Search doesn't work in some scenarios! I can put in a CD with files on it, type in the file name that I see on the screen, and Search reports not found. Sometimes you have to dig into 4 submenus to find advanced search to search non-indexed locations or to find text within files.

Anyway, good luck.

I do want to know where my stuff is

unifex — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 13:49:30 GMT

As many have already said above, it is a pity that all these nice innovations come at the expence of removing useful, time proven features from Windows Explorer. As a result, one is being forced to use third-party Explorer replacements.

It's fine to have libraries and super search technologies, but why do you think nobody wants to keep their files properly organized? It looks like you are getting the idea from Goodle mail - they won't even let you create your own folders in their web interface, saying that search is better.

In reality, search is not better since if you do not remember exactly how to spell the item you're searching for or simply have just a vague idea of what you want to find no search will ever find it. What you need to do in such event is to look through all relevant files and folders and that requires knowing where they are and a good tool to look at your files.

The Windows Explorer becomes less and less suitable for such a task, which makes no sense at all. Now, the left (folder) pane does not even show Desktop. And all this sliding around in the folder trees is just annoying.

Also, Windows now thinks it knows better how to present my folders. I think maybe for grandmothers it would be useful, or to people who use their computer mostly as a media player. But I really want ot be able to set folder view options for different folders the way I want it and keep these settings, not to have them changed automatically if a picture file is added. I want to have a default setting for newly created folders independent of whether I am putting there a document or a video clip.

There is very simple way to settle things - to give an option of classic explorer as it is in XP. This way those who want to deal with their own file structure will be happy and those who are content with a mess on their hard drives will use search.

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

unifex — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 13:53:32 GMT

Oh, and of course for people like me, who are using Windows at home on a machine which is not really networked and keeping their files on a local hard drive - although definitly not on the same drive as the OS - a lot of the network related improvements are not relevant. The ability to manage owr own files is.

I'm not saying that you should not innovate in all directions. I'm just saying that you should not forget home users either - and there are people who do not want to keep their files on remote servers.

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

hitman721 — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 18:54:35 GMT

Wow. I haven't had many of the troubles that some of you are having. If I need a photo on my computer, I just go straight to the My Photos folder. When I use Windows Explorer, I can see everything in My Photos and every other folder without any effort. I seem to search and find everything just fine.

I think some of you guys are still trying to use Windows 7 like if it was Vista, XP, 2000, 98, or any of the previous version. With anything thats brand new, there's a learning curve requires time and patience. You have to "unlearn" what you've learned with the last Windows version. Its really not that difficult. At times it can be frustrating, but sometimes a good cheat sheet helps. Unfortunately, there isn't one for Windows 7 yet. Eventually, there will be.

I just find it amusing and some what disappointing that people are using the next version of Windows like the last one. Thats like trying to drive your new car, like you drove your last car. Each vehicle has something different, some new quirks, and handles things differently. You have to learn it and people are so stubborn to change. I always approach a new version of Windows with a clear and empty mind. When I transitioned to Vista, the first thing I said was "This is not XP. Use it and learn." From then on it was child's play.

Just some thoughts I had, as I read a lot of the comments on here. Hopefully, you'll find something useful in all the comments here.

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

sevenflavor — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 20:00:49 GMT

You know, I'm surprised at how Microsoft goes to great lengths to improve features like search federation which will be used mostly by enterprise users and yet it doesn't care about important Windows Explorer issues like showing size in columns, folder size, size on status bar, storing metadata for files like AVI, MPEG, TXT!!, disabling annoying autorefresh/autosort behavior when working with files. These are the primary reasons I hate Windows Explorer in Vista so strongly and MS has done nothing regarding these particular issues in Windows 7.

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

bpaddock — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 20:48:01 GMT

Hey guys, I just wanted to point out that a lot of these topics of discussion should be coming up as posts of their own pretty soon, and that those posts may help shed some light on the changes made in the Win7 Explorer.

To address a couple of quick comments:

@unifex - Have you used the Windows 7 Beta? I ask because some of your comments don't apply. For example:

* Desktop does show in the nav pane by default, it's the first entry.

* There is no sliding around in the folder tree, that was only in Vista.

* Windows 7 will always remember the view settings you choose. In Libraries, the view options are always the same regardless of what type of file you put in them, there is no "sniffing." And in regular folders that should only happen the first time you browse to a folder. A bunch of bugs were fixed in this area since Vista (and more since the Beta).

I'm also curious about how you think the current Explorer design impedes your ability to organize your files effectively. Do you not make use of Libraries at all? They can be very helpful in organizing your files how you like. However, if you don't use them, you can collapse that node in the nav pane and it will stay that way. Same goes if you expand the Computer node. Plus you can put whatever you like into Favorites.

You can also use the settings dialog, or right-click on the background of the Navigation pane area to choose the "Show All Folders" option, which I think feels very much like a 'classic' Explorer model.

@Sevenflavor -

Where are you seeing a problem with the size column?

File types like AVI and TXT do not provide support for open metadata. This is a limitation of the file format. Believe me, we aren't ignoring this problem, but unfortunately some problems don't have easy answers and take more time than others to get right.

Fortunately, the newer container formats like WMV, MOV, MP4, etc do support open metadata and properties like Tags / Comments, etc. And at least in Windows 7 they have property handlers built-in.

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

sevenflavor — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 21:13:36 GMT

I meant showing folder size in columns, esp since IColumnProvider interface is gone. And yes, I've read Raymond Chen's explanation on it on how it would increase SMB chattiness, but you could disallow that across networks then.

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

jitendragarg — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 22:32:42 GMT

Windows search doesn't add the subfolders to the index, while adding the whole drive to index location. I added every drive partition to the search location, but still folders in partitions other than Win7 system partition, are not getting indexed. I have to manually add every single folder to index lcoations.

Also, are you guys anyhow interested in the feedback, that I submitted using feedback tool??

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

Aeon-Slayer — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 08:34:27 GMT

I think one of the primary problems most power users are having with the new Explorer model is the vast amount of virtual folders. AppData in your User Folder is a TERRIBLE place to allow programs to install components. This is not a "user file" in any way. AppData should be within "Program Files" where it belongs. Also, "ProgramData" is a similarly out of place folder. With that said, the other main problem with these two folders is that SOME programs seem to choose at RANDOM to install into one of them, or the sub-folders within, making it downright annoying to try and find these if something goes wrong (as was the case with an XP program I was using a few weeks ago). This simply makes no sense: any programs that wish to install in this fashion should just install in the root of AppData under their program files folder name, and then they can be easily found / edited.

I, personally, have no problem with the User folder layout (except perhaps for folders which not all users use / need: contacts, searches, tracing..., as well as the misleadingly labeled "Links" which places shortcuts under the Favorites tab in the sidebar, which I find odd.) and think that, for the most part, it is a logical way of sorting data if you simply create sub-folders within each of these main groupings.

I have posted my other thoughts above.

I very much hope that mine (and everyone else 's) issues are addressed for the RC release, especially in regard to the virtual folders disaster (which was the case in vista as well).

- AeonSlayer / Simon

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

unifex — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 12:36:02 GMT

@bpaddock - indeed, I use both Vista and Win7 beta as a dual boot, so maybe I confused some features of the two. You are right about sliding - that's a Vista feature, sorry about that. The Desktop, however, I might be blind or something, but it's just not there. My beta is build 7000, the one that was available officially, I am not using pirated OS, so maybe you now have a newer build where this is resolved. But with my build this is not only the problem with the folder pane. Say I want to open a file in some application. It will then open a special explorer window as it was always doing it. Now in Win7 there is no Desktop! I have to literally dig into the Users folder finding where the Desktop actually located and that's not nice.

Now as far as the customization of folders. Basically what I want is to have most folders to appear in exactly the same way, except for a few special ones, like Desktop or Control Panel. However, every now and then I create a new folder and then if I put an image file there Windows immediately assigns some other template to this folder - like showing thumbnails where I don't want them.

One of the reasons I want to have explorer to behave the way I want is that often I use my computer for scientific computations and as a result I have lots of files with "extensions" that are not recognized by Windows. Therefore any sort of sorting or templates based on "file type" is often useless to me.

Finally, sometimes I install programs that I need for a short time period only. Then I uninstall them, but unfortunately - and I am not sure whether to blam the developers or Windows - the installer/uninstaller leaves behind lots of files. Not that this takes up a lot of space, but still, I like to delete them. This means that I need to see "hidden" or "system" files. In XP, I could choose to see these files in those folders where I need it, but not in others. In Vista and also in Win7 if I choose this in Folder Options, then immediately all folders will start showing the hidden files, and in particular I will have two .ini files on the Desktop. There simply does not seem to be a way to choose such folder options for different folders on individual basis as it was in XP.

Now, you said that a number of bugs were fixed since beta. As I mentioned, I only have the build 7000, since that's what was made officially available. Hopefully the Explorer will behave better in the next build I will be able to get (I am sort of apprehensive to installing pirated OS copies - I am not sure I could trust those guys that much).

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

bpaddock — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 20:49:31 GMT

@unifex -

The "Desktop" link should be the first entry in the Favorites node on a clean install, even in the beta release. It should be there along with Downloads and Recent Places unless you deleted the link, or replaced the folder containing them.

This should also show up inside the Common File Dialog giving you the same easy access to the Desktop folder or any other location you choose to pin there.

I'm also a bit unclear about your "hidden files" comments. I'm quite sure Windows XP had exactly the same options as Windows Vista and Windows 7 for hidng or showing hidden and system files. There was never an option to only show hidden files in certain folders, it has always been a global Explorer setting.

If you enable "show hidden files" that will not cause desktop.ini files to appear. Those should only show up if you also disable the "Hide protected operating sytem files" option.

Have you tried the "Show All Folders" option for the navigation pane that I mentioned? I'm interested to know if you find that more to your liking.

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

unifex — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 21:49:41 GMT

@bpaddock -

Well, you're right of course:

the "Desktop" link is there in the Favorites. However, I should say that this was the first time I actually clicked on Favorites. Previously, Favorites was just a list of internet bookmarks and I never saw a reason for them to be present in the file manager (in fact, in Windows 2000 I have actually removed the Favorites link from Windows Explorer. Later however I decided it was not worth the effort and just let it be there in XP and Vista).

Now, when I start Explorer, I get separately Favorites, Libraries, Computer, and Network nodes. I keep using the old trick of starting the Explorer in my designated home directory - not anywhere in Users folder though, in fact I keep my files and the OS on different partitions. Before the Desktop was always right there, at the top of the tree, so to speak.

Aha, now I see what you mean. "Show All Folders" does the trick!

Thanks for tip and for being patient with me!

Finally, yes, the desktop.ini files show up when both "show hidden files" is enabled and "hide protected ... files" disabled. However, when I do that in XP, no desktop.ini files show up on the desktop.

NAS

csmikle — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 01:27:33 GMT

Brandon, any comment on why we're not allowed to index folders on network-attached hard drives? You've done a great job of telling us what doesn't work on other forums, but I've never been able to find an explanation as to -why- we're not getting this functionality. It seems like everyone that requests it is ignored.

I know this article mentions that in an enterprise setting you'd rather not duplicate an index of the same server on everyone's machine, but I don't see why the option isn't allowed. My hard drive isn't a server -- it doesn't have the capability to index itself. Some insight into the decision to not allow me to index it would be thoroughly appreciated.

SKYDRIVE INTEGRATION

CRMMario — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 00:01:38 GMT

WILL BE POSSIBLE TO USE FEDERATED SEARCH WITH SKYDRIVE, THIS WOULD BE GREAT!!!!!.

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

mccabe — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 06:27:59 GMT

From a UX perspective, there are still three fundamental problems with Windows Explorer that take up far too much user time:

1. No tabs. For example, why should I have to snap two explorer windows to my fullscreen desktop just to copy files from one window to the other, when I could have ONE window open and drag files back and forth between tabs? The screen space issue is non-issue in this scenario. (Or if not tabs, dragging back and forth through thumbnails, which gives a tab-like experience while lowering the difficulty of drap-and-drop.)

There's a reason firefox stormed ahead, and why every other browser now uses tabs. Tabs increase productivity. I need that gain in my explorer window (as should anyone who has 6-14 windows open, which is your 70% of Windows users according to your own data). Considering you already have tabbed thumbnail support in 7, I'm very surprised this feature was not included with the other UI changes.

2. Resizing column size. Windows Vista rarely shows the correct column width for filenames, leaving many filenames cut off by an "..." and a seemingly wasted whitespace on the far end by default. This screenshot is typical (although they've replaced the whitespace with additional columns): http://techrepublic.com.com/i/tr/cms/contentPics/6134937-F.gif

The most important of a file explorer -should always- be the file names. When you open up a new explorer window, all filenames up to a reasonable length (the current is not reasonable) should be easily available. The rest is secondary information.

3. Finally, more relevant: search does not display the full file path in a manner that can be instantly grasped. This was an issue for me when I first installed Vista. This is an issue with me today. I hate hate HATE not being able to see the full file path of files in search. The current layout is not intuitive as there is no obvious indication what the relationship is between the name, the file path in parenthesis, the actual file location, and the current folder. All this information must be inferred by the user based upon where they were before the search happened.

This is at very least a lack of proper feedback, and at most a poor ordering of results, again missing where the emphases should be considering the window's function. (I consider it the latter, as technically you're showing two results in one column, something not done anywhere else in the UI--at least so far as I have seen--and that should violate at least one of your design principles right there).

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

Economics degrees — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 13:01:55 GMT

This post is about a new feature based on Search that allows searching across PCs and even servers in an Enterprise setting.

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

Communications degree — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 13:03:54 GMT

These products typically provide great features for team collaboration, document versioning and workflow management, archiving, retention policy enforcement, and other centrally-managed functionality that IT managers appreciate.

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

Online civil engineering degrees — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 13:05:17 GMT

Enterprise customers have asked us for a solution that simplifies finding important content in these various data stores but without leaving their normal Windows work flows.

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

Mechanical engineering degree — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 13:07:05 GMT

This is largely thanks to the prevalence of OpenSearch and RSS enabled clients (including Internet Explorer and Microsoft Search Server, among many others).

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

Electrical engineering degree — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 13:08:28 GMT

This works for any existing application that supports the Common File Dialog, and there are a whole lot of them!

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

kekebene — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 06:56:13 GMT

Well, I've been using Win7 for about a month now and I'm generally pleased with the many improvements it has over the really frustrating Vista. However, the Search engine is still quite frustrating for me. I've posted similar comments in other posts and haven't had a real acceptable answer, just excuses. This issue has also been addressed more than once by other users. The issue is about the search engine failing to find files, right there in the current folder, because they aren’t indexed. Now, I could live with the fact that the “default” search engine wouldn’t find them if non-indexed, but I should have a readily available Advanced Search Option where I can put the conventional XP search options:

Search for files or folders named:

Containing text:

Etc…

This search would be carried out solely based on the search filters entered, regardless of the settings for the "normal" searches. The search would also be for current folders (and sub folders if option selected), including binary files. None of the results would need to be stored for some indexing files, which wouldn’t affect “normal” searches. Finally, when browsing to a different folder and selecting Advanced Search again, the last options I entered should show up by default, as it did under XP. Now, this option would have to be available BEFORE doing the entire “normal” search. Everything, could be left as is for default configuration, which should impact your “vision” of how you want Win to look.

A nice way to implement this would be to be able to customize that “Static Magnifier” icon next to the search field to be an “Advanced Search” button. When clicking on it, a window would expand under the tool bar (like it did under Vista) where I could put in the search criteria, as given above (NOT the ones under Vista!!). You could also select from these options:

- Indexed files only

- Indexed and Non-Indexed files (this searches any know file types)

- All files (this searches any file types, including unknown file types)

Again, these options would be maintained for the subsequent searches.

I really want to move to Win7. But I use the advanced search features in XP almost on a daily basis. The lack of such feature is a HUGE handicap under Win7.

P.S. I seem to recall available “inline” advanced options under the search field, but these are obviously impractical solutions for a daily use.

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

kekebene — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 06:58:11 GMT

oops... little correction... replace instances of "non-indexed" with "unknown file types" in the main block

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

michaelsmith0004 — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 08:38:00 GMT

A new feature based on Search that allows searching across PCs and even servers in an Enterprise setting......

http://www.stretchmarkscare.com

http://www.acnetreatmentsite.com

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

shreen2008 — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 23:10:40 GMT

Great article. Thought it looks more technical for me, i still like the search in Vista and Windows 7. But i still miss the search button available in XP, though there are tweaks to get it back. Check my Windows blog. http://www.techlikes.com/2009/07/windows-7-hidden-country-themes-trick.html

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

new jersey defensive driving — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 12:45:34 GMT

As far as RAM, this is of course another area we worked very hard on. The feedback we've seen here reflects the work we've done I think.

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

MMOGamer — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 01:13:23 GMT

windows 7 seems to handle enterprise data quite well. I just hope it works well in terms of compatibility with all the apps and games out there.

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

Resv — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 21:43:53 GMT

The current layout is not intuitive as there is no obvious indication what the relationship is between the name, the file path in parenthesis, the actual file location, and the current folder. All this information must be inferred by the user based upon where they were before the search happened.

http://www.acaiberrystudy.net

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

cash gifting — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 23:26:06 GMT

i am having some problems with software not working with windows 7 but the updates are all coming out fast so it seems to be adapting quite well

re: Federating Windows Search with Enterprise Data Sources

cash gifting — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 23:32:03 GMT

most software actually seems to have updates faster than windows 7 was released there really is no waiting