Before I'll drill down about the new version - I guess many of you Vista users are wondering right now "What the hell is Windows Search 4.0?"
Windows Search is the built-in search Vista/2008 and is also the "Windows Desktop Search" (WDS) add-on for Windows XP/2003. Windows Search provides many indexing and searching options for desktop files and applications (mainly Outlook) and makes desktop searches a whole lot faster. Maybe you also heard the name "Casino" – A name I've been tracking for far too long, back on the days that it was supposed to be a Windows Live product (I can see the smiles of the IAI guys that signed for the Casino journey with me – we've been waiting for this for TOO LONG).
W ell, many data became public regarding the Windows Search in the following Press Announcement that was followed by the brand new beta available here.
"At one point Casino was an internal code name for Windows Search. Windows Search 4.0 will address many of the issues Casino was originally slated to address, but it is distinctly different in that WS4.0 is a continuation of WDS3.01 and an update to Windows search functionality, while Casino was a research project. The purpose of Casino was to explore the area of federation, whereas the goal of the WS4.0 release is improved quality, better performance and reliability, as well as removal of deployment blockers."
There was also a word about Windows 7 and Windows Search:
"While it is too early to talk about specific details of Windows 7 features, we will be sure to build future functionality so that it extends, not replaces, the features available for Windows Vista SP1."
The key features in the new version (both for Vista and XP) are:
- PC-to-PC search to work on all supported versions of Windows. That is really on of the MEGA COOL features in this version- It allows you to search in Remote Index when searching from one PC to another (think about searching File Servers and you'll understand how huge is the new feature!)
- Many bug fixes for Vista and XP users
- Performance improvements have been made – Microsoft claims that searches are no 33 percent faster than searches in previous versions.
- Rollback Recovery has been added - indexes are not rebuilt from scratch if errors occur like in Vista (in the previous version it could take days before indexing all of the documents/Emails again)
Anyway – go download and feel free to share your comments on the new beta.
Bye,
Adir.