Windows Vista : Desktop Searching with the Windows Search Engine

Microsoft’s goal in Vista is to make search a truly useful tool that provides complete results quickly. Did it succeed? For the most part, yes. The Windows Search Engine (WSE) service starts by default, which all by itself is a big improvement over XP. On the downside, it can still take Vista an absurdly long time to search, say, all of drive C:. However, that’s because the Windows Search Engine does not index the entire drive. Instead, it just indexes your documents, your offline files (local copies of network files; ), and your email messages. If you’re searching for one of these types of files, Vista searches are lightning quick.

Note that you can control what WSE indexes and force a rebuild of the index by selecting Start, Control Panel, System and Maintenance, Indexing Options. This displays the dialog box shown in Figure 1. To customize the search engine, you have two choices:

• Modify— Click this button to display the Indexed Locations dialog box, which enables you to change the locations included in the index. Activate the check box for each drive or folder you want to include.

• Advanced— Click this button to display the Advanced Options dialog box, which enables you to index encrypted files, change the index location, specify the file types (extensions) that you want include in or exclude from the index. You can also click Rebuild to re-create the index.

As-You-Type Searches with Instant Search

Vista’s searching interface is also radically different from XP’s simple but forgettable Search Companion. The most obvious—and, for simple searches, certainly the most useful—innovation is the Instant Search box on the Vista Start menu. As shown in Figure 2, as you type characters in the Instant Search box, the Start menu replaces the list of pinned and recently used programs with a new list that displays the following search links:

• A list of programs with names that include the typed characters

• A list of files (documents) with content or metadata that include the typed characters

• Other data—such as Contacts, email messages, and sites from Internet Explorer’s Favorites and History lists—with content or metadata that include the typed characters

• A See All Results link

• A Search the Internet link

Figure 2. As-you-type searching using the Start menu’s Instant Search box.

If you see the program or file you want, click it to open it. Otherwise, you can click Search the Computer to see the complete list of matches from the files in your user profile. If you prefer to search the Web for your text, click the Search the Internet link instead.

You can also perform these as-you-type searches in any folder by using the Instant Search box that appears in every Explorer window. As you type, Explorer displays those files in the current folder with names or metadata that matches your search text, as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. As-you-type searching using the Explorer window’s Instant Search box.

Advanced Searches

As-you-type searches are handy and fast, but they tend to return too many results because they look for your search text in documents’ metadata and contents. However, to find what you’re looking for in a hard disk with dozens or even hundreds of gigabytes of data and many thousands of files, you need a more sophisticated approach. Windows Vista can help here, too.

Run an as-you-type search and then click the Advanced Search link. (Alternatively, select Search Tools, Search Pane to add the Search pane, and then click Advanced Search.) Vista displays the search controls shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4. Use the Search pane to perform more advanced searches.

Vista assumes that you want to search by file type, so click one of the displayed types: All (matches any file type), E-mail, Document, Picture, Music, or Other.

To modify where Vista searches, pull down the Location list and click a location (for example, click Indexed Locations to search in all the folders included in the Search index). You can also click Choose Search Locations to display the Choose Search Locations dialog box, shown in Figure 5. The bottom part of the dialog box tells you the locations that are included in the search. You have three ways to modify these locations:

• To add a folder, activate the check box beside the folder in the Change Selected Locations list.

• To add any path, type it in the Or Type a Location Here text box, and then click Add.

• To remove a folder, either deactivate the check box beside the folder in the Change Selected Locations list, or click the folder in the Summary of Selected Locations and then click Remove.

Finally, you can add metadata filters that specify the properties in which you want Vista to look and how you want it to look there. In the Advanced Search pane, use some or all of the Date, Size, Filename, Tags, and Authors controls to enter your criteria.

With your search criteria set up, you can run the search by clicking the Search button or by pressing the Enter key. Figure 6 shows some example results.

Figure 6. The results of a search.

Saving Searches

After taking all that time to get a search just right, it would be a real pain if you had to repeat the entire procedure to run the same search later. Fortunately, Windows Vista takes pity on searchers by enabling you to save your searches and rerun them anytime you like. After you run a search, you save it by clicking the Save Search button in the task pane. In the Save As dialog box that appears, type a name for the search and click Save.

Vista saves your searches in the Searches folder, appropriately enough. To rerun a search, click the Searches folder in the Navigation pane and then double-click the search.