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Wanna speed up Vista? Get Windows Search 4.0!

windowssearch4One of the great features of Windows Vista is it’s integrated search engine which allows you to find all those bits and bytes on your computer.  But in the last week I found this interesting little tidbit.  Windows Search 4.0 was quietly released for free download for Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2003.  This one kind of came under the radar a bit so I thought I would give it a go and install.  Well to my surprise my machine seems to be faster!  And of course search is a whole lot faster.  But in a nutshell this is what the new version has to offer.

  • Improvements in performance and stability of the indexer
  • Fuller complement of Group Policy settings, available on all supported operating systems
  • Fast sorting and grouping of results in Windows Explorer
  • Indexing improvements in online e-mail
  • Ability to index delegate mailboxes for online e-mail
  • Support for indexing (local file system) encrypted documents
  • Expanded ability to perform fast remote queries of file shares, including those on Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. This includes automatic indexing of shared folders.
  • Item previews in Windows Explorer for Windows XP

So this is one of those things that kind of sits under the covers quietly plugging away but it’s nice to see the search team has made such an improvement.

Check out the download today!  I’ve put it on all my machines!

Jeffa

Posted: Friday, June 20, 2008 4:56 PM by jeffa36

Comments

theRock said:

What does it do to file indexing, hard drive acivity and your system resources?

# June 23, 2008 9:12 AM

Glen Roberts said:

theRock - v4 search uses less RAM and processor cycles.

# July 16, 2008 7:54 AM

James M. Fisher said:

This is good to know, Jeff. I'm posting a link this article over at my WindowsTalk Blog. :)

# July 17, 2008 1:44 AM

Deepak said:

Could not install  the same on the Windows Vista Ultimate 32 bit -- give an error while insattling -- not comatible

# July 17, 2008 9:54 AM

Corrine said:

Search 4.0 is scheduled for release to Windows Update this month.  

# July 18, 2008 8:56 PM
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