As you know, I am not thrilled will Windows Vista. However, one feature I did find helpful since Day 1 is the integrated search. Vista constantly indexes your hard drive…probably one reason it feels slower than XP. Indexing means that Windows looks through all user generated files like word processing documents, email, spreadsheets and other user files. It then analyzes the file names and the content of these documents and stores that information in massive index files. Think of it as a “Google” for your own computer. Using the integrated search, you can type in a few characters and get instant results of matching documents or programs on your computer.
I’m torn about this feature because I feel that it makes the user a little lazy in really understanding where the data actually is stored, but the speed of the search is undeniable.
I mentioned that the Vista integrated search is sort of like a Google for your machine. Well, if you are a Windows XP user, you can get this same functionality with a tool from Google called Google Desktop or from Yahoo using the Yahoo Desktop .
Watch the video below for a short demonstration of how this tool works in Vista.
