Brandon Live!

When I first posted about the WS4 release on Neowin a few members had a response that I had never expected.  Some examples:

Windam - I wonder why this would be released for Vista since search is already a well integrated feature to begin with.
Is it just because(optional)?

Maudit - Pardon my ignorance, but what the difference between Windows Search 4.0 and the one in Vista ultimate sp1, does it streamline into windows ?

A similar question was asked on Channel 9.

The answer is quite simple:

• Windows Vista includes “Windows Search 3.0″
• Windows Search 4 is an upgraded version of the indexer built-in to Vista.
• This release does not change the User Interface, it looks exactly the same.  The improvements are around responsiveness, resource usage, reliability, API support, etc.

A good analogy here might be DirectX.  Windows XP shipped with DirectX 8.1.  When DirectX 9 was released for XP, it didn’t change the way anything looked or behaved, but it made your system better.  You may apply a similar understanding to WS4.