BrandonLive

Fellow Windows blogger and guy-named-Brandon, Brandon LeBlanc, posted an update outlining the timeline for official availability of the Windows 7 Release Candidate.  We’ve all been working very hard on this for a long, long time now.  I’m really looking forward to hearing what everyone thinks!

Just wanted to post a heads-up to interested parties, the stub page on MSDN for IOpenSearchSource and its one method have been replaced by the draft documentation.

The new page roughly sums up its use and purpose:

A client-side OpenSearch data source that sits in between the Microsoft Windows OpenSearch provider and the external data source.  With a search connector (a .searchconnector-ms file), Windows Explorer calls your implementation with the query parameters. Your implementation returns results formatted in RSS or Atom format. That allows your implementation to provide custom authentication UI and connect to the data source using its proprietary API.

More details at:  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd378289(VS.85).aspx

Unfortunately we still don’t have any details on how you actually hook up an implementation of this.  The doc / SDK folks are working on this but it’s part of a larger effort that’s taking a bit of time.  In the meantime I’m going to see if I can post an example here or on CodePlex.  Most likely I’ll be posting a detailed .NET example followed by a simpler C++ version.

If you have questions about whether this API may end up being useful to you, let me know, and hopefully I can help clarify what is or isn’t possible.

Late last night Steven updated the E7 Blog with a post about Federated Search in Windows 7.  I co-authored the post with two program managers from my team.

Check it out and let us know what you think!

We just posted the first version of the Windows 7 Federated Search Implementer’s Guide! You can download it here.

This document covers subjects such as crafting the best OpenSearch Description File for your site, returning files and custom properties, customizing the results view, optimizing your source for performance, and more. If you’re interested in developing an OpenSearch source for Windows 7, check it out! And as always, please share your feedback!

Link: Windows 7 Federated Search Provider Implementer’s Guide

Today Microsoft announced the official line-up of Windows 7 editions that will be made available.

Ed Bott does a nice job covering the announcement.

The main changes, which I am very happy about, are:

• Two main Editions for consumers.  Home Premium, and Professional.
• Professional now contains Media Center and everything else in Home Premium, as well as the traditional Pro feature set (Remote Desktop, domain support, etc).

Not only is this simpler, but I think it may constitute a price cut for people who needed to buy the Ultimate version of Vista in order to get both Media Center and Remote Desktop (or Domain support) in the same package.  Now they can get a machine with Pro and be all set.

Here’s the official press release / Q&A with Windows General Manager Mike Ybarra.

Got yourself a shiny new Windows 7 Beta install? Here’s a little cheat sheet I made up for some of the handy new hotkey combinations, many of which I’ve become quite dependent on!

General

Windows Explorer

Taskbar modifiers

Note that this list focuses on stuff that’s specific to Windows 7. For a complete list of Windows Vista hotkeys (which should be largely unchanged except where noted above), visit this page on Microsoft.com or look in the Windows Help file.

If there’s something you think I should add, post a comment!

Long Zheng of iStartedSomething.com has taken it upon himself to enable users to leverage my Windows 7 feature, called Search Federation, to search their Flickr photos from inside the Explorer.  

It looks like a work-in-progress, and since his service works as a proxy to talk to Flickr, performance isn’t what it would be if Flickr had a native implementation.  But for something he threw together over the last night or two I’m impressed!

We’ll be talking more about Search Federation on the Engineering Windows 7 blog soon, and will have much more to share when we deliver the upcoming Windows 7 beta release.

It’s been a whirlwind of a trip here in LA.  When I arrived I thought I’d be blogging, posting photos, and keeping in touch with the outside world the whole time.  Well, that didn’t quite work out.  There was always so much going on and so much to do, that the little downtime I had when I arrived back at my hotel was spent squeezing some of that “sleep” stuff into my schedule.

In case you’re wondering which of the features unveiled at PDC is “my baby,” that would be the OpenSearch-based search federation feature in the Windows Explorer, detailed in the Find & Organize session which you can watch here.

We also have a Channel 9 video covering the new Libraries feature and other user experience improvements in Explorer for Windows 7.  This video is part 1 of a two part series, the second of which covers the Search Federation feature (and yours truly).

For now, the best place to learn more about OpenSearch in Windows 7 is to watch the session video at the link below.

PDC 2008 session - Windows 7: Empower users to find, visualize and organize their data with Libraries and the Explorer

Just got through with the first PDC keynote a short while ago.  Since then I played with a Surface computer and met Larry Osterman.  At the Surface machine I was given a little card to take around to all the Surface machines in the convention center for a Scavenger Hunt game.  Basically you set the card down on the Surface table and a ring appears around it with about 10 images.  Then you drag matching images from the virtual tabletop to your card in order to “collect” them.  Each table has 2 of the images you need (and about a dozen you don’t but that other people do).  Apparently there’s a T-shirt in it for me if I fill up my card.

The keynote was really interesting.  I was aware of some of the work going on, but it was great to see it all tied together and to see how impressive the vision for Azure really is.

In about an hour I’ll board my flight to LA, which will be my first on Virgin America airlines.  I’m heading down a day or two early to visit my younger sister and enjoy a bit of warm sun before the conference kicks off on Monday.  From what I hear, there should be some pretty exciting stuff happening on Monday beginning with Ray Ozzie’s keynote address.

Of course, what’s most exciting to me is that on Tuesday we’ll begin talking about all of the work my team and I have been doing for nearly two years now (has it really been that long?!?).  My friend and colleague David Washington, platform PM for the Find & Organize team, will be presenting our session on Tuesday afternoon.  It’s the one titled “Windows 7: New APIs to Find, Visualize, and Organize.”  Apparently it was a bit of a challenge to come up with an interesting title that didn’t spoil the fun of our announcements.  At any rate, if you’re at all interested in Windows Explorer or Search - you won’t want to miss it

I’ll be there to help answer questions after the session, to assist with our hands-on labs, to hear everything you have to say about the work we’ve done and what we can do to make sure Windows 7 is a compelling offering for you and your customers / users.

Oh yeah, and one more thing for those of you following along at home.  On Thursday, David and I were interviewed by Dan Fernandez for my very first Channel 9 video.  I expect it’s the first of many, and I think you’ll enjoy it when it’s made available in just a few days.