WDS 3.0 has shipped!
Is the holiday season here early or what? IE, Defender, Firefox, WDS… and I hear more are on the way!
Download Windows Desktop Search 3.0 for Windows XP (32-bit)
Download WDS 3.0 for Windows Server 2003 (32-bit)
Download WDS 3.0 for Windows XP/2003 (AMD64)
This release represents a HUGE amount of work across multiple teams and we’re all proud to be delivering the first WDS release that runs as a Windows service, supports 64-bit systems, and unifies our Desktop Search platform and APIs across Windows XP, 2003, and Vista.
As always, post comments with your feedback! Or head to the official forum.
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Do *any* existing 3rd party ifilters work with WDS3.0RTW on XP?
How do you get the equivalent of “Help|About”, iow, what do you have to do to display the version number of WDS3.0RTW on XP?
Why isn’t the UNC search functionality integrated into this release?
I had to install the UNC addin before it would work. However, the WDS help file seems to indicate that it is part of the main release.
Great news. Any ideas when a well documented SDK will be released?
Why in the world do we have to 1) install the UNC Add-In and 2) map a network drive in order to index network shares? Does that seem totally and completely _lame_ to anyone else in the world besides me? Help me understand, why can’t we just say Options->Custom Locations->Add->\\server\share\folder, \\server2\public
???
John – I believe all IFilters that are stream-based will work, and those that are file-based will not. The big problem with the Adobe IFilter is that it reports that it supports IStream but it in fact does not, which causes major problems (which is why we had to specifically disable it). We’ve worked with Adobe to address the issue and they have a beta download of Adobe Reader with a fixed IFilter available – however unfortunately I think they only offer it to users running Vista right now. I’ll post an update as soon as I hear more about that.
Sanjay – This is a common question and one we’re thinking about as we begin planning for the next release. For now, this was the quickest way for us to get this functionality out there. I don’t know all the specifics, but if the alternative was to delay WDS 3.x (and thus Vista), cut this feature entirely, or ship this out-of-band… I think we made the right choice.
David – The WDS APIs are documented as part of the Windows SDK (formerly the “Platform SDK” for Vista). We know a lot more is desired and needed and we have a bunch of people working hard to deliver that as soon as possible. Stay tuned as I’ll be sure to post SDK updates going forward.
Jon – I’m pretty sure you shouldn’t have to map a network drive to index a share. I’ll look into that tomorrow.
Looks like you have to be in Exchange Cached Mode in 3.0 to index any mail – ugh. I have a large 50,000 item inbox and do not want to be in cached mode – don’t ask – I am horribly unorganized and need to keep all mail – but WDS (to date) has solved that for me :). I am moving back to 2.x as WDS 3.0 changes have caused me a major headache. Don’t make the mistake if you are unistalling 3.0 of not backing up your shortcuts file. I forgot and now I have to re-index and recreate everything Arggggh… Not at all happy with the major architecture changes that *significantly* impact users in how we work. This really needs to be called out in the readme – not that I read it anyway :P.
WDS 3.0 can index uncached exchange, but it is disabled by default. It needs to be enabled via group policy, and this is a change I’m going to suggest for the next update to WDS 3.0 that’s being planned (to go back to the enabled-by-default settings from 2.x).
You can enable it by creating a DWORD registry key in:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Search
called “PreventIndexingUncachedExchangeFolders” and setting it to a value of 0.
I have WDS V3 installed yet I don’t have the registry key. I don’t even have the windows Search key. I stop at
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows
thanks,jb
I installed WDS 3.0 and have already uninstalled it and gone back to 2.65 due to the following problem:
My primary account is a limited user account. WDS3.0 appears to start up, but it fails to index any of my user’s files. When I go to the “Modify” screen to choose what files to index, it doesn’t even list my hard drives at all; it just shows Outlook and Outlook Express.
When I logged in as an admin, it showed the hard drives properly and the box was checked next to the limited user’s folder. However, even when logged in as admin it didn’t index the limited user’s files.
When logged in as the limited user, the main Search window kept on saying “Windows Desktop Search is starting up”. Searching let me find files from the “all users” folder, but it never let me find anything from my own folders.
This is a major regression from WDS 2.6 and hence I have uninstalled 3.0 and gone back to 2.6.
Brandon – Can you help me how to register a custom protocol handler to WDS 3.0?
I have a working PH for WDS 2.6, but I have problems registering it with WDS 3.
My registration steps according some code snippets from the wds dev forum (msdn):
0) Register the ProgID
1) ISearchCrawlScopeManager::AddRoot
2) ISearchCrawlScopeManager::AddDefaultScopeRule
3) ISearchCrawlScopeManager::AddHierarchicalScope
4) ISearchCrawlScopeManager::SaveAll
5) restart search service
WDS does only call ISerachProtocol::Init but never CreateAccessor.
The root URL is wr://{aa2e205d-d823-4f90-8df8-667c2a3a59c9}/
The registry values look fine besides the fact that my URL is not below HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Search\Gather\Windows\SystemIndex\StartPages
Thanks, Martin
I’ve been working with WDS 3.0 using the OLE DB search provider. It works great, but I’m learning mostly by experimenting. I’ve come up with the list of good columns, but can you give any advice on which columns are indexed for optimal performance?
Also, is there a way to retrieve distinct rows? DISTINCT isn’t supported, nor is GROUP BY. This seems like it would hurt performance by forcing application code to narrow down the list to unique items.
Thanks!
-Arian
Cannot install at all. I get: c:\windows\KB917013.log
====================================================================
00:00.282: INFO: Opening log for preliminary WDSSetup.exe actions
00:00.375: Started: 2006/11/20 (Y/M/D) 21:19:15.015 (local)
00:00.454: Command line:
00:03.735: INFO: ****** Found 5 Read-Only keys. ******
00:03.766: ERROR: Error modifying the Read-Only ACL on one of the permission restricted keys.
There is absolutely no way to know which key is read only … tried everything for 3 hours and I am not dumb.
-=Francois=-
We have redirected our My Documents folder to a Network Share using Microsoft Best Practice documents. It is surprising to me that the WDS can’t check for the My Documents folder and include it. This may seam like a similar b-tch as others, but this is “My Documents” I am talking about. We haven’t run in to an issue like this since Windows for Workgroups…
Amen to Geoff’s comment. It’s a bit unbelievable that WDS 3.0 would be “finished” without the ability to detect when the My Documents directory has been redirected to a network share AND when it’s being used in offline mode on a laptop.
How is this software “Released” and not still beta? I’m sure it’s fine for technical users who have time and ability to fiddle with registry settings and GP settings, but to give this to end users? They don’t have a chance!
The very least you could do on the download page is have a link to the required additional packages.
Not impressed at all with this leap backwards in functionality!
Brandon said:
> We’ve worked with Adobe to address the issue and
> they have a beta download of Adobe Reader with a
> fixed IFilter available – however unfortunately I
> think they only offer it to users running Vista
> right now. I’ll post an update as soon as I hear
> more about that.
Do you have an update to this?
I’m using the IFilter that comes in Adobe Reader 8.0 on Vista 64 bit and the IFilter is marked as “Registered IFilter is not found” in Windows Search’s Advanced Options.
I use Outlook 2003 and just installed Windows Desktop Search.
Does anyone know how to get the Outlook toolbar back? I used to have the toolbar in Outlook, had to uninstall WDS,
reinstalled WDS, but now I don’t have the Outlook toolbar anymore…
MarkR – Unfortunately Adobe has not released a 64-bit IFilter. Until they do (or someone else does), you will only be able to index PDF files on 32-bit systems. Bummer, I know =/
Andy – The Outlook toolbar you’re referring to is probably the one included in the Windows Live Toolbar – availablt at toolbar.live.com
IF YOU ARE EXPERIENCING A WDS 3.0 INSTALL FAILURE and received the message “Error modifying the Read-Only ACL on one of the permission restricted keys.” Please e-mail me, brandon@brandonlive.com
I managed to install WDS 3.0 RTW on my computer after getting the following messages:
00:03.016: INFO: ****** Found xxx Read-Only keys. ******
00:03.031: ERROR: Error modifying the Read-Only ACL on one of the permission restricted keys.
*** As allways, it’s recommended backing up your registry before doing this!! ***
1. Open regedit.
2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes
3. Right Click Classes and select Permissions
4. Click Advanced
5. Uncheck Inherit parent permissions (the first checkbox bellow the add button)
6. Click Apply (DO NOT CLICK OK!!) and click Yes on the warning box.
7. Check Inherit parent permissions
8. Check Replace permissions on child entries (the second checkbox)
9. Click Apply again
10. Click OK
After doing that, you should be able to install WDS.
Before you do that, please e-mail me! That is a viable workaround, but it doesn’t help us figure out why you hit this problem in the first place =)
Really work. No others suggested for WDS 3.0 so real help during half a year, I’ve tried to find. But, just, some others application stopped to work after it and maybe 1 solution rests – to reload Windows?
yep – redirected folders would be nice, especially as i don’t really have any data “on” my hard disk as its all on the network share (but also available offline so there really is no excuse)
Looks like Live search toolbar in Outlook 2K3 is not working with WDS3.0.
After a reinstallation and still no success, I installed MSN toolbar and it works again in Outlook2K3.
I’m currently running Vista Business and Outlook 2007. I’ve added the PreventIndexingUncachedExchangeFolders key, but Outlook/Vista still aren’t indexing two additional mailboxes. Any advise ?
Hello Brandon. One thing I’ve noticed since version 3.0 is the removal of the “Programs” group from the deskbar. I’ve posted examples of this on Channel9 (I’m Nitz Walsh there):
http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PageIndex=4&PostID=248950#248950
This happens regardless of the PC used, so it’s not a configuration issue.
Any ideas?
Im also interested in indexing the additional Mailboxes in Outlook 2003. Is this possible?
I cant figure out from above, will the 64bit ifilter work with windows 7 or not. And if not when will will we have one?
Thanks