Never Lose A File Again - How To Become A Search Wizard

Fed up of trawling for documents you know you saved somewhere? Nik Rawlinson comes to the rescue

- Nik Rawlinson

Searching in Windows is a bit of a mess. To be fair, though, it’s less messy than it used to be: until earlier this year, the Start menu’s search functionality was mixed into the Cortana voice assistant. The May 2019 Update split Cortana and search into separate functions, which made things clearer, and means those who prefer not to use Cortana can disable her entirely without forfeiting search capabilities.

Improvements have been a long time coming, though. As far back as 1991, Microsoft was working on a smarter file system that would extensively index both the metadata and content of every file, making it quick and easy for users to find whatever they wanted with just a few keystrokes. By the early 2000s, this idea had evolved into a project called WinFS (short for “Windows Future Storage”). This was to have been part of Longhorn, the nascent operating system that became Vista – but, sadly, WinFS never saw the light of day.

Its abandonment may have had something to do with Apple. In 2004, several of the Longhorn team attended the AppleWorldwide Developers Conference, where Steve Jobs unveiledMac OS X 10.4 Tiger, featuring Spotlight – a fast, systemwide search tool that seemed to do everythingWinFSwas designed for. Internal emails, later released, reveal how the Longhorn team felt about what they’d seen: “I did system-wide queries against docs, contacts, apps, photos, music, and my Microsoft email on a Mac,” admitted Microsoft developer Lenn Pryor: “It was amazing. It is like I just got a free pass to Longhorn land today.”

Jim Alchin, who headed up Vista development, agreed: “It’s hard to take. I don’t believe we will have search this fast.”