Windows 7: Empower users to find, visualize and organize their data with Libraries and the Explorer (Channel 9)

Learn how you can enable a familiar experience for users and light up your application by using the Windows Search API and Library API and File Dialog. Also learn how you can integrate your web service with Windows search by using the OpenSearch standard without writing any client code. Master how to provide a rich experience for your data type in the Windows 7 Explorer with metadata, thumbnails, verbs and previews.

David Washington

David Washington is a Program Manager on the Find and Organize team and is responsible for the Windows Explorer platform. David first arrived at Microsoft in 2002 as an intern on the Microsoft CRM team, and eventually ended up on the Windows Shell team where he worked on the Windows Vista Common File Dialog.

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PaoloM Hypermediocrity

Oct 29, 2008 at 7:44 PM

Awesome
Bas It finds lightbulbs.

Oct 30, 2008 at 3:51 AM

So if the library consists of various locations, and you arrange your files by, say, author, and you drag a bunch of files in there from he desktop like David is doing at 9:00 in the video... in which of the locations do they actually end up? I suppose it just moves them to whatever location was set as the default save location.

Also: will the federated search work with Windows Home Server? What if I'm not at home, but I want to play an mp3 that's on my WHS music share. Can I just use any music player's common file dialog, and open that file remotely through federated search? Although I suppose that all depends on wether the WHS team releases a search connector for WHS shares, right?
PaoloM Hypermediocrity

Oct 30, 2008 at 8:52 AM

So if the library consists of various locations, and you arrange your files by, say, author, and you drag a bunch of files in there from he desktop like David is doing at 9:00 in the video... in which of the locations do they actually end up? I suppose it just moves them to whatever location was set as the default save location.

Correct. Each library has a default save location that you can modify at will.

Also: will the federated search work with Windows Home Server?

Yes.

What if I'm not at home, but I want to play an mp3 that's on my WHS music share. Can I just use any music player's common file dialog, and open that file remotely through federated search? Although I suppose that all depends on wether the WHS team releases a search connector for WHS shares, right?

Libraries do not allow remote locations, so this scenario is not supported. The main reasons are relevancy calculations (that may differ completely between sources) and network latency (that would drastically impact aggregated views).
Bas It finds lightbulbs.

Oct 30, 2008 at 9:55 AM

Libraries do not allow remote locations, so this scenario is not supported. The main reasons are relevancy calculations (that may differ completely between sources) and network latency (that would drastically impact aggregated views).

Okay, so I won't be able to get to get to it via a library, but I -could- technically set up a federated search thingamajig to my WHS, remotely search for an MP3, and then copy it to my local machine, right?
PaoloM Hypermediocrity

Oct 30, 2008 at 12:15 PM

I may not have expressed myself correctly.

By "remote locations" I meant shares from outside your LAN. If you can see your WHS shares, you can add them to the library, but in your post you mentioned "What if I'm not at home..." that implied you were trying to reach the shares from the internet.
Bas It finds lightbulbs.

Oct 30, 2008 at 1:10 PM

I think we're talking about the same thing. However, I was under the impression that the Federated Search feature works on remote locations, outside one's LAN. The demo in the session (at 13:48) showed searching for and using the files on a sharepoint website (Davidhas a WSSDemo Site 'thing' under his Favorites that he can search in.) If I have something like that set up for my WHS, and I'm outside my LAN, can I click that and search for files on my WHS, and then, for instance, copy them to the desktop, like David is doing from the sharepoint site?
BHpaddock

Oct 30, 2008 at 2:37 PM

Bas - The federated search feature works over both the LAN or the internet. If the server were to implement OpenSearch and RSS/Atom search results, then yes, you could potentially do what you described.

I think what Paolo was getting at was that this functionality (what we call "Search Connectors") is separate from Libraries, and that these search locations cannot be added to libraries.

However, within your LAN environment, you very much can add your WHS shares to your libraries if they are indexed on the WHS machine.
Bas It finds lightbulbs.

Oct 30, 2008 at 2:51 PM

Yeah, I realise federated search/search connectors and libraries are two separate things, it's just that they were demoed right after each other. I suppose my phrasing made it unclear that I was referring to the former, not the latter.

But, thanks guys, I know what I need to know. Now I need a WHS search connector. Oh, and Windows 7.
Carrie

Oct 31, 2008 at 3:29 PM

David is an awesome presenter. And, he's a super cool brother. We love you, David! Love, Carrie
Dovella Go Microsoft !!!!!!!

Nov 02, 2008 at 10:50 PM

SUPER!!!