What You Need to Know About Instant Search Changes to Windows Vista SP1

The conventional wisdom is that Microsoft's historicantitrust battle with the US government and severalstates ended with a decided victory for the software giant: The 2002 settlement seemed biased in Microsoft'sfavor, and the consent decree seemed to require little ofsignificance from the company. However, it's now clear thatMicrosoft is a changed company as a result of this battle,and its kinder and gentler persona in recent years suggeststhat the settlement has had the desired effect.

Windows Vista is an obvious and recent example: Inthe months leading up to the completion of the OS in 2006,Microsoft made numerous concessions to competitorswithout being required to by the courts. What's amazingabout this trend is that Microsoft is still making Vista concessions today. Most recently, it has agreed to change theInstant Search feature in the SP1 update to the OS to quellcomplaints from Internet search giant Google. Here's whatyou need to know about the changes Microsoft is making tothe Instant Search feature in Vista SP1.

Google's Complaint
Google announced the first beta release of its own desktopsearch product, Google Desktop Search (GDS) in October2004, about a year after the 2003 Professional DeveloperConference, at which Microsoft revealed its intention toinclude Instant Search in Vista. Google Desktop Search wasdesigned to extend Google's popularity on the Internet tothe PC desktop and provide a Google Internet Search–likeexperience with local files. (More recently, Google hasshipped GDS versions for both Mac OS X and Linux as well.)Meanwhile, a number of other companies also shippedsimilar desktop search products, Apple's Spotlight feature inMac OS X 10.4 being, perhaps, among the most well known.Even Microsoft got into the game: With Vista delayed againand again, the company shipped a free instant search add-on for Windows XP called Windows Desktop Search.

About a month after Microsoft finalized Vista in November 2006, Google complained to the Department of Justice(DOJ) about the Instant Search feature. What's interestingabout this complaint is that the DOJ attempted to keep itquiet, and—most alarmingly—tried to coerce the US statesagainst Microsoft in the antitrust case to ignore the complaint. Eventually, the states rebelled against this requestbecause they feared that the complaint had merit and thatMicrosoft was once again up to its old tricks. The Googlecomplaint became public in mid-2006.

Why would the DOJ try to smother Google's complaint?Remember that the DOJ of today is very different from the Clinton administration department that sued Microsoft inthe 1990s. Today, the DOJ is pro-business, and Microsoft isseen as one of America's shining success stories, especiallygiven the philanthropic activities of Microsoft co-founderBill Gates. The states felt that the Google complaint hadmerit, and some state attorneys general were ready tomove against Microsoft on their own if the DOJ didn't geton board. Facing a mutiny, the DOJ reversed course andpledged to work with the states to convince Microsoft toaddress Google's concerns.

Google's complaint is straightforward. The companybelieves that desktop search functionality in Windows shouldbe treated like other middleware as defined by Microsoft'sconsent decree—that is, applications such as media players, email clients, Web browsers, and IM solutions. Googleargued that consumers and PC makers should be allowedto completely swap out Microsoft's built-in applications forthird-party solutions. According to Google, the change wouldcreate a more competitive environment that would benefitusers, PC makers, and third-party developers alike.

Google also said that Vista's Instant Search featurehad been designed so that third-party solutions, such asGoogle Desktop Search, no longer worked as well as theydid in XP. The Instant Search indexer can't be turned off,for example, and users who install Google Desktop Searchwill see system performance decline because two indexersare running simultaneously. Although it was possible tointegrate Google Desktop Search into various UI points inXP—such as the Start Menu and Windows Explorer windows—it's not possible to do so in Vista. Microsoft, Googlesaid, engineered Vista specifically to harm competitors.

Microsoft's Reply
Microsoft's initial reply to these charges was predictable:Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer called the complaint "baseless." But the company began working immediately withrepresentatives from the DOJ and several states to hammerout a compromise. A few days after the Google complaintwas first aired publicly, Microsoft announced that it wouldchange the Instant Search behavior in Vista, starting withthe release of Vista SP1, which it said would ship in betaform by the end of 2007.

Desktop search will indeed be treated like other middleware in Windows, per Google's request, allowing users andPC makers to choose third-party solutions. In such cases,the Instant Search indexer will still run, but at a lower priority; a higher priority will be given to whatever third-partyindexer is installed.

Microsoft will also modify the Vista Startmenu so that users who install Google Desktop Search or other solutions can access thosesolutions via the Search entry in the Start menu.In addition, Microsoft will modify WindowsExplorer so that third-party desktop searchproviders can install a link to their products inthese windows. However, the Instant Searchbox in Vista's Windows Explorer windows willremain, even when third-party solutions areinstalled.

The DOJ and the states immediatelyaccepted Microsoft's proposal and, together,presented them to Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotellyat a regularly scheduled June 2007 status meeting about the Microsoft antitrust case. Google,irked that it did not get to review Microsoft'schanges before they were approved, repeatedly petitioned the court for permission tocomment. But Kollar-Kotelly noted that it wasthe DOJ and states, not Google, that represented the public's interest in the case. Anycomplaints would need to go through thoseentities, not the court.

Google is unlikely to ever approve of Microsoft's changes, since they only partially addressGoogle's original complaint. For example,Microsoft isn't providing a way to completelyreplace Instant Search, nor is Microsoft givingthird-party developers access to the searchboxes that already exist in Vista's WindowsExplorer windows. This is a battle that will quitelikely extend well beyond the release of SP1.

Recommendations
To date, Microsoft has been unusually reticentabout discussing the features in Vista's firstservice pack, but some alarming trends areemerging that might threaten the long-heldbelief that enterprises should upgrade to a newWindows version only after the first servicepack ships. Here's what we know: Vista SP1 willinclude a new kernel version aimed at bringingVista up-to-date with the kernel Microsoft willship in Windows 2008. The new kernel will alsoinclude major security changes brought aboutby late-2006 complaints from security vendors such as Symantec and McAfee. SP1 willinclude the Instant Search changes outlinedhere, as well as a host of other changes, mostof which are still in various stages of rumorstatus. And that's the rub: Thanks to its newfound policy of secrecy, Microsoft has madesomething that should be transparent quite theopposite. For this reason, I recommend thatenterprises that had expected to begin deploying Vista at SP1 hold off until a future date: Toomuch is unknown about SP1 at this time, andtoo much is in flux, for anyone to make reliabledeployment plans.

I'm also calling on Microsoft to end thesilliness and explain both its release schedulegoing forward and the exact features we canexpect in each Vista service pack and in subsequent versions of Windows. Holding back thiscritical information is not in Microsoft's bestinterests, and it's certainly not in its customers'best interests. It's time to do the right thing,Microsoft. This is information your customersneed to know.