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Microsoft

Microsoft To Unify Search Across Windows 10, Office 365 and Bing with Microsoft Search (zdnet.com) 77

Posted by msmash from the moving-forward dept.
Microsoft has a new 'North Star' for search: One, unified, smart search box that will span Windows, Office, Bing and more. From a report: For the past several years, Microsoft been working to unify and personalize its search experience across Office 365. But now the company is going a step further and bringing Windows 10 the same search experience. At Ignite last year, Microsoft said its holy grail for search was to enable people to search from wherever they were without interrupting their workflow. Bing for Business -- a way to turn Bing into an Intranet search service -- also debuted last year. At this year's Ignite, Microsoft is refining and expanding that search mission. Microsoft's plan is to put the search box "in a consistent, prominent place across Edge, Bing, Windows and Office apps, so that search is always one click away." The company also is "supercharging" the search box so that users can more easily find people, related content, commands for apps and more before they actually start typing in the search box, as it will be contextually aware and offer proactive search results and suggestions. Today, September 24, Microsoft is starting to roll out a preview of this Microsoft Search feature to Office.com, Bing.com (where it's no longer called Bing for Business, but, instead Microsoft Search in Bing) and the SharePoint Mobile app. Microsoft Search will be coming to Edge, Windows and other versions of Office in the coming months, going into 2019.
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Microsoft To Unify Search Across Windows 10, Office 365 and Bing with Microsoft Search More

Microsoft To Unify Search Across Windows 10, Office 365 and Bing with Microsoft Search

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  • Allow me to ask it (Score:5, Funny)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Monday September 24, 2018 @09:46AM (#57367464)

    The inevitable first question that emerges whenever such a feature gets announced:

    How do you disable it?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      There will be an option hidden behind several windows and setting menus, which will lead you to some obscure panel, with a square you will have to check which will give them power of attorney over all your belongings, including your family.
      after you checked it, the search will be temporarily suspended, until you're not looking at which point in time it will just happily resume collecting your information.
      This detection uses the most sofisticated forms of deception possible in a modern computer, which includ

      • And when the next service pack if not update comes along, you will need to do it again since it was turned back on.

    • Re:Allow me to ask it (Score:4, Interesting)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Monday September 24, 2018 @10:05AM (#57367580) Homepage Journal

      The Windows 10 start menu is so shit that I usually just search for the thing I want to open, so if I'm not getting Bing pollution in there too that just slows me down.

      Also I really don't want everything I search for sent to Bing thanks.

      • Curious... why did you "upgrade" to Win10 in the first place?
        Why not stick with Win7 or possibly even Win8.1?

        Based on my tests, it appears each iteration of Windows since XP is slower in various benchmarks, and Win10 (with April update) appears slowest out of all.

        But at least a little praise to Microsoft for some-what improving energy efficiency since Win8.1 - although that's been set back by Win10 due to so many anomalous processes constantly consuming cpu/disk.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Work PC, needs Win 10 for testing. At home I use 8.1.

        • I doubt that many people "upgrade" willingly to Win10 anymore. Usually it's more that the laptop they buy comes with Win10 and there are no drivers for any other version of Windows available.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Wulf2k ( 4703573 )

        I particularly enjoy typing something quickly into the search, having the autocomplete guess wrong, then backspacing and retyping the last character to get the correct result.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jrumney ( 197329 )
        Not just everything you search for, but they will send things you don't search for to Bing too. In order to unify the search experience, Microsoft has a vision of uploading the index of all your private files to the Azure cloud so it is available to Bing even when you search using Cortana from your Windows Phone. Nevermind that almost nobody has ever used any of those products outside of your Seattle echo chamber.

    • The answer is the same as the one about neckbeards: can't.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I just got bit by this thanks to a recent update on the desktop. Had to do a little web searching to figure out how to re-disable web searches from the desktop. Here are the instructions:

      regedit.exe
      HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Search
      Create the following DWORD keys and set to 0:
      CortanaConsent
      AllowSearchToUseLocation
      BingSearchEnabled

      Restart or log out/in.

      • Unfortunately this was posted AC and I have (obviously) already posted so I can't even mod you up.

        *sniff*

        And this is why the idiots take over the world, the ones with a clue post AC.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by GuB-42 ( 2483988 )

      Normally that's the point where someone suggests you uninstall Windows and use Linux.

      • As soon as there's drivers available for my hardware and the software I want to use runs somewhat reliably...

    • If you disable Cortana you'll disable most of the search functions. There's also a 'Windows Search' system service you can Stop and set to 'Disable' so it won't run again. None of this should be a problem for you if you already know where all your stuff is.

      Disabling Cortana is actually very easy. You open Task Manager, and a File Explorer window. Find the Cortana folder, and the Cortana thread running in memory. Try to rename the Cortana folder (add '.bak' to the end); it'll prevent you but ask if you wa

    • The inevitable first question that emerges whenever such a feature gets announced:

      How do you disable it?

      There will be two buttons to control this "feature":

      "Enable Disable Unified Search"
      "Disable Enable Unified Search"

    • wait its not already doing this? im pretty sure my windows 10 is already doing this. cuz when i type âoepaintâ it does this rather than show me the paint app.

    • How do you disable it?

      That's easy: Just Bing It!

      It's just like using IE to install Chrome or Firefox.

      • "Bing it" sounds like trying to do something that feels kinda unwholesome when you do it with a computer. I'm not a robosexual, ya know...

  • Outlook? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ook_boo ( 1373633 ) on Monday September 24, 2018 @09:54AM (#57367516)
    Wow. And maybe after this, they can finally figure out how to make a decent search function for Outlook.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by DogDude ( 805747 )
      What's your problem with it? I've been using it successfully for more than two decades.
      • I'm not an expert on Outlook so I might not be aware of how to do it, but it seems like I've struggled to sort the search results (by whatever data element I might want to sort by) or to add additional search filters applied to the current set of results to whittle it down further.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by phayes ( 202222 )

      Now _WHY_ would they want to go and do that? It would make their inability/refusal to introduce a working search function into Outlook since 1992 starkly visible.

    • The decent search solution for Outlook was the third party solution, Lookout. Microsoft bought them out, integrated it into Outlook and fucked it up royally.

  • Feature creep (Score:5, Funny)

    by DarkRookie ( 5030953 ) on Monday September 24, 2018 @09:58AM (#57367538)
    Pretty sure the feature creep has completely gotten outta hand when you need a search bar to find one.

  • Get the basics right first (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    The company also is "supercharging" the search box so that users can more easily find people, related content, commands for apps and more

    Can't they make it find content before looking for related content? Because the Windows 10 search function is just awful. "Broken" is not an unfair description when it refuses to find installed programs or files with the name typed exactly.

    Learning to use Linux as a daily driver on my laptop has been a bit painful but it's nothing compared to my experiences with Win10.

  • Didn't they already pay something like half a billion to EU for the IE debacle? Do they really want to repeat that?

  • Have they actually fixed the search? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Has the search in Windows as a whole been overhauled now? Because in current Windows 10 iterations it's nearly useless in our business setting. My "favorite" loss of functionality was the ability to search mail from Windows search. My userbase just loved it.

  • Sounds like Microsoft is reinventing Google Desktop (a fine product that should never have been killed)

    • Sounds like Microsoft is reinventing Google Desktop (a fine product that should never have been killed)

      Microsoft has had something equivalent to Google Desktop since Windows 2000, IIRC. It is called indexed search. Naturally, I disable the indexing service on every PC I use, because the feature is garbage just like Google Desktop was. Google Desktop promised not to index while your PC was busy, but it did anyway; Microsoft's Indexing Service is exactly the same in that regard. It also has generally the same purpose.

  • Kill it with fire! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Nidi62 ( 1525137 ) on Monday September 24, 2018 @10:24AM (#57367680)
    Microsoft is going full on Sauron. One Bing to rule them all and in the darkness bind them. So the question remains, which volcano do we have to throw them into?
    • Given their location I'm thinking Rainier, with St. Helens and Hood being other viable alternatives. Although the only one showing any life is St. Helens so I guess it is going to have to be a drop height sort of thing.

    • Save a lot of time and hassle crossing over lands patrolled by trolls and nazguls by just jumping on the giant eagle and heading for the volcano. I know you will miss a lot of opportunity to grow as a person by nearly killing yourself walking without food or fighting talking spiders -- but hey, you won't have to live with the persistent whisper of Microsoft tempting you with upgrades until the day you die -- so it kind of evens out.

  • Search without interrupting? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by smooth wombat ( 796938 ) on Monday September 24, 2018 @10:25AM (#57367682) Journal

    Searching is an interruption in one's workflow. Instead of allowing people to go directly where they want to go, Microsoft keeps trying to force search down people's throats by claiming it's a better "experience".

    Question: if one went to the store for eggs, do you walk around the entire store "searching" for eggs, or do you go directly to where eggs are located?

    As I have said many times, with each iteration of Windows Microsoft has made it more difficult for an end user to accomplish something. Things which used to be readily available are buried or moved to obscure locations. When you do find what you're looking for, the steps to complete the task have soared.

    This is why, except for work, I will not use Windows 10. It's an abomination whose inept design will cause a myriad of bad habits to be the norm and cause a regression in accomplishing tasks easily.

    • Question: if one went to the store for eggs, do you walk around the entire store "searching" for eggs, or do you go directly to where eggs are located?

      I walk to the farthest corner from the entrance, since that's where they put staples like milk and eggs. To make us walk past the upsells.

      Hey, wait a minute!

  • SLOW (Score:5, Informative)

    by TheDarkener ( 198348 ) on Monday September 24, 2018 @10:47AM (#57367864) Homepage

    I know I'm not the only one, please chime in if the same thing happens to you:

    1) Click on Win10 start menu
    2) Wait
    3) Wait some more...
    4) .....
    5) Watch little lemmings cobble together a start menu tile by tile
    6) Type something to start searching your PC
    7) Wait....
    8) Listen to your HDD churn like it's the little engine that could going up a steep incline as Win10 tries to find things on your computer, the web, etc.
    9) Curse the dead bloated seal that is Windows 10
    10) Give up with frustration and open 'This PC' and manually search for something

    • Windows XP (dumb dog aside) was the last search engine that "just worked"
      It got so bad in 7 (and of course 8 and 10) that I went in search of, heh, a better search engine to replace the half-baked, fully broken one that came default with windows.

      May I introduce you to "UltraSearch?"
      https://www.jam-software.com/u... [jam-software.com]

      My favourite Win7 search horror story is it *constantly* unable to find "scanpst" despite Outlook being installed, and even pointing the damn search to the program directory where Office is instal

    • Re:SLOW (Score:4, Interesting)

      by thevirtualcat ( 1071504 ) on Monday September 24, 2018 @02:46PM (#57369450)

      More like:

      1. Type the name of something on your system, press enter.
      2. Mutter a few choice words under your breath and close the control panel or Microsoft Store app listing that opened instead of what you wanted.
      3. Type the name of something on your system, use the mouse to click on it because it's actually the third item in the list for some reason.

      • More like:

        1. Type the name of something on your system, press enter. 2. Mutter a few choice words under your breath and close the control panel or Microsoft Store app listing that opened instead of what you wanted. 3. Type the name of something on your system, use the mouse to click on it because it's actually the third item in the list for some reason.

        Local and intranet search is actually a much harder problem than web search. The hard part of any search system isn't finding and indexing the data, it's figuring out which entries in the index are the best matches. With local search, this is trivial. You show all of the matches, in almost arbitrary order, and you're mostly fine. There's so little data that the user can almost always find what they're looking for. It's not great, but it works.

        With web search, you have massive data volume, but the data i

  • I haven't been able to reliably searching in windows file explorer since windows xp.

  • not this again (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cascadingstylesheet ( 140919 ) on Monday September 24, 2018 @11:33AM (#57368230) Journal

    Anybody remember "web desktop"?

    "Network places"?

    Stop trying to blur the lines between my local PC and some networked location out there. I want to know where something I am interacting with is. For security if nothing else.

  • I'm getting sick of this. (Score:3)

    by thevirtualcat ( 1071504 ) on Monday September 24, 2018 @11:43AM (#57368320)

    I didn't like it when Ubuntu integrated Amazon searches into their launcher.
    One of the things about the new Pixels that drives me insane is that you can't search your app drawer without also pulling up google search suggestions. (Because, you know, there weren't enough ways to get to a google search from the Android home screen.)
    One of the first things I do on a Windows box is disable Cortana and the integrated web searching.

    Why? Because if I wanted a damn internet search, I'd open my browser and search the internet. When I open the search function on my OS, I want it to search my local system. These days, the only way to do that is "find" and "grep."

    • I didn't like it when Ubuntu integrated Amazon searches into their launcher.
      One of the first things I do on a Windows box is disable Cortana and the integrated web searching.

      Yup, same.

      Why? Because if I wanted a damn internet search, I'd open my browser and search the internet.

      Agreed, but then you might not use Bing (and/or MS servers) and they wouldn't be able to spy on you.

      When I open the search function on my OS, I want it to search my local system.

      Agreed, but then they wouldn't be spying on you.

  • Not only will it search for all kind of things, probably using MS servers for help, even when all you want is a filename, but it will be actively monitoring your activities, also probably using MS servers. From TFS (emphasis mine):

    The company also is "supercharging" the search box so that users can more easily find people, related content, commands for apps and more before they actually start typing in the search box, as it will be contextually aware and offer proactive search results and suggestions.

    I'd like to file this under: Do Not Want.

    And, knowing MS, any blocking you might employ will disable search altogether.

    OS and Apps as Spyware - wave of the Future.

  • Kill notifications, Kill non-essential updates, and Kill Cortana again, if necessary.
    http://www.classicshell.net/ [classicshell.net]
    find the registry keys for edge and cortana. Delete them. Add the disable search key
    ~.old out the services that suck as well
    About 15 minutes of work makes windows 10 functional.
  • I think that somewhere around 100% of the time, when someone does a search, they know whether they want to search their computer or the Internet. No one asked for "unified" search. We want to search our computers (and it has to f.....g *work*) *or* we want to search the web. Never both. If I click "search" on my computer, I want to find something on my computer. Usually I know it's there but I don't remember where I put it. If I want to search the web I'll bring up DuckDuckGo. There are NO practical
  • Don't f'n add Bing it is the worst search engine! It NEVER finds anything I am looking for. Never!

  • I wish I could search local-only by default.

  • For the past several years, Microsoft been desperatly working to kill google. There fixxed the title for you.

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