Windows Vista SP2 Beta Next Week

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There is a post today on the Windows Vista Team Blog that says a beta of Service Pack 2 for Vista will be in the hands of testers next week. Some of the features to be included with SP2 are native Blu-ray recording in Vista, Windows Search 4.0, a Bluetooth 2.1 feature pack and more.

Following the success of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 last spring, we have been working hard on Windows Vista Service Pack 2. As a part of the development and testing process, we're going to start by providing a small group of Technology Adoption Program customers with Windows Vista SP2 Beta for evaluation next Wednesday, October 29. The final release date for Windows Vista SP2 will be based on quality. So we'll track customer and partner feedback from the beta program before setting a final date for the release.
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Will it make Vista stop tazing my cat whenever it walks by?

I would say that would be a downgrade if they took that feature out. So no.
 
Some of the features to be included with SP2 are native Blu-ray recording in Vista (dont care), Windows Search 4.0 (whats this? i use an organized file system), a Bluetooth 2.1 (hack me!!!!! YAYZ!) feature pack and more.
 
Wonder what they're doing with the BT stack, I've heard the MS stack has steadily improved over time... Don't think I ever saw it actually listed as part of a SP's features though.

niconx said:
Some of the features to be included with SP2 are native Blu-ray recording in Vista (dont care), Windows Search 4.0 (whats this? i use an organized file system), a Bluetooth 2.1 (hack me!!!!! YAYZ!) feature pack and more.
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Don't knock it, if you're willing to put up with the slow-down the first day after you install it (on a pre-existing and already in-use system), it's quite handy, even if you're a neat freak... Typing in a couple words sometimes beats the heck out of navigating any file system, regardless of how well organized and logical it's laid out.
 
searching network drives are soo slow in vista compared to xp.... hopefully sp2 fixes that
 
Isn't Windows Search 4.0 already part of Vista? When I click get it now, it takes me to a link to buy Vista. Or is 4.0 where you can highlight a result and it will display the doc in a pane? I really like that feature (4.0 on XP) so I don't have to have a ton of windows open to see if its what I'm after or not.
 
I think the current version of Windows Search is 3.x... 'Least that's what's on this machine and Windows Update will usually update that automatically. This version does have the preview pane that you're talking about, they all have AFAIK... In fact, I couldn't really tell you what changed from 2.0 to 3.0. It's looked exactly the same since I started using it, even after updates. /shrug
 
i am still trying to figure out why anyone would need a fast indexed file searching system....i can think of all of one time maybe in my life i have ever had to search windows for a file..the amount it slows down a machine is not worth it to me, my pc would spend more time wasting my time building a database i will never use than it would take to find one file without it......why are people having to search for files? doesn't everybody put files they download into specific directories with categories and use shortcuts?...:confused:
 
Does the bluray support mean that VMC could play bluray with out the need for PowerDVD etc?

Also while i dont use windows search for files it comes in really handy for things like email.
 
nobody_here said:
i am still trying to figure out why anyone would need a fast indexed file searching system....i can think of all of one time maybe in my life i have ever had to search windows for a file..the amount it slows down a machine is not worth it to me, my pc would spend more time wasting my time building a database i will never use than it would take to find one file without it......why are people having to search for files? doesn't everybody put files they download into specific directories with categories and use shortcuts?...:confused:
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I certainly have a need for search. Over the past 15 years, I have accumulated a massive amount of data from tens of thousands of documents to thousands of media files (audio + video files) plus multiple backups and revisions of all my files. This comes out to be over 1,000,000 files consuming 2TB scattered across multiple hard drives.
 
Search will even look within (certain) documents, so if you don't suddenly remember what you've named something off-hand, it's often easier to search for it with the program than to look at dozens or hundreds of file names hoping it'll hit you. It's just convenient. /shrug Even if you're super organized, like I said, don't knock it unless you've tried it.
 
Damn, and I thought all the damn updates I just installed this last week was something. I think I had over 30 updates this week, the most I have seen sense my first updates after an install.
 
With respect to the "Spotlight" style instant searches that translated over to Vista (and started with Google, basically) people either "get it" or they don't, from my experience. Some people find it's the greatest thing since sliced bread, especially when they have thousands upon thousands of files - most notably text or written articles, while others simply have no clue how useful such a tool in the OS can be.

For those of us that do, it's well worth a few processing cycles to have nearly instant access to our data even down to a search-for-specific words or phrases level. Lemme see you find a specific word in a document or a specific date in under 4 seconds when you've got 14,000 document files to look through without using such a search tool.

Needle in a planet-sized haystack... ;)
 
I need searches - but I never needed that search/indexing function on steroids in Vista. What a boner that was (I disabled it). Why anyone would want that resource sucking "function" on a laptop is hard to ponder. I remember all the articles about the need to upgrade for Vistas new graphics. Now that I got Vista last month I see the graphics were just an excuse. It was other stuff sucking the life out of computer - and not for users benefit really.
 
Sublym3 said:
Does the bluray support mean that VMC could play bluray with out the need for PowerDVD etc?

Also while i dont use windows search for files it comes in really handy for things like email.
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I think they mean that if you have a blu-ray burner windows will natively be able to burn data to it without a third party app. Similar to natively burning data with a DVD burner.
 
The search indexer really doesn't take up much resources at all once it's built up it's index, it's not even active (or not very active) when you're actively using the computer. I've had it running on computers as old as a P3 without issue. With a modern system, the only noticeable slowdown you might notice is if you've just installed it on a system full of content and it's building up it's index from scratch. It doesn't even go thru your entire hard drive unless you tell it to, just your document/music/video folders.
 
BX_TECH_GOD said:
I think they mean that if you have a blu-ray burner windows will natively be able to burn data to it without a third party app. Similar to natively burning data with a DVD burner.
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That's what I'm afraid of. 10% of us might give a flying crap about being able to back up our data on $15 discs. I bet that 90% would MUCH RATHER that Vista have some f'ing native blu ray playback ability in Vista Media Center.

I know I would. And freaking blu ray drives would start selling a little better too. There's to many steps for the average user to make his media center play bloody blu ray discs. All they've done is help the 10% and SCREW the 90% if they only ad blu-ray recording and not blue ray decoding or at least playback in media center with an installed decoder.

My cranky two cents. :p
 
"The final release date for Windows Vista SP2 will be based on quality."
As same as initial Vista release ... lol ... quality rules.
 
Joe Average said:
With respect to the "Spotlight" style instant searches that translated over to Vista (and started with Google, basically) people either "get it" or they don't, from my experience. Some people find it's the greatest thing since sliced bread, especially when they have thousands upon thousands of files - most notably text or written articles, while others simply have no clue how useful such a tool in the OS can be.

For those of us that do, it's well worth a few processing cycles to have nearly instant access to our data even down to a search-for-specific words or phrases level. Lemme see you find a specific word in a document or a specific date in under 4 seconds when you've got 14,000 document files to look through without using such a search tool.

Needle in a planet-sized haystack... ;)
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My problem is that I store all my data on a network share.I can add a network share to the index. So searching a network share is really really slow. How stupid is this. 95% of business shore info on network shares
 
nobody_here said:
i am still trying to figure out why anyone would need a fast indexed file searching system....i can think of all of one time maybe in my life i have ever had to search windows for a file..the amount it slows down a machine is not worth it to me, my pc would spend more time wasting my time building a database i will never use than it would take to find one file without it......why are people having to search for files? doesn't everybody put files they download into specific directories with categories and use shortcuts?...:confused:
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I have about 5 TB or files. Vista search is a godsend compared to what XP offers. The searching is done very quickly, and I've never noticed any slowdowns. Combine that with the greater stability of Vista, and from what I can tell, better multi-tasking, and I boot into it much more then I ever go into my XP partition.
 
nobody_here said:
i am still trying to figure out why anyone would need a fast indexed file searching system....i can think of all of one time maybe in my life i have ever had to search windows for a file..the amount it slows down a machine is not worth it to me, my pc would spend more time wasting my time building a database i will never use than it would take to find one file without it......why are people having to search for files? doesn't everybody put files they download into specific directories with categories and use shortcuts?...:confused:
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you know perhaps other people think differently than you and or use their computers in a different way. also if you are worried about performance from building a simple db file then the 90s just called they want their hardware back.
 
nobody_here said:
i am still trying to figure out why anyone would need a fast indexed file searching system....i can think of all of one time maybe in my life i have ever had to search windows for a file..the amount it slows down a machine is not worth it to me, my pc would spend more time wasting my time building a database i will never use than it would take to find one file without it......why are people having to search for files? doesn't everybody put files they download into specific directories with categories and use shortcuts?...:confused:
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Maybe you should have more than 10 files to search through then...:D

Joking aside, indexing is fantastic way of finding files faster without having to go directory searching.

Take my J: drive for instance. Its 1TB, almost full, with over 650,000 files. 500,000 of those files are high-res clip art files, and about 100,000 backup project files. Whats the other 50,000 files? Photoshop, Illustrator, Premier, Indesign files and projects, excel files, word documents, etc.

It can take me upwards of 20 minutes trying to find the correct file for a specific client if I go through the project directories (hundreds of them...) manually. OR, i just use Google desktop and type in the description of the file and it instantly shows up.

You can be both organized and use an indexed system, its most efficient. As for slowing down a computer it only does that for the first day or so (run it over night). After that its very transparent (at least Google desktop).

i am still trying to figure out why anyone wouldn't need a fast indexed file searching system.
 
nobody_here said:
i am still trying to figure out why anyone would need a fast indexed file searching system....i can think of all of one time maybe in my life i have ever had to search windows for a file..the amount it slows down a machine is not worth it to me, my pc would spend more time wasting my time building a database i will never use than it would take to find one file without it......why are people having to search for files? doesn't everybody put files they download into specific directories with categories and use shortcuts?...:confused:
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It sounds like someone is a spoiled child who grew up in the GUI era.

Back in the early days, everything was character based. Everything was FAST. Windows Vista brings a bit of that back. My hands never have to leave the keyboard - I can do everything at lighting fast typing speeds like I used to. E.g.: to launch calculator, I go Win, C-A-L-C-Enter and boom! I'm in there. What do you have to do? You either have to use the Win key and up/down arrows, or your hands have to leave the keyboard and get the mouse. Not cool.
 
Impulse said:
I think the current version of Windows Search is 3.x... 'Least that's what's on this machine and Windows Update will usually update that automatically. This version does have the preview pane that you're talking about, they all have AFAIK... In fact, I couldn't really tell you what changed from 2.0 to 3.0. It's looked exactly the same since I started using it, even after updates. /shrug
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Search 4.0 is currently available as an optional update (you have to manually select it in WU) to both XP and Vista. It's just going to become standard on SP2.
 
Who cares if my computer slows down at 3:00 a.m. when I'm in bed to run its indexing service ...

I agree with the above posters that it's well worth it. The benefits of instant search far outweigh the cost of running the indexing service when you have over a terabyte of data.

It really is a boon for students like me that have homework files everywhere.

Although it kinda does allow us to be more lazy than we should about our folder organization .... :rolleyes:
 
Windows Vista search still isn't nearly good enough though. I'd like to be able to add tags and other search metadata to all kinds of files (not just documents and photos). I also wish searching through the index was faster...it takes a very long time (several seconds) if you have more than 200,000 or 300,000 files indexed. As someone mentioned earlier, it also needs to properly index network locations. I do believe Vista will use the index of another machine running Vista though, so if you REALLY want to be fast, you could run Vista on your server (argh). It would be nice if indexing/lookup became a standardized interface between computers so that Apple/Microsoft/Linux/whoever machines can all share index information...I have a home network with half a dozen computers (and occasionally more, i have several old computers sitting around collecting dust) and I'd like to be able to instantly search for files across my whole network.
 
As a chemist, I use this ALL the freaking time. I have hundreds of pdfs of journal articles that I use in my research. Say I wan't to pull up a synthesis that I just remember the starting material. I type it in and boom there we go. Depending on the article there maybe anything from 1 to 40 syntheses in the article (tell me a good naming format to cover 40 syntheses). Just working on my current project I use it multiple times a day.

Someone to me sounds like a self-centered kid who hasn't realized the rest of the world may have different views than his own (and that they are equally as valid and may come from looking at the exact same info). If you just said you hated it and that it wasn't for you. That's cool, your opinion you are fully entitled to it, when you say "I can't see how ANYONE..." then you get into self-centeredness.
 
AMD_Man said:
Windows Vista search still isn't nearly good enough though. I'd like to be able to add tags and other search metadata to all kinds of files (not just documents and photos). I also wish searching through the index was faster...it takes a very long time (several seconds) if you have more than 200,000 or 300,000 files indexed. As someone mentioned earlier, it also needs to properly index network locations. I do believe Vista will use the index of another machine running Vista though, so if you REALLY want to be fast, you could run Vista on your server (argh). It would be nice if indexing/lookup became a standardized interface between computers so that Apple/Microsoft/Linux/whoever machines can all share index information...I have a home network with half a dozen computers (and occasionally more, i have several old computers sitting around collecting dust) and I'd like to be able to instantly search for files across my whole network.
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Sure anything can be better and Window Search could be better. As for tags, Windows Search finds them on music just find. As for seed, I have about 600,000 on my sig rig. It can be a little slow when I start a search for the first time in a while but then things are nearly instant after that.
 
Grr... I just read my post and realized how harsh I came off. I wanted to edit but couldn't. Oh well. Hopefully you take my post with a grain of salt and realize while I meant what I said, I didn't mean it so harsh.
 
mjz_5 said:
My problem is that I store all my data on a network share.I can add a network share to the index. So searching a network share is really really slow. How stupid is this. 95% of business shore info on network shares
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The program is obviously not meant for a large business' needs... Though I imagine if you were running a gigabit router it'd probably perform fine, for a network shared drive at home, but the more elegant solution would be something that runs off the NAS/server device itself.

darkpaw said:
Search 4.0 is currently available as an optional update (you have to manually select it in WU) to both XP and Vista. It's just going to become standard on SP2.
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Thanks for the heads up, guess I'll try it out. Any clue what's new in it?


Evolving the idea of tags/metadata/etc. is what WinFS was all about, the database-type file system that's been dropped mid-way through development of the last few versions of Windows... Who knows if it'll ever see light of day (it's being touted, again, as a Win 7 feature), I doubt it'll have any kind of standarization so it can be used on other OS though. Oh and Copernic/X1 were doing this before Google/MS! (someone made a comment about Google pioneering the concept or something along those lines)

I'm sure someone else was doing it before them in a non-desktop or non-Windows enviroment, but regardless.
 
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