Microsoft has announced the public beta release of Windows Search 4.0 for both Windows Vista and XP. If you have been using Vista or had in the past you may know that the application search in your start menu is powered by Windows Search. There are a number of improvements in this version over is predecessors which include

• Support for the Encrypting File System (EFS)
• Reduced affect on Microsoft Exchange when you index e-mail in online mode, and there is no local cache (.ost)
• Support for indexing online delegate mailboxes
• Support for client-to-client remote query to shared indexed locations
• Improved indexing performance
• Faster previewer updates for Windows XP
• Per-user Group Policy settings
• Windows software updates for Watson errors

There are also few changes to support group policy objects. Overall the search from the start menu has seen some improvements.

Download Windows Search 4.0

Via [LiveSide]