Live.com Upgrades in progress

I can't middle-click on a search result to open the page in a new tab. That's enough to prevent me using it.

Thanks Molly and Brandon,

The version I got yesterday was the one from toolbar.msn.com (the new beta one). I found it yesterday by trial and error because there was no link to the new toolbar it on live.com at that time. I redownloaded it this morning and installed it and I still did not get any options related to desktop search. I did not uninstall the old one though, so that could be it. Anyway, I got the standalone version and a new index is starting. So all is ok for me. Thanks again for your responses.

Dan -

An updated version of Windows Desktop Search is available as an optional component with the Live Toolbar Beta. If you were one of the first to download it, it's possible you picked it up before the WDS component was completely live. Normally, WDS should be checked by default in the Toolbar first-run-wizard.

If you install the WDS component (or the seperate, standalone installer), your settings from the previous installation will still be there.

Your index will have to be rebuilt, but that's because the old index isn't compatible wih the new version of the indexer. Unfortunately, in order to make improvements to WDS we had to rev the index version and schema, which necessitates a rebuild of your index.

Please let us know if you don't see Windows Desktop Search as a component in the Toolbar's component manager (it's in the Options dialog), or if you have any problems getting it installed.

Robert, I would really like to hear what the usability people at Microsoft think about this horrible "scrollbar" you're using.

It's nice that you guys want to get rid of the "page results" at the bottom which are overused in "webapps" but smooth scrolling self centering bars that give you ZERO feedack of were you are at are no better and I think they're even more confusing.

To me this scrollbar, which is a clone of the crappy one from Picasa is a usability nightmare. Just turn it off by default and let people use their browser scrollbars and page away.

>>Dan: As far as I know, desktop search is not offered
>> by msn as a separate install than their toolbar. So
>> I guess I am left with either going back to the old
>> version of msn toolbar or using another desktop
>> search utility.

Dan, the desktop search functionality of MSN is now available separate from MSN Toolbar as "Windows Desktop Search".
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/desktopsearch/...

Please 'number' the search results..(maybe also 'select' the results I want to be filtered)... and also some faster way to scroll back right to the top

"user at the center of their experience"

please, please don't use such words, they dampen the entire thing... is anyone, anyone really impressed with such lingo?

Please be normal :)

by the way i got that sentence from here : http://spaces.msn.com/livecom/

Dileepa P : just click on "hide" on the upper right corner ... lo, you have your search page with nothing else.

Really slick interface. I love the scrolling through the results. Works fine for me in Firefox.

I also like the image search a lot. I like how it enlarges the image when you mouseover it.

The only complaint is the speed. I know it is Beta so I will come back and check it out. Not sure if it is enough to make me switch from Google yet, but it is getting better.

The results look pretty accurate, too.

I am quite impressed with the image search. That is a really nice improvement over other search services. One problem with it though - it doesnt work in IE7! For me at least.

I think AJAX works really well for that. But for the other things, I don't know if AJAX works so well - just a flat HTML page is better. Using the scroll slider thing feels awkward - the mouse wheel works for scrolling in IE but not in Firefox.

Overall, interesting changes - I think I like the Image search better than others but as for the web, news, etc... nothing to get me to change from Google so far. Did they already try opening results in a preview pane for the web results like they are doing for images currently? That would be kind of cool... and then single click to open previewed site in a full browser window.

Definitely has potential

it finishes loading in Safari? damn, after 15 minutes, i gave up

Nice work. An ego search returned my name in 3 of the top 4 listings, so as far as I'm concerned MS search is now the best.

One very major complaint though, about Search and other Live services such as mail. Given the amount of space on my 19" (1024x768) monitor, little of it is dedicated to actually viewing the main content. With the default number of search results shown, I can only see 4 at a time! This is very, very bad! Live mail is even worse- in fact the mail site seems to be more interested in pimping ads than letting me view email (as a result, the new Yahoo mail blows it away).

I have been using live.com for quite some time and love it. Today's update has rendered it useless for me though, since FireFox now sits at around 83% of my processor while I have Live.com open.

What a bummer, the new features look great but I would rather have what I had yesterday and have the use of my machine.

After using it in Firefox, I come to the same conclusion I had when Live.com launched:

A marginally better portal/search is not enough to win in this market. Since Microsoft can no longer rely on illegal tying of products, it is actually going to have to relearn how to compete.

Taking forever to load in Safari.

I tried out windows live search this morning and was quite impressed. I saw that a new toolbar was available to coincide with it and decided to try it out also. To my surprise, it completely removed msn desktop search from my computer. This came with no warning and no upgrade is offered. I had a pretty large index, so I am quite disappointed with this.

As far as I know, desktop search is not offered by msn as a separate install than their toolbar. So I guess I am left with either going back to the old version of msn toolbar or using another desktop search utility.

Just thought you and your readers might want to know about this.

Nice. Like the control that lets you limit what’s displayed for each result and the fact all results are on a single page. Perhaps putting the number of results returned and where you are in the list on the toolbar, and in bold, would help make it stand out more.

Why? Why? Why?
/bug report, I know you will pass it along :)/

I've used live.com, from it's start, as an rss reader, and for a few other things. Moved to other service, a month ago /never mind/, and now want to check live.com again. But it seems, that everyone is using it's own format for OPML - I can not import my current opml file, even after I edited it couple of times, in order to please live.com's parser. No luck!

I tried to export my current feeds from live.com - you've removed the export functionality ?!?

Please tell me - why is that? :)

Totally slick UI. Feels like a desktop app.
So now you have an easy url and an impressive user experience. Google should be scared.

Scoble,
Why does the NEWS search on live not have a search/sort by date feature... Also have a couple of neat ideas for maps on live if I could have an address to send it to...

KK

"We’re experiencing slow performance because the replication process is still underway and we’re getting an unusually high amount of traffic for this time of the morning."

IIS ... chug ... chug ... chug.

This morning, going to my Live page was like having a double shot of espresso! The Page design, the Gadgets, the new Live Search, the Live Toolbar, The purchase of Onfolio!
WOW! WOW! and WOW!
To all the people that talk about how Microsoft is to BIG and that it cannot react fast enough to changes in the market I say...WRONG!
This company is on Fire! If I was seventeen, I would say COOL, way COOL!

Nice Surprise, Robert. I wasn't expecting this upgrade, but it was close to the old version, with changes that were easy and intuitive to understand, which is how all upgrades should be.. :)

I was pleasantly surprised this morning when I logged on to Live.com and saw the changes. Congrats on your continual improvement.

i am just testing that how this live update goinng to work

The more I think about it the angrier I get. That's right: when I visit www.live.com I get angry. How's that for communicating with your customers Robert? Windows Live was announced as the future of the Web, and now it seems it's just another MSN. Well, people have been disliking the MSN brand ever since it forced itself onto their desktop in Windows 95.

Tell me again. How is it impressive? What problem does it solve? Why would I switch?

I don't get it. How 'bout giving us a clean page with a search box? What's all that other stuff? The average user spends 50 milliseconds deciding if they want to stick around or if they want to leave a page. I have no idea what all those gadgets are for, and I certainly don't have time to figure out. You tell me: which of my problems does this page solve?

Hey Scoble, how about this? Make live.com the search home page. Move the current live.com to some other sub-domain, like my.live.com.

The biggest weak-point of MSN Search or Live Search is the URL. You need a small and easy-to-remember URL to gain market share in web search... I would say even more than better search algorithms!

Microsoft should take advantage of the live.com domain for gaining market share in search technology. I know that live.com page has search integrated right into it, but people are used to Google's clean search page. search.live.com is "very" clean. Why not move it to live.com?

another thing i noticed immediately: it's damn faster than the last version...it's definitely noticeable when u are navigating across feeds...i'm still a bit confused with the overall interface so i won't say that i'll be switching from my desktop aggregator just yet...anyway, good job!

I'm happy...not fully...but what I've seen so far shows that MS is atleast trying hard...the interface change is welcome...