It was too tough a nut to crack, and Microsoft abandoned the goal. But despite that, search is still built into almost every level of the operating system, and is one of Microsoft Vista's greatest strengths -- although there are some serious inconsistencies with the way it works.

There are plenty of different ways to search: straight from the search box at the bottom of the Start menu, on the search box on the upper-right corner of Windows Explorer, and via Start > Search.

Search is incredibly fast because it uses indexing. Forget the slow-motion days of Windows XP searches; you'll be using search in Microsoft Vista constantly because of its speed. It searches literally as you type, narrowing down the search as you add a new letter.

But speed is only part of what makes search great in Windows Vista. The advanced search tool is superb. You can narrow your search by date, file size, author, tags, location and more. You can type in Boolean searches. You can search other computers on your network as well. In essence, advanced search is the best graphical way to use Boolean searches I've yet seen.

Not only that, you can save your searches so that you don't have to re-create them every time. In essence, it lets you create virtual folders with different views into your data.