Windows 7 Federated Search Providers

Windows 7 Search Federation Providers​

   Information

With the demonstration of Windows 7`s OpenSearch Providers by Long Zheng (Flickr Search Connector for Windows 7 Search Federation)

I have created these providers for Searching Youtube, Google, Google News, GoogleBlogs, MSN and Yahoo.

OPTION ONE

Installation and Usage

1st Step: Click on a icon below to install the Search Provider.
Advanced Search Connectors:
These Search Connectors export Additional properties like Thumbnails, Videos, Documents, Images and other files for use directly from explorer!
Youtube:


Flickr Search: (by Zong Zheng) Flickr Search Connector for Windows 7


ISOHunt.com Search


Deviant Art


Yahoo Image Search


Yahoo Video


TechNet-Edge


Msdn Channel 9

Basic Search Connectors:
These Search connectors only show web page results without additional properties like Thumbnails, Videos, Documents, Images and other files...
Bing:


Yahoo:



MSNSearch:


Google:
Google claim support for RSS based OpenSearch will be Implemented late 2010-2011, I have asked Google for more specific Information but their response was no comment (Recent conversations suggests they never will allow rss based searches)

An Alternate solution has been created by Dan Bugglin, You can read the full story here: OpenSearch Google in Windows 7 (Nicely done, Thanks Dan!)


Google News:


Google Blogs:


SevenForum`s Search:


ebay Search:


Amazon Search:


Digg


Technet


Techrepublic


Wired

2nd Step: Open Windows Explorer. You will see you new Search Provider listed under Favorites or under C:\Users\<username>\Searches

OPTION TWO

Create Your Own Standard Basic Search Provider

   Note

Most websites do not support OpenSearch however a little feature of Microsoft`s Live Search allows you to create your own basic Search Provider for any Website and make it able to search that site directly from Windows 7

1st Step: Open Notepad and paste this code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<OpenSearchDescription xmlns="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearch/1.1/" xmlns:ms-ose="http://schemas.microsoft.com/opensearchext/2009/">
<ShortName>[B][COLOR=red]Sevenforums[/COLOR][/B]</ShortName>
<Description>[COLOR=red][B]OpenSearch SevenForums via Live Search using Windows 7 Federated Search[/B][/COLOR]</Description>
<Url type="application/rss+xml" template="http://api.bing.com/rss.aspx?source=web&query={searchTerms} site:[COLOR=red][B]sevenforums.com[/B][/COLOR]&web.count=50"/>
<Url type="text/html" template="http://www.bing.com/search?q={searchTerms}+site:[B][COLOR=red]sevenforums.com[/COLOR][/B]"/>
</OpenSearchDescription>

2nd Step: Replace the red text with a Shortname you want to call the Search Provider, A description and then replace sevenforums.com URL with the website URL you would like to use for Searching using Windows 7

3rd Step: Click File> Save As and change the "Save as Type" to all files (important!), then under filename use (filename.osdx) to allow Windows 7 to recognize the Search Provider osdx extension

4th Step: Open your newly created Search provider to begin searching the website you specified using LiveSearch`s webite RSS Search Feature

Related Tutorials

---

• How to Pin Libraries to Search and See More Results in Start Menu
• How to Pin Search Connectors to Search and See More Results in Start Menu
• How to Add or Remove "See more results" Link in Start Menu Search Box
• How to Add Search Internet Link to the Windows 7 Start Menu Search Box
• How to Turn Windows 7 Search On or Off
• How to Search in Windows 7
• How to Change or Restore the Default Windows 7 Search Options
• How to Configure and Fully Utilize Windows 7 Search

 

[dmex]

Hi Steven,

I have set everything to enabled in the restricted zone, seven and vistax64 were already in the trusted zone even did a complete reset of IE and then enabled everything in the restricted zone with a reboot. No joy. This is very odd as it was working, at least for sevenforums, before installing the RC. This is the first time I've tried it at sevenforums since installing the RC. The other oddity is that it works fine for technet and bing. Bing is not in the trusted zone and technet is. Since you haven't seen it then it must still be working for you, which makes it even more perplexing.

Gary

Update:I have 7201 installed on another partition with only Avast installed. Added the sevenforums search that you have all done up and it didn't work at all, as in 7100. Added sevenforums with my cut and paste version in 7201 and it works fine.

I wasn't going to set 7201 all up, but I guess I will start doing tweaks and installing programs trying the federated search after each change to see if I can break it there unless you have some other idea.

Gary

Gary,

When you added the Search Connector thats giving the errors, did it say the Server you added was searchsrv.sevenforums.com or search.sevenforums.com?

Steven

 

[garysgold]

For seven forums search, I cut and pasted the code in Option two, step one into notepad and saved as instructed with no changes. For Vistax64 I cut and paste the same code and then wherever it said sevenforums I replaced it with vistax64 and saved as instructed. Both seven and vista have the content blocked warning in 7100 and both function as expected in 7201. When I get the error, I get no warning other than that pictured.

Gary

 

[dmex]

For seven forums search, I cut and pasted the code in Option two, step one into notepad and saved as instructed with no changes. For Vistax64 I cut and paste the same code and then wherever it said sevenforums I replaced it with vistax64 and saved as instructed. Both seven and vista have the content blocked warning in 7100 and both function as expected in 7201. When I get the error, I get no warning other than that pictured.

Gary

I will ask Brandon for some details about that error and its causes but I think the domain forwarding from live.com to Bing.com was the cause

Option two in the Tutorial was using Microsoft's Live Search, I think that when they switched to Bing that their searches where forwarded from the Live.com domain to the Bing.com domain and that caused the Error Message's you've seen, I updated Option two to use Bing instead of Live Search, can you give it a try and let me know if you still have the same Error Messages?

Steven

 

[garysgold]

Still have the same problem. Have tried a few tweaks in 7201, but still haven't been able to break it. Am busy for the next couple of days, but will work on it some more after that.

Gary

 

[garysgold]

Found out what the problem was. I added http//bing.com to my trusted sites. That's all it was. Don't know why it took me so long to think of that. Too much going on, yea that's it. Getting senile has nothing to do with it.

Gary

 

[dmex]

Found out what the problem was. I added http//bing.com to my trusted sites. That's all it was. Don't know why it took me so long to think of that. Too much going on, yea that's it. Getting senile has nothing to do with it.

Gary

LOL Gary

Its strange doing that would cause the security warnings though :shock:

 

[TheTemplai]

Very nice feature, would be nice a Open Search for Desktopnexus with thumbmails...

 

[swarfega]

Some more (if theyre not included):

twitter: Chaks' Corner |
bing: Chaks' Corner |#

 

[UltimateGattai]

Has anyone worked out a way to get images to come up in a feed? I'm trying to make a search connector each of the 'Booru' clones.

Gelbooru.com
Konachan.com: Anime, Manga and Japanese Games Wallpapers Imageboard.
Danbooru
moe.imouto

So far I have the following:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<OpenSearchDescription xmlns="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearch/1… xmlns:ms-

ose="http://schemas.microsoft.com/open…
<ShortName>danbooru</ShortName>
<Description>Search danbooru.donmai.us for Anime images</Description>
<Url type="application/rss+xml" template="http://api.bing.com/images.asp… 

site:danbooru.donmai.us&web.count=50"/…
<Url type="text/html" template="http://www.bing.com/images/sea…

{searchTerms}+site:danbooru.donmai.us"…
</OpenSearchDescription>

Unfortunately the Bing search engine only returns text feeds which screws me over but most of the Booru clones have atom for rss.

BTW, is it possible to modify the search connectors to search all the 'Booru's at once? Or must they be done individually?

And is there any way to get Bing to return the feed as images? Or is there another way I can get image results to appear in windows explorer?

 

[mpcrsc562]

O...
M...
G!

this is probably the single best thing i've seen about windows 7. much thanks to all who have shared about this function.

option 2 works flawlessly as i've added a few and the all work perfectly (win7 forums and vista forums included! )

thanks again

 

[DjProDG]

Cool! Thanks!