Question

Would it be possible through c# to actually do a windows search (the one you find in Vista from the menu with higlighting (e.g you write ‘fire’ and get ‘firefox’)).

Thanks 🙂

Answer 1

Yes, this is possible with the Windows Desktop Search (WDS) API. You’ll need the SDK, which even provides a .Net assembly if I recall correctly. Then look at the documentation to learn how to query the WDS index. It’s quite simple, here’s the C# example they provide:

OleDbConnection conn = new OleDbConnection(
    "Data Source=(local);Initial Catalog=Search.CollatorDSO;Integrated Security=SSPI;User ID=<username>;Password=<password>");

OleDbDataReader rdr = null;

conn.Open();

OleDbCommand cmd = new OleDbCommand("SELECT Top 5 System.ItemPathDisplay FROM SYSTEMINDEX", conn);

rdr = cmd.ExecuteReader();

while (rdr.Read())
{
    Console.WriteLine(rdr[0]);
}

rdr.Close();
conn.Close();

When I used this in a project awhile back, the query string I used was built something like this:

CSearchManager SearchManager = new CSearchManager();
CSearchCatalogManager CatalogManager = SearchManager.GetCatalog("SystemIndex");
CSearchQueryHelper QueryHelper = CatalogManager.GetQueryHelper();
string connection_string = QueryHelper.ConnectionString;

Then to do a simple file search:

QueryHelper.QueryWhereRestrictions = "AND scope='file:'";
QueryHelper.QuerySorting = "System.ItemNameDisplay ASC";
string sqlQuery = QueryHelper.GenerateSQLFromUserQuery(Filename);

From the documentation you can see how to build queries that get you the results you need.

Now, a quick note. I was able to build a Vista Start Search clone, however, I did it by first scanning link files in the places where Vista stores Start Menu links (%appdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu & C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu), then asynchronously loading WDS results in the background, which replicates Start Search behavior better than relying solely on WDS.