Found this interesting item on Todd Bishop’s Blog. It seems the Desktop Search program which comes with Vista does not play well with Google’s own Desktop Search. Especially when the two are running simultaneously . This is causing the user’s system to slow to a crawl. Further unlike Vista’s Start-Up Sound this search feature can not be disabled. Here’s the interesting thing though, Google launched the complaint late last year but Microsoft Lawyer’s would not reveal the source of the complaint. Even in March of this year, “Plaintiffs reported that they had just received a middleware-related complaint.” But again it was not revealed that the complaint originated from Google. That was until Saturday when the New York Times reported the story on their website:

Google complained to federal and state prosecutors that consumers who try to use its search tool for computer hard drives on Vista were frustrated because Vista has a competing desktop search program that cannot be turned off. When the Google and Vista search programs are run simultaneously on a computer, their indexing programs slow the operating system considerably, Google contended. As a result, Google said that Vista violated Microsoft’s 2002 antitrust settlement, which prohibits Microsoft from designing operating systems that limit the choices of consumers.

Google has asked the court overseeing the antitrust decree to order Microsoft to redesign Vista to enable users to turn off its built-in desktop search program so that competing programs could function better, officials said.

Now, I am really curious as to why Microsoft was being so hushed about the source of this complaint. It almost seems they are doing themselves more harm than good being so secretive.

News Source: Todd Bishop’s Microsoft Blog >> Google revealed as source of Windows Vista complaint