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Indexing File Contents & Metadata
Overview
Being able to view, edit, and search by file contents and metadata is only as powerful as the content that your operating system is capable of indexing. If your operating system can't index the kind of content that you tend to work with, indexing will be of no use to you. Simply put, the more information that each operating system indexes, the more information there is to search by, and the more specific you can make your searches.
The following table lists the types of content and metadata that each operating system can index. "Both" indicates that the operating system can index both the file's content and its metadata. "Yes" indicates metadata only (for items that don't contain content, like system settings), and "No" indicates neither content nor metadata indexing is supported.
Windows Desktop Search (WDS) can search over 200 filetypes. A complete listing is mentioned at this page.
| Mac OS X | Windows XP | XP with WDS | Comments | |
| Content/metadata within Documents | ||||
| Plain text (TXT) | Both | Both | Both* | *WDS handles many different file formats that are plain text |
| Rich text Format/Rich text Format Document (RTF/RTFD) | Both | Both | Both | |
| Both | No | Both | ||
| Works/AppleWorks (WKS,?) | Both | No | No | |
| Word (DOC) | Both* | Both | Both | *only limted metadata support |
| PowerPoint/Keynote (PPT,?) | Both | No | Both | |
| Images (GIF, JPEG, PNG) | Both | Both | Both | |
| Adobe Photoshop (PSD) | Both | No | Metadata only | WDS cannot natively search for text within Photoshop layers |
| QuickTime (MOV, QT) | Both | No | Both* | *WDS can index certain types of QuickTime 2 movies with the extension QT |
| Windows Media Video (ASF, WMV) | No | Both | Both | |
| AVI | (?) | Both | Both | |
| MPEG movies | Both | Both | Both | |
| MP3 | Both | Both | Both | |
| AAC | Both | No | Both | |
| WMA | No | Both | Both | |
| MIDI | No | Both | Both | |
| HTML | Both | Both | Both | |
| XML | Both | Both | Both | |
| ZIP | No | Both | Both | |
| SIT | No | No | Both | |
| AutoCad Drawing (DWG) | No | No | Both | |
| Microsoft Excel (XLS) | Both | Both | Both | |
| Application-specific data | ||||
| Email Messages | Both | No | Yes | OS X indexes content from its Mail application, while WDS indexes content from Outlook and Outlook Express |
| Address Book Entries | Both | No | Both | WDS indexes Outlook address book entries |
| Calendar Entries | Both | No | Both | OS X indexes content from its iCal application. WDS can index Calendar from Outlook (not part of XP) |
| Instant Messenger chat logs | Both | No | Both | Logs must be saved as log files for this to work |
| System-related data | ||||
| Folders | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Applications | Yes | Yes | Limited* | *Disabled by default to avoid duplicate entries. Can be enabled via options |
| Fonts | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Shortcut/Alias | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Internet Shortcut | No | Yes | Yes | |
| Preferences/INI | Yes | No | Yes | |
| System settings | Yes | Yes | Yes | OS X's System Preferences contains a built-in search field, while XP allows you to search the names and descriptions of your control panels. WDS allows you to index the physical applets that your control panel displays |
Note: Outlook needs to be installed for address book and calendar entries (Outlook is part of Microsoft Office, not part of XP).
The above table gives you a brief look at the items both operating systems are able to search for. But it doesn't tell the whole story, as there is a lot of different metadata inside each file, and each metadata item is capable of being indexed and searched for. The following table is a summary of common types of metadata one might encounter, and which engines can search that metadata.
A full list of the metadata that OS X can search can be found here.
| Mac OS X | Windows XP | XP with WDS | Comments | |
| General | ||||
| Filename | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Author | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Date Opened/Accessed | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Date Modified | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Date Created | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Extension | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Copyright | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Kind | Yes | n/a | n/a | XP does not acknowledge a file's Kind, which is an OSX specfic. function |
| Keywords | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Comments | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Label | Yes | n/a | n/a | XP does not support Labels |
| Creator | Yes | n/a | n/a | XP does not support Creator, which is an OSX specfic. function |
| Type | Yes | Yes | Yes | On XP, a file's type equals its extension |
| Text, Microsoft Word | ||||
| Page size | Yes | No | Yes | |
| Page count | Yes | No | Yes | |
| Line count | Yes | No | Yes | |
| Word count | Yes | No | Yes | |
| Text content | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Email messages | ||||
| Sender | Yes | n/a* | Yes | *XP does not index e-mail messages |
| Recipient | Yes | n/a* | Yes | |
| Subject | Yes | n/a* | Yes | |
| Contains Attachments | Yes** | n/a* | Yes | **Limited only to mail |
| Attachment names | Yes** | n/a* | Yes | **Limited only to mail |
| Uses BCC or CC | No | n/a* | Yes | |
| Text content | Yes | n/a* | Yes | |
| Address book contacts | ||||
| Name | Yes | n/a* | Yes | * XP does not index the address book |
| Address | Yes | n/a* | Yes | |
| City | Yes | n/a* | Yes | |
| Notes | Yes | n/a* | Yes | |
| Calendar events | ||||
| Summary title/Subject, Attendees, Location, Notes | Yes | n/a* | Yes | * XP does not index calendar events |
| Start time/End time | No | n/a* | Yes | |
| Instant messenger logs | ||||
| Buddy name | Yes | No | No | WDS is limited to the context of an IM, so you cannot search for all conversations with a particular buddy |
| Text chat content | Yes | No | Yes | IM logging must be enabled |
| Presentations (PowerPoint and Keynote) | ||||
| Slide titles | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Slide count | Yes | No | Yes | |
| Text content | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Photos and images (EXIF and IPTC metadata) | ||||
| Bits per sample | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Color space | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Profile name | Yes | No | No | |
| Image width/height | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Resolution width/height | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Aperture | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Equipment Type/Camera make | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Camera model | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Date/Time of original | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Exposure mode | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Exposure time | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Focal length | (?) | Yes | Yes | |
| Flash | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Shutter Speed | (?) | Yes | Yes | |
| ISO speed | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Metering mode | (?) | Yes | Yes | |
| Orientation | Yes | No | No | |
| White balance | Yes | No | No | |
| EXIF version | Yes | No | No | |
| Copyright | No | Yes | Yes | |
| Caption (IPTC) | Yes | No | No | |
| Video and other time-based media | ||||
| Codec | Yes | No | No | |
| Duration | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Total bit rate | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Video bit/data rate | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Audio bit rate | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Aspect ratio | Yes | No | No | |
| Color space | Yes | No | No | |
| Frame width/height | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Audio Channels | No | Yes | Yes | |
| Music | ||||
| Album | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Artist | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Genre | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Year | Yes* | Yes | Yes | *only supports greater then or less then, not equal to |
| Title | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Duration | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
Conclusion
OS X and Windows Desktop Search seem roughly comparable in terms of the types and amount of content/metadata they can index. XP's built-in search, however, does not compare well.
Mac OS X: 8
Windows XP: 4 (7)
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