Windows Search learns to take orders

Preview lets users change settings and carry out tasks directly from a tidier results list

Microsoft's latest Windows Search preview promises faster results and less clutter, while adding a new sideline: carrying out commands such as muting audio or minimizing windows.

Following July's improvements, Microsoft began rolling out the new preview yesterday.

The Actions feature lets users change settings directly from Windows Search. Typing "mute" into the search box and selecting the resulting action silences the speakers, with a "Done!" message confirming the change. The same applies to other actions. We tried "minimise all my windows" (note the non-US spelling) and Windows performed the Show Desktop action.

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Search is now more results-focused, rather than showing a large preview pane, and there is better handling for typos and synonyms (although there is clearly more work to do: "turn on" and "switch on" confused the preview in our testing). Inline previews and richer file details will follow later this year, helping users distinguish similar results without restoring the separate preview pane.

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The Windows Search experience is built on WinUI 3 and Microsoft claims "substantial improvements in performance and memory usage." However, this is still an English-only preview, gradually rolling out to Windows Insiders in the Experimental channel. Eligible users can enable it sooner through the Windows Insider Program's Feature flags settings.

Faster, less cluttered search results are welcome in a tool that has long been a Windows punchline. Whether a box marked Search should also double as a command launcher is another question. ®