Searching Libraries beats searching folders
Anyone who’s used Windows Media Player in XP or Vista has encountered the Libraries concept. WMP starts with your personal Music folder and your PC’s Public Music folder, then allows you to add other folders to this Library. For example, you can add a music folder on an external hard drive to WMP’s Library or link to music folders on other networked computers or connect with a music folder on a Windows Home Server.
When you add a folder to WMP’s Library, it doesn’t copy the music. Instead, the program provides easy access to all of the song files in the Library, tracks them, and lets you search and work with them as a group.
There are no limitations to the folders you can add to a WMP Library. As long as your computer can get at the folders — the external drive is plugged into the computer, say, or there are no security rules blocking access to the other computer — WMP treats the music in those folders more or less the same way they would be treated if the files were stored on your own PC.
Windows 7 brings the WMP concept of Libraries to the entire Windows file system. You start with four libraries: Documents, Music, Pictures, and Videos. As you would expect, the Pictures Library has your Pictures folder and the PC’s Public Pictures Folder, Documents has your Documents folder and Public Documents, and so on. Very simple hooks let you add more folders to those Libraries or create entirely new Libraries.
When Microsoft reworked Windows 7’s Library routines, the company also enhanced the OS’s search function. To put it bluntly, searching a Win7 Library just plain works. Vista’s search interface suffers from the late changes Microsoft made to the OS, which did away with some planned new features but retained vestiges that served only to bollix things up. By contrast, Win7’s search interface benefits from a ground-up design and is much less confusing.
Here’s the magical part: When an application running under Windows 7 looks for the Documents folder, Win7 hands it the entire Documents Library. If you start a graphics program and click File, Open, you don’t go to your Pictures folder. Instead, you open up the Pictures Library.
Why is this a big deal? Imagine that you have a folder on another computer containing documents you commonly use. When you add that folder to your Documents Library, every time you crank up Word and click File, Open, the contents of that remote folder are staring right at you. By the way, Windows Media Player in Win7 doesn’t need separate settings to handle Libraries, because Windows takes care of everything behind the scenes.
Think of Libraries as “Folders: The Next Generation.”