Include Windows 7 Start Button Search Results in FARR?

[David.P]

Hi mouser & forum,

is it possible for FARR to include the results of the Windows 7 Start Button/Start Menu search? (at least the ones that are in some way Windows/Control Panel related)

For example, if I start to type "Window M....." into the Start Button search box, Windows 7 gives me "change window colors and metrics" (which accidentally is exactly what I was looking for;)

So, can FARR do this as well? -- in order for not having to use FARR and the Start Button search box if looking for things where you are not sure if it might be a program, setting, control panel or whatever.

Thanks already
Cheers David.P

[mouser]

I really like this idea a lot.. Question is how easy would it be to grab those items automatically.. I wonder if anyone has looked into whether these entries are stored somewhere accessible?

[Ath]

Wouldn't that be achieved by adding the All Users 'C:\Users\All Users\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu' and Current User 'C:\Users\[Ath]\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu' (ofc by using the proper variables, that I didn't investigate) into the Search Folders configuration?

[David.P]

Mouser, I'm not sure where these entries actually are stored.

A first step however could be the behaviour of the Win7 god mode. If you install God Mode:
http://howto.cnet.com/8301-11310_39-10423985-285/understanding-windows-7s-godmode/  

...and then open it in Windows Explorer, when typing something into the Explorer window's search field (top right), what you get in the Explorer window are the same results as if you had typed your search into the Start Menu search.

Interestingly, the God-Mode Explorer Window also reveals the search keywords for every entry like in below screenshot:



Note that there even are lots and lots of misspelled keywords -- in order for people to find for example "Bildschirmschoner" (screen saver) when they wrongly type "Bidschirm". (FARR of course is much more intelligent in this respect, as it doesn't need "lists of misspellings").

Unfortunately, for example the (misspelled) entry "Bidschirm" is not to be found in the Registry, neither via full text search in the entire system partition....

Some but not all of the search strings seem to be contained in a file called "access.h1s" in the C:\Windows\Help\Windows\[language] folder.

That's all I could find out for the moment...

Regards
David

--
PS: This might be of interest as well:
The Control Panel search results understand common misspellings

[daddydave]

Off-topic but FWIW, I personally have copied the God Mouser mode shortcuts to the FindAndRunRobot\Scripts\Control Panel (cpanel) folder, so I can get those.

Thus:

[skajfes]

Off-topic but FWIW, I personally have copied the God Mouser mode shortcuts to the FindAndRunRobot\Scripts\Control Panel (cpanel) folder, so I can get those.

Thus:

Simple and effective. Not sure if it could be automated, so that it is included in FARR on install...

[David.P]

Off-topic but FWIW, I personally have copied the God Mouser mode shortcuts to the FindAndRunRobot\Scripts\Control Panel (cpanel) folder, so I can get those.

How did you to that? I have tried and copied the respective *.lnk files to this folder, but FARR doesn't give me results when typing any of those files' names (only the original ones with "cpanel" in their name still work).

[daddydave]

Off-topic but FWIW, I personally have copied the God Mouser mode shortcuts to the FindAndRunRobot\Scripts\Control Panel (cpanel) folder, so I can get those.

How did you to that? I have tried and copied the respective *.lnk files to this folder, but FARR doesn't give me results when typing any of those files' names (only the original ones with "cpanel" in their name still work).

Hmmm. I wouldn't think this would matter, but I renamed the shortcuts so that they too had "(cpanel)" in the name (using a bulk renaming tool, I probably used PFRANK although any should do.)

[David.P]

I renamed the shortcuts so that they too had "(cpanel)" in the name

Hmmm, that didn't work for me...

It seems as if the target syntax (colons) is somewhat different between the original FARR cpanel shortcuts and the ones copied from the Godmode folder:



All shortcuts however work if simply double-clicked! Only FARR doesn't seem to see them 

Cheers David

[tomos]

Are you sure FARR reads that folder?

I made the "god folder",
then I made the shortcuts here (by alt dragging contents of god folder):
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\GodMode_Shortcuts

FARR can read them

[attachimg=#]

[David.P]

Ah that worked -- thanks!

[daddydave]

I renamed the shortcuts so that they too had "(cpanel)" in the name

Hmmm, that didn't work for me...

It seems as if the target syntax (colons) is somewhat different between the original FARR cpanel shortcuts and the ones copied from the Godmode folder:

All shortcuts however work if simply double-clicked! Only FARR doesn't seem to see them  

Cheers David

Hmm.. I should clarify that I don't have the bare Control Panel Tasks in  FindAndRunRobot\scripts\Control Panel (cpanel), I have those in another folder. I right-dragged and dropped to the FindAndRunRobot\scripts\Control Panel (cpanel) folder to create the shortcuts.

This is the same as tomos's way, just a different search folder. Glad you got it working!

And +1 for the suggestion to have FARR do this automatically.

[daddydave]

I think my %FARRDIR%\scripts search folder (which houses the Control Panel shortcuts) originally required a cpanel modifier keyword but I removed the modifier:

[IainB]

I made the "god folder",
then I made the shortcuts here (by alt dragging contents of god folder):
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\GodMode_Shortcuts
FARR can read them
(see attachment in previous post)

Thanks for asking the Q @David.P.
I had been wanting to do this for some time, and this discussion and @Tomos (thanks also) told me how.
So:

• I created the GodMode folder (A) with the name "GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}"
• I created a folder (B) at C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\GODMode folder shortcuts.
• I dragged all the 272 items in (A) and dropped them into (B), where they took the extension ".lnk".
• Then added the (B) folder to FARR search list:

(Sorry about the colours, but for some time I have been experimenting with my Window colours in "Change window colors and metrics". Makes my eyeballs ache sometimes.)

[attach]

[tomos]

The FARR result is not perfect yet - does not show the .lnk name. How do I force that?

It does here - could that possibly depend on your Windows Explorer settings (hide file extension- or not) ?**

Icons are not shown here in FARR, dont know why, but it doesnt really bother me - I know where there coming from then...


** EDIT/  or maybe in FARR under display settings?
[attachimg=#]

[David.P]

Great stuff.

Now there is basically only one step more: find out how those Start Menu search keywords could be extracted/utilized by FARR.

[IainB]

(Post deleted - duplication.)

[IainB]

The FARR result is not perfect yet - does not show the .lnk name. How do I force that?

Oops, sorry. My mistuk. In my haste, I had not noticed that the Name column had closed.
It works fine. Have amended the post above.

[David.P]

Whoaa! What happened? Has this been included as a new feature?



For some reason, FARR now seems to give me all the Windows 7 Start Button search results (even the misspelled ones).

Only the icons are missing? 

[Josh]

All,

I have been trying to work on a solution to populate these results and have them appear in FARR search results (without using shortcuts).

If anyone is willing, I need a list of the GUIDs in order to begin this process. I am going to try and figure out a way to programmatically populate this list from the "God Mode" folder.

Anyone willing to help out? I will work with mouser to develop this as a plugin as it would be EXTREMELY useful.

Josh

[Ath]

I need a list of the GUIDs in order to begin this process.

This list? : http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ee330741%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

[Josh]

Nah, I already have those in the new "cpanel" alias. What I am looking for is "God Mode" items vice control panel applets initiated from control.exe

[IainB]

There is a text file containing all (262) paths in the list of GodMode functions that I get using GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}
Refer here: Re: Godmode

Posting link in case it could be relevant/useful in this thread.