Windows 7 has a very useful new feature called a Search Connector that lets you search through a Web site from right inside Windows Explorer. With it, you type in a search term and select the Search Connector for the site you want to search; Explorer searches the Web site without having to open Internet Explorer, and the results appear inside Windows Explorer. Click any of the results to head there using your default Web browser.
Normally, you'll need to get each Search Connector from the Web site through which you want to search, and very few Connectors are available. Sites normally need to adhere to OpenSearch standards in order for their Connectors to work. However, there's a work-around that will let you easily build your own Search Connector for any site, using Windows Live Search as a kind of go-between. simply copy the following text and paste it into Notepad:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<OpenSearchDescription xmlns="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearch/1.1/"
xmlns:ms-ose="http://schemas.microsoft.com/opensearchext/2009/">
<ShortName>NAME YOUR SEARCH</ShortName>
<Description>DESCRIPTION OF SEARCH</Description>
<Url type="application/rss+xml"
template="http://api.bing.com/rss.aspx?source=web&query={searchTerms}
site:SITENAME.COM&web.count=50"/>
<Url type="text/html"
template="http://www.bing.com/search?q={searchTerms}+site:SITENAME.COM"/>
</OpenSearchDescription>
Change the name and description to whatever you want, then change 'SITENAME.COM' to the website you want to search. Save the file with the name and location of your choice, choosing UTF-8 from the Encoding drop-down box, and giving it an .osdx extension (example: wintipsweb.osdx). Now, in Windows Explorer, right-click on the .osdx file and select 'Create Search Connector'. The Search Connector will then be created.
To get to the Search Connector, in Windows Explorer go to 'YourName->Searches->YourConnector', where YourName is your account name, and YourConnector is the name of the Connector.
