Winextra – Search Twitter from Windows 7 Explorer

Back in February I wrote about what I thought was a killer feature in Windows 7. The feature is called federated search but what makes it such a killer feature is that anyone can create and share what is called Search Federated Providers. It is one of these providers that I wanted to talk about now since Windows 7 is just about to go retail.

While there are more than enough Twitter search services out there this Search Federated Provider lets you do your searches from within Explorer on your desktop. The only thing you need to do to enable this little feature is grab a snippet of code with an *.osdx extension and double click on it. Now you can create one yourself or you could head over to Chak’s Corner and have one created for you.

Once you have added your username and the number of results you want displayed click on the download button to get your twitter-search.osdx file.

After double clicking on the file, and possibly restarting Explorer, you will see the option for Twitter searches under the Favorites section of Explorer

To search either your Twitterstream, someone else, or the public timeline just select it in Explorer and then enter in your search term in the search box in the upper left of Explorer. Any results found, up to the limit you have entered when the osdx file was created, will be displayed.

It is still early days for Search Federated Providers so there aren’t that many available but I am sure that more will become available as we see more developers and other talented folk starting to play with the idea. In the meantime you can check in with the Windows Seven Forums and their dedicated page for this killer addition to Windows. They also have a section explaining how you can create your own.