The new search tool in Vista is far superior to the version found in the previous versions of Windows. It’s on par with Google’s Desktop Search in making it easy to find your documents, as well as applications. Being able to find your files so easily makes how you organize your files less important, which is nearly life saving for some of the users I know. But is this really a good thing?

Looking through the Backup and Restore Center in Vista, I noticed that here too there is an emphasis on not knowing where your files are. There is no way to tell it to backup specific directories. Instead, you choose general file types which include Pictures, Music, Videos, E-mail, Documents, TV shows, Compressed files and Additional files. Let Vista worry about finding them all. This is great for a novice user that doesn’t understand file management, the files just go into the box wherever the ‘default’ location is, and when you ask for them, it shows them to you. The problem with this system is that it makes it easy to keep adding files, but doesn’t encourage users to Manage their files, which includes removing them when they are no longer needed. How do I ask the computer for files that I don’t remember I have?

Some may say that hard drives are relatively cheap these days, and who cares if you have a few dozen extra Word or Excel files laying around on your hard drive. Well, this may be true. But consider that more and more novice users are beginning to play around with music and video. Ripping all your CD’s ‘into the box’ and not really knowing where they went or how to get rid of them can become a problem, especially when your hard drive fills up and you want to install some software but there’s no room left. The best Vista can do to help is to ‘Cleanup’ leftover web files, uninstall programs, and remove system restore points, it doesn’t know anything about data files.

Microsoft has a symbiotic relationship with the many hardware vendors out there. The vendors provide the ever bigger/faster hardware to accommodate more features, and Microsoft exceeds their capabilities with yet more features and less than optimum coding (there’s no money in efficient coding). This is just an extension of that pattern. If a users hard drive fills up, it’s time to get a new computer (like the old adage about the ashtray getting dirty in a car, wait, do they put ashtrays in cars anymore?). If they’re getting a new computer, it’s going to be running Microsoft’s latest operating system, so Microsoft gets paid. So why would they want you to delete any files? They’re even making it easier to migrate your files to your new computer. What better way to start towards the next computer than to start filling up the new one with old junk you don’t even know you have?

Microsoft isn’t the only one guilty of this. Google’s Gmail encourages retaining as much mail as possible, but for different reasons. They want to break you down into keywords that they can best target ads at. And there are tools available for managing your files in Vista, so it’s not like they really are locked away and only available on request. The problem is that they found ways to make it mindless to add files, but haven’t put the same effort into making it easy to know what you have and get rid of what you don’t need. Again, you don’t need efficient code to make money, Microsoft has already proved this, and there is no money in deleting files, the more files in your hard drive, the more money in Microsoft’s coffers.