The Microsoft Filter Pack adds additional IFilters to the Windows operating system which are used by Windows Search and depending applications to index the contents of document formats. To be precise, the Microsoft Filter pack will register additional IFilters with the Microsoft Windows Indexing Service.
The document formats that get added by the filter pack are .docx, .docm, .pptx, .pptm, .xlsx, .xlsm, .xlsb, .zip, .one, .vdx, .vsd, .vss, .vst, .vdx, .vsx, and .vtx whcih are basically all the new document formats that have been introduced in Microsoft Office 2007.
An IFilter basically allow the Windows Indexing Service and Windows Desktop Search so that these file formats become searchable in Windows. The Microsoft Filter Pack can be installed on Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista or Windows XP.
The Microsoft page states that the software package has been updated to version 2 on October 9 although the download is still for the Microsoft Filter Pack 1.0.
Tags: ifilter, Microsoft Filter Pack, search, windows desktop search, windows indexing service, windows search, windows software, windows-vista, windows-xp
