Following the release of Windows Vista, Google began losing its grip on the desktops running Microsoft's latest operating system. In mid February 2007, Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry revealed that the Mountain View search giant was at the beginning of a trend resulting in lost territory on Vista-based computers.

While Google is indeed synonymous with Internet search, the search capabilities built in by default into Windows Vista have impacted the adoption of Google desktop. Back in November 2006, Google filed a legal complaint against Microsoft, targeting the newly integrated search capabilities of Windows Vista. Google of course did not mention that Vista contributed to the erosion of its installed base for Google Desktop, the company's search application for the Windows desktop, but instead opted to accuse the Redmond Company of anticompetitive business practices.

The reason for this is simple. Microsoft has also built into Vista the Windows Defender security tool. But users as well as third-parties with rival products can disable Windows Defender. The same is not the case with the Windows Vista desktop search. "Microsoft's current approach with Vista desktop search violates the consent decree and and limits consumer choice," stated Google spokesman Ricardo Reyes as cited by SeattlePI. "The search boxes built throughout Vista are hard-wired to Microsoft's own desktop search product, with no way for users to choose an alternate provider from these visible search access points. Likewise, Vista makes it impractical to turn off Microsoft's search index."

The consent decree that Google is referring to is the one inked by Microsoft in 2001 with the U.S. Justice Department. The document was designed to set in place guidelines for the interaction between Microsoft and third-party products. But this is not the first time when Google goes gunning for Microsoft's search capabilities. The Mountain View company also targeted IE7's search, but managed to resolve nothing. In response to Google's complaint, Microsoft made it clear that it will address the issue to a certain degree by introducing a series of changes to the operating system. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates touted the fact that Vista sold approximately 40 million licenses in the first 100 days on the market.