Microsoft has filed a patent application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office on December 7, 2006, entitled "Operating System Program Launch Menu Search." This is in fact a patent for the Windows Vista Start Menu search, created by David Matthews; Charles Stabb; and Matthew Lerner from Microsoft. The Vista Start Menu search delivers a variety of mechanisms for users to quickly and efficiently locate and execute data items on the operating system.

"A search box within the program launch menu may be used to quickly locate programs, documents, communications, and other data items. An auto-complete feature may be used, e.g., when the user restricts the locations searched for the user-entered search text. A most commonly used program list may include programs based on various criteria including both frequency of use and recent use, thereby always including a most recently used item.

An all programs view may display programs and documents in a hosted-tree view within the original confines of the program launch menu, thereby negating the need to open sub-menus on top of a large portion of the desktop displayed on the display device," reads the patent's introduction.

In the image at the bottom, you can view Microsoft's sorting algorithm designed to display search results according to their relevance (picture courtesy of Long Zheng from IstartedSomething). Moreover, the patent describes how the search box can be extracted from the Start Menu and placed in a taskbar, a sidebar or even left to float on the desktop. In this context, the functionality of the search box will be independent of the Start Menu and will require no additional navigation.

"Search results and auto-complete results may be displayed in a resizable or nonresizable pop-up window presented above the search box. Upon selection of any search result, the selected item is launched and the pop-up window is removed. The results pop-up window may include a Close button for the user to close the pop-up window without selecting a search result. The pop-up window may also be closed when the input focus is on neither the search box nor the results pop-up window," revealed Microsoft.