Some
desktop operating systems (such as Microsoft Windows 7) support
federated searching. This allows you to add sources that the desktop
will search on, and SharePoint can be such a source. If you add to your
desktop a SharePoint site as a federated search source, you can use the
built-in search application of your operating system and get results
from the SharePoint site, as well as results from your desktop,
network, and other sources your desktop might be configured to search
on.
To add a SharePoint
site as a source for your federated search on the desktop, open the
site’s search results page (which you can do by simply performing a
random search). On that page, click the icon that looks like a folder
with a magnifying glass on the top of the search results; this is the
Allow Search with Windows Explorer button.
After
you click this icon, if you are using an operating system that supports
it, a dialog appears, asking you to confirm that you want to add the
search connector to your desktop (see Figure 2).
Click Add, and you can search the site from your desktop (see Figure 3).
