Libraries are more closely connected the structure on the disk. When you talk about the feature of smart folders in OSX you are actually after saved searches in Windows 7.

This link should help you:
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/5316/how-to-save-searches-in-windows-7/

Like most things in Windows 7, explorer has been tweeked and updated, not re-written. This is of course a good thing. Like most Mac users and Finder, I like and feel comfortable with explorer, but for example, the ability drop into any folder from the address bar just makes it that bit better.

For once we agree Chris.

Windows Explorer should be the life blood of the OS, but instead, its slow, cumbersome and the search is apalling.

Microsoft have claimed to offer new ‘Search’ features in every OS, and in every new OS, the search function has one fatal flaw. It’s results. I have, quite often, tried to use search from Explorer looking for a file. In the time it takes to actually find it, I have stumbled upon it, and seen it in front of my eyes. Yet, on returning to Explorer, it proudly states, ‘No files found’. I freely admit, I don’t use my profile to store documents, and I don’t just use the common applications like Office. I store my work on a separate disk in my own folder structure and more often than not, it’s source code.(Maybe the indexer doesn’t index Visual studio files or files it doesn’t recognise?? – I’d like to know the answer to that if anyone knows.)

I now use a command prompt if I ever need a search, but I organise my files in such a way that I don’t need to search for them.

Not only that but Microsoft boasts the Windows search indexer will find files in seconds, not minutes. err, no, actually, it doesn’t find files after minutes of searching, but will slow my machine down while it indexes the volume. Thats why I disable the indexer and stick with DOS.

I fail to understand why, Microsoft, in their infinate wisdom, insist on searching the entire domain’s servers and PC’s, and show them in the network list in my explorer. This just slows everything down and creates un-necessary traffic.

As i’ve said before, I am not Microsofts biggest fan. I just want something that does what it says on the tin. 90% of windows does.

zyg, that’s the way Windows search works as well.

MetalMonkey, if you have file types or locations that are unusual, you can add them to the list of locations to be indexed.

Windows search works in the background and once the index up to date, searches will be instant.

It’s fair comment about the search function inconsistencies, though I think it’s worth acknowledging that the start panel search does work very well indeed, particularly if you want to launch a more obscure program that you haven’t pinned to anything else – this was true of Vista too.
But Chris I’m not sure what you mean by the Control Panel confusion … I’ve been using the Category view in preference to the old fashioned way for some time now. But in contrast to Steve Job’s arrogance, at least you have a choice. Microsoft makes the Category view the default because it thinks it’s better and I’ve come to agree, but the older ways are still there because some will prefer them. Macs deny users their own preferences – you either do things the way Jobs wants you to or you don’t do them at all. And maybe it’s just a sign of my ignorance about the mac but OSX’s system panel offers rather limited control … you have to go burrowing down into the applications folder to find anything but the most basic commands. Both OSs are have made judgements here … in the Windows world there’s a clutch of applications which simply put an accessible face on the things you can do for free with with MSCONFIG command if only you knew it existed … But the Mac system panel seems to me relatively underpowered in order to pretend that everything is simple – go deeper and you quickly realise that it’s no simpler than any other UNIX based OS. But there’s an irony here in that Windows and Linux are more akin in the ways they can be endlessly configured … Apple keeps things simply by limiting your options.

@peebee;

Your arrogance is tempered by your admission of ignorance of System Preferences, the OS X equivalent of Windows’ Control Panel.

FYI, the default configuration of System Preferences is to organise by categories, with an alternative configuration to list the various items in the ‘old-fashioned’ way, aka Alphabetically. This choice is precisely what you have praised in the ‘Dark Side’.

Do you still want to proclaim ‘you either do things the way Jobs wants you to or you don’t do them at all’?

While the Mac interface is tolerable, I simply avoid using Explorer altogether, and install a third-party filemanager.

Using Explorer has always been more like playing an unpredictable, quirky fruitmachine than using a tool, and recent versions have only increased that perception.

Not only that, simple tasks like copying a file are made unnecessarily difficult by the lack of a two-pane view, and the need to always remember to use rightclick when copying files to avoid accidental deletion of the original.

As for Libraries, I treat any such development with caution. A while back I started a major project using a similar third-party app to catalog a large number of files spread across several locations.

When it broke (surprise!) the project suffered a major setback, because I then discovered that the exotic format used couldn’t be restored from a backup. (And yes, the irony was that I DID have backups…) I don’t have enough experience of Libraries to know if the same is likely to happen, but once bitten…