Microsoft changes the basis of its search engine in Windows 11: after 25 years of use
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Little by little, Microsoft is introducing changes to Windows 11 that go beyond the aesthetic or functional. It is true that the design is what first enters the eyes, but under the hood there are also improvements that are only perceived on a day-to-day basis. And that is what Microsoft has done with the search system
It is true that it is more striking how little by little they forget about the Control Panel or the new changes in the interface. But it is perhaps just as important that Windows Search has stopped using ESENT (Extensible Storage Engine), an engine that it had been using for years and years.
Retiring ESENT
A change that has not been announced in any way by Microsoft and that has been known thanks to a well-known Twitter user . Albacore or what is the same, @thebookisclosed is an expert in leaks and has detected the presence of this change in the latest Windows 11 builds that have been distributed within the Dev Channel in the Insider Program.
Albacore detected the change after noticing that the search index was no longer displayed, as usual, in the path C:\Program Data\Microsoft\Search \Data\Applications\Windows as Windows.edb but rather as Windows.db. In addition, this new file offered the same structure of SQLite.
ESENT, not to be confused with ESET, is a Windows database engine and is a core component of the operating system that carries present in Windows since the now distant Windows NT 3.51, at that time under the name Jet Blue. Now, with Windows 11 ESENT becomes history.
Microsoft has chosen to replace ESENT in its operating system in favor of SQL (the most widely used programming language in the field of databases). More precisely, Microsoft has chosen to use SQLite, an ultra-light public domain library, the most widely used in the field of mobile apps.
Microsoft matches the search in Windows to the technology it already uses in applications such as Skype or programs and third-party applications such as Adobe Photoshop Elements, Firefox or OpenOffice .
ESENT, last released in January of this year, no longer counts for Microsoft. The company has abandoned a system present since the company made the leap to 32 bits and it is to be assumed, since there is no official note, that they do so because SQLite offers faster indexing and lighter weight of the databases.
