PHLAT is a new interface for Windows Desktop Search  (enabling search through a user's own email, files, and viewed web pages). PHLAT lets you easily specify queries and filters, attempting to integrate search and browse in one intuitive interface. In addition, Phlat supports a unified tagging (labeling) scheme for organizing personal content across storage systems (files, email, etc.).

Click here to read more about PHLAT and get started using it!

Phlat is developed by the Adaptive Systems and Interaction Team at Microsoft Research. The project is developed by Ed Cutrell, Daniel Robbins, Raman Sarin & Susan Dumais.

To use PHLAT you must be running Windows Desktop Search version 2.6.6 or earlier. The default version of WDS that ships with Office 2007, Vista and the standalone WDS is v3.x. PHLAT will not work with v3.x--we are working on a solution for this and will post it as soon as we have a working solution.

In addition, you must have the .NET framework v1.1 installed (this is an optional download from Windows Update--select the custom update button and choose "Optional software"), and you must have Microsoft Outlook installed (even if you use another client for email). To open email messages from PHLAT, you must be using Microsoft Outlook as your email client.

Supported Operating Systems: Microsoft Windows XP, Windows 2000 SP4 or later, or Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1.

Please note again! PHLAT does NOT currently work with WDS version 3.x. This is currently the version installed with Office2007 and Vista. Office2007 will work with earlier versions, but the default it ships with is 3.x. We're working on making this compatible and will post this as soon as it's working.