Windows Vista will improve search functionality on a PC by letting users tag files with metadata, but those tags could cause unwanted and embarrassing information disclosure, Gartner analysts have warned.
Search and organization capabilities are among the primary features of Windows Vista, the successor to Windows XP due out late in 2006. While building those features, Microsoft is not paying enough attention to managing the descriptive information, or metadata, that users can add to files to make it easier to find and organize data on a PC, according to Gartner.
"This opens up the possibility of the inadvertent disclosure of this metadata to other users inside and outside of your organization," Gartner analysts Michael Silver and Neil MacDonald wrote in a research note published on Thursday.
News source: C|Net News.com
