Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Shannon Westphal

Adrian Mark Chandley

Patrick M Haluptzok

Meenaz Merchant

W Earl Greathouse

Patrick Haluptzok

Auxiliary content provided in addition to search results is selected and presented to aid the user in completing tasks and increasing user interaction performance. Auxiliary content is processed utilizing existing search engine categorization and identification mechanisms, thereby facilitating the determination of similarities between the auxiliary content and indexed content that is identified as being responsive to a search query. At least some of the search results identified as being responsive to the search query are compared to auxiliary content to identify similarities, including visual similarities. Similar auxiliary content are selected to aid the user in completing tasks, and such selected auxiliary content is provided with the search results, including in a visually distinct or separated manner.

Task-oriented presentation of auxiliary content to increase user interaction performance

The display of a search box within a toolbar is controlled based on the search provider settings of search box native to an application or operating system, such as a search box natively provider by a web browser. The search box is maintained within the toolbar when the search provider for the native search box differs from the toolbar search provider. The search box may be removed or 'hidden' from the toolbar when the search provider for the native search box is the same as the toolbar search provider.

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Seattle, WA, United States of America

Shannon Westphal