Yes, the default windows search boxes utilized indexing service if it was enabled. Windows 2000 also shipped with a ton of IFilter modules to enable indexing of various files. It was also first shipped for indexing IIS, but originally was part of Cairo as whole-OS indexer.
Vista introduced "next generation" implementation and used it by default, though you could still use the old one. IFilter remained the same for both. What really changed was how it was more visible and less performance impacting with newer computers - most people I knew disabled indexing because performance and there was no real culture of using built-in windows search.
Vista introduced "next generation" implementation and used it by default, though you could still use the old one. IFilter remained the same for both. What really changed was how it was more visible and less performance impacting with newer computers - most people I knew disabled indexing because performance and there was no real culture of using built-in windows search.