Search Indexing

Come to find there ARE good reasons to have it turned on. For example, if you are using Microsoft Outlook 2010. There are some some pretty sweet features that use the indexing.

So here's a break down of a few ways to manipulate windows search.

#1 - You can go into Windows Features and uncheck it. This will remove ALL SEARCHING. It will remove the search boxes from explorer and the start menu.

#2 - You can turn off the Windows Search service. This will keep the search boxes available for you to perform manual searches. But this will kill features from within application that use the search index.

#3 - You can go into folder options and attempt to specify what to index but this area seems worthless to me and it only addresses file searching.

#4 - This is the best option!!!! Go into Indexing Options from within control panel. Here you can specify EXACTLY what you want indexed. I removed Internet Explorer and USERS folder. So the only thing that was left was Start Menu. On some other users machines I left Outlook enabled.

Number 4 will allow you to remove all indexing from all individual files but leave other applications alone to perform their awesome magic. This option gives you much more control. I found that removing just the file indexing is all you needed to remove to keep your machine running super fast.

Same goes with Windows Live Mail. It will use the indexing as well.

pezzonovante said:

CommonTater said:

pezzonovante said:

I have used search indexing for a long time and have never had any noticeable difference in performance.

And searching from the start menu makes it infinitely easier to do everything. I no longer have to remember file names and locations. All I need to do is to type anything at all that I remember about a particular document/music/video/program and within a fraction of a second the result appears. This is incredibly productive.

Using the Control Panel also becomes a pure delight with the Search feature. I think you have never used the search feature, that's why you don't understand its value.

Disabling the service does NOT disable the search bars in the start menu or Windows Explorer.... It only disables the indexing service itself.

But disabling the index means you can no longer search for file contents within a fraction of a second, doesn't it? This will make the whole system far less useful, because then you have to remember file names which is impossible.

I turned off my indexing and I do not miss it at all. The search in Win 7 was useless to me. File search is the same speed as before simply because I know in which folder I have everything and rarely use search anyway. When I did try to use search it did not find what I was looking for so I turned it off and am happy to announce that finally my i7 920 6 gigs ram GTX 260 is blasting in hyper drive

pezzonovante said:

Why someone in his right mind would want to disable search indexing is beyond me. Do you understand you are trying to disable the single most useful feature of Windows 7?

I must say pezz, you were brutal with your comment here. You are probably not a Gamer. Gamers do not want their hard drives spinning in the middle of their game. Indexing is for a different breed of computer user.

This is an old post but I had to address your forum ettiquette. Tone it down a bit when you address someone. You're here to help and be helped. Try a little diplomacy when responding, especially when someone has asked a question or posted a comment in a proper manner. Just saying...

Niceget said:

pezzonovante said:

Why someone in his right mind would want to disable search indexing is beyond me. Do you understand you are trying to disable the single most useful feature of Windows 7?

I must say pezz, you were brutal with your comment here. You are probably not a Gamer. Gamers do not want their hard drives spinning in the middle of their game. Indexing is for a different breed of computer user.

This is an old post but I had to address your forum ettiquette. Tone it down a bit when you address someone. You're here to help and be helped. Try a little diplomacy when responding, especially when someone has asked a question or posted a comment in a proper manner. Just saying...

Yes, I agree I should have been more diplomatic with my answer. But, the incredibly productive and wonderful search system of Windows 7 is something I am really passionate about. Having indexed my ENTIRE hard drive, I have been able to find files, programs and control panel applets on my computer within a fraction of a second using the Start Menu search over the last few years. It has never affected my system performance at all. And I truly believe this is THE most useful feature of Windows 7.

That's why probably I could not resist myself from being a little aggressive with my reply.

ahstanford said:

I have disabled Search Indexing under folder options in control panel but I still have a process called "SearchIndexer.exe" using a decent amount of resources - what should I do?

No need to disable Windows Search in Windows 7. Here's how to stop the random spinning of the HDD. Enjoy!

It bears mentioning that wether or not Search will be only "a little bit slower" after disabling indexing very much depends on where and what you are searching. If you are doing a non-trivial search of a large folder hierarchy, possibly searching for file contents rather than just a name, "a little bit slower" may mean five minutes instead of five seconds. Whether or not that counts as "a little bit" may depend on your requirements...