Windows Search Woes

[devlin7]

I am hoping that someone can make a suggestion. Our school is running windows 7 and I have noticed that quite often our group policies are not applying all the time. I have also noticed this seems to happen most when the CPU is busy. Why is the CPU busy you ask? Well it appears theat the windows search feature is eating between 80 - 100% CPU. I have tuned the search service off and GP seems to behave a lot more reliably but then users can't search or find anything / including Emails.

Any suggestions?

 

[Lemur]

Do all the above problems apply to one workstation, several or all (cpu, seach)?

Did you try rebuilding the index?

 

[Bugsy]

Take a look at this article as i think it might help hopefully CPU usage running at 100%

 

[devlin7]

Thanks for the prompt replies. We have around 400 workstations and it appears to happen from time to time on all of them. The index service is also extermely heavy on our main data server also. [In fact I threw a lot more virtual memory and CPUS at it just to help it cope a little better].
I have also read there is an issue with windows search and XML files [in particular Itunes] Is there a way to change what the search indexed via group poicy?

 

[Lemur]

By any chance, are they PCs indexing on the entire network drive? What if you limit indexing?

 

[devlin7]

I wasn't aware that you can index a network drive. The server is ONLY indexing the DATA folder and the Windows 7 machines just have the defaults set, ie the c: drive.

 

[Lemur]

Yeah, I was referring to the mapped folder, which in this case is DATA.

 

[devlin7]

I just logged to a couple of the machines to see what they were indexing. I can see entries for internet explorer for each user. I can also see that it has entries for offline files\username which is a little odd as offline files are disabled. I can also see that it is indexing c:\users.

 

[Lemur]

So you're not using active directory?

 

[devlin7]

Domain with 3 x Server 2008R2 64bit active directory

 

[OEM]

This might help, I'm no expert, but I have played around with indexing and search myself because I didn't like the idea of windows indexing everything.

There are many options to help manage indexing & searching in GP. Open your local group policy editor, Administrative Templates/Windows Components/Search.

View attachment 109692

In search you will find many options that might help cool down that cpu and slow down the need for Windows to do all this indexing. You can also set times for indexing and mark partitions for no indexing, etc.

Honestly if you go to Control Panel and type index, choose index options, you can select from there what windows will index and what it won't under the modify button. When searching for whats marked sometimes its not always clear. For example the Documents folder of a user might be indexed, but the users folder in the modify indexing tree won't show the user's block blue even though it is indexing a users Documents. The only thing I have it index is my start menu. Just because something isn't indexed, doesn't mean windows won't find it during a search, it will. It just might take longer, you might have seen that banner at the top of explorer a time or two when you were searching in un-indexed folders.

 

[devlin7]

Thanks OEM. I will take a look at these setting s and see what I can achieve.

 

[OEM]

Thanks OEM. I will take a look at these setting s and see what I can achieve.

Your Welcome, Hope it Helps.

I also believe you can set a task schedule to index only at certain times, but not positive, ...here's something I found but have not tried.

You can schedule a task to start the indexer.

Create a new task using 'Task Scheduler' in 'Control Panel' | 'Administrative Tools'.

In the Program/script: section type in 'net' and in the Add arguments (optional): type in 'start "windows search"'. Windows search is enclosed by quotes.

After you create the scheduled task, edit it and in the General tab check 'Run with highest privileges'.

Then indexing will run at the scheduled time.

Above source: Is there a way to schedule the time Windows 7 runs Indexing

It was a post of some ones in the above linked thread. You might want to read the whole thing.

Also, here's a few links I found that might help as well:

Change advanced indexing options
Windows Search: Technical FAQ

On the second above link, to the left of that page after viewing whats on the current page, it might help to choose Windows7.

Good Luck

 

[winsupertweaker]

I suggest reducing the amount of System Restore space used on each computer. By default, it's about 10% of each PC's hard drive. I push the slider all the way to the left. No need for Gigabytes of System Restore files, a 500 MB to a Gigabyte is plenty. You can go back a couple of days resetting this way, and that's it. Imagine going back 3 full months----yikes! Another default setting in all Windows XP - 7 OSes that was over-kill. So all the time the workstations are being used, the system is constantly indexing and a couple times a day making restore points.

Also. Shut off the public sharing of other contents you do not use at each station. You may have all public folders between workstations mapping out each folder on each machine. Just a few tweaks in that area can make a big difference as well.

And check each machine to see if it's Defragging too often. Both Vista and Win7 defraggers take a long time. But in your case, it's necessary to have the machines automated. I would suggest the machines defragging once a month at different intervals. That puts a load on a CPU as well...

 

[OEM]

I suggest reducing the amount of System Restore space used on each computer. By default, it's about 10% of each PC's hard drive. I push the slider all the way to the left. No need for Gigabytes of System Restore files, a 500 MB to a Gigabyte is plenty. You can go back a couple of days resetting this way, and that's it. Imagine going back 3 full months----yikes! Another default setting in all Windows XP - 7 OSes that was over-kill. So all the time the workstations are being used, the system is constantly indexing and a couple times a day making restore points.

Also. Shut off the public sharing of other contents you do not use at each station. You may have all public folders between workstations mapping out each folder on each machine. Just a few tweaks in that area can make a big difference as well.

And check each machine to see if it's Defragging too often. Both Vista and Win7 defraggers take a long time. But in your case, it's necessary to have the machines automated. I would suggest the machines defragging once a month at different intervals. That puts a load on a CPU as well...

+1

...you just added to my "Things to DO" list, although my MS/defraging/ is off.

But for the OP, the thought of file sharing public or others folders, &
Auto Defraging at different intervals, sounds good to me as possibility.

Also, the option for it do this every time a drive is detected (connected), if someone is swapping out/connecting drives internal or external, (even temporally for file moves/copies), could be slowing him or others down as well.

 

[devlin7]

Thanks for all the posts. Things have looked a lot better after enabling the GP that changes which files are indexed. I seriously thought about uninstalling the Windows Indexing completely but then users get warnings from most MS applications when they start them up.

I have a few weird performance issues this year with Windows 7. I have had a number of machines simply never process their Group policies and regardless of what you do it just doesn't get to the logon screen. The next day however it works just like a new one. I thought it might have been DEFENDER. I was thinking of getting rid of defender completely, any suggestions? Is disabling the service enough?