Windows Search Questions

November 12, 2008 9:18 AM

Does the "new" Windows Search installed on XP need to have Indexing Service checked on?

I used to use Copernic DTS but found that it wasn't doing a complete job (missed too many results) and that the new Windows Search would work with XP. I recently downloaded it and it works well except for the continuous disk activity I hear. Is this normal? Do I have to allow the Windows Indexing Service to index the disk for fast file searching? Or is this a seperate application? Thanks!

posted by Rad_Boy to computers & internet (4 comments total)

No it does not need the "Indexing" service, the two are completely seperate.

As far as continous disk activity - it is supposed to work if the system is "idle" and you are not doing anything.

Personally, I turn off all indexing - I rarely need to search my local file system for things.
posted by jkaczor at 9:37 AM on November 12, 2008

That is what search does, it indexes the disk. So you're going to hear a lot of disk activity until it gets its first big index, then from there it should only be doing incrementals. I wouldnt worry about it. Personally, I think its better to organize your folders than rely on a resource hog like google or ms search.
posted by damn dirty ape at 10:33 AM on November 12, 2008

I uninstalled Windows Search when I realized that (a) the indexing service did a better job of actually finding the things I was looking for, at least on my machine; and (b) it brings back that stupid asinine cartoon dog. I don't know why Microsoft won't just put a bullet into that goddamn thing. Animated cartoon dogs have no goddamn place in a 'professional' OS.

FWIW Google Desktop search seems to work just fine on my five-year-old XP machine, with no noticeable overhead, so long as the Sidebar is shut off (I keep the Deskbar on in the task bar - basically what the Windows Search does by default). No disk thrashing, fast indexing, searches inside emails for programs other than MS Office ones as well (MS doesn't seem to want to index things from Firefox / Thunderbird / etc.)
posted by caution live frogs at 10:34 AM on November 12, 2008

If your drive is NTFS, try the search tool Everything. It's unbelievably fast and has changed the way I use my computer. It's faster for me to search for a file I just closed than use Recent Documents, for example.
posted by Yogurt at 3:24 PM on November 12, 2008