Disable SearchIndexer

Since I got my laptop, which runs on Vista Home, I realised that the hard drive light is constantly flicking even when I am not using the laptop (while switched on). It did not bother me much at first but this week I was working on real big files which slowed the computer down dramatically.

So I went to the Task Manager (click ctrl, alt and delete simultaneously to get it) to see what is using so much of memory and processor.

I found a file called “SearchIndexer.exe” to be the culprit. Upon closer investigation I found that this process is not really necessary but it keeps on running and slowing Vista down. All this does is to index the files on your computer so you can find them quicker when you are doing a local search for files on your hard drive. You can turn this off if you want to. You can choose between:

1. Leaving SearchIndexer on and forever have a slow computer or
2. Disabling SearchIndexer and only have a bit slower search facility when you are looking for files on your hard drive, ones or twice per month when you might need it.

There are two ways to disable it.

The first one is the quicker one, here it is:

Open “My Computer”. You will see all your hard drives listed as in the pic below. Go to your drive C and right click on drive C and the select “Properties”

Right click on C: and select "properties"

A window which looks like the one below will pop up. Note the last option on this screen shows “Index this drive for faster searching” and there will be a tick next to it in the block. All you have to do is to UN-tick this block and then click the “Apply” button.

UN-tick the Search Index option

Windows will now as you if you only want to unselect the main drive or all the sub folders as well, choose all the option for main drive and  sub folders. At some stage windows might tell you it cannot continue because the files need administration permission to be changed, just kap it a flat ignore and press the “ignore” button.

And that is it, vista will run for a while to change the settings on all folders and after this your computer might not be running this stupid SearchIndexer script all the time.

The second method is a bit more complex, this is what to do:

1. Click the “start” button at the bottom left of your screen, and then select “Settings” and “Control Panel” from the list.
2. In the control panel look for the “System and Maintenance” option, double click that
3. In the next window double click on “Administrative Tools”
4. Then in the next window look for the “Services” link and double click that.
5. You will now see a long list of services, scroll down till you find “Windows Search” and right click on it.
6. A properties box will now pop up.
7. Click the STOP button to stop the SearchIndexing immediately.
8. Then just above that at the Startup Type dropdown box select “Disabled”
9. Click on OK and you have won control of your processor back.