Speeding Up Windows Vista: Indexing

Searching Affects More Than The Search Command

Don’t mistake what I’m saying here. There’s more to the term “search results” than the computer’s ability to locate last year’s tax returns efficiently. To be sure, your tax “papers” are files as far as the computer is concerned, but so are the application you use to do your taxes and the drivers to run your computer hardware. “Search results” aren’t just applicable to files you happen to be looking for. Mostly, they’re files the computer is looking for!

Is there a happy medium? Maybe. If you want to tweak Indexing, you’re going to have to get comfortable with waiting a bit for file system search results. The other option is to settle for faster searches and slower performance, so if you’re willing to be patient when searching for files, you can have faster performance when you’re doing other things.
In earlier versions of Windows, Indexing was pretty much off the table. That is, you the user couldn’t adjust Windows’ indexing behavior. Vista has done away with that and now you can tweak Indexing to suit your personal tastes.

For maximum performance, you’ll want to disable Indexing for all areas except the Start Menu. If you turn Indexing off, you can expect better overall performance, but slower response when you (or the computer) are looking for files (including applications). Leave Indexing turned on for the Start Menu, and you’ll at least have the benefit of faster application response.

To modify Windows Vista’s indexing options, choose the Start button and select Indexing Options. Click Ok. Choose Modify > Show all locations. Uncheck all areas in the tree except the Start Menu. You can make your own personalized adjustments here if there are other areas you use frequently. You can also personalize the Indexing behavior by file type and other options, using the Advanced button.

If you don’t like the way Vista behaves after these changes, you can go back and tweak your indexing options further to suit your tastes.