Vista - Index - Enable or Disable

Well, at least you didn't tell me to turn on the index!

Actually, I just noticed with the index off Media Center keeps insisting that no shows match my search when I search for any shows, movies, etc., so I'm going to leave it on.

Thanks for the reply and Happy New Year!

LOL, no problem Mic. I hope you have a happy New Year to.

Hi Brink,

Thanks for the great tips and site ... lots of useful info.

One thing I will comment on is that I don't think you fully explained the down side of disabling the indexing service in Vista. I agree that there can be a noticeable boost in performance (especially on older systems or laptops that use suspend a lot), but there is also some signficant loss in usability.

Yes, you can still search for files without using the index or replace it with another index though I'd aruge that you will lose much if not all of the performance gain or possibly lose performance given that other search engines aren't optimized.

The thing you would want to state more clearly in your "Note" area is the other areas that are affected. Start Menu searching is essentially useless (I almost never look for a program, just type the name and hit enter!), Outlook search is tied to it as mentioned in one of your posts, Windows Media Player uses it, Windows Mail/Live Mail, ... you get the point. A lot of MSFT apps are tying into using Windows Search for their built-in app search and disabling the Indexer reduces the fucntionality across the board.

I think with Vista SP1 and the new Windows Desktop Search 4.0 release, MSFT addressed a lot of the performance problems (especially for a laptop coming out of Suspend). To me, the usability loss isn't worth the slight performance gain with this specific tip, and I think more of your users might make the same choice given full information on what else might not work. It's not just 'slower searches'.

Thanks!

Hello Pete, and welcome to Vista Forums.

I have added a warning box to help warn about this, but I still have no problems doing a search from the Start Menu, Windows Mail, or Window Live Mail with the Index disabled though.

Shawn

I'm not clear on some of this, and probably others are confused, too, so maybe someone can help us out?

Is Search 4.0 included in SP1?

I went top the Microsoft page and downloaded Windows6.0-KB940157-x86.msu. I tried to install, but Windows informed me that it was not for my system. I must say the page at Windows Search was less than completely helpful.

The reason I am interested is that I downloaded the M$ desktop search for my XP Pro machine and was impressed by the preview pane, which I cannot seem to find or which does not exist on the Vista search.

So, yes, I am confused. I have heard mention of Google desktop search and others, but am reluctant to dive in without a clear idea of what is out there, what I have and what the downsides of non-Vista searches might be.

Is there a FAQ anywhere or a thread that lays all this out clearly?

TIA

(signed)
Confused

Hello Allend, amd welcome to Vista Forums.

Search 4.0 would have came through Windows Update instead. You should see it listed when clicking on the View update history link in Windows Update.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Thanks.

That is what I thought, but that Windows6.0-KB940157-x86 or any variation on that is not shown among the updates in my Add/Remove.

Maybe I got the wrong update? Dunno. I had problems understanding the Windows Search page. It looked to have been written by a marketer and not a tech-minded person.

How else would I know if I got that update, I wonder? Windows Update seems to think I have everything, and I used "Custom" to check.

Sorry Allend, had to reboot into Vista to check for you.

It should be listed as Windows Serarch 4.0 when you go into the Programs and Features View installed updates link if installed from Windows Updates.

OK. Thanks. It does show up in my Windows Update history list as installed on Oct 19th and it is KB940157. It does not, however show up on "Uninstall or Change a program".

I guess I have it. That's disappointing. Would have liked a preview pane like the XP desktop add-on has. I was playing around with that one last night and it is amazing how easy it is to browse around and see the results immediately in a preview.

Can that search work with Vista, I wonder? And how would that coexist with the current indexer? And what about outside suppliers of search like Google?

Too many questons, and I'm out of time.

There must be a better way.

I do not about them, but I usually just use Advanced Search when I search for anything in Vista.