DISABLE INDEXING

Indexing is one of those Microsoft features that was designed to speed up Windows search. Basically, it indexes all files and folders on your hard drive, so that the indexes can be used to find files and folders more quickly when the need arises. In theory, your files and folders should only be indexed when the computer is idle, so that there aren't any performance issues.

Unfortunately, the indexing feature is not perfect. Indexing often runs while you are using your computer. This causes your hard drive to start making noises and slows everything down. So, if you don't use Windows search all that often, you can either disable indexing completely or modify indexing options. You can simply right-click on your hard drive in (My) Computer, go to Properties and uncheck Allow Indexing Service to index this disk for fast file searching (in Windows XP) or Allow files on this drive to have contents indexed in addition to file properties (in Windows 7).

Steps to completely disable the Indexing Service:

1. Click on Start and type services.msc in the Search box (XP users will need to click on Start - Run and type services.msc there). Hit Enter
2. Locate the Indexing Service (Windows XP) or Windows Search (Windows 7), change the service startup type to Disabled and then click on the Stop button.
3. Click OK, close services.msc and reboot your computer for the changes to take effect

If you are running Windows 7, you can choose to adjust indexing options. This way you will make sure that Windows still indexes your frequently searched locations, but doesn't hog your computer by indexing folders you never search. Here is how you can configure indexing on a Windows 7 computer:

1.   Go to the Control Panel, type indexing options in the search box, and then click Indexing Options.
2. Click on Modify. Make sure you have ‘Show All Locations’ enabled.
3. Clear the checkboxes for the folders you rarely search and click OK when you are finished.