Disable indexing but retain Windows search?

[996GT2]

I disabled indexing on my laptop's SSD yesterday by un-checking the "Allow files on this drive to have contents indexed in addition to file properties" box in drive properties. However, I noticed afterwards that Windows search became wonky and was sometimes not able to find frequently used programs or files. Is this related to disabling indexing? Is there a way to disable indexing but maintain full Windows search capability on a system with a SSD?

Laptop is running Windows 8.1 Professional x64.

 

[Berryracer]

Here is what I do

I disable indexing on all my SSDs, then I download the portable version of Everything

It searches for anything I type and the results are displayed INSTANTLY! 0 lag

Download Everything v1.2.1.371 Portable

After you extract the ZIP, place it somewhere safe like your Software Installation folder where you keep all your SETUP EXEs,

then create a shortcut for the EXE on your desktop and rename it to Everything

Then place that shortcut on your taskbar for easy access and delete the original shortcut from the desktop

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Lemme throw this thought into the mix.

Windows indexing somehow works WITHIN the Outlook e-mail browser -- which is likely built on a set of database tables.

I've pretty much done the same thing to disable indexing. When I search for something in Outlook, it throws a message that indexing is disabled, searches may take longer, etc.

Indexes are an essential part of any relational database application, but if the SSD speeds make them seem almost superfluous, then it wouldn't matter much for a specialized application like Outlook.

That leaves the question as to how Berryracer's suggestion addresses this particular aspect of my e-mail browser. It's not intuitively obvious that it does -- then again . . . . maybe someone knows . . .

 

[KillerBee]

wtf ..that everything portable is amazingly fast

Guess it just searches for titles rather than inspecting the contents?
(which is all I ever really want Windows search to do)

anyway thanks for the suggestion 🙂

 

[ignatzatsonic]

wtf ..that everything portable is amazingly fast

Guess it just searches for titles rather than inspecting the contents?
(which is all I ever really want Windows search to do)

anyway thanks for the suggestion 🙂

It searches for any text string found in the file name, including the file extension.

But not contents. It's superb if your files are reasonably well organized. No reason at all to use Windows search or indexing.

If you put that pot roast recipe in a file called "goodstuff.doc", it won't be of much help. Some people are like that and I don't see how they get by.

 

[corkyg]

Indexing service equates to a lot of disk tharshing for HDDs and queries of SSDs. I have always had it turned off - but, like ignatzatsonic, I rarely have to do searches - so wonkiness doesn't bother me. 🙂

 

[Berryracer]

wtf ..that everything portable is amazingly fast

Guess it just searches for titles rather than inspecting the contents?
(which is all I ever really want Windows search to do)

anyway thanks for the suggestion 🙂

to me it actually finds stuff faster than that Windows search even with indexing turned off! everything appears instantly....

like I search for Diana...

every pic, document, etc of someone named Diana appears which is what I really want

trying to delete some leftovers of a program I installed called Command Center for Alienware

I type Command Center and every freakin' directory and file appears and I can delete them or navigate to their path in an intant!

probably one of the best free things after CCleaner that has happened to the PC world 😀

 

[thedosbox]

It searches for any text string found in the file name, including the file extension.

But not contents. It's superb if your files are reasonably well organized. No reason at all to use Windows search or indexing.

If you put that pot roast recipe in a file called "goodstuff.doc", it won't be of much help. Some people are like that and I don't see how they get by.

The ability to find documents or email that contain a piece of text is pretty useful for anyone who does work on their computer. Why? Because the filename or subject line may not reflect what you're searching for.

 

[Berryracer]

The ability to find documents or email that contain a piece of text is pretty useful for anyone who does work on their computer. Why? Because the filename or subject line may not reflect what you're searching for.

I just tried doing a search in my Outlook 2013, it did warn me that Windows Search / indexing is disabled, but I searched for Samsung for example, all emails that related ot Samsung appeared within less than a second! :whiste:

 

[KillerBee]

The ability to find documents or email that contain a piece of text is pretty useful for anyone who does work on their computer. Why? Because the filename or subject line may not reflect what you're searching for.

dang you're just filled with all kinds of info ..tell us more 😛

 

[thedosbox]

dang you're just filled with all kinds of info ..tell us more 😛

Fair enough - let's try again. If your search needs don't extend much beyond the name of a "adult entertainer", then a filename search should be adequate. 😛

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I just tried doing a search in my Outlook 2013, it did warn me that Windows Search / indexing is disabled, but I searched for Samsung for example, all emails that related ot Samsung appeared within less than a second! :whiste:

. . . Which . . . points up how indexes became integral to DBMS systems, but were never "necessary" if you could suffer to wait for the search results. But then, some . . point-of-sale application or database-front-end wouldn't have been very practical.

I think there's no end to reassessing how SSD technology has opened up a huge bottleneck in the old "von Neumann architecture".

 

[dbcooper1]

I used 'Everything' for searches some time ago and it was great, but I don't think it would search networked drives; anyone know if that's still the case?

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I used 'Everything' for searches some time ago and it was great, but I don't think it would search networked drives; anyone know if that's still the case?

Probably a detour in the topic, but I'd thrown out the concept of a DBMS data-table index -- perhaps as analog (and all analogs are imperfect). In that case, you'd certainly expect the indexing to occur on a "networked" drive!

Can you store your Outlook *.PST file on your server? I think so. Why wouldn't you be able to index the contents of a mapped network drive?

All this off the top of my head, and I'll be interested for additional comments.

I use NUANCE PaperPort, which has the ability with "All-in-one-Search" to (a) use OCR to gather info from either searchable or "image" PDF files, and (b) use its database of that info to provide a search capability. NUANCE or its predecessor had always hyped the ability of the program to allow multi-user access to network storage, while requiring a separate license for each client. It seemed to me I had performance troubles with it when trying to build the index from this or that client. That's a limitation or shortcoming I'll have to puzzle out on my own, though.

 

[John Connor]

Here is what I do

I disable indexing on all my SSDs, then I download the portable version of Everything

It searches for anything I type and the results are displayed INSTANTLY! 0 lag

Download Everything v1.2.1.371 Portable

After you extract the ZIP, place it somewhere safe like your Software Installation folder where you keep all your SETUP EXEs,

then create a shortcut for the EXE on your desktop and rename it to Everything

Then place that shortcut on your taskbar for easy access and delete the original shortcut from the desktop

This is what I use. I have a SSD in the laptop and desktop with indexing off.