Search Problem in xp

[biker666_05]

whenever i go to start and then search my computer stops responding and i dont know whats causing it i try it with another user and nothing happens it works fine anybody know whats wrong

[SupaStar]

No idea what is wrong, but in your shoes, i'd delete that user account and use a new one. Easy fix!

[cash_site]

May be the Drive Indexing has gone awry, have you disabled it for improved HD performance? else Supa had a good suggestion.

[biker666_05]

no i dont even know how to disable the drive index

[efc]

Disable drive Index Service by a Left Click on Start; then Left Click on My Computer; then Right Click on C Drive and choose Properties. Remove the Check from the box.

[biker666_05]

will disabling indexing improve performance?

[SupaStar]

They say it does.

[Conan]

will disabling indexing improve performance?

From windows-help.net:

Improve Performance By Disabling Indexing Service
The Indexing Service in Windows XP Indexes your files presumably to shorten the time needed to search your hard drive if you are looking for a specific file or part of a phrase inside a file.

By default, this service is set to manual (so it won't start), but when you do a search on your computer, there's that little question asking you if you want to make future searches faster.... so you could have enabled it (it will tell you that you are going to enable the Indexing service when you choose this). Anyway, having run it for a while, it was one of the first things I decided switched off, and I haven't noticed any delay when I do my searches (and I presume that with my C:\ drive holding in excess of 106,000 files in over 2,700 folders I'm not a typical user!), but I did notice the improvement of having more CPU cycles available at all times. Don't you just hate it when you're playing a game of Hearts and your system decides that you are doing "nothing", so it can start indexing your files, thereby slowing down your game to a crawl.

[SupaStar]

Thanks for the confirmation on that Conan. I guess thats the 'technical' explanation.

[Coffee]

Microsoft Website: The Indexing Service extracts information from a set of documents and organizes it for easy access through the Windows XP Professional Search function, the Indexing Service query form, or a Web browser.

When this feature is turned off Windows Explorer simply uses conventional search techniques. The use of the service is a popular utility for Web Servers as opposed to everyday use by the average home user.

There are some very useful utils at www.sysinternals.com to monitor registry & file access/changes. These may help to see if any errors occur and where they are located.