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Mele20
Premium Member
join:2001-06-05
Hilo, HI

Mele20 to JohnInSJ

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to JohnInSJ

Re: [WIN8] Searchindexer?

I read this first:

»www.howtogeek.com/howto/ ··· running/

The above article indicates that you cannot turn off indexing unless you uninstall the service. You can follow the time consuming instructions in the article and cut down on the amount of indexing done but it is NOT possible to turn off indexing unless you uninstall the service. This is in Win 7 and 8. The article does not recommend disabling searchindexer but instead says you should remove it if you don't want your files indexed.

Then I read Microsoft's article which amounts to a threat in that if you turn off Indexing by uninstalling the Windows search service you lose a LOT of functionality. I don't want to turn off Windows search. I want to turn off Indexing ENTIRELY like I did in XP and Vista. But evidently you cannot do that in Win 7 or 8. Instead, if you want Indexing turned off you have to delete Windows Search service.

»windows.microsoft.com/en ··· s-search

So, is the first article wrong? How do you disable just searchindexer.exe?

Freddy
Premium Member
join:2005-05-17
Arlington, VA

1 edit

Freddy

Premium Member

I just uncheck the option to index, as indicated in image.

Freddy
Edit: I also Disabled Windows Search in Services. Even so, the search function still works. I don't know why.
Mele20
Premium Member
join:2001-06-05
Hilo, HI

Mele20

Premium Member

I tried that. It won't allow it apply to subfolders and files. So, indexer would still run.

First it gave me a popup about the swap file being in use so it could not change attributes on it so I told it to ignore that file

Then it said I did not have permission to make the changes on any subfolders and files. Well, I cannot believe that UAC is active on this computer because I killed the registry key for it so it is disabled totally in the registry. Yet, I got this popup that only the hidden, default Admin account can make such changes. I am on my Admiin account. Win 8 though doesn't understand Admin accounts and would keep prompting me and that is why I finally completely disabled UAC, totally, in the registry. I can't get apps in the Microsoft store now because I disabled UAC in the registry. Yet, I was told just now that only the hidden full Admin account can turn off full indexing of drive C which is where the swap file is located.

I was able to turn off indexing of the C drive as long as I did not try to turn off indexing of subfolders and files. What good will this do?

On my data drive, I was able to turn it off for both the drive and the subfolders and files with no prompt for hidden Admin account privileges.

The whole thing is strange as I actually don't mind the data drive being indexed as long I could manually set when it happens. I don't want the C drive indexed at all though and I can't turn off indexing the way you did for it for subfolders and files.

This indexing must be different from what I uninstalled? Why would the box still be checked since I uninstalled Indexing and Microsoft made a bunch of changes on my computer because I did that. Yet, the boxes for both C and D drives were checked for indexing. It seems to me if that is the same as what I uninstalled Microsoft would have removed the checks in those boxes when it changed other things on my computer because I removed the indexing service.

Freddy
Premium Member
join:2005-05-17
Arlington, VA

Freddy

Premium Member

Mele20,

I have no in-depth knowledge about these indexing functions. I just did as indicated in previous post. I'm not concerned about it because I think indexing has no harmful effects that amount to much. Some people make too much of this.

It seems to me that once Windows has finished indexing the first time, not much indexing takes place after that. It only does updates. As I stated, I don't know much about this, but that's how I see it at this time. I doubt your SSD will suffer much from indexing, and maybe suffer nothing at all.

Freddy

JohnInSJ
Premium Member
join:2003-09-22
Aptos, CA

JohnInSJ to Mele20

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to Mele20
said by Mele20:

I tried that. It won't allow it apply to subfolders and files. So, indexer would still run.

It should not, if you turn it off for the DRIVE then you can't change the setting for subfolders and files, because it's already off for the drive.

Just uncheck the drive checkbox and it's off.
Mele20
Premium Member
join:2001-06-05
Hilo, HI

Mele20 to Freddy

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to Freddy
I wasn't that concerned about what it was doing to the SSD drive. I wanted indexing off for two reasons (I don't want it running in the background and there is no way to schedule a time for it to index) and (2) indexing was eating a LOT of RAM all the time. 16GB RAM on Win 8 is NOT enough if you plan to use even one virtual machine. I should have bought 32GB RAM.

JohnInSJ
Premium Member
join:2003-09-22
Aptos, CA

JohnInSJ

Premium Member

said by Mele20:

there is no way to schedule a time for it to index

I am pretty sure the indexing is only kicked off when the machine is idle.
Mele20
Premium Member
join:2001-06-05
Hilo, HI

Mele20 to JohnInSJ

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to JohnInSJ
No, I think you are wrong. I was given two choices:

1. turn it off for the C drive

2. turn it off for the C drive and also for the subfolders and files on that drive

I chose number 2 choice and then was not allowed to do that because I am running as Admin but NOT as the default hidden Admin account. I have that account unhidden and password protected but I wasn't on it and evidently only on that account can I fully turn off indexing on the drive where the page file sits. Plus, I was not allowed to turn off indexing AT ALL for the paging file.

It was NOT turned off at all when I was told that I couldn't turn it off for both the C drive and the C's subfolders andf files. (Actually, I was told I could turn it off if I used the default hidden admin account which made no sense that UAC would be interfering since I have UAC completely turned off in the registry). Plus, I was told indexing cannot be turned off on the paging file if it is in use. It is always in use...sooo....

I could choose number 2 for my D drive which is my data drive. No UAC prompt and no complaint about the paging file. It was ON for Drive D when I unchecked the box in "turn it off for the d drive and also for the subfolders and files on that drive" and it worked with no UAC prompt and no complaint about the paging file (which is not on the D drive).

You are wrong.

JohnInSJ
Premium Member
join:2003-09-22
Aptos, CA

JohnInSJ

Premium Member

said by Mele20:

You are wrong.

Ok. Good luck, sorry I couldn't help.
Mele20
Premium Member
join:2001-06-05
Hilo, HI

Mele20 to JohnInSJ

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to JohnInSJ
said by JohnInSJ:

said by Mele20:

there is no way to schedule a time for it to index

I am pretty sure the indexing is only kicked off when the machine is idle.

I decided to do this because Indexing was eating a ton of RAM ALL THE TIME. Searchindex.exe runs ALL THE TIME on Win 8 and uses way too much RAM. I had been watching it in Task Manager for a long time and finally got fed up. I thought 16GB RAM was plenty even for running one or two virtual machines. It is NOT. You need 24 GB RAM for Win 8 and 32GB if you plan to run virtual machines. I should have known when Dell started recommending 24 GB RAM instead of 16GB.

I got rid of a ton of stuff that is not crapware at all (stuff like nVidia settings which uses a ton of RAM and once set doesn't need to run in the systray since there is no nView now (thus making nvidia card a waste of my money but I didn't know that I should have purchased a professional video card to get nView now). Dell also had a bunch of Power DVD processes running at start all the time. I have not once used Power DVD and don't need the processes running all the time. Dell had a bunch of stuff to do with wireless (that I don't have - I use a wired connection) running all the time and had Blu-Ray stuff running all the time and I have nothing Blu-ray. I was forced to get a Blu-ray double layer drive because Dell didn't offer a regular DVD double layer drive. Anyhow, I reclaimed about 10-12% RAM by stopping all that shit that I can just start whenever I actually need it. That is what I wanted with Indexing. To start it when I decide to start it...schedule it in Task Scheduler rather than it running ALL THE TIME USING LOTS OF RAM.

I turned off the junk that Intel had running on this machine also. This is supposed to be a very fast machine. It has not been though. My old Pentium 4 XP Pro machine runs circles around it and downloads 4 times the speed this one does. The machine is peppier now. If I had had the Reinstallation disks when I got the machine, I would have reformatted and done a clean install of Win 8 with none of the crap, but I had to scream and yell to get Dell to send a reinstallation USB key because Microsoft has told the OEMS to NEVER send out reinstallation media and Dell has complied unless you scream and yell and threaten to return the machine if you don't get the media. The problem is you finally get it a month after you got the machine IF YOU ARE LUCKY (many never get it or Dell tells them they must return the media to them or forfeit their hardware warranty) and by then you are not eager to do a reformat and clean installation because you have everything set up on the new machine. The time to do a clean installation is the day your machine arrives so the media needs to arrive with the machine but Microsoft will no longer allow that.

JohnInSJ
Premium Member
join:2003-09-22
Aptos, CA

JohnInSJ

Premium Member

Did you attempt to restrict it to just a handful of directories?

»www.howtogeek.com/howto/ ··· running/

I wonder if it is somehow attempting to "index" your VM disk images. That would be pretty bad.

It's too bad so much crapware is installed on Dell Machines. Clearly Win8 can run well in as little as 2GB of ram - it runs quite well on the Surface RT. But there isn't any crapware, since Microsoft doesn't add any.

plencnerb
Premium Member
join:2000-09-25
53403-1242

plencnerb

Premium Member

Click for full size
As far as I know, I have not changed the "default behavior" of the Windows 8 Search. I really have not made that many radical changes to UAC, registry hacks, etc either.

So, when I booted up my Windows 8 system, and system uptime was over 10 minutes, I went and looked at the running processes, specifically "Searchindex.exe".

In the above picture, I have that process highlighted. As you can see, it is only using 4,040K of RAM, which is 4 MB. How much is yours using? I also want to point out that the Hard Drive that I'm running this on is an old 80 GB EIDE Maxtor drive. I wanted to let you know that as its not an SSD, or even an SATA drive, so I would think indexing it would be a long slow process, and use a lot of RAM to do so.

I also have 16 GB of RAM in my system, and I'm running an AMD x4 635 Processor at 2.90 Ghz.

Again, I did a clean install of Windows 8 x64 Pro, and of course only installed the software and drivers that I needed (and not all that dell crapware). I also don't have any VM's running, so that may be part of it to, but not sure.

In any case, I just wanted to post this to show what I'm seeing on my end. I would be interested to see how much RAM that process is using on your system.

--Brian
Mele20
Premium Member
join:2001-06-05
Hilo, HI

Mele20 to JohnInSJ

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to JohnInSJ
No, I didn't attempt to restrict it to just a few directories. It was easier to just get rid of it. The only thing I would perhaps like Indexed would be my Dowloaded Programs folder on my data drive. I don't need indexing otherwise. What I object to when I deleted the service was that Microsoft got nasty and took away the ability to search from Explorer.exe.

It may have been trying to index the SSD images....that box was checked for indexing. I never noticed that box until joepwpb See Profile mentioned it in this thread. I don't recall that on XP Pro but then I set up my old XP computer back in Feb 2006 so I wouldn't recall that after all these years.

What Dell put on this box is not crapware. No AV at all. The problem is that Dell put a lot of good stuff in Startup! I don't have wireless so I don't need all the wireless stuff Dell had in Start. As for PowerDVD, actually it is Cyberlink Media Suite that includes PowerDVD. I like PowerDVD (had it on all my Dells except 98SE). Cyberlink Media Suite has a burner. I have read it is a good one. But why did Dell put Cyberlink Media Suite in Startup? That is my beef. Why was nVidia 3D running in Startup? Why is a bunch of Blu-ray stuff running in Startup? Nothing I would consider crapware...good stuff but should not run at Start.

Then there is all the Intel stuff running all the time. Some of it IS CRAP and I got rid of the worst offenders.
Mele20

Mele20 to plencnerb

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to plencnerb
I don't remember how much it was using but a heck of a lot more than 4MB!

Task Manager was showing 25% RAM usage with only Fx 10 ESR open (about 70 tabs). Nothing else open. That's scary and crazy ....Fx was the biggest user which would be expected at about 560MB (probably less when I upgrade it to the current ESR version). But it was the other stuff especially searchindex that was eating up RAM that bothered me. What if I had two virtual machines running and each had been assigned 2GB RAM (4GB total and that is very modest RAM for virtual machines...I would assign more if I could), I had Open Office in use, had Opera running (it is my mail client) with 30 or so tabs, as well as Fx, and a couple of other applications running. If just Windows and Fx use 25% RAM with ONLY 70 tabs...geez...I add at least 4GB for two virtual machines that is 50% of my RAM in use and then I add a few other programs...well...I would need more than 16GB RAM to be comfortable.

After I got rid of Intel crap and a lot of other stuff that shouldn't have been running including searchindex I reclaimed 13% of the RAM. Now Task Manager shows 12% RAM usage with Fx (about 70 tabs) and nothing else open. That is reasonable. What I was seeing was not.