Adjusting Explorer’s Search

The ability to search files and folders is available throughout the user interface
in Windows 7. Almost every window has a search box that allows you to find
documents, images, applications, and other files almost instantly. Accelerated
by the Windows indexing service, Windows Search can quickly search through
a file index that is continuously updated by the indexing service running in

the background. For a search in Windows to be successful, there needs to be a
good balance between the amount of time it takes to get results and the overall
system performance decrease caused by the background indexing service.
There are some cool tricks that you can use to increase the success of a search
while also increasing overall system performance by reducing the amount of
work the indexing service has to do. First, I will show you how to adjust the
scope of where Explorer searches for an item when browsing through folders.
Then you will look at adjusting some settings on the indexing service as well
as how to use Windows Search without an index. All these hacks will help
you increase the performance of Windows Explorer and your overall system
performance.