Windows 7 Indexing, Speed Up Windows Indexing Process
Posted by alex in Insights at 1:02 PMI have written some articles in the past related to Windows 7 Indexing though the articles have typically been about how to disable Windows Indexing or to not include specific directories, etc. Last night I was playing around with Windows 7 Indexing because of an issue I noticed with Microsoft Visio 2007 and one of the things I have noticed is how long it takes to complete the indexing process. Below is information on how to speed up the Windows 7 Indexing process.
Speed Up Windows 7 Indexing:
- Launch Group Policy Editor: Click on the Windows icon in the lower left corner of your PC and type “gpedit.msc” without the quotes into the Search box as shown in the below example.
After typing gpedit.msc you can click Enter or click on the application that displays in the search results as shown in the above image. Once clicked the Group Policy Editor will launch as shown in the below example image.
- Open Windows Search Policies: Now drill down in the tree menu located on the left side of the Local Group Policy Editor by clicking on Administrative Templates underneath Local Computer Policy, then clicking on Windows Components, and then by clicking on Search to display all of the policies related to Windows Indexing as shown in the below example image.
- Disable Indexer Backoff: Now double click on Disable Windows Indexer Backoff to display the Windows Indexer Backoff options as shown in the below image.
Click the Enable radio button followed by Apply in the lower right corner to save the settings as shown in the below example image.
Now the Windows 7 Indexer is not throttled by Windows.
- Reboot Computer: I am not sure if this is required but I went ahead and rebooted and could immediately see a speed difference in how fast Windows 7 was Indexing.
The Windows 7 Indexing should be happening much quicker now. Once it is completed I will be able to see if it has made a difference regarding searching for Visio Shapes.
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You don’t have to reboot if you are in the middle of work and cannot afford to reboot immediately.
However, after making the change to “Disable Indexer Backoff”, you MUST restart the “Windows Search” service for the change to take effect.
A reboot is obviously going to do the same thing.
[Reply]
alex Reply:
April 21st, 2011 at 4:56 PM
Hello BigThunder,
Fair enough! Definitely good advice… I would recommend if you know how to restart services to restart the service as recommended by BigThunder instead of rebooting. If you are not familiar enough then rebooting will be easier however it is much more of a pain to close down all your applications, reboot, wait, etc.
Thanks again for taking the time to note this BigThunder.
Thanks.
alex
[Reply]
It is a great tip when a fast indexing!
However, you don’t to have reboot to apply the policie change. You just need to restart Windows Search.
Steps to restart Windows Search:
1 – Open a Command Line Window (execute CMD.EXE)
2 – Execute the following commands two:
net stop wsearch
net start wsearch
To finish, it important to point out that the policie just reset to NOT CONFIGURE, once the indexing is complete.
Thanks for sharing!
[Reply]
alex Reply:
August 26th, 2011 at 8:13 PM
Hello Julio,
Thanks for sharing the tip on restarting the windows search service! Very useful.
Thanks.
alex
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Thanks for taking the time to post. It’s lifted the level of deatbe
[Reply]
alex Reply:
April 21st, 2012 at 12:41 AM
Hello Millicent,
No problem. Thanks for taking the time to leave feedback.
Thanks.
alex
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Unfortunately, this doesn’t work on Win 7 Home. Too bad!
[Reply]
alex Reply:
December 22nd, 2012 at 4:46 PM
Hello Didi,
Does Windows 7 Home include the same indexing services as the other Windows 7 versions? Even if it does it likely just doesn’t provide an option to disable them as many of the settings controls are not in Windows 7 Home Edition.
Thanks.
alex
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Good one! Just found this, and it solves a long-time problem. Thanks!
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For Home users, we have to disable the backoff through the registry.
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