Windows 7 is by far the best Windows version to date however depending on the computer that is powering the Windows 7 it can be fairly bulky at times. My personal laptop is running Windows 7 Ultimate 64-Bit and has more than enough power to handle Windows Search however I have an SSD hard drive and in an attempt to preserve the drive as long as possible I decided to turn off Windows Search or the Windows Indexer to cut down on writes to the hard drive itself. Turning Windows Search off is easy in Windows 7 following the directions below.
Disable Windows Search, Disable Windows 7 Indexer:
- Windows 7 Services: Click the Windows Start Menu icon located in the lower left corner of your screen and type “services” into the search box as shown in the below example image.
Select Services, which is the top choice in the example image above, listed underneath Programs in the results that appear. Once you click on Services the Windows 7 Services configuration window will display as shown below.
- Disable Windows Search: Now scroll down the list of Windows Services until you get to Windows Search and then double left click on Windows Search. This will open the Windows Search Properties (Local Computer) configuration window which is displayed below. First click the Stop button to stop the Windows Search process, then click the drop down next to Startup Type and select Disabled, and finally click the Apply button in the lower right corner of the Windows Search Properties(Local Computer) configuration window to save the new settings.
Next time your Windows 7 computer starts the Windows Search service will no longer automatically start with your computer. This should not only cut down on local resources but also cut down on the reads/writes to your local hard drive. If you are interested in cutting down other resources you might look into applications like Google Desktop as well that essentially do the same things which is index everything on your entire hard drive for quicker access.
