13CentKiller's Help & Tutorials

[13CentKiller]

Improving Windows XP System performance

About:
Windows XP and Windows Vista operating systems both use indexing services to make for faster file searches.
The service uses up extra memory and a decent amount of CPU usage if your doing something CPU intensive (Freelancer maybe?:P or PhotoShop CS3) If you use the search function often, then it may be worth your while to keep it enabled. But for those who know their PC back to front, this could increase the speed of your computer considerably, varying from computer to computer.:)

Information:
The tutorial will show you how to switch this annoying indexing service off. You can switch it back on in the future, if you discover you need the search function more than you thought. May not be worth the hassle if you have sufficient memory (1GB+)

How to:

-Make sure you are on your desktop. Close any other programs you may have open, and follow the steps bellow.

1. Click START.
2. Click RUN in the right hand pane in the start menu.
3. In the RUN box, type msconfig This will bring up the system configuration utility application.
4. Click the SERVICES tab, at the top of the window.
5. In the list there is a service by the name of either Indexing Service or Windows Indexing Service depending on your service pack.
6. Disable that service by un-checking the service check-box. Click apply and OK to save the settings. Windows will probably inform you that you have changed settings. Check the tick-box that reads: "Never show this message again"
7. Reboot your Computer.
8. On Windows log-in, the message you said to turn off may show up again. Tick the box that reads "Never show this message again" and it should never come back.

Your done!

This should free your system memory up, and increase the speed of select applications. It will mostly affect explorer.exe and other Windows based applications. If you have a lot of memory, you may not notice the effects of switching the service off. If you have a fully loaded system with 256MB of RAM, you probably will. increased CPU usage during gaming can effect frame rate. So disabling this on a low end machine may just improve game performace!:D

IMPORTANT:
Switching Windows Indexing service off will slow any search you do on your hard drive down considerably. It will effect bigger drives more than smaller ones.

Enjoy!

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"Three o'clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do."