Windows 7 provides some decent Search Indexing options. If you optimize this correctly, you can improve the search performance within Windows 7. By indexing locations, Windows is able to quickly search and return results. If you don’t have the locations indexed, the searching can be very slow, especially if you have a lot of files.

For some users, the Search Indexing may not be required. If this is the case and you don’t use the search feature often, it is probably worthwhile turning off indexing. The indexing process can consume resources and slow down your computer. So if you find this happening, you can disable the indexing via the services section of the control panel.

However, if you want fast searches, make sure you have it turned on. The service is highlighted in the screenshot below.

Search Indexing Options

Controlling the Indexing Options in Windows is a good idea, because you probably don’t want to include certain locations in your search. By limiting the indexed files, the search indexing process will run faster and won’t slow down your computer as much while indexing.

To access the indexing options, click the “Indexing Options” icon in the control panel. This will bring up the following screen.

You can then select/deselect locations by clicking the “Modify” button. Here you simply check the boxes next to locations that you want to include in the indexing.

The “Advanced” button will allow you to do things like rebuild the index, set the index location and control file types etc. The advanced options window is below:

You can also control what to index for certain file types. So you might want to index properties only, or you can index properties and file contents for certain file types.

The Windows indexing options allows you to have a lot of control over your searching, check it out.