In order to search through a hard drive faster, XP keeps a record of all files on the hard drive. It sounds useful, but if you use Windows search tool infrequently, the indexing service just constantly runs in the background without being taken advantage of and used. Indexing can slow down actions as simple as opening or closing files. To disable this service, go to Start > Run and type services.msc. Double click “Indexing Services” and set the startup type to “Disabled”. If you want to search, there is a freeware program called Locate that can index 400GB of data in under 2 minutes and can perform instant searches. File > Update Databases re-indexes all your drives, in case you miss where the indexing option is located. You should only re-index before a search. This way, system resources are used only when you actually need to perform a search.
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