SASANK@TECHNOMANIA

sharethis: The Windows Indexing Service is a service that is designed to index all of the files on your computer into a database. Your computer can then search through all of your files faster. The idea behind the service is great; it will drastically cut down on the amount of time that is needed to search your hard drive. Although this is a great benefit, you have to consider the downside of this feature. In order to create a database of files, the service has to continuously monitor the files on your computer and import basic file details into its database when new files are found. The monitoring is not always done in real time, but at times you will notice it running. The most common symptom of this service working is when you are reading something on your computer and all of a sudden your hard drive starts making a lot of noise as if itis working really hard. That is because it is working hard to update the Indexing Service’sdatabase.Just like any other service that starts up when the system does, the Indexing Service takes up memory—quite a bit of memory compared to other services. In fact, the service takes up exactly 4364KB of memory when the service first starts up on your computer. Eventually, about30 seconds after the service has started, the amount of memory used decreases to 306KB. This is Indexing Service Properties.Looks good, but after you use your computer for a little while, the memory usage will start to creep up again. On average, the service takes up about 1316KB of memory.When the service is idle on your computer, it is just taking up memory. Also, it is running at the lowest CPU priority, so you can be sure that it won’t interfere with other applications very much at all.Personally, I rarely use the Search feature of Windows XP and would much rather disable the Indexing Service and take the performance hit the one time every few months that I actually do need to search for a file. In return, I get more free memory space that can be used for moreuseful services and applications. Follow these steps if you rarely search for files and would like some more free memory:
1. Click the Start Menu and select Run. Then key in services.msc in the box and click OK.
2. This will start up the Services snap-in control, where you can manage all of the services on the system. Look for the Indexing Service on the list, right-click it, and selectProperties.
3. Once you see Indexing Service Properties, click the Stop button, if the service is already running. Then, click the Startup Type drop-down box and select Disabled.
4. Click the OK button and you are finished! Now you don’t have to worry about the Indexing Service using any more of your memory.

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