Indexing Service, also known as Windows Search - keep it enabled or disabled?

[BenYeeHua]

P.S. Yes, disabling services, even for short periods, is not advised. Services not doing anything won't interfere with anything, and won't be using any perceptible amount of system resources (that's why the virtual memory manager pages out unused pages, even if you have plenty of RAM). Services that ARE doing something are active for a reason. Services that would interfere with applications are set to run on idle, and have low CPU and I/O priorities. It's definitely not something you would ever gain a single FPS from, but is a good way for people to screw up their OS configurations, leading to all sorts of bizarre problems down the road.

Yes, except you are doing some extreme overclock, and wanna shutdown/kill every threads that will affecting the result.
But, the services that should be pause when gaming is Windows Search, it affect some performance for HDD users, but not SSD users.

[Jeremy Collake]

It's a matter of debate. The Windows Search service is designed to not interfere with running applications, doing most all its work on idle. It also has the most overhead when it's first building its indexes. From there, it only activates when parts of the file system it monitors are changed.

*After* the initial index build, I haven't seen a case where it is interfering. Maybe it does in some circumstances, though nobody has ever demonstrated it, as far as I know. It's more of a 'maybe it might' thing.

[BenYeeHua]

It's a matter of debate. The Windows Search service is designed to not interfere with running applications, doing most all its work on idle. It also has the most overhead when it's first building its indexes. From there, it only activates when parts of the file system it monitors are changed.

*After* the initial index build, I haven't seen a case where it is interfering. Maybe it does in some circumstances, though nobody has ever demonstrated it, as far as I know. It's more of a 'maybe it might' thing.

Yes, a good example, PlanetSide 2.
It is writing the map cache inside the "My Picture".

And yes, when Idle it is running with full speed, but when normal use, it also running with slower speed, but still affecting some as HDD has the seek-time.

[Jeremy Collake]

Yes, a good example, PlanetSide 2.
It is writing the map cache inside the "My Picture".

In that case, best to disable indexing for that folder. However, if people want to pause that service, I suppose there's no great harm, so long as they resume it.

[BenYeeHua]

In that case, best to disable indexing for that folder. However, if people want to pause that service, I suppose there's no great harm, so long as they resume it.

Yes, and there are still many people disable the index/service.
Because this is what "10+ ways to optimize the windows" call them to do that.
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Maybe they need to watch what windows doing when they don't disable the service.

[edkiefer]

Yes, indexing is very configurable , just set the folders you want and don't want .

[BenYeeHua]

Yes, indexing is very configurable , just set the folders you want and don't want .

Yes, I don't want spam the search with so~ many Program File dll.