Resolved Indexing and Windows Search & hdd speed

I have used Windows search ever since it got fast---what was that, with Vista? At any rate, I have always heard that you can make your computer go faster if you don't use indexing. I never gave that a second thought, because I use Windows search so much.

Today, I downloaded the latest version of Agent Ransack, and I was stunned at how fast it was.

I'm wondering if I could get away with using just this, and not having Windows 10 index my laptop hard drive.

Would this really speed up the computer any, or is that just some techy urban legend?

FWIW, this new Windows 10 laptop will have an i7 quad core CPU, with 8 gigs of RAM.

 

I would try W10 as it is to see what speed you have before adding software.
You need to have a benchmark. I think my experience so far with speed improvement is to invest in a SSD.
W10 for me flies with SSD's. I changed the HDD to an SSD in my HP Notebook and it operates much faster. Start comp and Laptop and you're operational at Desktop in 15-20 seconds. Neil.

 

Was going to get an SSD with my new laptop, but they told me it would be an extra 300 bucks; and there wasn't any cheaper laptop (with a $700 max) that HP would sell me with an SSD, so I'm stuck with my good ol 5400 rpm hdd. I think I should be ok with it, but the blazing speed of agent ransack---I remember this utility back in teh days of Windows 98, IIRC--made me wonder about eliminating the indexing.

 

Looks like I was wrong. Agent ransack was fast, when searching for a document title. I had it search for text inside a document, and after 30 seconds it still hadn't found anything, whereas Windows search within 5-7 seconds had found dozens of files.

There was an interesting formula for determining if you should turn off indexing, at the top of this article:
http://www.online-tech-tips.com/com...rmace-turn-off-indexing-on-your-local-drives/

According to it, I should keep it on. It sure would give me faster results, when looking for text inside a document, that's for sure.

 

That was [partially] true with XP but each new version Windows got better and better. And really, the problem is with new computers (or fresh Windows installation) and Indexing needed to start over from scratch. But once Indexing completed, performance was not an issue. But often, Indexing was disabled before it had a chance to complete.

W10 is great at putting Indexing way back into the background so it will not hog resources and affect performance when you are using your computer. I am just saying bogging down your computer is not a reason to disable Indexing anymore.

So performance is not a problem today. That said, there are better Search programs that do a better (and faster) job of finding what you are looking for - depending on what you are looking for. But as you noted, YMMV.