CurlyWhirly Posted October 14, 2005 Report Share Posted October 14, 2005 After reading dagwoood's quote (below) in this thread By default XP installs with indexing running. From what I've read, this used to improve performance on old h/d's, but modern h/d's are faster so they don't need to be indexed. Having indexing running is detrimental to the performance of modern drives.Disable it in your on the drives properties page and you can then disable the service from running via Start > Control Panel > Performance and Maintenance > Administrative Tools > ServicesI was curious enough to post this thread in an attempt to clarify the subject a bit and I felt that a new thread was preferable as if I asked this question in the above thread then it would probably go off topic!When I double-click on 'My Computer' and then right-click on 'Local disk (C:)' and then select 'Properties', I find that the Indexing Service is enabled and even though I had seen this option before, I thought no more of it and so I was surprised to learn that having it enabled is detrimental to the performance of modern drives :o So after deciding to untick the Indexing Service option, I am then taken to this 'Confirm Attribute Changes' screen:My query is which of the 2 options should I select as I haven't done this before and I just wanted to check beforehand so I don't mess things up or does it not matter which option you select?Any advice please. Thanks :flowers: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-pops- Posted October 14, 2005 Report Share Posted October 14, 2005 All my drives are ticked with the second option. (5 hard drives on this machine and two each in my others) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dagwoood Posted October 14, 2005 Report Share Posted October 14, 2005 Hiya CW. As per pops post, you should tick the second option(drive/;folders and subfolders)to kill indexing. You may get a pop up box saying certain file/files couldn't be updated, just select the ignore all button.HTH, dagwoood. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CurlyWhirly Posted October 14, 2005 Author Report Share Posted October 14, 2005 I had the following error message which I assume is what you are referring to above?Anyway I chose to 'Ignore All' and everything seems okay.Just out of curiosity, I wonder why Access was denied?I know what the prefetch files are (they are supposed to speed up XP when it first boots up and also load programs faster), so I assume that this file is read only?Anyway thanks for the advice -pops- and dagwoood :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andsome Posted October 14, 2005 Report Share Posted October 14, 2005 I had the following error message which I assume is what you are referring to above?Anyway I chose to 'Ignore All' and everything seems okay.Just out of curiosity, I wonder why Access was denied?I know what the prefetch files are (they are supposed to speed up XP when it first boots up and also load programs faster), so I assume that this file is read only?Anyway thanks for the advice -pops- and dagwoood :)I have bitten the bullet and done this. Can you all please PM me your address, so that I can come round and break your windows, and kick your cats if anything goes wrong.What difference can I now expect to find on the computer? I only had one warning and that was on a downloaded solitaire game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CurlyWhirly Posted October 14, 2005 Author Report Share Posted October 14, 2005 What difference can I now expect to find on the computer?I don't know really apart from speeding up data transfer a little? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andsome Posted October 14, 2005 Report Share Posted October 14, 2005 It hasn't caught fire yet. What would happen by the way if I put the tick back???? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dagwoood Posted October 14, 2005 Report Share Posted October 14, 2005 It hasn't caught fire yet. What would happen by the way if I put the tick back????Don't know about that andsome, but as to the sort of performance hit you do take by having indexing running, a few months ago I visited PCPitstop after a clean install of XP and ran the full tests. The tests results flagged a problem with the disk and this is when I realised I hadn't turned indexing off. With indexing on, I got a score of 1MB as opposed to 50+MB when the indexing is turned off :blink:I know benchmark scores aren't the be all and end all, but with such a big difference in scores it brought it home to me on how much indexing affects the performance of your hard drive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andsome Posted October 14, 2005 Report Share Posted October 14, 2005 I have to admit that at present things do seem to happening rather sharper. Should I do this to me second hard drive where I store my photo's? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CurlyWhirly Posted October 14, 2005 Author Report Share Posted October 14, 2005 With indexing on, I got a score of 1MB as opposed to 50+MB when the indexing is turned off :blink:I know benchmark scores aren't the be all and end all, but with such a big difference in scores it brought it home to me on how much indexing affects the performance of your hard driveCrikey, that's a terrific difference but I think that in the 'real world', the performance will be a little less as a 50 times performance increase sounds a bit steep to me!I have to admit that at present things do seem to happening rather sharper. Should I do this to me second hard drive where I store my photo's?Andsome, my hard drive certainly seems faster as well.I don't think it would do any harm if you turned it off on your other hard drive as well.As I said before, I had no idea that having the indexing on would cause a performance 'hit' and so I am very glad that I saw dagwoood's comments now! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Posted October 14, 2005 Report Share Posted October 14, 2005 Services > Indexing Service > Disabled :Das well! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CurlyWhirly Posted October 14, 2005 Author Report Share Posted October 14, 2005 Services > Indexing Service > Disabled :Das well!Already done as mentioned in dagwoood's original quote at the start of the thread but thanks for the reminder ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andsome Posted October 15, 2005 Report Share Posted October 15, 2005 Services > Indexing Service > Disabled :Das well!??????????????? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CurlyWhirly Posted October 15, 2005 Author Report Share Posted October 15, 2005 Andsome, go to Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services and then see my screenshot, highlight Indexing Service and disable it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andsome Posted October 15, 2005 Report Share Posted October 15, 2005 I have NO option to disable. It is set to manual. A screen shot will not uplad there must be a problem with this facility Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CurlyWhirly Posted October 15, 2005 Author Report Share Posted October 15, 2005 I have NO option to disable. It is set to manual. A screen shot will not upload there must be a problem with this facilityYes I got the same error message: "The requested file upload failed because suitable permissions have not been enabled on the 'uploads' directory. Please contact the board administrator and inform them of this error"This is why I used Imageshack to host the screenshot for me.Anyway if you right click on the Indexing Service entry and then select Properties you should see a menu as shown in my screenshot.Disabled should now be there? :unsure: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rong Posted October 15, 2005 Report Share Posted October 15, 2005 Ok, why is mine already disabled. No I didn't do it before. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dagwoood Posted October 15, 2005 Report Share Posted October 15, 2005 Crikey, that's a terrific difference but I think that in the 'real world', the performance will be a little less as a 50 times performance increase sounds a bit steep to me!Erm...oops. Sorry if I implied you would get 50 times the performance :blush:.The point I was trying to make was that you do take a performance hit by having indexing running. The PCPitstop test gave me a quantifiable example of indexing impacting on performance, but they(PCPitstop)use an unusual type of test for benchmarking h/d's, and I think that's the reason for such a big difference in my scores. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CurlyWhirly Posted October 15, 2005 Author Report Share Posted October 15, 2005 Erm...oops. Sorry if I implied you would get 50 times the performance :blush:That's okay dagwoood as it was my fault as I read too much into your benchmark test results! ;)Ok, why is mine already disabled. No I didn't do it before.I honestly don't know as by default XP turns this service on :huh:When I checked the service was set to automatic before I disabled it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andsome Posted October 15, 2005 Report Share Posted October 15, 2005 I have NO option to disable. It is set to manual. A screen shot will not upload there must be a problem with this facilityYes I got the same error message: "The requested file upload failed because suitable permissions have not been enabled on the 'uploads' directory. Please contact the board administrator and inform them of this error"This is why I used Imageshack to host the screenshot for me.Anyway if you right click on the Indexing Service entry and then select Properties you should see a menu as shown in my screenshot.Disabled should now be there? :unsure: Done it now thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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