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After using Launchy for many years on XP, I am trying to get the same responsive experience out of search in Windows 7.
Are there any tips for making it a faster, smoother experience?
My hardware is somewhat aging, but I think it should still be performing better than it does.
RedFilter
Posted 2009-09-26T13:08:40.333
Reputation: 506
1
Use launchy in Windows 7 too. It works perfectly fine, and you get the same responsiveness.
anand.trex
Posted 2009-09-26T13:08:40.333
Reputation: 1 552
1
What do instant search results sound like ?
If your hard disk is ntfs, you can use the Everything search engine, and it's free.
harrymc
Posted 2009-09-26T13:08:40.333
Reputation: 306 093
simply the best ... but not really an answer :) – None – 2009-09-26T14:01:04.753
1Just trying to spread the word and save the guy from relying on Windows search alone. – harrymc – 2009-09-26T14:28:20.857
I know about Everything...my question is not about replacing Windows Search, but rather improving it. – RedFilter – 2009-09-26T18:24:13.023
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According to this article, Windows 7 search is a disaster : http://www.osattack.com/windows-7/windows-7-search-sucks/
– harrymc – 2009-09-26T19:49:52.3371
Check your indexing options, if you only index the locations you really need to search things in and disable all the extensions except the one you are looking for then searching will be a lot faster than the default settings.
For example, you can start of with indexing your start menu (thus also .LNK files) and your music folder (thus also .MP3 files), then search for a shortcut or one of your favourite songs, you will notice the difference! Now it's just a mather of adding the locations and extensions of your interests.
Please note that your stuff should be a bit organized, there is no sense in configuring your indexing options if all your files are all over the disk. Your stuff should reside in C:\Users\YourUserName\ to start off with, from there it should be categorized by type (Documents, Music, ...), then by section (Projects, Old, ...) and so on...
In that way you can add your projects to the search while your old stuff doesn't slow down your searching experience, just to show you a bit of organization goes a long way!
If above suggestions don't help you might have one or another process eating up all of your CPU or I/O bandwidth causing your computer to be slow so it won't index and search as fast as it should be supposed to be, nothing wrong with the indexer itself. It goes blazing fast here...
Tamara Wijsman
Posted 2009-09-26T13:08:40.333
Reputation: 54 163
2Running on an older laptop (Dell D610 with !GB memory), search can take 30 seconds or more to locate an application after I type it's full name (e.g., pwsafe.exe). This is with the CPU at 0-5% utilization, and no i/o intensive process occurring. This seems ridiculously slow. – RedFilter – 2010-03-02T15:28:18.227
I ended up going back to Launchy - it is hugely faster, and can keep up with me. – RedFilter – 2010-03-26T11:41:31.403
Yeah, Launchy is going to generally be faster I found. I generally find Start Search to be more than fast enough for me though. And I'm more familiar with microsoft's syntax. – surfasb – 2011-04-11T18:21:18.353
I was also really annoyed with how slow the Windows 7 Start Menu Search was. I just installed launchy and realized how fast searching can be. – Mas – 2011-07-05T14:08:18.983
but can you offer help – Brad – 2009-09-26T15:33:58.967