Stopping Microsoft Search from eating my hard drive

Question

I have Windows Vista on a machine and I noticed quite a bit of hard drive was disappearing. I ran a utility to show me where it all went. I found the following directory consumes over 2GB of space: C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Search\Data\Applications\Windows.

The Microsoft Search service is now disabled, but I want it removed completely. I see nothing on Add/Remove Programs. Also, will I get blue screens if I delete this directory?

Answer 1

Here's what I had to do:

• open services.msc
• Stop the Windows Search service (I was this far already).
• Rename C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Search\Data\Applications\Windows\Windows.edb
• Start the Windows Search service
• The directory rebuilds Windows.edb (34 MB initial size in my case)
• Open Control Panel / Indexing Options
• Wait a long time for buttons to become enabled
• Click Modify
• Uncheck Users directory or whatever else you don't want indexed (I left Start Menu enabled because it's so small)
• Click Ok
• Stand on your head and count to three while drinking water with a straw. (not sure if this part is necessary but I wanted to try everything I could)

It now says indexing complete with only 800 or so items. Total size of the directory is now just over 48 MB. Pretty large index if you ask me, but better than 2 GB.

Answer 2

Open an administrator command prompt and type

net stop "Windows Search"
del %PROGRAMDATA%\Microsoft\Search\Data\Applications\Windows\Windows.edb
net start "Windows Search"

Repeat when needed.

Answer 3

Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Programs and Features\Turn Windows features on or off/ then unchek windows search

Answer 4

To delete and rebuilt the index :

1. Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Indexing options
2. Click Advanced
3. under Troubleshooting, click rebuilt

You may want to change which folder you wish to include in the index before doing step 3. For that in step 2 instead of clicking Advanced, select Modify

Answer 5

On Windows 10, there is now a menu explicitly for this.

• Open Indexing Options
• Click Modify
• On this new window, you can click on the items in the bottom panel and uncheck their subfolders in the top panel
• Once you are satisfied with your new indexing options, click OK to go back to the previous window
• Click Advanced
• Click Rebuild in the Troobleshooting section

Doing this I managed to cut down from 1.5GB to 10MB by only keeping the Start Menu indexed (I could have kept some document folders too but I wanted to drastically optimize).

Answer 6

If you open the search tool and then click on the "details" drop down on the right hand side (next to the "?" icon) there's a menu called "Search Options..". Open that dialog and you can modify which folders are being indexed.

By removing folders from the Indexed Locations (by clicking on "Modify") the indexer will remove the data associated with these folders thus freeing up your disk space.

Answer 7

Those that wish to keep Windows Search working, but don't want the index file taking up space on the boot drive, can change the location the index is located.

Launch Indexing Options, click Advanced, and - in the Index location panel, populate the New location, after service is restarted to a folder on another disk drive.

You'll have to restart the service (or restart your pc if you find that easier) in order for the change to take place.

Answer 8

I think I actually solved it, at least on my machine. EDGE that blood sucker... turn of sync options in edge browser... it has a feature called sync on all devices that uses your windows login that override everything else :-(