I don’t know about you, but I use and abuse my computer until it can barely perform, and then I still refuse to reboot the thing. Because of this, after the computer has been on for about a month or so, you begin to notice all the processes that take up resources and try to optimize the resources to cut down on memory leaks. I mean, if it isn’t for the memory leak, the computer can stay on for years instead of months. The one thing that always bothered me was SearchIndexer.exe and why it always consumed so much RAM. This morning, I check and it is taking 400k of memory.
Why?
I’m glad you asked. The reason being is that SearchIndexer is Windows Desktop Search utility that is supposed to perform better than Google Desktop. Due to my huge email size and amount of emails I receive, it takes up a lot of resources to index it and perform faster searches.
Lets think about that for a second. The Windows Desktop Search is supposed to make my searches and windows experience better, by making my computer run slower? This just cannot be the Microsoft way. Once I realized what this utility does and how it is not appropriate for my usage (I may use the search utility 1 or 2 times a year, if I’m lucky) I decided to give it the axe.
Here are the directions on how to remove the Windows Desktop Search
Go to add/remove utilities
Remove Windows Desktop Search
The end…simple right? Oh Microsoft and their silly ways. To be fair, I hate google desktop too. I don’t know why people can’t just remember where they put their documents or emails… 
April 7th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
I have thousands of data files spread across several hard drives and a 2gig OST outlook inbox on my pc.. I use wds all the time and appreciate it’s ability to find pieces of data.
If you want to use search and find data, you have to give up a little ram and processing to rebuild the index.. jeanne doesn’t just fold her arms and blink and voila it’s found!
You’re probably the same person who complains about resturant service and cuts in line on the freeway onramp..
April 7th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
Doug,
I started my post with, I never use the windows desktop search therefore, do not need to have the thing sucking the life of my computer. You use it, great for you. I wouldn’t advise you to get rid of it then.
The point being is, I DON’T want to use search and find data! I only store documents in a few locations and don’t really to search for anything.
The end, if you use it, keep it. If you don’t use it (like me) get rid of the fucking thing because it is a memory whore. My computer has ran much better since it has been gone!
April 7th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
my apologies.. it get it now.. you are entirely right. I now feel like an idiot.
My searchindexer service was at 10mb!
April 7th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
Yeah, it may have also been an issue that has been fixed in a windows service pack as well. I only apply the hotfixes that deal with security issues and I hate doing it because it interferes with my up time!
April 10th, 2009 at 8:52 pm
I was just searching for some information on this topic and found your page. With Vista running my SearchIndexer.exe is taking up a little over 100 MB I also never use it. So wasteful.
July 10th, 2009 at 5:46 am
i run Windows XP Home Edition 5.1 and can not find searchindexer.exe in my processes nor is it anwhere in my add/remove windows components.
perhaps a patch took care of it or maybe its been renamed? i see a services.exe but it’s running like 2,500k in the background.
any suggestions? i severely dislike memory hogs.
thanks
August 12th, 2010 at 1:56 pm
Hi,
I know this is an old post, but for future visitors who come across it like I did, I offer this suggestion…
If you don’t use the functionality, but are shy about uninstalling it because you may want it back (and don’t have the Windows CD handy or whatever), you can simply disable it. Here’s how…
1) Open the Services panel:
Start -> Control Panel -> Administrative
Tools -> Services
a) To turn Search off immediately, from the Services window, right-click ‘Windows Search’ and left-click ‘Stop’.
b) To prevent it from running again:
Right-click ‘Windows Search’
Left-click ‘Properties’
Change the ‘Startup Type’ to ‘Disabled’
Click OK
2) Close all the windows you just opened
Regards,
David
October 6th, 2010 at 3:50 pm
I disabled Indexing service through the control panel. Unfortunately, Outlook Express periodically restarts the service if it’s not already running (regardless of the Administrator settings in control panel). I decided to let it keep running to see just how poorly this thing performs. With Firefox and Outlook being the only other user applications running, total CPU usage seems to have stabilized around for 30%: acceptable. Memory usage for searchindexer.exe increased at roughly 50KB/sec, peaked at ~634 MB and then dropped back down to ~49 MB where it seems to have stabilized. The main pst file for Outlook is about 665 MB, so I’m assuming this service will load the entire file (or most of it) into memory to index it. Is it really that difficult to explode data or archive files into smaller more manageable files in a temp location for indexing so that the entire file does not have to be loaded into memory?
December 8th, 2010 at 9:57 am
I have the same issue as coex. I just restarted Outlook, and Indexer kicks off and uses over 400MB of ram, then it drops down (out of site in my top uses, but I am a power-user at work).
You can disable this in Outlook options btw, i choose not to because search in Outlook it pointless without it, as then it isn’t an indexed search, it manually chuggs through the .pst file at about 1 email a second (if you have 100,000 emails, you do the math)
This is a real pain if you kick off outlook while waiting for some code to compile (eg arm compiler is using 1GB at the moment). Page file size was up to 2.5GB for a bit there.. ugh.
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