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With a fast SSD I find that Windows Search indexing is superfluous and even slows certain operations down so I have disabled it.

However, when performing a search with a wide enough scope, Windows displays this banner at the top of the Explorer window:

Searches might be slow in non-indexed locations banner

You can click the X to close it, but it will reappear the next time you do a search.

The only methods I've seen for disabling it are to reinstate Windows Search which I obviously don't want to do.

Is there a registry key or other setting that I can change to modify this behaviour?

Lunatik
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5 Answers5

6

Thanks for the replies. In the end the solution was embarrassingly simple: just right-click on the banner and select 'Never show this again'.

Job done.

Why I didn't think to try that before I don't know.

Lunatik
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Try this : In the registry key
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\InfoBarsDisabled,
set the DWORD value of LocationNotIndexed to 1. Reboot and test.

My best advice, however, is to use third-party utilities for searching, instead of Windows Explorer.

For searching file-names, use the Everything Search Engine, for instant as-you-type searching.

For searching the contents of files, use Agent Ransack, which has many options like regular expressions, as well as a Preview panel for viewing rapidly the found contexts for pinpointing the files that are worth opening. It also installs a shell-hook in Explorer, for invoking on a folder with right-click.

harrymc
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The other answers may not work if you have disabled the "Windows Search" service.

There is still a yellow message appearing, which you cannot disable using right-click. But there is a way to disable it:

  • Go to Control Panel > Folder Options > "Search" tab
  • Check "Don't use the index when searching in file folders for system files (search might take longer)".

(Yeah, the setting seems unrelated... Windows, as usual.)

Gras Double
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Go to Control Panel > Folder Options > "Search" tab Check "Don't use the index when searching in file folders for system files (search might take longer)".

This worked for me and is going to save TB's of disk space across the environment.

Ricky Short
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I believe this registry tweak will fix that for you:

Go to here: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\InfoBarsDisabled

Set this key to the DWORD type with this value: "ServerMSSNotInstalled" DWORD = 00000001

Abraxas
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