Disable Indexing Service? (WXP-Pro)

[jmagecko]

What is the impact of these errors as pertains to completely stopping the indexing service?
Will indexing be terminated, or is additional action required to prevent indexing completely?
(The cidaemon and cisvc indexing processes are still present after this action and a reboot)

I've never addressed the indexing service, mostly because it doesn't seem like a big resource hog for most of the time. But I was curious, so I set out to disable it and do some comparisons.

C: is the only NTFS volume on my computer.

So, going to C: disk properties, I elected to uncheck the "allow indexing service to..."

I performed this for c:\ and all subfolders and files. Overall, there were hundreds of files that were handled by this action.

But, during the operation, there were dozens of ".pf" files that prompted the following error message. I tried to "ignore" them individually, but there were so many I eventually used the "ignore all" button.

--------------------------------
"An error occured applying attributes to
(filename~.pf)
Access is denied"

(ignore) (ignore all) (retry) ... (cancel)
--------------------------------

As far as I could tell, the ".pf" files I saw were associated with valid applications.

But if access to change the attribute was denied, won't the index service continue to function for these files?

Here are a few examples of the files that had to be "ignored". They are typed EXACTLY as shown in the error window. Note the differences in the way the "...\" and "\...\" are listed:

C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch\7ZG.EXE-35456588.pf
C:\WINDOWS...\ACRORD32.EXE-13285B88.pf
C:\WINDOWS\...\AD-AWARE.EXE-22286A16.pf
C:\WINDOWS...\AUPDATE.EXE-2253CB60.pf

[Brf]

Those are prefetch files. I wouldnt worry about those. They are preloaded copies of running programs.

Personally, I have turned off indexing completely on my servers, except for one which hosted an Intranet search program.

[tom_keefer]

It's safe to disable the Indexing Service. It has no dependencies.

<font color=purple>Tom</font color=purple>


XP Pro SP2 - Intel D925XCV - P4 2.8 GHz, 800MHz FSB, 1MB L2 Cache, HTT, socket 775 - WD 36GB SATA - WD 250GB USB2 HD - 2GB Crucial DDR2 PC2-4200 - Plextor 716A - Chaintech NVIDIA GeForce 6600GT -Samsung 19" LCD -

[jmagecko]

I've just verified that (apparently) as a result of the "errors" I reported in my initial post, the indexing service was NOT disabled when I unchecked the "properties" check box for indexing.

Even now, that box is blank, indicating that the indexing service on my C: disk should NOT be operating, yet it is. The cidaemon and other support processes still kick in on a regular basis and do their thing.

Something in addition to unchecking this box must be required, but is not clearly identified as a co-dependency.

Knowing that Indexing services also appear in administrator controls, I then went to ControlPanel/AdministrativeTools/Services/IndexingServices

and manually stopped the service, then set it to "disabled". We'll see if that takes care of it once and for all.

I think unchecking the enable box SHOULD have taken care of this. It's pretty clear on what it says it's supposed to control...it's just as with many MS routines, doesn't do it that way.


(you can also get there directly via run/services.msc)

[jmagecko]

Well, that did it. The combination of those actions finally disabled the indexing service.

BTW, all this left about 5MB of *.pf files on the C: disk, which can be safely manually deleted, right?

"pf" files get re-created if indexing service is re-enabled?

[Brf]

Yes. You would have to stop the service. Unchecking the box only stops it for the selected files or directories.

[jmagecko]

See, that's the thing. I unchecked the box for C: root and all subfolders...and it's the only NTFS drive on the computer...so theoretically, all indexing should have been disabled.

But, as I suspected, the non-error "errors" I encountered prevented the op from actually being 100% effective. Unchecking the indexing enable box for the C: root folder and all sub-folders should have been enough. Since it wasn't, that box should not have been "cleared" the next time I looked at it...but it was. It was falsely indicating indexing service was disabled and that there was nothing further to do. The fact that I subsequently had to go into "services" and manually terminate and disable the indexing service at that level shows the added work was necessary.

[Brf]

Well... taking away a service's tasks is not the same thing as shutting it down completely...

Just like taking away an employee's duties doesnt prevent him from coming to work and sitting at his desk doing nothing all day.... you need to fire him, to make him stay home.

The only sure way to keep a service from running is to disable it in Services, as you found out for yourself.