Folders, Search, and Indexing for Windows Vista - Indexing Options

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Configure and customize the index for searching.

To open

Control Panel -> System and Maintenance] -> Indexing Options

Windows Explorer -> Search Tools -> Modify Index Locations (the Search Tools icon appears when you type text into the Search box, but it is otherwise invisible)

Description

The Indexing Options screen (Figure 4-14) shows you what folders are included in your index and lets you add or remove folders. The index is used to speed up searches in Windows Vista.

Figure 4-14.  The Indexing Options screen, where you set your indexing options

Indexing Options

The Advanced button leads to two tabs: Index Settings and File Types. The Index Settings tab (Figure 4-15) lets you index encrypted files, control how accented characters are treated, rebuild the index, and change the location of the index. It also lets you tell the index how to handle two words that are otherwise identical, except that one has an accent mark (known as a diacritic) and the other doesn't. You can tell the index to treat them as separate words or as the same word (the default). The File Types button lets you set which file types should be indexed, and choose for each file type whether the contents and properties of the file should be indexed, or just the properties.

Figure 4-15.  The Advanced button, where you set advanced indexing options

To remove existing folders or to add new folders, from the Indexing Options screen choose Modify -> Show all locations. Then expand the drives you see. Folders with checkboxes are included in the index; those without checkboxes are not included. Check or uncheck the checkboxes as appropriate.

Notes

1. File properties include not only filenames, but also tags, such as date created, date modified, and so on.
   
2. If you discover that when you search, you're not finding files that you know are in your index, the index may have been damaged. To solve the problem you'll need to rebuild the index. Select Advanced -> Index Settings -> Rebuild.

See also

"Search"

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