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Windows 10 Search Index



So far we learned all about how to search your computer in different ways. If you haven’t seen these articles or videos. Be sure to check them out, I showed how to search through File Explorer and through the taskbar search. But today we are going to focus on customizing search results and how we can change things around.


What is the search index? The search index gets to work as soon as you started your computer the first time, it’s not searching when you type in a search. Windows begins to search your computer as soon as you turn in on and is constantly updating what is called the index of your computer.

It not only saves the name of files, but it will also index the contents within some files. I say some files as it doesn’t do it to all files, and this can be customized within the index settings as we will cover here.


But first, let's take a look at folder options search settings. You can get to these settings by opening up the file explorer, selecting View, then selecting the folder options. There you want to select the search tab as pictured below:

Windows Search





We have a couple of options here that we can customize:


Don’t use the index when searching in file folders for system files(searches might take longer): This will not allow the system files to be indexed in the system. This is handy if you know that system files are changing constantly. It is not recommended to check this box if you don’t have a reason for it.


Include System Directories: This will allow you to search through system files themselves. I leave this checked because sometimes I do need to search within these files.


Include Compressed files: Normally windows will not include zipped files in the index. But if you would like windows to include these files, check this option.


Always search file names and contents (this might take several minutes): Normally Windows is pretty good about knowing which file types they should index the contents of. But with this check, it will always check the contents of a file.


This about wraps up the search options from the file explorer. Let’s go ahead and look at some of the indexing options we have.

Indexing options


Windows has another location where it does all of its major indexing on the computer. This is the indexing options pane. You can find it by just searching on the taskbar for indexing options and clicking the option that pops up.


You will be presented with a window that looks like this:


Windows Indexing



In this window, you can see all the included index locations that have already bet set by default. You can add or remove these locations by clicking the modify button and checking and unchecking the locations that are being indexed. Once you have made your selections, just click ok and it will be saved.


We also have the advanced button that will give us more options as shown below:


Windows Indexing Advanced Options



Under Index Settings we have:


Index encrypted files: this will allow the index to index encrypted files that are on your computer and allow people to search for these also.


Treat similar words with diacritics as different words: normally the index doesn’t mark words with diacritics as different words. If you select this option. It will.


Rebuild button: if you’re ever having issues with your search not finding something and not acting correctly. This button will rebuild the whole index again to help solve the problem.


Select new: this will allow you to change the location of the database that holds the index. If you don’t want it to save to the default location, you can use this option to change the location of the database.


Under the file types tab: This will allow you to change the different file types that are indexed and how Windows indexes them files. If you have a weird file type Windows doesn’t know about you simply type in the file type and hit add. You can also choose if a certain file type contents should be indexed by checking the file type and selecting Index properties and File contents.


This about sums up everything you would like to know about search Indexing. It was a long article, but I hope you find it helpful in your quest to master Windows 10.


If you’re looking for any Tech Support in the Middleton and Madison Wi area. Take a look at some of the services I offer:


http://sinntechnologies.net/ComputerRepairMiddletonWI


Remote support is available also!
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