Rebuilding the Search Index
You may occasionally find yourself wanting to rebuild the search index (e.g., if it's very large and you remove a big chunk of indexes, or if it gets corrupt). To rebuild the search index, follow these steps:
- In the Search box, type "index" (without the quotes) and press Enter. Windows displays the Indexing Options dialog box. (See Figure 1.)
Figure 1. The Indexing Options dialog box.
- Click the Advanced button. Windows displays the Advanced Options dialog box.
- Make sure the Index Settings tab is displayed. (See Figure 2.)
Figure 2. The Index Settings tab of the Advanced Options dialog box.
- Click the Rebuild button. Windows asks you if you are sure you want to perform the action.
- Click OK to start the rebuild.
- Close any open dialog boxes.
The work involved in rebuilding a search index is done behind the scenes and could take a while to complete. While Windows is rebuilding, you can work with other programs just fine, but you won't be able to do a search and get any meaningful results.
Author Bio
Barry Dysert
Barry has been a computer professional for over 35 years, working in different positions such as technical team leader, project manager, and software developer. He is currently a software engineer with an emphasis on developing custom applications under Microsoft Windows. When not working with Windows or writing Tips, Barry is an amateur writer. His first non-fiction book is titled "A Chronological Commentary of Revelation." Learn more about Barry...
Using the Narrator
The Narrator is an accessibility feature designed for people who have trouble reading text that's on the screen. Turning ...
Discover More
Displaying All the Files in a Folder using the Command Prompt
Displaying all the files a folder contains is an easy task in Windows. One way you can display the files is using command ...
Discover More
Controlling the Mouse Pointer Speed
One of the personalization settings you can control is how fast the cursor moves when you move your mouse. You can ...
Discover More
Creating a System Repair Disk on a USB Flash Drive
Having a system repair disk is almost as important as doing regular backups. CDs and DVDs, though, tend to get scratched ...
Discover More
Opening a File with a Program Other than the Default
Windows determines a program to use with a particular file based on the file's type. If you want to temporarily override ...
Discover More
Creating a List of Files in a Directory
Do you need a list of all the files in a directory? It's easy to create if you use the proper command-line commands.
Discover More
This tip (12936) applies to Windows 7, 8, and 10.
Comments