XP Pro Search

Check and see if you have indexing turned on or off. My XP pro laptop is sitting next to my desk at work...so I can only go from memory, as this is a Vista machine.

Auto indexing is run as a "service" and many of us turn this off because of the resources it wastes if one doesn't do a lot of search. In fact, if indexing is off, it'll do just about like you describe.

Indexing service could also be corrupt. Or..what is that little helper..."fast find"? I've also seen RAM going south cause freaky little drops like this. Again, sorry...going from memory.

Open up windows explorer directly and watch how quickly it populates the directory and file list. Open a directory you know has a bunch in it and see if the hour glass icon pops up. If so then the machine is either building the index list or having trouble accessing it.

Hope this helps a bit... good luck.

Thanks for the tip:

Check and see if you have indexing turned on or off.

Exactly how do I do this please??

Donald

Donald,

Sorry...I've been out playing with the family all day. Easiest way to see what is running is to open the run command line and type in services.msc ...you'll see "indexing service" listed.

Question... Have you recently installed this "brilliant" service pack3? If so.. SP3 could be the problem, it sure wreaked havoc on my machine...several things failed to operate after installing, including the serial port. If you've installed SP3 ...suspect it for any weirdness that has reared up after.

Take a look at Black Viper's site. Good info, whether you use it or not. The archive file is for SP2 but if you have SP3 the link to it is right at the top of the page. On BV's page go down to indexing and click on it...has the instructions and location for checking it ...either services.msc or thru control panel ..add/remove programs. It also tells you what file(s) are required for a service to operate.

http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/Archive/servicecfg.htm

Another valuable resource is this:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/default.aspx

SysInternals has some really good stuff like a "Task Manager" that, unlike the Microsoft version, actually gives you decent info. Lots of very good utilities there if you are of a mind to check.

Hope this helps some. I'll be in my office tomorrow and have my XP machine at hand. If you need feel free to email me and if I can't help one of our IT guys might have a direction you can check.

Good Luck

Try doing a virus and malware scan. They may correct the problem if the problem is caused by a virus. What virus software do you use?

Now Using Trend Micro, which has always worked before...

Donald

It does look like you may be eating up resources somewhere.

I had a similar problem and found that by adding more memory the problem cleared up.

Try using the "Search" button available under each menu-strip.

It can be found on your browser, and on each opened window, that is, unless you typed your active windows to display in the classic manner (If so, go to: Menu-strip / Tools / Folder Oprions / General - Restore Defaults)

This may help in case your Windows Global Search Engine croaks, due to contamination of malware

Try putting the Install CD in the drive and run repair mode. You have some corrupted files that need fixing.

That being said, if that doesn't work, just do a complete re-install of the OS.

Sometimes that is the fastest way to get on with life. Do a Re-do . :-))))