Indexing Service (originally called Index Server) was a

Windows service In Windows NT operating systems, a Windows service is a computer program that operates in the background. It is similar in concept to a Unix daemon. A Windows service must conform to the interface rules and protocols of the Service Control Manager ...

that maintained an index of most of the files on a computer to improve searching performance on PCs and corporate

computer network A computer network is a set of computers sharing resources located on or provided by network nodes. The computers use common communication protocols over digital interconnections to communicate with each other. These interconnections are ...

s. It updated indexes without user intervention. In

Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...

it was replaced by the newer

Windows Search Windows Search (also known as Instant Search) is a content index desktop search platform by Microsoft introduced in Windows Vista as a replacement for both the previous Indexing Service of Windows 2000 and the optional MSN Desktop Search for Wind ...

Indexer. The

IFilter An IFilter is a plugin that allows Microsoft's search engines to index various file formats (as documents, email attachments, database records, audio metadata etc.) so that they become searchable. Without an appropriate IFilter, contents of a file ...

plugins to extend the indexing capabilities to more file formats and protocols are compatible between the legacy Indexing Service how and the newer Windows Search Indexer.

History

Indexing Service was a

desktop search Desktop search tools search within a user's own computer files as opposed to searching the Internet. These tools are designed to find information on the user's PC, including web browser history, e-mail archives, text documents, sound files, images ...

service included with Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack as well as

Windows 2000 Windows 2000 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It was the direct successor to Windows NT 4.0, and was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), releas ...

and later. The first incarnation of the indexing service was shipped in August 1996 as a content search system for Microsoft's web server software,

Internet Information Services Internet Information Services (IIS-pronounced 2S, formerly Internet Information Server) is an extensible web server software created by Microsoft for use with the Windows NT family. IIS supports HTTP, HTTP/2, HTTPS, FTP, FTPS, SMTP and NNTP. ...

. Its origins, however, date further back to Microsoft's Cairo operating system project, with the component serving as the Content Indexer for the Object File System. Cairo was eventually shelved, but the content indexing capabilities would go on to be included as a standard component of later Windows desktop and server operating systems, starting with

, which includes Indexing Service 3.0. In

, the content indexer was replaced with the

indexer which was enabled by default. Indexing Service is still included with Windows Server 2008 but is not installed or running by default. Indexing Service has been deprecated in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. It has been removed from

Windows 8 Windows 8 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012; it was subsequently made available for downl ...

Search interfaces

Comprehensive searching is available after initial building of the index, which can take up to hours or days, depending on the size of the specified directories, the speed of the hard drive, user activity, indexer settings and other factors. Searching using Indexing service works also on UNC paths and/or mapped network drives if the sharing server indexes appropriate directory and is aware of its sharing. Once the indexing service has been turned on and has built its index it can be searched in three ways. The search option available from the

Start menu The Start menu is a graphical user interface element used in Microsoft Windows since Windows 95 and in other operating systems. It provides a central launching point for computer programs and performing other tasks in the Windows shell. It is name ...

on the

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

Taskbar A taskbar is an element of a graphical user interface which has various purposes. It typically shows which programs are currently running. The specific design and layout of the taskbar varies between individual operating systems, but generally a ...

will use the indexing service if it is enabled and will even accept complex queries. Queries can also be performed using either the ''Indexing Service Query Form'' in the Computer Management snap-in of Microsoft Management Console, or, alternatively, using third-party applications such as 'Aim at File' or 'Grokker Desktop'.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Indexing Service Windows communication and services

Desktop search engines A desktop traditionally refers to: * The surface of a desk (often to distinguish office appliances that fit on a desk, such as photocopiers and printers, from larger equipment covering its own area on the floor) Desktop may refer to various compu ...

Information retrieval systems Windows components