Naboo Wrote:
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> If 4gb is enough then 8gb might be pushing it a
> bit. Plus this thing about indexing, I want to
> speed up my laptop but i dont want to do the
> indexing thing wrong and %@#$ up my OS.
>
> EDIT: Do you read PC Format by any chance?
Who was the last question directed at?
Anyway, You will not need 8gb of RAM, that is serious overkill for a general gaming machine at the moment.
Disabling indexing wont scre your OS up attall, all it will do it make the time you are waiting for when you search for files using longer. Indexing builds up a "catalogue" (the Index) of what files are where on your hard drive, but of course to do this windows neess to lok through all the files and folders on you're indexed drives to build the index in the first place.
What would be a good idea is to go into the Indexing options (enter "Index" in vistas start menu search and "Indexing Options" will appear. From this dialogue you can tell windows which types of file you want to index by specifiying the file extensions that you want to include inside the index. Myself, I very rarely use the search functionality anyway, but when i do it's normally for files that are either documents (like .doc, .docx, .pdf), spreadsheetes (.xls,xlsx or you're open office equivilents), pimages (.bmp,.jpg,png,psp,.psd mostly), and archives (.zip,.rar) and possibly music and videos too (.wmv,.avi,.mp3,.m4a,mv4,.mpg,.mpeg,.mkv) You could include applications too which may be sensible and keep you start menu search speed nice and zippy when you are esearching for programs.
Also, in vistas start menu settings you can specify whether you search for files as well as programs, or just programs (under the start menu tab->Customise). You can also choose if you want to search just your users docs or the entire index (which will obviously be slower), so if you rarely search for documents from the start menu, then disable searching for documents here, else make a choice between searching you're own files or the enitre index.)
It all depends on how you use your machine, and finding a nice balance between search speed, and general system perforamnce with reduced indexing, with how long you can wait for the search results. Most people will probably prefer a slightly quicker system overall and wait a few seconds longer when searching, but thats not for everyone.
And as gav said, Vistas indexing is pretty good anywya, even at the default settings, and if you start using you're machine it will calm down and pause the indexing process.
Hope this helps a bit,
Thanks.
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