I'd like to set this time for the middle of the night so it doesn't impact daytime performance. I can't seem to find a way to set the time it rebuilds the index. Please advise. Thanks

Open "Indexing Options" in the control panel. If it says "Indexing complete." then running it as a scheduled task won'tdo anything.If on the other had you had large quantities of changedfiles then perhaps there is a good reason to run the task on a schedule.If you click on the 'Advanced' button then click on 'Rebuild' to delete and rebuild your index, you can take a look at the process information for the indexing process once the indexing program runs.From the task manager select 'View': 'Select Columns..' and check 'command Line'.From there you might be able to see how to run the task so your indexrebuilds every night. I don't want to test it out myself, as I don't want to rebuild my index.From what I understand, indexing will take place when the computer is idle, no need to have it scheduled to run, and you usually want an up to date index as you work on your computer modifying files.You can Pause indexing for 15 minutes at a time using the 'Indexing Options'.

It does not seem to be waiting until the system is idle....hence, my inquiry. Yes, i was aware of the pause option. Any one else have ideas on this?

Which Indexer are you talking about? Windows Search Indexer or the old version of search that you can turn on in the "Turn Windows features on or off" that is used for backward compatibility?You can use the command "net stop "windows search"' to stop windows indexing.You can probably put that command in a batch file and run it at night to start windows indexing in a scheduled task.(change stop to start)

the one which can be found at control panel, then indexing options. i'm not interested in writing a batch file. MS seriously didn't think people would want to schedule indexing (ie heavy cpu usage and disk noise) around when they would be off their machines? That seems like a non brainer to me... Disappointed...

Hello Craigs1969, The index will often run (indexing) automatically in the background to rebuild and update for changes made to the included index locations since the last index rebuild to increase search result accuracy.By default, the indexing speed is reduced due to user activity. If the computer is running idle, then the indexing speed will be at full speed instead to finish indexing faster; so there is no need to worry about the computers performance. Thanks for your time and understanding! Hope to continue supporting Microsoft! Andy

You can schedule a task to start the indexer.Create a new task using 'Task Scheduler' in 'Control Panel' |'Administrative Tools'.In the Program/script: section type in 'net' and in the Add arguments (optional): type in 'start "windows search"'. Windows search is enclosed by quotes.After you create the scheduled task, edit it andin the General tab check 'Run with highest privileges'.Then indexing will run at the scheduled time.

thanks