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Customizing Search Behavior
Overview
To find files efficiently, it's important to be able to customize how your searching system behaves. You may want to restrict searching to certain drives or folders, or you may want to hide certain files so that they don't display in search results.
In addition, both Mac OS X and Windows XP rely on the process of indexing to deliver accurate, up-to-date search results. Because indexing uses processor power and can initially take an extended period of time, both operating systems give you some amount of control over how indexing functions.
Mac OS X
When you first install Mac OS X, Spotlight performs an initial indexing of your entire computer and any connected volumes. The amount of time the initial indexing period takes primarily depends on two factors: the number of files that need to be indexed, and the processing power of the computer. Because of this, indexing can take anywhere from a few minutes to a matter of hours. The Spotlight icon in the menu bar will "pulse" while indexing is under way, and the global Spotlight search field will display a progress bar with the estimated time remaining until indexing will be complete.
Once the initial indexing is complete, Spotlight will continue to monitor your computer, updating the index as new files are added and/or existing ones are modified. This happens "on-the-fly" and has no noticeable effect on system performance. Since some volumes can be removed, Spotlight will need to re-index those volumes when they are reattached.
You can control how Spotlight's indexing and searching behaves via its preference pane in System Preferences, or by clicking Spotlight Preferences at the bottom of the Spotlight menu (once a search is performed). Settings you can configure consist of:
Items that appear in your search results: You can check/uncheck the various items on your computer that Spotlight indexes and searches. For example, if you don't want your email messages to appear in any of your search results, simply uncheck "Mail Messages" in the list of available items.
Customize the kinds of files that display in your search resultsIn addition, you can drag-reorder the categories listed here to change the order in which they display in the Spotlight menu's results. If you tend to search for email messages and contacts, for example, you can drag those categories to the top of the list so that they will always display first in your search results.
Locations not to search: By default, Spotlight automatically indexes the complete contents of your hard drive and any connected volumes. However, you may prefer to restrict some files from displaying in your search results for privacy reasons. If so, click the Privacy tab, then click the plus button at the bottom of the window to add a new private location.
Although you cannot specify privacy settings on an individual file basis, you can add folders, hard drives, or connected volumes to this list. Any files located within these specified locations will not appear in any search results.
Note: By reducing the number of locations that Spotlight monitors, you can speed up the initial indexing period as well as any searches.
Once you make any changes, your settings are updated instantly. All current and saved searches (smart folders) will reflect these new settings.
Windows XP
Built-in Search
Windows XP uses its built-in indexing service to index your hard drive's contents. Like on Mac OS X, indexing can be processor-intensive, and the amount of time that the initial indexing takes will depend on the number of files being indexed and the speed of the computer. Because XP indexes your hard drive at regular intervals, search results will only be as accurate as the last index, which will not necessarily coincide with the last change on the hard drive (so it's possible that newly-created files won't initially display in search results, or deleted files may continue displaying even though they no longer exist).
XP lacks the ability to restrict certain locations from indexing, as well as specifying the types of items that will appear in search results.
Windows Desktop Search
WDS' indexing is considerably faster than XP's built-in indexing system. Like Spotlight, there is an initial indexing that must be performed after WDS is installed, and the amount of time this takes will again depend on the number of files being indexed and the speed of the computer. While indexing is in progress, WDS' system tray icon will "pulse" to denote that it is busy.
By default, WDS will index your email messages and any files that are located in your My Documents folder. Like Spotlight, you can add and remove additional search locations to restrict your search results to certain files, as well as speed up any indexing and searching.
In addition to being able to index many more types of files than XP's built-in search, WDS is also much "smarter" about how it indexes. For instance, it will pause whenever you are working with the computer, so that the indexing process won't use up resources that you need to get your work done. If paused, indexing will resume after 15 minutes of inactivity.
Assuming that the computer is not busy, WDS will update its index "on-the-fly," so that searches will reflect filesystem changes instantly.
Conclusion
Spotlight gives the user many more options to customize search behavior than XP's built-in search, though it is on par with WDS. Spotlight and WDS both let the user specify locations to index (and not index), and both feature "on-the-fly" indexing that will update searches with filesystem changes (such as creating or modifying files) as they happen.
Apple chose to have Spotlight initially index the computer's entire hard drive by default, while Microsoft has set WDS to index only email messages and files in the "My Documents" folder by default. Thus, Spotlight's default settings result in a longer initial indexing period, though its search results will be more inclusive than WDS' once indexing is complete.
Mac OS X: 8
Windows XP: 5 (8)
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