How to disable the Windows search indexer ?

Windows periodically builds an index for faster file searching. This is done in the background, and at a low priority, however it can cause high CPU utilization at times. It is sometimes useful to turn off the search indexer to speed up your machine and reduce the load on the CPU and hard drive. It can be disabled by following the steps below:

1. Click Start, choose Control Panel > System and Maintenance > Administrative tools
2. Double-click Services (if asked for permission, click "Continue")
3. Scroll through the list and find "Windows Search"
4. Right-click Windows Search, choose "Properties", click "Stop"
5. Click the dropdown box next to Startup Type, set it to "Disabled", click OK


Notes:
Indexer is shown in the Task Manager as a "Microsoft Windows Search Filter Host", if you see high CPU usage, or high IO just turn it off.
You can turn off indexing of specific hard drives from Windows Explorer: navigate to "This PC" > right-click on the hard drive letter > choose properties, turn off "Allow files on this drive to have contents indexed"