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Someone installed Windows Search on my computer and I hate it. I refuse to spend time setting up the indexer. I just want it gone!

Does anyone know how I can remove it and its indexer from my computer, or at least get Windows Explorer to default to using the Search Companion like it used to.

It pisses me off to no end to have bring up an extra search window to do a search.

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Please could someone remove the last sentence. Thanks. – Diago Jul 30 '09 at 21:51
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4 Answers

up vote 3 down vote accepted

You should be able to head over to Add/Remove programs and remove it that way. As Diago mentions below, you may have to show the hidden updates to see it.

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I don't see it in Add/Remove programs – Jeff Leonard Jul 30 '09 at 21:28
I assume you are using Windows XP? It would be "Windows Desktop Search 4.0" or something like that. – The How-To Geek Jul 30 '09 at 21:31
In Add/Remove you need to check the box to show updates. It is part of Windows Updates now – Diago Jul 30 '09 at 21:52
found it! thanks! – Jeff Leonard Jul 30 '09 at 21:59
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up vote 1 down vote

It's probably seen as a Windows update, you need to look in the list of installed Windows Updates.

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up vote 0 down vote

You can Disable the service.

  • Go To Control Panel->Administrative Tools->Services
  • Go down to Indexing Service and change the Startup Type to "Disable"
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I've already done that, but I want to also figure to how to make the old window search panel show up in Windows Explorer when clicking the search button. – Jeff Leonard Jul 30 '09 at 21:32
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up vote 0 down vote

In RegEdit, go to 

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows Desktop Search\DS

and set ShowStartSearchBand to 0, and you'll get the default search behavior back.

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