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You are here: Home / Tech / Speed up Vista’s start menu Instant Search

Speed up Vista’s start menu Instant Search

March 30, 2007 by Paul Spoerry Leave a Comment

Vista’s start menu search box is one of the nicer touches to the new OS. In fact I rarely use the programs menu’s anymore and instead just start typing the name of the program I want to run. I’ve always been big on keeping my start menu clean. I create logical categories like Media for DVD burning software and graphic programs, System for antivirus and compression utils, Games for… duh… games, etc. For most users, their start menu is a nightmare.  You know who you are, you have folders that pop out under all programs that scroll out 2-3 levels deep.

With Vista you have Instant Search and you are never more than a few keystrokes away from whatever you’re looking for. This feature, which is available almost anywhere you are in Vista, enables you to search for a file name, a property, or even text contained within a file. It’s uber slick. Instant Search is also contextual, optimizing its results based on your current activity—whether it’s searching Control Panel applets, looking for music files in Windows Media Player, or looking over all your files and applications on the Start menu.

So with all this power, what is there to do? Tweak it! The biggest detraction from the search is that by default it searches an index of all files on your computer. Seriously, how often are you going to do that? Probably never, the search box isn’t a good use of searching for a file on your PC.

Vista Instant Search customization To change the settings right click on the Orb (previously called the start button) and click properties. You’ll see a dialog like the one to the left (click to see full size image), scroll down to the search options. I’ve disabled search files. As I said above, I don’t think the start menu is the right interface for searching for files across the entire pc. If you don’t use Windows mail and contact you can disable Search Communications. If you favor FireFox over IE, you can disable Search favorites and history too. If you are an IE user, you might wanna leave this on. I personally find this a LOT easier to find a webpage that I wanted to go to, but couldn’t remember, than the IE history. I suggest leaving Search Programs on… as that’s the seriously cool feature of Instant Search.

Filed Under: Tech, Vista Tweaks, Windows Tagged With: menu search, start menu, vista tweak, Vista Tweaks

About Paul Spoerry

I’m a groovy cat who’s into technology, Eastern Thought, and house music. I’m a proud and dedicated father to the coolest little guy on the planet (seriously, I'm NOT biased). I’m fascinated by ninjas, the Internet, and anybody who can balance objects on their nose for long periods of time.

I have a utility belt full of programming languages and a database of all my knowledge on databases... I practice code fu. Oh, I've also done actual Kung Fu, and have a black belt in Tae Kwon Do.

I run. I meditate. I dance. I blog at PaulSpoerry.com, tweet @PaulSpoerry, and I'm here on Google+.

I'm currently work for IBM developing web enabled insurance applications for IBM and support and develop a non-profit called The LittleBigFund.

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