OFF97: Overview of Find Fast Indexer

ID: Q166302

The information in this article applies to:

SUMMARY

The Find Fast Indexer is a utility that builds indexes to speed finding documents from the Open dialog box in Microsoft Office programs and from Microsoft Outlook. When you install Microsoft Office, a shortcut to Find Fast is placed in your startup program group.


MORE INFORMATION

You can open the Find Fast Control Panel icon to create additional indexes (for example, on a network drive), delete indexes, and set other options. Although you can use Find Fast in the Control Panel, Find Fast indexes Office documents automatically and requires no user interaction.

By default, Find Fast creates a single index on each hard disk on your computer. Note that Find Fast does not automatically index files on removable disk media. However, you may create multiple indexes on a single drive, especially on shared or network drives. You can do this but you cannot create indexes that overlap. For example, if a Find Fast index exists on drive C, you cannot create an additional index for files in the My Documents folder on drive C. To create an index of My Documents, first delete the index for drive C through the Find Fast Control Panel icon.

Description of the Index Files

Find Fast index files are located in the folder in the topmost level in the hierarchy of indexed folders. For example, if you index an entire drive, the index file is located at the root of that drive. Find Fast index files are hidden files. These index files and their functions are listed in the following table. 

   File Name             Type of File
   ---------------------------------------------------------

   Ffastun.ffl           Document list
   Ffastun.ffx           Index
   Ffastun.ffo           Cache of document properties
                         (for example, the author and title)
   Ffastun0.ffa          Status file

Because you create and maintain index files through Find Fast in the Control Panel, it's not necessary to work with these files directly.

NOTE: Do not attempt to copy, move, or change the attributes of these file types. If you must delete or move a set of indexed folders, first delete the index through the Find Fast Control Panel icon, and then recreate the index after you move the folders.

Index files typically require about 7 percent of the space of the text portion of the documents that are being indexed, or about 1 - 3 percent of the total document size.

What Files Can Be Indexed?

When you specify the type of documents to index in the Create Index dialog box, Find Fast includes the document types that are listed in the following table. 

Document Type                  File Name Extension
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Microsoft Office files         All the Microsoft Excel, Microsoft
                               Web documents PowerPoint, Microsoft
                               Project, and Microsoft Word document types
                               listed in this table. Microsoft Binder
                               (.odb, .obt) and Microsoft Access (.mdb)
                               files. Note that in .mdb files, only
                               document properties are indexed.

Microsoft Excel workbooks      .xl* files

Microsoft PowerPoint files     .ppt (presentation), .pot (template), .pps
                               (auto-running presentation) files

Microsoft Project files        .mpp, .mpw, .mpt, .mpx, .mpd files

                               Microsoft Word documents   .doc (document),
                               .dot (template), .ht* (Hypertext Markup
                               Language document), .txt (text file), .rtf
                               (Rich Text Format) files

All files                      *.* files

In addition to the Microsoft Office document types that are listed in the table, Find Fast can index the following document types if the associated conversion filters are installed and support minimal RTF mode:
Lotus 1-2-3 version 2.x - 4.0
RFT-DCA
Microsoft Works version 3.x for Windows
Word version 4.x - 5.x for the Macintosh
Works version 4.0 for Windows
WordPerfect version 5.x
WordPerfect version 6.x
WordStar
NOTE: When you click All Files in the Create Index dialog box, Find Fast excludes file types that do not contain text, such as BMP, COM or EXE files.

Creating an Index

You can specify the file types to index only when you create an index. You cannot change the indexed file types for an existing index; you must delete the index, and then recreate it. To create a Fast Find index, use the following steps:
  1. On the Start menu, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel.


  2. Double-click Find Fast.


  3. On the Index menu, click Create Index.


  4. Under In And Below, select the drive or folder that contains the documents you want to index.

    This location is also where the index files are stored.


  5. In the Of Type box, click the file types you want to index.


  6. Click OK.


Deleting an Index



To delete a Fast Find index, use the following steps:
  1. On the Start menu, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel.


  2. Double-click Find Fast.


  3. On the Index menu, click Delete Index.


  4. In the In And Below box, click the location of the Find Fast index you want to delete.


  5. Click OK.


For additional information on about disabling Fast Find, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
Q158705 OFF97: How to Disable the Find Fast Indexer

Additional query words: findfast 


Keywords          : kbtool 
Version           : WINDOWS:97
Platform          : WINDOWS 
Issue type        : kbhowto

Last Reviewed: May 25, 1999