OFF95: Office for Windows 95 Find Fast Indexer Overview

ID: Q135476

The information in this article applies to:

SUMMARY

The Microsoft Find Fast Indexer is a utility that is shipped with Microsoft Office 7.0. When you install Find Fast, Find Fast Indexer is installed in the Startup Folder. Find Fast is located in the Control Panel folder. It is used to index the local hard drive when you choose Open from the File menu or when you use the Find File command.

The following information describes the features of the Microsoft Office Find Fast Indexer.


MORE INFORMATION

The Find Fast Indexer

When you install Microsoft Office 7.0, the Microsoft Find Fast Indexer is installed to the Startup Folder and to Control Panel in Microsoft Windows 95 and Windows NT 3.51. This utility creates indexes of all local drives that include words, titles, and properties of files. Find Fast Indexer is beneficial when you choose Open from within a Microsoft Office application or from the Microsoft Office Shortcut Bar (the search will run more efficiently).

NOTE: This utility is installed on all machines. An index is created on the root drive of computers that have more than 8 megabytes (MB) of memory.

Creating an Index

To manually create an index, follow these steps:
  1. In the Control Panel Window, double-click the Find Fast icon.


  2. On the Index menu, click Create Index.


  3. In the In And Below box, type the path where the index is to be created (note that you can use the Browse button to enter this information).


  4. In the Of Type box, select the type of files you want to index.


Two other settings in this dialog box that you can toggle on or off are

Updating Indexes

  1. In Control Panel, double-click the Find Fast Indexer icon.


  2. On the Index menu, click Update Index.


  3. In the In And Below box, click the path for the documents for which you want to update the Find Fast index.


TIP: You can click Information to display information about the Find Fast index selected in the In And Below box, such as the date last updated, the number of documents indexed, and the size of the index.

NOTE: You won't have to update indexes in the future if the Continue To Update Automatically check box remains selected.

Delete a Find Fast Index

  1. In control Panel, double-click the Find Fast Icon.


  2. On the Index menu, click Delete Index.


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


To delete an index that doesn't appear in the list, click Browse. You can select any folder or drive that you specified when you created the index.

TIP: The information about the Find Fast index selected in the In And Below box (such as the date last updated, the number of documents indexed, and the size of the index) appears in the dialog box.

Disabling the Find Fast Indexer

CAUTION: If you remove the Indexer from the Startup folder and if you do not follow these steps, you may receive errors and incorrect search results in the Find File and Open dialog boxes.

To disable the Find Fast Indexer, use these steps:
  1. Open Control Panel and double-click Find Fast.


  2. Use the Delete Index command on the Index menu to delete any existing indexes.


  3. Click Close And Stop on the Index menu to completely quit Find Fast.


  4. Remove Find Fast from the Startup group or folder.



REFERENCES

For more information about Microsoft Find Fast Indexer, choose the Answer Wizard either from the Microsoft Office Shortcut Bar or from the any of the Microsoft Office applications listed at the beginning of this article and type:

Find Fast

Additional query words: OSB howto findfast 


Keywords          : offwin 
Version           : WINDOWS:7.0,95,97; winnt:3.51
Platform          : WINDOWS winnt 
Issue type        :

Last Reviewed: May 4, 1999