How do I stop Windows 7 search?

Q  I may be a little unusual here, but I simply don’t use the Search bar on the Windows 7 Start menu. Indeed, on the few occasions I’ve used it, it bothers me to see quite how much it seems to know about my files and folders – I just don’t feel in control of it. So is there any way to disable it?
Bernard Mathers

A  Yes, it is possible to disable the Windows 7 Search bar – and we’ll explain how to do that presently – but it might be a sledgehammer to crack a nut. We say this because of your concerns about not being in control of what it is able to search.

In fact, it’s possible to manage the index used by the Search bar so that it looks only at the folders you choose. This will allow you to control what it can find without having to disable it completely.

If this appeals, click Start, type indexing options into the Search bar and press Enter. The Indexing Options dialogue box that appears shows all the locations currently included in Windows Search.

To change this, click the Modify button and use the tick boxes to add or remove locations from the search.

To remove the My Documents folder stored on hard disk C, for example, click the right-pointing arrow next to ‘Local Disk (C:)’ to expand the contents and do the same to drill down through Users, [YourUsername] and then click to remove the tick from My Documents. Click OK to return to the Indexing Options dialogue.

To modify the file types that Windows Search indexes, click the Advanced button on the Indexing Options dialogue. Now click to select the File Types tab and then use the tick boxes as before. Click OK when done.

If you still want to completely disable Windows Search, click Start followed by Control Panel, then Programs and ‘Turn Windows features on or off’. Scroll down the list to the Windows Search entry and click to remove its tick. Click OK and Yes to confirm.

But understand that you’ll be disabling search through Windows – including within Windows Explorer windows, and so forth. For an explanation of the consequences, visit the Microsoft help page for Windows Search.