Archived from groups: microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion (
More info?)
Things like Norton System Works, with it's one-button tune-up, are
dangerous. Much more dangerous than Windows Updates, that's for sure.
There is no such thing as a mistake-proof utility. That's why I outline
the steps in my Clean Boot procedure the way I do, instead of telling
people to just use Cleanup Manager or Norton whatever. It's OK to use
these tools to suggest things that you might want to do, but it is *not*
OK to let them make the decisions for you, and it is *not* OK to do
*anything* they suggest you do unless you fully understand what you are
doing. You're better off not doing anything, most times.
The WORD 2000 program you installed is part of the Office Suite. There
are several Office Programs. You can install them in carious
combinations or only one. But they are *all* Office Programs. In
addition to things like Word, Excel, Outlook, etc., Office has
underlying support programs and utilities that each version of Office,
whether a single program or a Suite, includes in the installer. When you
first installed Word, before the installer got to actually install Word,
it had to install those underlying programs. Some of them are optional,
some of them are mandatory--common things that can be used by any of the
Office applications. One of the optional utilities is FastFind, a
program that indexes your files (searches for words in all files and
creates an index much like the one you might find at the end of a text
book.) Say you want to search your system for any files that contain the
word Russia (because you've been doing some research on Russia and can't
remember the name of one particular file, just that it's likely to
include the word Russia, somewhere.) The FastFind indexing feature
supposedly makes that searching go more quickly--because by using an
index, each Search operation doesn't have to read every file to find the
word Russia--it already has a list of those files. Unfortunately, as you
have discovered, FastFind causes lots of problems. When it detects that
your system ins "idle" it starts indexing files. Unfortunately, FF is
more suited to NT architecture than it is to 9x architecture, causes all
the problem you've seen. (Though, in fact, if you'd used my Clean Boot
procedures to prepare for Norton Speed Disk, you wouldn't have had that
particular problem with the FF Index, aka 'Microsoft Office Search
Services', because the Clean Boot procedures turn off FF indexing
temporarily.)
Now, you claim, somewhere, that you "never gave permission" to do this
or that... Well, yes you did--by using a Typical installation instead of
a Custom installation. Office chose that particular drive to put the
index on because it noticed it wasn't being used for anything else--was
a nice free beloved patriot of disk that would suit its purposes nicely. (By the
way, I think that many partitions on an 8GB drive is going way
overboard, <s>.)
Unless you particularly need its abilities (and most people don't,
though some do), you're better off not installing FastFind--but it's
part of every Office 2000 Default installation. Which is why I always
tell people, "ALWAYS use the Custom installation option, not Typical or
Full, etc." If you had used the Custom installation option when
installing Word, you'd have noticed several features that are part of
every Office installation, some of them enabled by default, others that
are not. And just like my previous comments on "do-it-all-for-you"
Utilities, "Typical" installations aren't usually the right choice to
installation choice. Even so, you might have seen FastFind listed as
enabled, and read the FF description and thought, "Well, that sounds
helpful", and installed it anyway. But at least you would have possibly
realized what was happening later on. Frankly, the FastFind issue is
*so* well known that if you had come here and simply asked, "Why is my
hard disk running continuously, *especially* when I'm not using the
system?!?", fifteen people would have immediately responded, "Uninstall
Fast Find!"
OK, so after all that, you'll want to know how. Simple: Go to Add/Remove
Programs, find Microsoft Word, double-click it and then choose "Add or
Change Components". Make sure you have *not* already disabled FastFind
in MSCONFIG--if it's disabled, the startup command won't be properly
removed. Once you've uninstalled FF and restarted, you can then delete
the index, that file you found on drive I.
And don't forget to review everything else in the Word setup to decide
if you want or need other things: Rule 1 is, "If you don't need
something, or don't know what it is or if you need it, don't install it.
You can always go back later and install it if you decide you need it."
There may also be a ton of files in the Windows folder with long names
that start with "ffff", (or something like that) and end in a long hex
number in {brackets}, and you'll want to get rid of those, too. They're
left-over temporary index files that should have been deleted once their
contents were written to the permanent index, but a bug often means that
they stay around forever.
I hope the above helps you understand a few things better.
--
Gary S. Terhune
MS MVP Shell/User
http://www.grystmill.com/articles/cleanboot.htm
http://www.grystmill.com/articles/security.htm
"littlenemo" <littlenemo@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:EBCF9CC7-83F1-475F-831B-6BA7F8FFF3AB@microsoft.com...
> Thanks Gary--the advice is much appreciated even as most of what you
said
> just confirms what was already in the back of my mind. As for your
paper on
> a 'Clean Boot', I downloaded that months ago for future reference,
realizing
> that I would someday make use of its wisdom. But I have to say I'm a
little
> gun-shy about defragging and optimizing, although I've always known
its
> benefits. The program I normally use for that is Norton Systemworks
(it has
> a 'One Button Checkup' feature which includes defragging and
optimization),
> but it has caused me some headaches. I've tried to find out what's
causing
> the problem, but I've had no luck finding answers--Symantec won't
support a
> product more than 2 years old, and I haven't been able to find the
answer in
> Microsoft's Knowledge Base. But I might mention it here for your
> consideration--you might be able to direct me to someone who has the
answer.
>
> A couple of years ago, I installed a standalone copy of Microsoft Word
2002.
> Initially the install appeared to be installing some portion of
Microsoft
> Office before something seemed to go wrong and it aborted. On my
second try,
> the installation seemed to proceed smoothly, with no initial parts
having to
> do with Microsoft Office. The program seemed to work fine with no
problems.
> Not too long after that I noticed that my hard drive seemed to be on
> steroids, with the activity light on almost constantly for long
periods of
> time--something that had never occurred before. This seemed to happen
> whenever the computer was idle for awhile, and when I would return to
it, it
> would seem to respond sluggishly, as if coming out of a deep
coma---the disk
> activity would seem to resist the interrupting of its operations,
whatever
> they were. It would sometimes take up to a minute or so before
everything
> seemed to work punctually again, and the disk activity would cease.
During
> this period, the Systemworks defragging and optimization began bogging
down
> on my I: drive (partition). I have a 30 GB hard drive which I had
originally
> partitioned into drives C: through Q: (15 partitions). Most of these
> partitions were 'empty', including the I: drive, so I could not
immediately
> figure out why the defragging and optimization was taking 45 minutes
to an
> hour on this one drive, while all the rest of the drives combined,
including
> my C:, D:, and E: drives---which contain most of my software and data,
were
> being defragged and optimized in seconds. As far as I knew, I had
nothing on
> the I: drive, that is, until I took a look at it. It now contained a
folder
> called 'Microsoft Office Search Services' whose size was over 200 MB.
What
> was it and how did it get there without my knowledge? I've never been
able
> to really figure it out, except that it appears to have something to
do with
> 'indexing services' which in turn enable some kind of 'fast find' of
document
> contents for Microsoft Office-related programs. One thing that
bothers me is
> that I never gave any permission to the installation program to make
use of
> my I: drive, and I was never informed of it.
>
> In any event, it is this large folder which appears to be causing my
> Systemworks defrag and optimize to seemingly thrash about endlessly.
Just as
> strangely, within a matter of days, the folder appears to have again
become
> fragmented and disorganized to the point that it again requires the
same long
> time to defrag and optimize. It's as if the 2 programs--'Microsoft
Office
> Search Services' and 'Norton defragging and optimizing' were engaging
in
> un-doing each other's work. To try to correct this situation, I
attempted to
> configure Systemworks so as to get it to 'ignore' this particular
drive, but
> there isn't any such option, so I'm more or less forced to endure the
tedious
> defragging and optimization every time I choose to do the One Button
Checkup.
> I haven't been able to get answers from either Microsoft or Symantec
on how
> to deal with this. I've thought seriously about 'deleting' the
Microsoft
> Office Search Services folder, but I'm not sure what effect this would
> have--whether it would simply replace itself like 'ShellIconCache'
does, or
> perhaps jam up my computer in some painful way. Can you blame me for
being
> somewhat reluctant to make use of defragmentation and optimization?
Any
> suggestions?
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