How to Enable or Disable Advanced Indexing Options

By Timothy Tibbetts

on 06/15/2023

Windows 10, 8, and 7 use the Index for faster search results. You can narrow down the search criteria, but most geeks like to disable Indexing for better performance. In this tutorial, we're going to disable access to Advanced Indexing options so no one can make changes.

You can search for Indexing and click on Indexing Options to modify your Indexing Options.

You can make the changes using our registry files, editing the registry, or Group Policy Editor.

Video tutorial:

How to Enable or Disable Advanced Indexing Options - Registry Files

Download Enable or Disable Advanced Indexing Options and extract the two files.

Double-click 'Advanced Indexing - Disable .reg' or 'Advanced Indexing - Enable .reg' (Default).

Click Yes when prompted by User Account Control.
Click Yes when prompted by Registry Editor.

Click OK when prompted by the Registry Editor.

This tweak is included as part of MajorGeeks Windows Tweaks.

Advanced users can go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Search and create a PreventUsingAdvancedIndexingOptions DWORD with a Value Data of 1.

How to Enable or Disable Advanced Indexing Options - Group Policy Editor

Open Group Policy Editor and go to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Search.

Double-click Prevent the display of advanced indexing options for Windows Search in the Control Panel on the right.

Click on Enabled to disable Advanced Indexing or Not configured to enable Advanced Indexing.

Similar:

How to Delete and Rebuild the Windows 10 Search Index

How to Disable Bing Search in the Windows 10 Start Menu

How to Move the Windows 10 Search Box to the Top or Bottom

Enable or Disable Enhanced Mode for Windows Search

How to Show or Hide the Search Box or Search Icon in Windows 10