OFF97: How to Disable the Find Fast Indexer

This article explains how to disable the Find Fast Indexer that is included with Microsoft Office 97.

Find Fast Overview

The Find Fast Indexer is installed on your computer when you install Microsoft Office 97. Find Fast builds an index to speed up finding documents from the Open dialog box in Microsoft Office programs.

When you install Microsoft Office 97, a shortcut called Microsoft Find Fast is automatically added to the StartUp group. This allows Find Fast to run whenever you start the computer. After Find Fast is started, it automatically builds indexes and updates them in the background.

If you attempt to disable the Find Fast control panel by simply removing the Microsoft Find Fast shortcut from the StartUp group, the following problems may occur:

• The index files are not removed from the hard disk. The size of these index files depends on the number and size of Microsoft Office documents you store on your computer.
  
  
• Microsoft Office programs continue to use the existing index files whenever you click Open on the File menu. When you disable Find Fast by removing its shortcut, the index files are not updated as you create or modify documents. This may prevent you from finding files you want to open, or cause unnecessary delays when you open files.

Disabling the Find Fast Indexer

The correct way to disable Find Fast requires that you delete the Find Fast index files. To do this, use the following steps:

1. On the Start menu, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel.
2. In the Control Panel window, double-click Find Fast.
3. In the "Index for documents in and below" list, click the first item.
4. On the Index menu, click Delete Index. In the Delete Index dialog box, click OK. When you are prompted whether to delete the index, Click OK.
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until no more indices are listed.
6. On the Index menu, click Close And Stop. Then, click OK to stop Find Fast.
7. Then, do either of the following:
   • Remove the Microsoft Find Fast shortcut from the StartUp folder (typically in the Windows folder in the Start Menu\Programs folder).
     
     -or-
   • Run the Microsoft Office 97 Setup program in maintenance mode, and remove Find Fast.

To re-enable Find Fast, do either of the following:

• Add the shortcut for Microsoft Find Fast back into the StartUp folder. The default command line for the shortcut is the following:
  C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\FINDFAST.EXE
  
  -or-
• Run the Microsoft Office 97 Setup program, and reinstall Find Fast.