I just did a search that took, no kidding, more than 4 minutes. That's rediculous! I didn't look in system files nor hidden files. Just in the hard drives and subfolders. Why does it take so long in XP? The same search in 2000 is almost instantaneous.

Have you turned on the search indexing services and turned of animations? May help.

Had no idea about the indexing services. I turned it on and the search is much faster. Thanks.

you are SO right! this phucking winxp search sucks. when I switched from win98, I couldn't believe it how long it takes. the indexing service sucks - if you switch it on it will always index- and I mean ALWAYS - always accessing the harddisc, this will drive you mad, it never quits and you hear the harddisc work and work and work. this sucks. don't know what's wrong with microsoft. I am using the search tool Lookdisk on winxp. it's very fast