If until now, you’ve never even heard of Windows XP’s built in search tool, or simply don’t use the tool all that often - you may find it within your interest to turn the indexing feature off. This will slow down the search (Which like you said - you don’t use and/or have never heard of) but significantly speed up your computer speed. This works because the indexing is designed to reserve CPU speed and memory for simple XP searches, meaning the search tool is fast and easy. However, this memory has to come from somewhere, right?

Turn off Indexing by following these simple steps:

1. Open “My Computer” from the Start menu.
2. Right-click on your hard drive and click “Properties.”
3. Uncheck the box at the bottom of the window labelled “Allow Indexing Service to index this disk for fast file searching”
4. Click “OK.” The process may take several minutes, but will allow your computer to run at a nice, higher speed than before.