Main Registry Entries
Note
Indexing Service is no longer supported as of Windows XP and is unavailable for use as of Windows 8. Instead, use Windows Search for client side search and Microsoft Search Server Express for server side search.
Most of the registry entries for Indexing Service are found under the key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\ ContentIndex.
The DefaultColumnFile entry is found under the key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\ContentIndexCommon.
The main registry entries apply globally to all catalogs unless an entry with the same name exists under the Catalog subkey for a specific catalog. When an entry exists for a specific catalog, it takes precedence over the global, main registry entry. Some main registry entries cannot be overridden, as individually noted, but always apply globally.
The following table is an alphabetical list of the entries in this main registry group.
| Entry name | Description |
|---|---|
| CiCatalogFlags | Controls file-modification notifications for scanning. |
| DaemonResponseTimeout | Time-out for CiDaemon.EXE, the indexing process, if indexing a corrupt file. |
| DefaultColumnFile | Full physical path and name of the file to read for column definitions in .asp files and in .idq files. Cannot be overridden by an identically named entry under the Catalog subkey for a specific catalog. |
| DelayedFilterRetries | Number of times Indexing Service tries to index documents that could not be indexed on the first try. |
| DelayUsnReadOnLowResource | Controls reading the update sequence number (USN) journal during heavy use of resources. |
| DLLsToRegister | List of dynamic-link libraries (DLLs) that have DllRegisterServer called when Indexing Service starts. Cannot be overridden by an identically named entry under the Catalog subkey for a specific catalog. |
| EventLogFlags | Controls types of events logged to Indexing Service event-message log. |
| FilterBufferSize | Sets the size in memory for a communication buffer of an Indexing Service filter process. |
| FilterDelayInterval | Determines time delay for controlling indexing resource use. |
| FilterDirectories | Controls the indexing of system properties for directories. |
| FilterFilesWithUnknownExtensions | Controls the indexing of files with unregistered extensions. |
| FilterIdleTimeout | Time after which unused filter DLLs loaded by the CiDaemon.exe process are released. |
| FilterRemainingThreshold | Delays when only a few files await filtering in order to control index resource use. |
| FilterRetries | Maximum retries allowed to index a file. |
| FilterRetryInterval | Time interval between indexing retries. |
| ForcedNetPathScanInterval | Time interval between forced scans on directories on paths with no notifications. |
| ForcePathAlias | Controls the conditions under which path aliasing is applied to query results. |
| GenerateCharacterization | Controls the creation of an abstract of a file. |
| IMAPSvcInstance | Instance number of the Internet Mail Access Protocol (IMAP) virtual server with virtual roots to index (Internet Information Services (IIS) only) |
| IsapiDateTimeFormatting | Specifies what form of date and time formatting is applied to ISAPI queries. Cannot be overridden by an identically named entry under the Catalog subkey for a specific catalog. |
| IsapiDateTimeLocal | Specifies the time zone to use when formatting the date and time for ISAPI queries. Cannot be overridden by an identically named entry under the Catalog subkey for a specific catalog. |
| IsapiDefaultCatalogDirectory | Default Indexing Service catalog name. Cannot be overridden by an identically named entry under the Catalog subkey for a specific catalog. |
| IsapiMaxEntriesInQueryCache | Maximum number of cached queries. Cannot be overridden by an identically named entry under the Catalog subkey for a specific catalog. |
| IsapiMaxRecordsInResultSet | Maximum number of rows that can be returned from a query made using ISAPI. Cannot be overridden by an identically named entry under the Catalog subkey for a specific catalog. |
| IsapiQueryCachePurgeInterval | Time interval during which a query item persists in the cache. Cannot be overridden by an identically named entry under the Catalog subkey for a specific catalog. |
| IsapiRequestQueueSize | Maximum number of query requests to queue when servicing query requests. Cannot be overridden by an identically named entry under the Catalog subkey for a specific catalog. |
| IsapiRequestThresholdFactor | Multiplier for determining the maximum number of threads per server that simultaneously process query requests. Cannot be overridden by an identically named entry under the Catalog subkey for a specific catalog. |
| IsAutoAlias | Controls whether file shares automatically have aliases. |
| IsEnumAllowed | Determines whether directory-enumeration can be used to execute a query. |
| IsIndexingIMAPSvc | Configuration flag to index IMAP servers for IIS. |
| IsIndexingNNTPSvc | Configuration flag to index Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) servers for IIS. |
| IsIndexingW3SVC | Configuration flag to index web servers. |
| IsReadOnly | Specifies whether the catalog is query-only and is not updated. |
| LeaveCorruptCatalog | Specifies whether to clean up a corrupt catalog. |
| LowResourceCheckInterval | Time interval after which to check resource usage when creating word lists. |
| LowResourceSleep | Time interval that Indexing Service waits after low-resource conditions occur before retrying the affected processing. |
| MajorVersion | Indicates major version number of Indexing Service. Cannot be overridden by an identically named entry under the Catalog subkey for a specific catalog. |
| MasterMergeCheckpointInterval | Interval for checkpoints used when master merge is restarted. |
| MasterMergeTime | Time of day to begin master merge. |
| MaxActiveQueryThreads | Maximum number of query threads for ISAPI queries. |
| MaxActiveRequestThreads | Maximum number of request threads. Cannot be overridden by an identically named entry under the Catalog subkey for a specific catalog. |
| MaxAutoAliasRefresh | Frequency at which aliases for file shares are refreshed. |
| MaxCachedPipes | Maximum number of cached named pipes. Cannot be overridden by an identically named entry under the Catalog subkey for a specific catalog. |
| MaxCatalogs | Maximum number of catalogs that can be open at one time. Cannot be overridden by an identically named entry under the Catalog subkey for a specific catalog. |
| MaxCharacterization | Maximum number of characters in an abstract. |
| MaxDaemonVmUse | Maximum amount of pagefile space allocated to a swapped-out filter daemon. |
| MaxFilesizeFiltered | Maximum size of file to filter. If size is exceeded, only the properties of the document are filtered—not the content. |
| MaxFilesizeMultiplier | Multiplier for the maximum amount of index data allowable from a file before Indexing Service treats the file as invalid. |
| MaxFreshCount | Maximum number of files for which index data is not included in master index. |
| MaxFreshDeletes | Maximum number of files deleted from master index before master index is updated. |
| MaxIdealIndexes | Maximum number of indexes in a well-tuned system. |
| MaxIndexes | Maximum number of indexes in catalog. |
| MaxMergeInterval | Wait interval for Indexing Service between merges. |
| MaxPendingDocuments | Maximum number of documents not yet indexed before marking the index out of date for property queries. |
| MaxQueryExecutionTime | Maximum execution time for query before an error is reported. |
| MaxQueryTimeslice | Maximum query execution time for one time slice before another thread may be activated. |
| MaxQueueChunks | Maximum number of buffers used for unfiltered documents. |
| MaxRestrictionNodes | Maximum number of query restriction nodes. |
| MaxRunningWebhits | Maximum number of instances of the WEBHITS.DLL that can run concurrently for use by ISAPI with a web server. Cannot be overridden by an identically named entry under the Catalog subkey for a specific catalog. |
| MaxShadowFreeForceMerge | Maximum percentage of free disk space used by shadow indexes before a master merge is triggered. |
| MaxShadowIndexSize | Maximum percentage of disk space used by shadow indexes before a master merge is triggered. |
| MaxSimultaneousRequests | Maximum number of simultaneous query-request connections supported. Cannot be overridden by an identically named entry under the Catalog subkey for a specific catalog. |
| MaxTextFilterBytes | Maximum amount of information the text filter can process from a single file with a well-known extension. |
| MaxUsnLogSize | Maximum size of the USN journal. |
| MaxWebhitsCpuTime | Time-out value for WEBHITS.DLL. Cannot be overridden by an identically named entry under the Catalog subkey for a specific catalog. |
| MaxWordlistIo | Threshold of input/output (I/O) activity above which indexing is delayed. |
| MaxWordListIoDiskPerf | System I/O threshold above which indexing is delayed when disk-performance counters are enabled. |
| MaxWordLists | Maximum number of word lists before Indexing Service merges them to the master index. |
| MaxWordlistSize | Maximum amount of memory for one word list. |
| MinClientIdleTime | Amount of time a query client connection can be idle before the connection is dropped. Cannot be overridden by an identically named entry under the Catalog subkey for a specific catalog. |
| MinDiskFreeForceMerge | Minimum percentage of free disk space available before a master merge is triggered. |
| MinDiskSpaceToLeave | Minimum amount of free disk space to leave on a disk. |
| MinIdleQueryThreads | Minimum number of idle threads available for queries. |
| MinIdleRequestThreads | Minimum number of idle threads available for indexing. Cannot be overridden by an identically named entry under the Catalog subkey for a specific catalog. |
| MinimizeWorkingSet | Flag to minimize requested working set for Indexing Service. Cannot be overridden by an identically named entry under the Catalog subkey for a specific catalog. |
| MinMergeIdleTime | Minimum percentage of average system idle time to allow annealing merges. |
| MinorVersion | Minor version of Indexing Service. |
| MinSizeMergeWordlists | Minimum combined size of word lists to force shadow merge. |
| MinWordlistBattery | Minimum percentage of battery life required to keep indexing active. |
| MinWordlistMemory | Minimum free memory available for new word lists. |
| NNTPSvcInstance | Instance identifier (ID) for the NNTP server. |
| PropertyStoreBackupSize | Size of memory allocation for primary property-cache backup on disk. |
| PropertyStoreMappedCache | Maximum number of pages in memory for the primary property cache. |
| RequestTimeout | For query clients, time to wait before named pipe instance request fails. Cannot be overridden by an identically named entry under the Catalog subkey for a specific catalog. |
| ScanBackoff | Controls the use of system resources by Indexing Service during scans. |
| SecPropertyStoreBackupSize | Size of memory allocation for secondary property cache backup. |
| SecPropertyStoreMappedCache | Maximum number of pages in memory for the secondary property cache. |
| StartupDelay | Delay to let system start before initiating Indexing Service. Cannot be overridden by an identically named entry under the Catalog subkey for a specific catalog. |
| StompLastAccessDelay | Controls updating of the last access time property of a file being indexed. |
| ThreadClassFilter | Priority class of the indexing process (CiDaemon.exe). |
| ThreadPriorityFilter | Priority level of the filtering thread within the indexing process. |
| ThreadPriorityMerge | Priority level of the merge thread within the indexing process. |
| UsnLogAllocationDelta | Allocation to remove from front of the USN journal to make room to write more entries. |
| UsnReadMinSize | Specifies the minimum size that the USN journal must attain before processing of change notifications proceeds. |
| UsnReadTimeout | Specifies the maximum interval of time to wait before processing change notifications in the USN journal. |
| W3SvcInstance | Instance ID of the World Wide Web (WWW) server being indexed. |
| WebhitsDisplayScript | Controls whether to include scripting code in hit-highlighting results. Cannot be overridden by an identically named entry under the Catalog subkey for a specific catalog. |
| WordlistUserIdle | User idle time required before filtering runs. |