How to Remove the Microsoft Search Drive Space
Versions of Microsoft Windows like XP and Windows 7 have a content indexing feature for your storage drives that speeds up file searches. If you have a lot of files the index can grow to a very large size and leave the space unusable for more important data. You can sacrifice search speed for increased hard drive space by disabling the content indexer.
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Instructions
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Turn on and log into your computer running Windows XP or Windows 7.
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Click on My Computer from your desktop or from the Start Menu.
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Select the hard drive or storage partition on which you want to disable the index by right clicking and choosing Properties.
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Look toward the bottom of the window that comes up under the General tab. There are two checkboxes. Uncheck the lowest box, which says, "Allow files on this drive to have contents indexed in addition to file properties."
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Click the Apply button on the bottom right corner of the Properties window.
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Click the Disk Cleanup button on the same window to the right of the disk space pie chart.
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Select the checkbox that says "Catalog files for the Content Indexer" in the list on the Disk Cleanup window. You may have to scroll down to find the checkbox.
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Click OK at the bottom of the Disk Cleanup window and the Disk Cleanup utility will delete the files created by the content indexer. You now have more space available on your hard drive. Repeat the process for additional drives.
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References
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