Stopping Microsoft Search from eating my hard drive

I have Windows Vista on a machine and I noticed quite a bit of hard drive was disappearing. I ran a utility to show me where it all went. I found the following directory consumes over 2GB of space: C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Search\Data\Applications\Windows.

The Microsoft Search service is now disabled, but I want it removed completely. I see nothing on Add/Remove Programs. Also, will I get blue screens if I delete this directory?

Here's what I had to do:

• open services.msc
• Stop the Windows Search service (I was this far already).
• Rename C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Search\Data\Applications\Windows\Windows.edb
• Start the Windows Search service
• The directory rebuilds Windows.edb (34 MB initial size in my case)
• Open Control Panel / Indexing Options
• Wait a long time for buttons to become enabled
• Click Modify
• Uncheck Users directory or whatever else you don't want indexed (I left Start Menu enabled because it's so small)
• Click Ok
• Stand on your head and count to three while drinking water with a straw. (not sure if this part is necessary but I wanted to try everything I could)

It now says indexing complete with only 800 or so items. Total size of the directory is now just over 48 MB. Pretty large index if you ask me, but better than 2 GB.

Open an administrator command prompt and type

net stop "Windows Search"
del %PROGRAMDATA%\Microsoft\Search\Data\Applications\Windows\Windows.edb
net start "Windows Search"

Repeat when needed.

To delete and rebuilt the index :

1. Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Indexing options
2. Click Advanced
3. under Troubleshooting, click rebuilt

You may want to change which folder you wish to include in the index before doing step 3. For that in step 2 instead of clicking Advanced, select Modify