Windows Search was indexing my whole NAS over Wi-Fi, and my laptop ran hot for months
Don't make the same mistake I did
A laptop spent several months running hotter than usual, with the fan spinning up even when nothing was open and battery life decreasing. The culprit was found to be Microsoft Windows Search Indexer, which was busy indexing files on a NAS connected via Wi-Fi. The laptop's Task Manager revealed that Windows Search was using significant CPU resources, causing the device to overheat.
Disabling the search function can resolve the issue temporarily but may impact the user's ability to search for files. Instead, the recommended solution is to disable offline files, rebuild the search index, and, if desired, prevent indexing of files in the offline files cache via Group Policy.
Written by urgent.news from XDA Developers's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
