Disable Indexing service

From a Microsoft Knowledgebase article titled "Windows XP may run slowly and you may see multiple symptoms in Windows Task Manager":

This issue can occur if the Indexing service is running on the computer. The Indexing service uses the Cidaemon.exe process to index files. The Cidaemon.exe process builds and updates the Index catalog. Additionally, the Cidaemon.exe process typically uses lots of pagefile space and lots of CPU time.

the indexing service works in the background, scouring almost every file that it finds. On a new system, the indexing service can take days to settle down. This is because the service puts a low priority on its work. Despite this low priority, the indexing service can cause serious performance degradation, especially in lower-end machines because the computer's hard disk runs continuously.

To disable the indexing service:

• Click Start, Run, type services.msc then press enter or click OK
• Scroll to the "Indexing Service" in the right-hand pane and double-click it
• Change the Startup type to Manual or Disable and Apply
• Click the Stop button and wait for the service to stop then click OK