shutting down everything for diagnostic purposes - any concerns?

General discussion related to "Everything".
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jimspoon
Posts: 213
Joined: Tue Apr 26, 2011 11:39 pm

shutting down everything for diagnostic purposes - any concerns?

Post by jimspoon »

I'm trying to diagnose a problem with file manager apps "not responding" on my desktop PC. I don't think that Everything is causing the problem, but I'd like to rule it out - I do have a massive number of files being indexed and a very large index. Anyway, would it cause problems if I shut down Everything and the Everything service just to see if the "not responding" problems go away? I know Everything is constantly monitoring file activity, the USN journal, etc., and updates its index to reflect that activity. So if I shut down the service and shut down Everything, and then restart Everything, how does Everything "catch up" with all the activity that occurred while it was shut down? Would this force reindexing?
NotNull
Posts: 5961
Joined: Wed May 24, 2017 9:22 pm

Re: shutting down everything for diagnostic purposes - any concerns?

Post by NotNull »

jimspoon wrote: Mon Dec 30, 2024 6:37 pm So if I shut down the service and shut down Everything, and then restart Everything, how does Everything "catch up" with all the activity that occurred while it was shut down? Would this force reindexing?
By reading the USN Journal entries. Typically the USN Journal contains at least a week of changes.
So if you exit Everything (Menu => File => Exit), you have a week to test :). No need to stop the service; it does nothing on its own.

When you start Everything again, it will read the USN jourals for changes (every NTFS disk has one) and Everything updates the matching entries in the index. No reindexing required.
jimspoon
Posts: 213
Joined: Tue Apr 26, 2011 11:39 pm

Re: shutting down everything for diagnostic purposes - any concerns?

Post by jimspoon »

Thank you NotNull !! Just what I needed to know.
NotNull
Posts: 5961
Joined: Wed May 24, 2017 9:22 pm

Re: shutting down everything for diagnostic purposes - any concerns?

Post by NotNull »

No need to worry, but an edge case I forgot to mention:

If Windows decides to update/upgrade your Windows version (like Win10 => Win11 or Win11 24H1 => Win11 24H2), lots of files are changed at once. This will reduce the "retention" of the USN Journal significantly.
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