Q: My two partners and I use the same make and style of computer, the same XP operating system and pretty much the same application software, plus we maintain the computers with the same antivirus, junk-cleaning and performance-enhancing software. Yet one partner’s computer runs significantly faster than the other two. Any ideas what he’s doing right or what we’re doing wrong?

A: You’ve raised a question whose answer contains several important threads. Let’s start with some background.

Whether you’re running XP, Vista or Windows 7, the speed differences could be caused by many things, but since you all are using identical hardware, software and maintenance, I would guess the culprit is likely indexing, which is the underlying process that builds the database for Windows’ Search capability.

The Search function, while useful, has a significant downside: To stay current with all the data in a computer, the indexing function works diligently, demanding a significant share of random access memory and CPU power. In fact, the indexing process often continues to labor when the computer is otherwise idle. In that way it can catch up on any data you added or changed—including all your e-mail.

The solution? If you can live without Windows Search, I would suggest disabling it (see below for instructions). But after you disable it, if you discover that indexing is not the culprit, you can easily—without loss of data—enable it again. We’ll get back to that do-it-yourself process later.

Now we come to the next thread. While useful, the XP Search tool is not a top-notch data hunter. But if you really must have it and you can live with the drain on computer speed, consider upgrading it with a free copy of Windows Search 4.0 from the Windows Web site. It’s much faster, and it does more. It doesn’t just regurgitate the “hits” on the screen; it sorts them in convenient categories: e-mails, documents, photos, etc. However, it still drags down the computer’s speed.

The Vista and Windows 7 editions also are search tool winners. They dig deep and fast because Microsoft has souped up its search algorithm. But they, too, slow the machine. In addition, enabling and disabling indexing in Vista and Windows 7 is somewhat more complicated than in XP—and we’ll get to that later, too.

If it turns out that zapping indexing solves your speed problems and you disable it, but you still want a search engine, you have at least two options. One is to run indexing for an hour or so, say, daily or once a week, to refresh the database. The other option is to use the Google Desktop search tool instead. It’s comparable in power to Search, but because its indexing process is more efficient, it puts less drain on a computer’s operation. Plus it launches the index only when the computer has been idle for at least an hour.

Bonus: When you download the Google Desktop (at desktop.google.com), you can select several different ways to access Google’s Search: by clicking on an icon that you can position anywhere on your screen (see screenshot left), by tapping on an icon in your toolbar (see screenshot right) or by pressing Ctrl twice (see below).

If the Google indexing still puts a drag on your computer, you can pause indexing for one hour by clicking on the Desktop icon in the taskbar, clicking on Indexing and then on Pause (see screenshot at left). Or turn off Desktop by clicking on Exit (it will start up automatically when you reboot).

Now, to disable indexing in XP, open Explorer and select which hard drive you want to disable and right-click on it to open its Properties screen. Go to the General tab and unselect Allow Indexing Service to index this disk for fast file searching (see screenshot below), and click OK. The removal may take a few minutes. Repeat the steps for each drive on which you want to disable indexing.

If you want to completely disable indexing on all your computer’s drives, open Control Panel, select Administrative Tools and Services, scroll down to Indexing Service (see screenshot below) and double-click on it. If the status shows Running, click on Stop and under Startup type, select Disabled and click OK.

In Vista, go to Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Services and cursor down to Windows Search Properties (see screenshot below).

If you have a file or folder that you use fairly often but you do not want to clutter your desktop or your Start menu with shortcut icons, consider this method suggested by Paul McClain, controller at the Hillcrest Medical Center in Tulsa, Okla.: In Office 2003’s Word or Excel, go to the toolbar and click on File and Open. Then locate the file or folder and highlight it and click on Tools and click on Add to “My Places” (see screenshot below).

Then, when you click on Open in the future, the menu will display either the target file or, if you designated a folder, all the files in the folder.

Q: I use memory sticks frequently because they’re so handy for quick backups and copying or moving files to another computer. Also, I have a remote hard drive for regular backups that is designated my F drive. The memory sticks and the remote drive connect to the computer via USB plugs. So far, so good. But every now and then, when I try to back up to that remote F drive, I get a message that it’s unavailable and can’t be found—and, lo and behold, I discover somehow its drive letter has changed from F to E. I certainly didn’t do it. It’s like the computer has a mind of its own. What’s going on here?

A: Yes, computers sometimes do exhibit a mind of their own, but I’ll show you how to rein it in and stop your computer from switching your remote drive to another drive designation.

You should understand that each time you plug in your memory stick, it waits for the computer to assign it a free drive letter, and when the computer believes it has found one, it assigns it. You probably notice a message to that effect on the bottom of your screen.

But sometimes, as you’ve discovered, it doesn’t quite work the way it should. Instead of assigning what is really a free drive letter for the memory stick, it selects a drive that it incorrectly determines is free—and probably is free when your backup drive is at rest. So, when it looks at the F drive and discovers it’s not being used at the moment, it might assign the “free” F designation to the stick.

Worry not, that errant behavior can be corrected. I’ll show you how to permanently assign the F designation to your remote hard drive. Begin by right-clicking on My Computer and selecting Manage (see screenshot at right). When the Computer Management screen opens, click on Disk Management (see screenshot below)...

…and a new screen will display all your drives (see screenshot below).

Locate your F drive, which in my example displays as My Book (F:). Now right-click on it and select Change Drive Letter and Paths… (see screenshot below)...

…which then displays this screen (see screenshot below) that invites you to confirm that you want drive letter F to be permanently affixed to your remote backup drive. Click OK and it’s done.

EXCEL

  To synchronize data from one cell to another (even in another worksheet), go to the source cell, press =, then go to the target cell, and press Enter.

WORD

  To return to the last place you edited in a document, press Shift+F5.

WINDOWS

  To arrange two windows side by side in XP, open the first window, then hold down the Ctrl key while right-clicking the taskbar button of the second window and select Compare Side by Side with …

Sometimes, for reasons I can’t explain, instead of the above screen, you are given the choice of selecting either Tile Vertically or Tile Horizontally (see screenshot at right).

In Office 2007, click on View in the ribbon and then on New Window.

  In some applications (such as Word, Excel, Internet Explorer), if you hold down the Ctrl key while turning the mouse wheel away from you, the font on the screen will enlarge. Turn the wheel toward you, and it will shrink.