On Windows Vista and every subsequent version of Windows, if I search for a file and include the entire C:\ drive, I might very well have time to make tea or a sandwich while the search results come in. On Windows XP, using the search dialog with the animated dog, I can search the entire C:\ drive and expect it to be done in a minute or two, if not in seconds.
It can’t just be nostalgia; I can replicate these results on period-accurate hardware today. What changed with Vista to make file searching so much slower, even with indexing enabled?
The index is there (the NTFS file system maintains it automatically) and is fast (as programs like Everything Search demonstrate)… Windows Search is simply not using it anymore, probably so it can shove sponsored shit in the results, or maybe due to lost knowledge due to lay-offs.