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?
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that MS fixed Windows search when Google had its Google Desktop search product and Windows Search went back to horrible when Google discontinued Desktop Search.
You can find files faster on Windows by using the command line dir command with recursion switch and watch every directory tree scroll by until it finds the file than wait for the GUI even when Indexed.