System Restore: what is catalog.wci?

G

Guest

In f:\System Volume Information I have a directory named catalog.wci with
173MB. I seem to have no valid restore point on this partition. All
partitions are "Monitoring". On the other partitions, I don't have
catalog.wci. Can I reduce catalog.wci on f? (Disk cleanup doesn't do this.)
Do I need catalog.wci on the other partitions?
 
G

Guest

Okay, I think I got it. f:\System Volume Information\catalog.wci is the index
of Win XP's search facility. It has nothing to do with System Restore. Please
correct me if I'm wrong.
 
W

Will Denny

Hi

Yes, catalog.wci is created by the XP Indexing option and has nothing to do
with SR.

--


Will Denny
MS MVP Windows Shell/User
Please reply to the News Groups
 
W

Will Denny

Bert

It's from the Indexing Service and I'm not sure why it is in the SVI folder.
That file extension isn't monitored by SR.

--


Will Denny
MS MVP Windows Shell/User
Please reply to the News Groups
 
B

Bert Kinney

Hi Will,

Catalog.wci is the catalog folder for Microsoft Index Server. I suspect
it's there as part of IIS. Quote from the article below: "If Index
Server is terminated abruptly, it will be unable to flush the property
store to disk. When Index Server is restarted, it may find a property
cache that is inconsistent with the content index. If that happens, the
cache will be restored to a last known good state". This would suggest
the reason catalog.wci appears in the SVI folder. I need to do more
research on this. <g>

Indexing with Microsoft Index Server (Indexing Service 2.0 Technical
Articles)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnindex/html/msdn_is-index.asp?frame=true
 
W

Will Denny

Hey Bert

Yes, I read thru that article, but couldn't make head nor tail of it, as it
doesn't seem to apply to XP - and it's 7 years old!!?? I don't normally
using Indexing, but I'll it on and see where this file turns up. Could be
in one the folders that SR monitors.

--


Will Denny
MS MVP Windows Shell/User
Please reply to the News Groups
 
W

Will Denny

Hmmm...

Open Help and Support and search for 'Indexing'. In the search return click
on 'Indexing Service' - then 'Open Indexing Service' in the right hand pane.
On the next screen expand the 'Location' column????

--


Will Denny
MS MVP Windows Shell/User
Please reply to the News Groups
 
G

Guest

Notably I have a "branch" of \Program Files\ on f:. Why shouldn't non-system
partitions be monitored?
 
B

Bert Kinney

Hi Will,

This is new to me! The only indexing used here is the "Allow indexing
service to index this disk for fast file searching" on the Local Disk
Properties. The indexing service referenced through help is not running
here. It look like when enabled, it's catalogs are stored in the SVI
folder. So the question arises, if having the indexing check in Local
Disk Properties is it actually doing anything?

I am going to enable the Indexing Service on a test system to
investigate.
 
B

Bert Kinney

Hi,

Monitoring a partition with installed applications on it is OK.

Most additional partitions don't contain system files, and therefore
System Restore wouldn't monitor these files anyway. The SR rules for
having free disk space on a partition apply to all monitored partitions.

An example is when SR is set to monitor a recovery partition. These
partitions contain the OS and application files needed to restore the
system to it's original condition. There is normally very little free
disk space on these partitions and as the System Volume Information file
grows the free disk space shrinks to the point SR automatically disables
itself and all existing restore points are deleted. This is not a good
thing.

SR has also been known to have problems with some files located in these
recovery partitions which will also cause restore point loss.

So to reduce the chance of problems, it's normally best not to monitor
partitions other then the one Windows is installed on.
 
W

Will Denny

Hi Bert

It's got me baffled, as I can't see why the SVI folder should show up under
that option.

I've had Indexing running - on a test system!! - for about 3 days. I've got
a catalog.wci file dated 11/21/2005 - timed at about 7 hours after I turned
Indexing on. The file hasn't been updated since then.

The two must be connected somehow?

--


Will Denny
MS MVP Windows Shell/User
Please reply to the News Groups
 
G

George Hester

It results from the Indexing Service. If you don't use that these files
will not be made. Indexing Service is supposed to make searches faster
unfortunately it really doesn't work well. Nver has and probably never
will. In a short time (relative) I am sure Microsoft will do away with it.
 
G

George Hester

One of the reasons it doesn't work well is the continuous rebuilding of the
database. And also it cannot find files of type when doing a search through
its interface. Those together result in terrible searches in the Files and
Folders search. Microsoft has known about the issue but they persist in
trying to work the bugs out of it. I believe after a while they will give
up. But they are making a valiant attempt nonetheless.
 
G

George Hester

I can give a little more information on this. Do you remeber a Control
Panel applet called Fast Search? That was installed by Microsoft Office
97\2000 in Windows 98. You will not see it in Windows 2000. The reason why
is because Indexing Service is supposed to take its place. Fast Search
worked poorly and so does Indexing Service. The idea is to build a database
of your file types and that will be used to search for files. But as you
know in Windows XP this not finding files of type was one of the first bugs
in Windows XP that was recognized. So it all comes down to it may be a good
idea its implemantation has yet to perform up to expectations.
 
G

George Hester

Yes that was it. I'm surprised they did not direct you to the article that
tells you why it was intentionally disabled in Windows 2000\XP. I don't
recall where it is but there is an article that explains why. It is because
Indexing Service takes its place.
 

Ask a Question

Want to reply to this thread or ask your own question?

You'll need to choose a username for the site, which only take a couple of moments. After that, you can post your question and our members will help you out.

Ask a Question

Similar Threads

How to get rid of catalog.wci? 1
catalog.wci 1
Event Viewer 9
What is this file? 5
Catalog.wci folder 1
System start up problems......Indexing Service 0
System Volume Information folder 5
Event ID 4109 CI Service 0

Top