Barry,
You might try these:
1. Limit the search to only the Documents or Program Files folders, for
example, instead of the entire drive.
2. Defrag the drive.
3. Do a disk clean up.
4. Close all unnecessary programs. Check the Systray for icons you
aren't using, right-click and Quit or Exit. They'll come back the next
time you re-boot.
5. Check Task Manager (Crtl+Alt+Del, and click processes tab) to see
what's hogging up your system resources.
6. You don't say what you're using, but if you have a large hard disk,
a slow processor and/or slow or insufficient memory, you'll have to
wait.
7. Lastly, download and set up the Google desktop search utility. I
don't use it myself, but others with lots of photo files swear by it.
Good luck.
