Hi,

At work our marketing team have a large image store of files (512 gig). They want to use bridge to quickly search for meta tags (for example locate all 'boat' images) however im not sure exactly how to set this up. I have tried building caches (which takes days) and even then, the search is only fast if i have indexed the files in a search previously. (which also takes days).

What is the correct method to setup a system for this small group of users to quickly search for files in a large store by using meta tag descriptions?

thanks

Not sure what you mean by "have tried building caches". A cache is built automatically when you visit a folder, that cache should remain indexed unless you add new files or meta tags to it. You are right in that the file has to be indexed for the search to work.

If you try a search with the box checked "include all non-indexed files" it is very slow as it re-indexes everything with each search.

Not sure how this works on a network like yours, but Vista advanced search is fast for meta data if the directories have been included on the index folder list. The initial index process is slow as it took 12 hours to index just 70 gigs on my computer. For some reason the computer occasionally unchecks the drives to index and I have to redo it. Not sure what causes this, perhaps a virus/spam scan for all I know.