The Windows 10 May 2020 Update is the next major update for Microsoft’s operating system, and it looks like it’s coming with a clever feature to help make your PC run faster.

The feature involves a tweak to Windows Search, and in the Windows 10 May 2020 Update, it will no longer cause high disk usage when indexing your files.

Windows Search indexes files on your hard drives in a bid to make searching for them faster. This is all well and good, but while the indexing is happening, it’s putting your hard drive under a lot of strain, and that can slow your whole PC down.

However, the new update, which should arrive soon, will allow Windows Search to identify peak usage times – so it can avoid indexing when you’re likely to use your PC.

Promising results

Windows Latest has tried out the new feature using an early version of Windows 10 May 2020 Update and physical and virtual PCs, and found that this new feature does make a difference.

The improvements are more noticeable on PCs using older hard drives, rather than newer, faster, solid state drives (SSDs) – presumably because SSDs cope with indexing a lot better anyway, so the improvement isn’t as apparent.

Still, even on modern PCs, the indexing process can have an impact on SSD and CPU usage, which in turn affects the device’s overall performance.

So, if you’ve noticed your PC is running slowly recently, installing the Windows 10 May 2020 Update could result in a boost in performance.

More improvements coming

Windows Latest also reports that Microsoft is continuing to fine tune Windows Search. A new algorithm that will intelligently figure out when you’re actively using your device and avoid running indexing procedures will be included with the Windows 10 20H2 update, which is due later this year.