Windows tip: Turn off content indexing for XML files

Friday, May 5, 2023 - 10:55

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If Molflow hangs for no apparent reason (especially on exit), see a small hack below:

When Molflow extracts a .ZIP file, it saves the extracted .XML in its "tmp" folder.

There are three scenarios where this might result in a file lock on the temporary file:

  • Windows Search Indexer parses the content
  • A cloud sync client (Dropbox, etc.) indexes and uploads the content
  • Windows File History backs up the file

These are unnecessary, as the XML file is temporary.

There is a way to ask Windows to only index the file properties, not the content:

  1. Open Indexing options (Windows key + search for "indexing")
  2. Click advanced:
  3. Click File Types and scroll to XML, then select "Index Properties Only":

For the other two cases (cloud sync, file history) the good idea is to exclude the Molflow directory from the synced locations.

Meanwhile I explore if Molflow could work without intermediary XML files, directly from the ZIP. This is already implemented when saving  the geometry from the GUI.