Borrowed from this site.
http://windowstipoftheday.blogspot.com/

Is Windows XP Running Slowly?

If you're having a problem with your Windows XP computer running slowly,
check the 'Task Manager'. (to access this utility right-click the Taskbar
and select 'Task Manager', then click on the Processes tab) and look to
see if the CIDAEMON.EXE is using a great deal of the CPU time.

The CIDAEMON.EXE is the Indexing service, and its updating the index catalog.
To prevent this problem from happening again you can turn the Indexing service off.

Double-click My Computer.
From the View menu select 'Explorer Bar>Search'.
Click the 'Change Preferences' link.
Select 'Without Indexing Service'. (If you don't see this option, it is already turned off).

Click 'No, do not enable Indexing Service.'
Press the OK button.
Note: By disabling this service you will prevent Windows from indexing
the documents on your computer. This will slowdown any searching of the
documents and your computer. If you don't use the option to search the
contents documents it will be no great loss.

# posted by UberGeek316 @ Friday, June 03, 2005