Continous Running Search in XP Pro

I have always been impressed with the speed of the Find (now Search) utility in Windows. However, in XP Pro, the search never seems to stop and appears to be examining files internally. I have the search checking ALL files & folders and I know it will also search within compressed libraries. I have found now way to exclude the internal file search plus, I’m not sure that that is not the primary problem with the search speed.
Any ideas or suggestions? (Turning off the search of hidden and system files does not speed the search noticeably!)