ajberasategui

This plugin provides a Search Widget similar to the default WordPress one but with the abilty of adding category select 
lists to restrict the search query to only those categories.
Any comments, reviews, support questions are very much welcome!!!

AB Categories Search Widget

Insert a search form widget that allows visitors to add category filters to the search query.

Marios Alexandrou

Ultimate Category Excluder, abbreviated as UCE, is a WordPress plugin that allows you to quickly and easily exclude categories from your front page, archives, feeds, and searches. Just select which categories you want to be excluded, and UCE does all the work for you!

Ultimate Category Excluder

Ultimate Category Excluder allows you to quickly and easily exclude categories from your front page, archives, feeds, and search results.

AB Categories Search Widget vs Ultimate Category Excluder