Monday, January 25, 2010

Search Server Express 2008 Installation & Configuration

I worked on implementing Search Server Express 2008 for an Intranet Website. The installation process was a bit confusing as I was trying to do a Advanced installation (Web & App server and a separate SQL Server). I tried doing the basic installation on a VM to understand the installation steps and then tried the advanced installation.

Couple of things where I spent time are

a) Configuring crawling of PDF Files.

Since I was installing Search Server Express 2008 on a Windows 2008 64 bit server, I installed the Adobe PDF IFilter 9 for 64 bit platforms [http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=4025]

Then did the following.

1. Add the filter extension to the file types crawled.

Start > Program > Microsoft Office Server > Sharepoint 3.0 Central Administration > > Search Settings > File Types > New File Type (Add PDF extension)

3. Modify the following Registry keys by changing their "Default" value to the new CLSID of the Adobe IFilter: {E8978DA6-047F-4E3D-9C78-CDBE46041603}

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office server\12.0\Search\Setup\ContentIndexCommon\Filters\Extension\.pdf
Default --> {E8978DA6-047F-4E3D-9C78-CDBE46041603}

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0\Search\Setup\ContentIndexCommon\Filters\Extension\.pdf

Default --> {E8978DA6-047F-4E3D-9C78-CDBE46041603}

4. Add PDF icon to the PDF extension

1) Copy the .gif file that you want to use to the following folder:

Drive:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\Template\Images

NB: Make sure that the gif is 16 x 16 pixels.

2) Open the Docicon.xml file in Notepad. The Docicon.xml file is located in the following folder:

Drive:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web server extensions\60\Template\Xml

3) In the [ByExtension] section of the Docicon.xml file, add the following line, where NameofIconFile is the name of the .gif file:

[Mapping Key="pdf" Value="NameofIconFile.gif"/] ... e.g. [Mapping Key="pdf" Value="icpdf16.gif"/] Note: Replace '[' with < and > symbols.

b) Best bets not working

When I do a search for a given term in the Search Center site, the Best Bets come up before the results. But when I do the same search with my customised search page using the Web Service the best bets are not returned.

Solution: Use the URL you used to setup your keywords and best bets for the webservice and it will work. For eg. http://[website name used to setup keywords]/_vti_bin/search.asmx

Please let me know if any one has any issues with the installation of Search Server Express and I am happy to share my experiences.

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