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Index Server

Tips and Tricks

Running Webhits Out of the IIS Process
DOC: Problems in Predefined Views in Index Server OLEDB Provider (MS Q200485)
Index Server 2.0 Release Notes (MS Q230291)
HOWTO: Edit Index Server Noise-Word Lists (Q247561)
How to Install the Samples for Windows 2000 Indexing Service (MS Q253357)
HOWTO: Query Index Server for Custom Properties with SQL Query Analyzer (MS Q240681)
Q. How do I configure Index Server catalogs?

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Running Webhits Out of the IIS Process


The Index Server sample query forms configure the Webhits ISAPI application to run out of the IIS process, because ISAPI applications are generally configured to run out of process when they are untrusted. It's better to run untrusted applications out of process so that IIS is not affected if the application crashes. Webhits is configured in the Index Server samples to run out of process because it uses text filters (IFilter) to display query hits in files. Because text filters come from many companies, it's hard to guarantee they are all robust.

The filters that ship with Index Server have been thoroughly tested. These include the HTML, Microsoft Office, and text filters. If you haven't installed any third party filters, it's safe (and more efficient) to run Webhits in the IIS process on your Web server.

Internet Service Manager can configure virtual directories for running in or out of the IIS process. To configure Webhits to run in or out of process, edit the properties of the virtual directory in which the .htw files reside. Then, in the Directory property sheet, set the Run in separate memory space (isolated process) check box appropriately. By default, Index Server installs .htw file samples in the /IISsamples/ISsamples/Oop virtual directory.

If you cannot run Webhits in the IIS process, limitations in IIS impose restrictions on Webhits. For example, files in virtual directories on computers other than the Web server cannot be displayed using Webhits when Webhits is running out of the IIS process. Also, files with extensions not associated with an IFilter cannot be displayed with Webhits when Webhits is running out of the IIS process and when the registry parameter WebhitsDisplayScript is not set to 2.

You can work around these limitations, but the workaround compromises security for the Web server. Use this workaround only if security is not a significant concern for your installation. The workaround requires the administrator to do the following:

  • Enable anonymous access to the directory through Internet Service Manager.
  • Configure an account that has administrative access as the default user for the directory.
To configure a user account
  1. Click Start, point to Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack, point to Microsoft Transaction Server, and click Transaction Server Explorer.
  2. In MMC, double-click the Microsoft Transaction Server folder.
  3. Open the Computers folder.
  4. Open My Computer (or the folder representing your Web server).
  5. Open Packages Installed.
  6. Right-click the package representing Iissamples/Issamples/Oop and click Properties on the menu to open the property sheet.
  7. On the Identity property sheet, type a user name and password in the User and Password boxes, and click OK.

    This account must have administrative privileges on the local computer.


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DOC: Problems in Predefined Views in Index Server OLEDB Provider (MS Q200485)


The information in this article applies to:
  • Microsoft OLE DB Provider for Index Server 2.0
This article was previously published under Q200485

SUMMARY

For the English and European releases of Microsoft OLE DB Provider for Index Server 2.0, the columns returned by some predefined views are not documented correctly in the Index Server documentation in the Windows NT Option Pack.

MORE INFORMATION

Note that when you issue SELECT * against these predefined views, new columns may be added to the end of the column-list in new product releases and the application should account for this (this is a well-known SQL behavior). For the existing English and European releases:
  • The documentation for EXTENDED_FILEINFO should state that the "Characterization" column is also returned.
  • The documentation for WEBINFO should state that the "Attrib" column is also returned.
  • The DocTitle column is missing from the WEBINFO and EXTENDED_WEBINFO predefined views. Customers can get a fix for this problem as described below.
To fix the problem of the missing DocTitle in WEBINFO and EXTENDED_WEBINFO predefined views, download Service Pack 4 for Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0.

REFERENCES

For more information on Index Server, refer to Index Server documentation in the Windows NT Option Pack product documentation.
Last Reviewed: 7/19/2001
Keywords: kbDatabase kbdocerr kbdocfix kbProvider KB200485


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Index Server 2.0 Release Notes (MS Q230291)


Index Server 2.0 Release Notes

The information in this article applies to:
  • Microsoft Index Server 2.0
  • Microsoft Windows NT version 4.0 Option Pack
This article was previously published under Q230291

SUMMARY

This article contains a copy of the Index Server 2.0 Release Notes included with the Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack. It is listed here so that the issues it covers are included in queries that are performed against the Knowledge Base.

The file containing these Release Notes is located at <%SystemRoot%>\Help\Iis\Htm\Core\Ixreadme.htm.

NOTE: Knowledge Base articles may be distributed in either ASCII-text or HTML form. If you are viewing the ASCII-text version of this article, some formatting may have been lost when it was converted from the original HTML form of Ixreadme.htm.

MORE INFORMATION

Microsoft Index Server Release Notes

Thank you for installing Microsoft(R) Index Server version 2.0 for Microsoft(R) Internet Information Server (IIS) version 4.0 running on Microsoft(R) WindowsNT(R) Server. This topic supplements information contained in the online documentation.

This page contains:

Visit the Index Server Home Page

For more information about Index Server and related features, see the Index Server home page:

http://www.microsoft.com/ntserver/search

Changes to the Documentation

This section updates the Index Server documentation for the following topics:

Indexing a Newly Created Web Site

When you create a new Web site through Internet Information Server (IIS), the site is not indexed by default, and therefore you cannot search documents on that site with Index Server.

To index a new Web site
  1. In left pane of Microsoft Management Console (MMC), right-click the newly created Web site.
  2. Click Properties on the menu.
  3. On the Home Directory property sheet, select Index this directory.
  4. Click OK.

Next, you must add a catalog for the new site. To learn how to add a catalog, see Creating Catalogs in the main documentation.

Running Webhits Out of the IIS Process

The Index Server sample query forms configure the Webhits ISAPI application to run out of the IIS process, because ISAPI applications are generally configured to run out of process when they are untrusted. It's better to run untrusted applications out of process so that IIS is not affected if the application crashes. Webhits is configured in the Index Server samples to run out of process because it uses text filters (IFilter) to display query hits in files. Because text filters come from many companies, it's hard to guarantee they are all robust.

The filters that ship with Index Server have been thoroughly tested. These include the HTML, Microsoft Office, and text filters. If you haven't installed any third party filters, it's safe (and more efficient) to run Webhits in the IIS process on your Web server.

Internet Service Manager can configure virtual directories for running in or out of the IIS process. To configure Webhits to run in or out of process, edit the properties of the virtual directory in which the .htw files reside. Then, in the Directory property sheet, set the Run in separate memory space (isolated process) check box appropriately. By default, Index Server installs .htw file samples in the /IISsamples/ISsamples/Oop virtual directory.

If you cannot run Webhits in the IIS process, limitations in IIS impose restrictions on Webhits. For example, files in virtual directories on computers other than the Web server cannot be displayed using Webhits when Webhits is running out of the IIS process. Also, files with extensions not associated with an IFilter cannot be displayed with Webhits when Webhits is running out of the IIS process and when the registry parameter WebhitsDisplayScript is not set to 2.

You can work around these limitations, but the workaround compromises security for the Web server. Use this workaround only if security is not a significant concern for your installation. The workaround requires the administrator to do the following:

  • Enable anonymous access to the directory through Internet Service Manager.
  • Configure an account that has administrative access as the default user for the directory.
To configure a user account
  1. Click Start, point to Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack, point to Microsoft Transaction Server, and click Transaction Server Explorer.
  2. In MMC, double-click the Microsoft Transaction Server folder.
  3. Open the Computers folder.
  4. Open My Computer (or the folder representing your Web server).
  5. Open Packages Installed.
  6. Right-click the package representing Iissamples/Issamples/Oop and click Properties on the menu to open the property sheet.
  7. On the Identity property sheet, type a user name and password in the User and Password boxes, and click OK.

    This account must have administrative privileges on the local computer.


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HOWTO: Edit Index Server Noise-Word Lists (Q247561)


The information in this article applies to:
  • Microsoft Index Server 2.0
This article was previously published under Q247561

SUMMARY

This article describes how to edit noise-word list files and how to activate the changes.

MORE INFORMATION

During the index and query process, Index Server uses noise-word list files for each language to filter the content provided by the wordbreaker and stemmer. This noise-word list includes words and characters that Index Server will not store in the catalog. This prevents Index Server from storing useless information and wasting disk space. To modify the noise-word list:
  1. Select the correct noise-word list file for the language you want to change.

    For each installed language, you can find the corresponding noise-word list file in the registry under:

    HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\ContentIndex\Language\language\NoiseFile REG_SZ

    The noise-word list files are stored in the %SystemRoot%\System32 folder.

    For example, the English_US noise-word file is stored as %SystemRoot%\System32\Noise.enu.

  2. Open the noise-word file with any text editor (such as Notepad) and edit the content. Save your changes.
  3. Stop and start the ContentIndex service for the changes to take effect. To stop and start the service, use Service Manager or the following command lines:

    net stop "content index"
    net start "content index"

Note that all the documents must be indexed again if they will be processed by the noise-word file you have changed. For example, assume that you remove a word from the Noise.enu file and that there is a document that has the EN-US language settings and contains this word. If you query the catalog for this word, you do not receive the document in the results. This occurs because the data that is stored in the catalog for this document was built with the old noise-word list. To receive the correct results, the document must be processed again using the new noise-word list.
Last Reviewed: 8/6/2002
Keywords: kbenv kbhowto KB247561

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How to Install the Samples for Windows 2000 Indexing Service (MS Q253357)


The information in this article applies to:
  • Indexing Service
This article was previously published under Q253537

SUMMARY

Many developers base their search code on samples that Microsoft has included with past versions of Index Server. However, no samples for the Indexing Service are included with the Windows 2000 or Windows XP operating systems.

MORE INFORMATION

The Windows 2000 and Windows XP sample search pages are included with the Platform SDK. To obtain the latest samples for Index Server, download the latest Platform SDK from the following Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) Web site:

http://msdn.microsoft.com

Last Reviewed: 7/16/2001
Keywords: kbDSupport kbinfo KB253537


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HOWTO: Query Index Server for Custom Properties with SQL Query Analyzer (MS Q240681)


The information in this article applies to:
  • Microsoft SQL Server 7.0
  • Indexing Service
This article was previously published under Q240681

SUMMARY

You can use SQL Server 7.0 to query against the Microsoft Indexing Service. This is covered in the SQL Server documentation under the topic "Full-text Querying of File Data." In some cases, it may be desirable to query against custom properties cataloged by Index Server.

MORE INFORMATION

Given the following line in a HTML page cataloged by Index Server, 
<META NAME="Generator" Content="Microsoft Developer Studio">
the following Microsoft Knowledge Base Article explains how to query for and display the "Generator" property:

185985 Using Index Server to Query and Display META TAG Information

Notice that the Generator property must be defined before it can be used. This is true in SQL Server.

The following syntax can be used to query for the Generator property using SQL Server: 
SELECT Q.FileName, Q.Size, Q.DocAuthor, Q.generator

FROM OpenQuery(FTIndexWeb, 
   'SET PROPERTYNAME ''d1b5d3f0-c0b3-11cf-9a92-00a0c908dbf1'' 
    PROPID ''generator'' 
    AS generator TYPE DBTYPE_STR;  
    SELECT FileName, Size, DocAuthor, generator
    FROM SCOPE('' "E:\Inetpub\wwwroot" '')'
    ) AS Q
WHERE Q.generator LIKE 'Microsoft Developer Studio'

REFERENCES

Textual Searches on File Data Using Microsoft SQL Server 7.0

For additional information, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

185985 Using Index Server to Query and Display META TAG Information

Last Reviewed: 2/17/2000
Keywords: kbDSupport kbhowto KB240681

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Q. How do I configure Index Server catalogs?


A. Index server is VERY picky about the order in which events are done with new catalogs when linked to a web site. I had this very problem when moving the NT FAQ and searches from an IDQ file were failing. The correct order of events under Index Server 2.0 are as follows:

  1. Make sure that the Web site has been created in the Internet Information Server snap-in.
  2. In the Index Server snap-in, create a new catalog. After the catalog has been created, view the properties for it.
  3. On the Web tab, select the Web site that you want to index, and click OK.
  4. Go back to the Internet Information Server snap-in, and select Properties on the Web site you are indexing.
  5. On the Home Directory tab, select the Index This Directory check box, and click OK.
  6. Stop the Index server, and then restart it. The new catalog should come online and begin indexing the new Web site.

On the Windows 2000 version perform the following:

  1. Make sure that the Web site has been created in the Internet Information Server snap-in.
  2. In the Index Server snap-in, create a new catalog. After the catalog has been created, view the properties for it. On the Tracking tab, select the Web site that you want to index from the WWW Server pull-down menu, and then click OK.
  3. Go back to the Internet Information Server snap-in, and select Properties on the Web site you are indexing.
  4. On the Home Directory tab, select the Index This Resource check box, and click OK.
  5. Stop and restart the catalog to begin indexing of the new site (if you have problems try restarting the entire index service but this should not be necessary in Windows 2000).

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