A catalog contains all of the index information for a particular set of file directories. During installation the Indexing Service creates a default catalog called System. This catalog lists the contents of all permanently attached disk drives and, by default, all of the directories and subdirectories on the drives. If IIS is installed, the Indexing Service also creates a Web catalog that contains all the IIS files.
You can create catalogs, adding and removing them as needed. You can also configure catalogs, setting what directories are to be included or excluded and specifying what properties are to be stored.
To create a catalog for the Indexing Service, open the MMC with the Indexing Service snap-in and follow these steps:
Figure 26-5. Adding a catalog to the index.
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Catalogs can't be added to a remote computer if the default administrative shares have been removed.
Once you've created a catalog, you need to configure it so that it works as you expect. To do so, open the Indexing Service console and locate the catalog. Right-click the catalog and choose Properties to do the following:
With the exception of Generate Abstracts, all of the changes listed above take effect only after you stop and restart the catalog. To do so, right-click the catalog, point to All Tasks on the shortcut menu, and choose Stop. Then right-click again, point to All Tasks, and choose Start. If you change the Generate Abstracts setting, you'll need to stop and restart the Indexing Service for the change to be recognized.
By default, the System catalog includes everything on the local drives, excluding only temporary Internet files and history files. When you create a new catalog, you have to add the directories that are to be included as well as specifically exclude directories that are not to be part of the index. To add a directory to a catalog, follow these steps:
Figure 26-6. Adding a directory on a remote computer to the catalog.
To change settings for a directory, double-click the directory in the details pane of the Indexing Service console to open the Add Directory dialog box.
To exclude a particular directory, you must specify it. For example, the Wellman Archives catalog shown in Figure 26-7 includes a directory called Book Files. In that directory is a subdirectory called Correspondence that we want to exclude from indexing. To exclude a directory, follow these steps:
Figure 26-7. A catalog that includes directories from two remote computers.
The directory will appear in the directory list, but under Include In Catalog, the entry will be No. For example, Figure 26-8 shows that the Correspondence subdirectory has been excluded from the index.
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Although you can include a directory and then specifically exclude a portion of it, this process does not work in reverse. If you exclude a directory, you cannot then include some portion of it, even if you specify the directory and set it to be included in the index. If you attempt to do this, the directory will be in the catalog's directories and will be listed as being included in the catalog, but it will not be indexed.
Figure 26-8. Excluding a directory from the index.
REAL WORLD Indexing and Security
The Indexing Service is fully compatible with NTFS security. If the catalog is on an NTFS volume, users will not see documents in the results list unless they have permission to do so. However, if you index a UNC share, the results list will show the documents on that share whether or not the user has permission to access the documents.Users will also be able to see a catalog on a FAT drive whether they have permissions or not. If the remote FAT volume isn't hosted by Microsoft Windows NT or Windows 2000, the system will be forced to scan the volume periodically for changes.
Remote Novell NetWare and UNIX shares can be indexed; however, there is no security checking. Novell NetWare volumes must be periodically rescanned to detect changes.
Encrypted documents are not indexed. If a document in the index is later encrypted, it is removed from the index.
The Indexing Service saves certain file properties in a two-level cache in each catalog. The primary level contains a small number of values that are accessed frequently. The secondary level contains values that are used less often. Table 262 shows the properties that are stored in each catalog by default.
Table 26-2. Property values stored in a catalog by default
Friendly Name | Function | Value | Storage Level |
---|---|---|---|
DocTitle | Document title | 0x2 | Secondary |
Unique identifier for NTFS volumes | 0x5 | Primary | |
Work ID of the parent directory | 0x6 | Primary | |
Secondary storage ID, used internally by the Indexing Service | 0x7 | Primary | |
File Index | Unique identifier of a document in an NTFS partition | 0x8 | Primary |
Path | Document path | 0xb | Secondary |
Size | Document size | 0xc | Secondary |
Attrib | Document attributes | 0xd | Primary |
Write | Date and time the document was last written to | 0xe | Secondary |
In general, you should approach changing these properties with caution, always bearing in mind the following facts:
You should not assume that changing the property cache is always a poor idea. For example, you may want to be able to include in the index such information as when files were created or when they were last accessed.
To add a property to the properties saved in the property cache, follow these steps:
Figure 26-9. Adding a property to the property cache.
Changes take effect after the Indexing Service is stopped and restarted, but these newly added properties will be included in the property cache only for new documents. To update the entire index with the newly included properties, perform a full scan of the index, as described in the next section. If you later decide to remove a property or alter its settings, you can do so by clearing the Cached check box in the property's Properties window. Again, a full scan is required to update the entire index.
A full scan of the index consists of a complete inventory of all of the documents in the catalog. The Indexing Service automatically performs a full scan when it is first installed, when a directory is added to a catalog, and as a part of recovery if an error occurs. Incremental scans are done automatically when the Indexing Service restarts to detect documents that were changed while it was inactive. You can perform a full or incremental scan at any time by following these steps: