.Net and windows search (Win 2008 (x86) server)

Question

We have migrated one of our websites from a windows 2003 machine with IIS5 installed. Search within the website also used an indexing service to search within a Catalog "index_pdf". The catalog indexed a folder on the server and Adobe iFilter 6.0 was used to be able to search through the pdf files. While migrating, we switched to another OS -> Windows 2008 (x86). On this machine we installed but now searching through .pdf documents doesn't work. We tested the website on a different server with different versions of PDF iFilters but unfortunatly without any result. Even on a Windows 2008 (x64) server with the 64 bit version of Adobe PDF iFilter we couldn't search through .pdf files.

Our findings:

1. The classic Indexing Service in combination with classic ASP works. (filtering on pdf hasn't been tested)
2. The classing Indexing Service in combination with ASP.NET doesn't work.
3. On windows 2008 servers we have to use Windows Search, because IIS7.x communicates on a different way with the Indexing Service.

Now we have to find a way to rewrite our excisting VB.NET code to a way in which it wil work with the new Indexing Service which we don't know to well yet. My question is how to approach this. Are there any examples out there that might help us head to the right direction?

Answer 1

Some resources on how to use Windows Search API (from ASP.NET/IIS etc.):

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/bb266517%28v=vs.85%29.aspx
• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ee872061%28v=vs.85%29.aspx
• ASP.NET OLEDB code breaks when deployed on IIS7
• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/bb266518%28v=vs.85%29.aspx
• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa965362.aspx

Another option is to use a different Indexer altogether - like Lucene/Solr (it can used from .NET too)...