I’m on a project that is being upgraded from vbscript to ASP.NET MVC. It used Microsoft Index Server to index Word and PDF files on a Windows Server 2003 machine. It simply opened an OleDbConnection using a connection string like “Provider=\”MSIDXS\”;Data Source=\”docSearch\”;”.
After researching a bit, I learned that Index Server is obsolete (“Note Indexing Service is obsolete as of Windows XP. Instead, use Windows Search.” – http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms690580) and Windows Search is the successor.
So, in my new MVC app, I’m trying to connect using OleDbConnection with a connection string like “Provider=Search.CollatorDSO;Extended Properties=\”Application=Windows\””.
I have a method that takes in a formatted query and executes the search – here is the query that gets executed using OleDb:
string.Format("SELECT System.FileName FROM SystemIndex WHERE CONTAINS('{0}')", query)
Now, when I call my method in a test class, it works fine (i.e. returns results… myDataReader.HasRows is true). But, when I call the same method from my MVC Controller, it returns no results – myDataReader.HasRows is false – using the same query. My guess is something to do with permissions and IIS not being able to access the index. How can I get IIS to have access to the index? How can I expose the index to a ASP.NET web page? If Index Server is obsolete, and this functionality isn’t supported in Windows Search, what am I supposed to use?
I found my answer here ASP.NET OLEDB code breaks when deployed on IIS7. By impersonating a user that has access to the index.