Search results for 'Search this site'

Do you want to see what is new and search the Windows 8 Store from the web–now you can

doverton — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 09:55:42 GMT

Hi,

just a little note as I’ve been using this for a little while now. You can access the Windows 8 store, search it and filter from this web site - http://metrostore.preweb.sk/. It is unofficial, however Vlko and Peter both seem open to suggestions too.

Enjoy

David

Windows Intune feedback and support tools and useful blogs

doverton — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 10:02:00 GMT

I’ve been reading and responding to the posts on the Windows Intune forums site and realised that I should share with everyone the support and feedback tools available for us. These enable conversations with the support teams and input into the people making decisions about updates and major releases for Windows Intune. The following sites are available:

Support

Forum	Support for Windows Intune	Microsoft Online Services support

The forum has responses from the community as well as great Microsoft support people.	This site provides resources to enable you to access support by phone and e-mail on technical, non-technical issues, Windows and MDOP	This site provides the details for phone and support page access to help with the Microsoft Online Services Customer Portal (MOCP)

Feedback

Windows Intune feedback

This site provides free-form feedback to the Microsoft team, so not support issues, but product hits, misses and desires

I hope this helps you get more out of Windows Intune as well as the posts I make and others:

David Overton’s site - http://davidoverton.com/blogs/doverton/archive/tags/Windows+Intune/default.aspx

James Evans’ blog - http://www.edutech.me.uk/category/intune/

Mike Resseler’s blog - http://scug.be/blogs/intune/archive/tags/Intune/default.aspx

Jethro Seghers’ blog - http://jethroseghers.blogspot.com/search/label/Intune

ttfn

David

SQL 2005 to SQL 2008 forklift upgrade resulted in 50% cpu utilisation (& resolution) – aka SBS 2003 to SBS 2008 SQL Application Move

doverton — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 09:26:00 GMT

I’ve recently moved the database behind DavidOverton.com (also uksbsguy.com) from a Windows Server 2003 system with SQL 2005 to Windows Server 2008 with SQL 2008. This would be the same process if you were potentially performing a migration from SBS 2003 with SQL 2005 to SBS 2008 Premium with SQL 2008 (or SQL 2005, but the performance issue only happens with SQL 2008). The process was amazingly simple:

Stop the database on the Windows 2003 system
Copy the datafiles, errorlogs, logs etc to the new system
Install SQL 2008 on the new system, creating an instance by the same name
Modify the registry to point to my new files (details here)
Start SQL 2008

Obviously I had to do some IIS stuff (create a new site) and install and redirect my logging software (WhosOn), but overall it went very well.

Or so I thought until I noticed that my normally nominal CPU utilisation had gone bananas. One of the SQL 2008 new and improved features is the Server Activity History which makes it very easy to pinpoint problems, along with the Activity Monitor. To get the monitor you need to configure the SQL Data Collector (run it twice, once to configure the data warehouse and once to configure the collection process itself). Then right click on the data collection and chose one of the reports.

Notice the Activity History above shows 50% cpu utilisation when less than 50 people are hitting the website. This should be a snooze for the system. I ended up disconnection the web site, my monitoring software and everything else and running a trace with every box ticked. This gave me a trace output like this:

I got around 200,000 lines like this when every process on the system that could access the system was stopped. Wow! A quick search of the internet talked about corrupt msdb files and then it hit me. I had lifted all the database files from my SQL 2005 system, including the MSDB files to the SQL 2008 system. A quick checked showed that the SQL 2008 files were still intact and that SQL Server itself was referencing my SQL 2005 files.

By entering the two commands below I changed back to the default SQL 2008 datafiles and after I restarted SQL, my cpu was back where it should be. Note that the directory may be different for you and may well contain and instance name, which is used to replace <instance> in the commands.

alter database msdb modify file (NAME= MSDBData, FILENAME=’C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10.<instance>\MSSQL\datamsdb.mdf’);

alter database msdb modify file (NAME= MSDBLog, FILENAME=’C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10.<instance>\MSSQL\data_log.mdf’);

So, what impact did it have?

I mentioned earlier the Activity monitor which gives you a realtime status of the system, but did not show the msdb issues’ root cause. A great tool that looks like resource monitor:

ttfn

David

Technorati Tags: SQL Server 2008, SQL, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft, Tips, Performance

How to get DNS and DHCP working on a Windows Server from behind the Windows Firewall

doverton — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 20:55:00 GMT

I have a Windows Home Server at home and I decided I wanted it to be responsible for handing out DHCP and DNS addresses in the house. All very good, but when I set up the services none of it worked because of the built in Windows Firewall. While I could have just turned off the Firewall I decided to learn how to put the holes into the firewall to make it work with the firewall, thus maintaining better security.

A quick search of the web showed me many settings, but it did not seem to cover the whole picture – then I came across the MS site Windows Firewall Settings which has things broken down into these four handy sections that shall for ever more be my guides to ports and firewalls in the Microsoft world. What is more, as you will see later, the tips in here as to how to get things working, getting over common hurdles is quite stunning too:

Windows Firewall Settings: Optional Components
Windows Firewall Settings: Remote Administration Tools
Windows Firewall Settings: Server Roles
Windows Firewall Settings: Services

The two key entries for me are below – DHCP and DNS. Note that the DHCP entry has a wonderful tip saying that you will need to ensure 0.0.0.0 is included in the scope of the acceptable ports – i.e. you can not just set the scope to local network only. This was my 1st mistake

Windows Firewall: DHCP server

Add UDP ports 67 and 2535 to the Windows Firewall exceptions list on the DHCP server.
Important:

When you create a Windows Firewall exception for the DHCP protocol on a DHCP server, you must set the scope for the exception to Any computer including those on the Internet. If you leave it set to My network (subnet) only, all inbound DHCP Discover packets from client computers are dropped because the IP address of the packet is 0.0.0.0, which is not recognized by the computer as being part of the local subnet. This causes the DHCP process to fail and clients do not receive IP addresses.
Windows Firewall: DHCP server

On the DNS entry the thing which grabbed me was the ports other than 53 that were needed:

Windows Firewall: DNS server

Add UDP port 53 and TCP ports 53, 139, and 445 to the Windows Firewall exceptions list.
Windows Firewall: DNS server

Invaluable information!

ttfn

David

Technorati Tags: DNS, DHCP, Windows Server, Firewall, Windows Firewall, Ports, Port, Microsoft, Windows Server 2003

Microsoft Office Live Small Business v2 - have you got it already?

doverton — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 23:29:39 GMT

This happened a couple of weeks ago, but it is always worth sharing the improvements in Office Live. Not only do we have this going on, but we also have the beta of Workspaces progressing. Remember, your customers could benefit from Office Live and if you don't offer it, someone else might just offer them Office Live or something else, blocking you out from that customer as they grow in size.

Microsoft Office Live Small Business is the award-winning, easy-to-use suite of Web-based software and services designed to help small businesses affordably take, promote and manage their businesses online.
Used by nearly 600,000 customers worldwide, Office Live Small Business is available in the US, UK, France, Germany and Japan. The service also provides an excellent environment within which partners can build industry-specific solutions.
Office Live Small Business is now available with :

Full Firefox 2.0 support for PC & Mac
Easy-to-use Website Designer tool or use html/3rd party design tools
Outlook Connector for offline synching of email, calendar, contacts & tasks
Mobile access to email, calendar and contacts from Windows-Powered SmartPhones or PocketPCs
Solutions Packager for Web designers

FREE when you sign up :

Domain name *
500MB fully hosted Website
Up to 100 email accounts
Contact Manager
Document Manager
Project Manager
Workspace

* (.co.uk free for the first 2 years or .com, org, net, .eu free for the first year)
Additional affordable features :

E-mail marketing beta
Search marketing
More storage, users and tools

Simple Windows Live ID signup process. No need to validate with a credit card any more !
What are you waiting for ? Read more details and signup now at : smallbusiness.officelive.com

See what you can do with it.

David

Technorati Tags: Small Business, Office Live, Office Live Small Business, Web site, domain, e-mail, workspaces, document manager

WSS v3 Search and Search Server - how to mix the two and fix the error "The search request was unable to connect to the Search Service"

doverton — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 10:03:46 GMT

I got this e-mail the other day:

Hi David,From your posting "How to install Microsoft Search Server 2008 Express - including how to install on Windows Home Server" it seems that you had some similar problems that I am experiencing regarding running wss3 and ssx on the same server.
In my case it effectively broke the "search this site" option and I'm trying to find a solution to this do you by any chance now what is my problem?

I keep getting the error message:The search request was unable to connect to the Search Service.

Regards

Peter

After a bit of research the answer can be found at http://wss.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSSv3%20FAQ/DispForm.aspx?ID=1256. While I have not used this, the feedback from Peter was excellent "Thanks a bundle, This was the solution to my problem.", so I feel confident sharing it.

ttfn

David

Technorati Tags: Search Server Express Edition 2008, Search Server, Windows SharePoint Server, WSS, SSX

Office 2007 SP1 is here and it does more than just update the desktop - SharePoint gets AJAX for example

doverton — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 03:05:00 GMT

I'm sure you have heard that the Office 2007 Service Pack is here. Darren Strange has documented what is in it and how to get it at Office 2007 sp1 ready for download today and OfficeRocker! : More detail about sp1. In answer to Susanne's post at here, hopefully this post has some more info in it

One of the little things he puts that I like is:

Some other factoids about sp1

There are roughly 2500 fixes in SP1. This an average size for a service pack, but the issues fixed are very important to our customers.
Almost 20% of those fixes are direct result of customer requests.
Over 500 of those fixes focused on security.
There are a total of 24 different releases in 38 languages. There are 683 distinct packages. All have released simultaneously today.

If you get the whitepaper then you would be keen to see the information below. Notice that SharePoint amongst other things a developer update to support Ajax and that other server products (Groove and Project Server) are also updated.

Stability

Microsoft continues to improve its software products by listening to customers and acting on customer requests. With the 2007 Microsoft® Office system Service Pack 1 (SP1), Microsoft demonstrates this commitment by fixing at least the top five software bugs in each application that caused crashes, resulting in an even more stable product. The 2007 Office system SP1 also addresses many minor annoyances and distracting problems that users had to contend with in the initial release. Many of these minor usability and stability fixes are in response to customer requests as well. The following section lists summaries of some of the most notable stability improvements delivered with the 2007 Office system SP1.
Access 2007

For third-party applications that use Data Access Object code to synchronize replicated information in a Microsoft Office Access™ 2007 database, Office Access 2007 no longer returns a run-time error that causes the application to close or time out.
Communicator 2007

Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 now presents more accurate presence information and does so with consistent visual cues.

The icons used to display presence are modified so that users who are red-green colourblind can determine people’s presence status.
Office Communicator 2007 no longer causes presence icons to flicker when multiple people appear simultaneously.
Presence information in Office Communicator 2007 and other Microsoft Office applications is consistent in all scenarios.
Microsoft Office Outlook® 2007 no longer starts in the background along with Office Communicator 2007.

Excel 2007

Several stability, general usability, and compatibility improvements have been incorporated into Microsoft Office Excel® 2007.

Office Excel 2007 no longer stops responding in some instances when opening a workbook containing calculations.
Office Excel 2007 workbooks that are saved in Page Break Preview mode and opened in Microsoft Office Excel 2003 no longer produce an error when switched to Normal view.
When inputting calculations that should result in numbers 65,534 through 65,536, Office Excel 2007 no longer returns the display error of 100,001.
Office Excel 2007 now retains custom colours on shapes in Excel 2003 worksheets.
Office Excel 2007 no longer misplaces or wraps labels in charts when the workbook is reopened.

Groove 2007

For Microsoft Office Groove® 2007, issues surrounding the activation of new and previously retired accounts have been resolved.

Office Groove 2007 no longer places a 60-day limit on retired accounts that are stored in backup files.
When the auto-activation feature is turned on and invited users open an invitation file (.grv), they are no longer prompted for an activation key or notified of an unconfigured account.

InfoPath 2007 and InfoPath Forms Server

Microsoft Office InfoPath® 2007 benefits from a more consistent user experience, especially with online forms.

When users input data into an Office InfoPath 2007 form using a Web browser, the saved changes are now retained after closing and reopening the form.
Font size no longer increases when pasting from one rich text box in Office InfoPath 2007 to another.

Outlook 2007

Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 benefits from a number of fixes and enhancements that make the popular messaging client more stable and easier to use.

Office Outlook 2007 no longer closes unexpectedly when the junk e-mail rule is set to null.
Body content in HTML-formatted e-mail messages now appears properly in the preview pane or when the message is opened.
Items moved from an offline folder file (.ost) to a personal folder file (.pst) now display properly in the preview pane.
In search folders, Office Outlook 2007 now shows the accurate count for unread items that are hidden.
When scheduling a resource such as a meeting room in meeting requests, the public free/busy information for the resource is now complete and visible in Office Outlook 2007.
When users forward plain-text e-mail messages with attachments, the body text is now retained.
If the Mailbox Cleanup wizard starts while the user is dragging a message into a folder, Office Outlook 2007 no longer closes unexpectedly.

PowerPoint 2007

Fixes in Microsoft Office PowerPoint® 2007 make the presentation application even more reliable, especially when used in conjunction with Microsoft Office Outlook Web Access, Web sites that use forms authentication, or event macros.

Users who have started an event macro in Office PowerPoint 2007 can now advance slides by right-clicking and then choosing Next or Previous.
When users try to open a presentation in Office PowerPoint 2007 from a Web site using forms authentication, the presentation will now appear properly.
Users can now open presentations in Office PowerPoint 2007 from e-mail attachments in Office Outlook Web Access.
Office PowerPoint 2007 no longer crashes when the user programmatically accesses the parent property of the Hyperlinks Collection Object in the Office PowerPoint 2007 object model.
Text formatting now behaves similarly to previous versions of PowerPoint, where new text retains the formatting of the deleted text instead of using the formatting of the character to the left.

Project 2007 and Project Server 2007

The 2007 Office system SP1 eliminates instances when either Microsoft Office Project 2007 or the accompanying Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 crashes due to a software error.

Office Project 2007 no longer crashes when users click to view Windows account or Details in the Resources Information dialog box and then perform any other action.
Office Project 2007 does not produce an error message when a link from one task accesses a task in a different project stored on Office Project Server 2007. This error only occurred when the linked project was renamed.
Microsoft Office Project Web Access now makes task IDs available and allows users to enter a work estimate when creating a new task.

SharePoint Server 2007

Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007 has improved manageability and compatibility.

Office SharePoint Server 2007 now has the ability to be installed on Windows Server 2008 providing compatibility and support.
ASP.NET AJAX has compatibility and support with Office SharePoint Server 2007 including examples for customer web parts build the AJAX 1.0 Control Toolkit and the AJAX 1.0 Extensions for ASP.NET (KB 941955)
New manageability with STSADM commands for consolidating or repartitioning your content databases, renaming host named site collections, and the ability to scope the people picker to a specific active directory organizational unit.
Advanced search results now include results with spaces in file names.
The View by Modified Date function now works correctly in search results.
Office SharePoint Server 2007 is now able to crawl case-sensitive Web content on computers not running the Windows® operating system.
Office SharePoint Server 2007 can now index a public folder on a Microsoft Exchange Server with a backslash in the subject.

Visio 2007

Microsoft Office Visio® 2007 now properly redraws shapes when users apply a dynamic connector that is part of a group of shapes in Office Visio 2007.
Word 2007

By taking care of several small stability and usability details, Microsoft Office Word 2007 is a more useful and reliable tool for everyday document creation tasks.

With Office Word 2007, users can now open and edit embedded objects that contain other embedded objects.
When using smart documents in Office Word 2007, the Document Actions task pane no longer disappears when moving the pointer into the Reviewing pane. Additionally, task panes opened earlier no longer appear unexpectedly.
Office Word 2007 properly creates and updates a table of contents in unprotected sections of documents that also contain sections protected for forms.
Office Word 2007 no longer prints an extra page when users choose a printer with the duplex option enabled.

Performance

Many of the improvements delivered in the 2007 Microsoft® Office system Service Pack 1 (SP1) boost application and search performance. The service pack includes performance enhancements for some of the most commonly used applications in the 2007 Microsoft Office system, such as Microsoft Office Access™ 2007 and Microsoft Office Outlook® 2007. Additionally, users that rely on server components for the 2007 Office system and the Japanese Input Method Editor (IME) will see a significant performance increase.
General Performance Fixes

Applications in the 2007 Office system work more effectively with the Japanese IME released by Microsoft, especially when inputting Japanese characters and converting those characters to kanji. In addition, computers that simultaneously run the Japanese IME and a security solution no longer use up to 100 percent of CPU resources.
Access 2007

Project files (.adp) no longer run slower than expected when opened in Microsoft Office Access 2007.
Outlook 2007

Improved performance in Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 eliminates frustrating delays when opening large mailbox files and frees office workers to focus on important business tasks. The 2007 Office system SP1 makes it easier to open large offline folder files (.ost) and personal folder files (.pst) that are located directly on the user’s machine.
Project 2007 and Project Server 2007

When adding multiple values to a lookup table in Microsoft Office Project 2007, the application no longer searches for duplicate values in a way that unexpectedly slows performance. Also, users can now quickly retrieve lists of projects from a Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 database.
SharePoint Server 2007

With the 2007 Office system SP1, the performance of Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007 improves general server activities and search functionality. An Office SharePoint Server that experiences heavy use no longer slows when a Microsoft .NET Framework hotfix (greater or equal to build 2.0.50727.832) is installed. The service pack also helps reduce the lag time before the start of a document library crawl during a document search in SharePoint.
Security

The 2007 Microsoft® Office system was built from the ground up, with security and privacy as driving design considerations. The 2007 Microsoft Office system Service Pack 1 incrementally improves security in the 2007 Office release by incorporating the latest security research and responding to ongoing application testing results. Individual application fixes that protect people’s privacy complement these improvements to baseline security.

ttfn

David

Technorati Tags: If you only read one post today, Office 2007, Office System, SharePoint Server 2007, Windows SharePoint Services, Service Pack, Service Pack 1, Outlook 2007, Project 2007, Word 2007, PowerPoint 2007, Excel 2007, Access 2007, Groove, Communicator 2007

Glass/ translucent Toast and balloons in Vista from Tweaking with Vishal

doverton — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 03:17:21 GMT

I got a mail from a MVP asking me to link to his site. This is not that uncommon an experience, but often I can not find anything in common, however Vishal's request is different. I found lots to link about. Added to this is the fact that Steve Clayton recently blogged on something I covered ages ago (Steve's was at Change your Vista logon screen and mine at Vista enhancements and utilities (changing the screen savers, adding extra search functionality, but I've just realised he's not got me on his blog roll!!)

The 1st link is how to go from the "new" opaque balloons translucent ones ala early betas of Vista

Glass Toast: Get longhorn 4xxx style Glassy notification balloons in Windows XP / 2003 and Vista

From this

To this: GlassToast

Download link and more at Glass Toast: Get longhorn 4xxx style Glassy notification balloons in Windows XP / 2003 and Vista | Tweaking with Vishal

ttfn

David

Technorati Tags: Vista Tweaks, Windows Vista, Aero

How to install Microsoft Search Server 2008 Express - including how to install on Windows Home Server

doverton — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 23:43:58 GMT

I wrote about the search products the other day, but I then decided to take it for a spin. The easiest server for me to install on was a Windows Home Server, so here is the process.

Download the software and run the setup program and run the preparation tool:

Now run the installation tool. For me, I don't want much installed on the C drive, but I do have some drives known as E and F.

Once this is done, now go via the web to configure it. I asked for it to crawl my file shares, web sites and more

I then did a test search and it all worked :-)

Now, when I went back to the WHS sites, things were not so good. I discovered that the new site that Search Express clashed. There was 2 things I needed to do. One was to change the host header for the search site so that it did not clash with the default site. This is done in IIS admin and if you need instructions on how to do this, just drop a comment for me to know. Anyway, do this, but that was not enough. It enabled the default web site to start, but now search was broken. To fix that I had to set up SharePoint so that it knew about the new name for the site.

The place that documents this is http://store.bamboosolutions.com/kb/article.aspx?id=10460. Use the information to create a new site for "SharePoint - 80". Use the new host header you put in for the site and don't forget to add an entry to the DNS if needed!

That was it, Search installed and WHS back to normal.

ttfn

David

Technorati Tags: Windows Home Server, Search Express Edition 2008

Microsoft Search Server 2008 Express is available as a release candidate and will be free when it releases. This is all the power of SharePoint search engine integrated into 1 web page

doverton — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 14:35:56 GMT

I have only just been able to start playing with this, but it is looking good. I'm told that it does NOT YET load on SBS, but that the issue is being looked at (the auto config tools that make it so easy clash with the pre-defined IIS settings for SBS) and the plan is to support SBS too. I will look at how to hack it on SBS yet :-) More info can be found at Enterprise Search from Microsoft.

So what is it? (basically, web, share and application search capability with lots of abilities, but some important ones picked out below).

Familiar Search Experience

Empower your users to quickly find the information they need through a familiar Search Center interface

Pinpoint the most relevant information you need with recommended best bets, authoritative sources, term definitions, hit highlighting, and query correction.

Retrieve concise and clear search results with duplicate collapsing, allowing you to quickly review a wide variety of relevant information.

Stay on top of new information relevant to your work by subscribing to update notifications of your search results using e-mail and RSS alerts.

Build upon a familiar user interface and application platform that lets you customize your search experience and the actions you can take on your search results.

Search Center. Empower your people to quickly find the information they need through a familiar, web-style search interface and easy-to-use query syntax. Re-configure the layout of Search Center elements without writing any code.
Content Summaries. Quickly browse textual summaries of content that appears in the context of your search terms.
Hit Highlighting. Quickly spot where your search terms appear in search results and content summaries.
Best Bets and Definitions. Highlights editorialized sites or definitions for common search terms likely to have a single authoritative answer.
Query Correction. Receive helpful "Did you mean?" suggestions for misspelled queries.
Duplicate Collapsing. Find the content you're looking for faster using more concise, structured search results with grouped duplicates.
E-mail / RSS Alerts. Stay on top of new information relevant to your work by subscribing to update notifications of your most common searches.
Out-of-the-box Relevancy. Get relevant search results immediately, without extensive configuration using a ranking engine developed in collaboration with Microsoft Research and Windows Live search.
Extensible Search Experience. Use powerful development tools (including Visual Studio and SharePoint Designer) to build customized query / results experiences and search-enabled applications on the SharePoint platform - from altering the appearance of your search site using XLST to enabling contextual actions you can take on search results.

Powerful enough to meet your needs now and as they grow.

Provide a search capability optimized for business data to deliver highly relevant results across intranet and public-facing web site content. Scale your deployment to meet your needs with no pre-set document limits.
Find information across a variety of business applications and services using federated search connectors.
Upgrade to a multi-server topology with Microsoft Search Server 2008.
Upgrade to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 when you need to easily index structured information and expertise information , or add enterprise content management, collaboration, or other complementary capabilities to your business productivity infrastructure.
Take advantage of a strong Partner ecosystem to implement and further extend your Search solution.

No Pre-set Document Limits. Scale your search infrastructure to meet your evolving needs - however big or small they are - using the same search platform across a breadth of server hardware and SQL Server database configurations.

Continuous Propagation Indexing. Improve the freshness of your search results with an index that incrementally updates itself as it crawls your information. Newly crawled content is propagated to the query servers so people can search it sooner, without having to wait for all content to be crawled.
Out-of-the-box Indexing Connectors. Index content on file servers, web sites, Windows SharePoint Services, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, Exchange Server public folders, and Lotus Notes repositories. Find additional Indexing Connectors in the Search Connector Gallery
Indexing Connector API. Extend your searches by indexing information in 3rd-party data repositories, applications, and services.
Federated Search Connectors. Federate your searches to indexes in other data repositories, applications, and services using the Open Search standard. Quickly import or export your federated locations using packaged Federated Location Definition (.FLD) files. Find Federated Search Connectors in the Search Connector Gallery.
Internet Search Integration. Use the same search query experience to retrieve internet search results from providers supporting the OpenSearch standard via Federated Search Connectors.
Search iFilters. Index a wide variety of documents and file types using an interface common across Windows Desktop Search, Windows Vista, SharePoint, and SQL Server.
Search Connector Gallery. Reference Microsoft's online gallery of 3rd-party federated search connectors, indexing connectors, and iFilters.
Relevance Tuning. Retrieve the most relevant results across a diverse set of 3rd-party line-of-business systems and content repositories from a single search query. Use a ranking engine developed in collaboration with Microsoft Research and Windows Live Search.
Search Scopes. Define custom sets of search results based on flexible rules. For example, define a scope that matches information having certain properties (like "people") or from certain content sources (like a specific web site).
Definitions. Set editorial text that should appear whenever a key word or phrase is used in a search query.
Synonyms. List related terms that should return identical pre-defined results as your key words.
Common Desktop Search Infrastructure. Use a search infrastructure that effectively scales from the desktop, allowing components like iFilters and Indexing Connectors used for desktop search to also be used on the server. Learn more about Windows Desktop Search.

Easy to configure, easy to maintain

Streamlined Installation. Simplified experience makes it easy to get an enterprise search infrastructure running in your environment quickly.
Unified Administration Dashboard. Review common administrative tasks, monitor system and crawl status, and configure your search settings in a single, configurable view.
Crawl Scheduling. Configure data repositories, applications, and services you want indexed and specify crawl schedules for when full or incremental crawls should be performed.
Query and Results Reporting. Review your most common searches, queries with no results, top destination pages, query volume, click-through rates, and most-clicked best bets. Recognize not only the most popular searches, but also the least successful - and improve them by adding new Best Bets and content sources.
Technical Resources. Make use of Microsoft's library of enterprise search technical resources and articles on TechNet and MSDN.
Community Discussion Groups. Connect with your peers who are implementing Microsoft enterprise search solutions. Participate in community discussion groups here.
Partner Ecosystem. Take advantage of Microsoft's broad partner ecosystem with expertise in extending and implementing enterprise search solutions. Find an enterprise search partner .

ttfn

David

Technorati Tags: Windows SharePoint Services, Search

Search results for 'Search this site'

Do you want to see what is new and search the Windows 8 Store from the web–now you can

Windows Intune feedback and support tools and useful blogs

Support

Forum

Support for Windows Intune

Microsoft Online Services support

Feedback

Windows Intune feedback

SQL 2005 to SQL 2008 forklift upgrade resulted in 50% cpu utilisation (& resolution) – aka SBS 2003 to SBS 2008 SQL Application Move

How to get DNS and DHCP working on a Windows Server from behind the Windows Firewall

Windows Firewall: DHCP server

Important:

Windows Firewall: DNS server

Microsoft Office Live Small Business v2 - have you got it already?

WSS v3 Search and Search Server - how to mix the two and fix the error "The search request was unable to connect to the Search Service"

Office 2007 SP1 is here and it does more than just update the desktop - SharePoint gets AJAX for example

Stability

Access 2007

Communicator 2007

Excel 2007

Groove 2007

InfoPath 2007 and InfoPath Forms Server

Outlook 2007

PowerPoint 2007

Project 2007 and Project Server 2007

SharePoint Server 2007

Visio 2007

Word 2007

Performance

General Performance Fixes

Access 2007

Outlook 2007

Project 2007 and Project Server 2007

SharePoint Server 2007

Security

Glass/ translucent Toast and balloons in Vista from Tweaking with Vishal

How to install Microsoft Search Server 2008 Express - including how to install on Windows Home Server

Microsoft Search Server 2008 Express is available as a release candidate and will be free when it releases. This is all the power of SharePoint search engine integrated into 1 web page

Familiar Search Experience

Powerful enough to meet your needs now and as they grow.

Easy to configure, easy to maintain