FP98: How to Use FrontPage with Microsoft Index Server on IIS 3.0

Microsoft Index Server version 1.1 is a content-indexing and search component included with Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) 3.0. When the FrontPage 98 Server Extensions are installed with IIS 3.0, the Search Form uses the document index and search component of Index Server. When Index Server is used with IIS virtual servers and FrontPage there are special considerations. This article describes the interaction between FrontPage, Index Server, and IIS virtual servers.

Installing Index Server for Virtual Servers

For information about installing the latest version of Index Server, visit the following Microsoft site:

Creating and Associating a Catalog for Each Virtual Server

Using the Index Server Administration HTML pages, check the list of virtual roots to be indexed in the catalog and remove any virtual roots you do not want to include in the catalog. Common roots (virtual roots without specific IP addresses) are indexed in all catalogs by default.

Force the creation of the catalog by browsing to the virtual server and by trying a search.

Issues

FrontPage creates an Internet data query (.idq) file in the _vti_bin directory for each page that contains a Search Form or WebBot Search component. To properly associate the query with the catalog for the virtual server, edit the "filename.htm0.idq" file so the CiCatalog parameter correctly specifies the catalog for that virtual server. This file will be deleted and recreated automatically when you use the Recalculate Hyperlinks command on the Tools menu in FrontPage Explorer. Because the file is deleted by the SYSTEM account, there is no way to adequately protect it using Windows NT permissions.

If the CiCatalog parameter in the filename.htm0.idq file does not specifically name a catalog for the virtual server, the default catalog will be used. The default catalog is identified in the following registry subkey: By design, only ten files are returned as part of the search results. The search caption lists the total number of files that match the query, but ten is the maximum number of filenames that are returned. The number of files returned can be changed by updating the CiMaxRecords InResultSet variable in the filename.htm0.idq file. All changes to the _vti_bin/filename.htm0.idq file will be lost the next time you use the Recalculate Hyperlinks command.

If you want to avoid using the Search Form or the WebBot Search Component, you may design a custom form linked to an .idq file in a directory other than _vti_bin.

The catalog can be updated from the Index Server Administration page by performing an incremental directory scan and merging the index. The scan and merge operations are performed automatically as defined by the registry entries ForcedNetPathScanInterval and

MasterMergeTime. The default interval for ForcedNetPathScanInterval is 120 minutes and the default for MasterMergeTime is 0:00.

For additional information about using Microsoft Index Server with FrontPage, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: