Indexing Service has been around in one form or another since about 1996, originally in connection with Internet Information Server (IIS). You can run Indexing Service if you want to index a website for more rapid client searching, although it also works even if you just want to create an index for a particular drive or folder on a server’s local file system.
Indexing Service on Server 2003 was a default service with an Automatic start type until SP1 came along, at which point it became disabled by default. An administrator would typically configure it via the Computer Management console (COMPMGMT.MSC); it appears under the Services and Applications node. Admins, developers, and system builders could create interfaces to the index via ASP, VBS, and other platforms; Microsoft provided no ready-made workstation GUI, however.
Indexing Service is still around (you can install it on Server 2008 as a component of the File Server role) but it is not enabled or even installed by default. Some Microsoft applications still use it, such as the CRM solution in the Microsoft Dynamics product line. However, several documents from Microsoft suggest that they view Indexing Service as “old” technology that is superceded by the new and shiny Windows Search.
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