After last week’s philosophical postings on IT and the economic crisis, it’s time to get back to tech stuff – specifically, Windows search technologies.
So after performing a “sidegrade” to fix the Windows Update and Windows Installer glitches on my much-abused Server 2008 test machine, I went back to installing Search Server 2008 Express (readers may recall that this is the least expensive way to get a taste of Microsoft’s “enterprise” search capabilities). The splash screen lets you read up on the hardware requirements, read through the installation guide ahead of time, and run a “Search Server Preparation Tool,” whose main role in life is to install the .Net Framework 3.0. After about three minutes with a typically tipsy Microsoft progress bar, that job is done, and it’s on to the main install.
First, of course, is the End User License Agreement (EULA), every word of which I read with rapt attention. Next you have to choose whether you want a basic installation (one standalone server using default settings) or an advanced one (choose settings for a single server or server farm). If you select advanced, you can choose whether to install everything onto a single machine or create a “Web front-end-only” install. You can also specify non-default folder locations for the program and index, and whether you want to participate in Microsoft’s Customer Experience Improvement Program.
After about 15 minutes (8 of which were spent in the last 1% of the progress bar), Search Server 2008 Express was installed… or, almost. I was presented with a dialog box that I may just submit to PC Magazine for their “unintentionally humorous dialog box” page. A checked box labeled “Run the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard Now” appeared immediately atop a message stating that “To complete configuration of your server, you must run the Microsoft Search Server 2008 Express Configuration Wizard.” So… are those two wizards the same? If so, why do they have different names?
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