You install Index Server on Microsoft Windows NT Server through the Windows NT Option Pack Setup program. During installation, you specif}' a catalog directory—a catalog is the highest-level unit of organization in Index Server—and optionally which language resource files to install.

Setup creates a CATALOG.WCI directory in the specified catalog directory to store the index and property cache. This directory may use up to 40 percent of the corpus size, so place it on a partition with enough space.

Also, during Setup, the Index Server files are copied to your computer in the following locations:

  • Sample HTML and script files will be copied into /lissamples/lssamples.
  • Administration files will be copied into /lisadmin/Isadmin.
  • Documentation files will be copied into /Iishelp/Ix.

After installation, the Content Index service is started and begins indexing all documents in each of the virtual directories configured for the IIS Web server. This includes virtual directories for remote resources.

You can check to see if the Content Index service is running by looking in the Windows NT Control Panel, under Services. If the Content Index service is not running, you can start it by selecting Content Index and clicking Start.

After the initial indexing, the Content Index service (cisvc.exe) continues to index whatever documents you add to IIS. You can add new documents to existing virtual directories or add new virtual directories and put documents into them. The Content Index service continues to monitor and index all virtual directories on the server even when the World Wide Web (WWW) service is not running.

Index Server provides language-specific word breakers that understand how to break a stream of characters into valid words. These breakers understand a particular language's structure and syntax and analyze the text to identify words. The word breakers accept a stream of characters on one side and emit words out the other.

Content filters are required because documents typically stored in some private file format. For example, WordPerfect files stored on the disk in a different way than Microsoft Word files. Most content indexing systems do not understand these private file formats and consequently, do not index them. Index Server uses programs called content filters to index private file formats. A content filter can be thought of as a small version of an application that knows how to read only its own files.