How to setup Friendly Names in Indexing Service
In order to query Microsoft Indexing Service for custom document properties it is necessary to setup so called Friendly Names for these properties.
- First you will need to setup Indexing Service Property Cache:
- Open Computer Management console and select "Indexing Service" node
- Select "Properties" node of the appropriate Catalog
- Find Property Set related to the document type. Property Set associated with a particular document type can be found in "Information Retrieval" section of README file that comes with each IFilterShop IFilter
- Double click on the Property name of the Property you want to add to the cache
- In the "Properties" dialog box, select the "Cached" check box
- Repeat the same steps for all other document properties that you wish to cache:
- After you setup Indexing Service Property Cache you will need to create Columns Definition File with the format identical to the one described in this MSDN article:
- After Columns Definition File is created, information about this file has to be added to Indexing Service registry settings. This MSDN article explains how to find "DefaultColumnFile" registry entry through which Friendly Names are set. If there is no DefaultColumnFile entry in the registry then this entry has to be created: add String entry named "DefaultColumnFile" to the registry key "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\ContentIndexCommon" and add the full path to the Columns Definition File as a value of "DefaultColumnFile" entry.
- Restart Indexing Service. Friendly Names you have added through Columns Definition File should now appear in the "Properties" window in the Indexing Service Management Console:
- Run Full-Rescan for the Catalog. After Full-Rescan is completed you should be able to query document properties using Friendly Names as property names.
If you cannot find document's Property Set in Indexing Service "Properties" window, then most likely Indexing Service was not able to load the appropriate IFilter for the specific document type. Please refer to "Troubleshooting" section of Frequently Asked Questions.
