Many Microsoft products incorporate full-text search technology developed
by the Microsoft Search (MS Search) team, but these products have different capabilities,
intended uses, and update schedules.
Microsoft
Product
Sources
Crawled
Intended
Uses
Last
Updated
Next
Update
SharePoint Portal Server (SPS)
File system
Web sites
E-mail servers
(Exchange, Lotus)
SPS Workspaces
Intranet search aggregated from multiple
sources (e.g., intranet Web site, Exchange, Office documents on file shares)
Web site search
Indexing technology unchanged since SPS 2001;
update in SPS 2003 added new languages and sources and changed APIs and management
interface
Next version (2006?) might be combined with
Content Management Server
Windows Indexing Service
File system
Web sites
(local, static only)
Web site search for IIS-based Web sites
File-share search
Indexing Service 3.0, which ships with Windows
2000 and later (some minor bug fixes have been released)
Unknown
SQL Server (full-text search)
SQL tables (including unstructured data in
documents, such as Office and HTML files, that are included in the database)
Web applications that store data in SQL Server
(e.g., Web sites, product catalogs), document management systems, other custom
applications
SQL Server 2000
SQL Server 2005
Exchange Server
Exchange public folders
Exchange private mailboxes
E-mail search
Core technology unchanged since Exchange 2000;
minor updates and new command-line administration tool added in Exchange 2003
Likely in Exchange 12 (2006?)
Office on Win9x and earlier (Office on
later OSs uses Indexing Service)
Local file system
SPS
Workspaces
Employees searching Office documents stored on
their PCs
Office XP
Likely in Office 12 (2006?)
MSN Desktop Search
File system
Web sites
Outlook e-mails, calendar, and contacts
Third party (through IFilters)
Home users searching information on local and
home-networked PCs
