Windows – How to move Windows Search and Index Service databases to another drive

indexing-servicewindowswindows-server-2003

On one of our older Windows 2003 Servers we need to run the Indexing Service and Windows Search. The problem is that the windows.edb file has grown quite large.

I want to move these and related files to D:\IndexService. To do this you can change the index location using the Advanced Options of the Indexing Options control panel applet:

enter image description here

(via: Old New Thing http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2009/11/18/9923996.aspx)

I did the following:

  1. Stopped Index Service then stopped Windows Search.

  2. Copied the contents of C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Search to D:\IndexService\Search.

  3. Updated the Index Service Advanced Options -> New Location and pointed at the D:\IndexService path and OK'd my way out back to the control panel (see image above).

  4. I restarted the Index Service and Windows Search

This seems not have worked and from the time stamps on the windows.edb file I can see that it is still being updated in it's original location on the C: drive.

I also notice that if I open the Indexing Options control panel applet and click on Advanced Options, it still says that the current location is on C: and that the new location (d:\IndexService) will be used after the service is restarted. However restarting the service hasn't made any difference.

Can anyone point out where I've taken a wrong turn?

Best Answer

Alternatively you can use a junction link to re-point the folder to another drive. On Server 2003 you can use Sysinternal's Junction" or linkd from the Microsoft resource kit. This might prevent rebuilding it.

First create a directory, for example: "d:\Search". Then run the following command:

junction "d:\Search" "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Search"
Related Topic