Full-Text Search Error - Server: Msg 7635 The Microsoft Search service cannot be administere

Hello and thank you for your assistance.

I have two instances of SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition (SP4) database running on Windows 2000 Enterprise server. The default instance is dev and a named instance for QA. Full-text search is enabled for dev and is functioning properly.

@.@.Version:

Microsoft SQL Server 2000 - 8.00.2040 (Intel X86) May 13 2005 18:33:17 Copyright (c) 1988-2003 Microsoft Corporation Enterprise Edition on Windows NT 5.0 (Build 2195: Service Pack 4)

I am trying to enable full text search in the QA instance with this command: "sp_fulltext_database 'enable' ", but I am receiving the error "Server: Msg 7635 The Microsoft Search service cannot be administered under the present user account.

I can find any reference to what account it needs to run under. Can you provide me with info on why I am getting this message?

This is a common error with SQL Server 2000 Full-text Search (FTS) and the MSSearch service and there can be a few root reasons for it.

1. Did this error occur after a service pack upgrade? If so - review the files and folders under \FTDATA (in the sql server installed instance folder) against what is on your SQL Server 2000 CD. If you find any difference - copy the missing or different file from the CD to the problem server.

2. Have you removed the BUILTIN\Administrators login? If so - either add it back in or execute the sp_grantlogin from the code below as the MSSearch service requires this level of access to the MSSQLServer service.

3. Check these:
317746 PRB: SQL Server Full-Text Search Does Not Populate Catalogs
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/317746
277549 PRB: Unable to Build Full-Text Catalog After You Modify MSSQLServer Logon Account Through Control Panel
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/277549

4. Can you run this script and post the results back?

use master
go
SELLECT @.@.version
go
-- many need to set on "show advanced options"
sp_configure 'default full-text language'
go
SELECT FullTextServiceProperty('ResourceUsage') as MSSearch_Resource_Usage
go
xp_logininfo 'BUILTIN\ADMINISTRATORS', 'members'
go

-- if you have removed the BUILTIN\Administrators login, run:

exec sp_grantlogin N'NT Authority\System'
exec sp_defaultdb N'NT Authority\System', N'master'
exec sp_defaultlanguage N'NT Authority\System','us_english'
exec sp_addsrvrolemember N'NT Authority\System', sysadmin

5. And just to cover all the bases, when you changed the MSSQLServer startup account, did you do it via Win2K's Component Services? If so, could you "re-change" it via the Enterprise Manager's server property security tab?

Filip Skakun

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Filip,

Thank you so much for your response. To answer your questions; No we haven't added any service packs recently. Yes, we do have the Builtin/Administer removed and the NT Authority has all the required privileges. Keep in mind that the default instance was working just fine.

Since the MSSQL$Inst2/FTData directory didn't exist; I suspect that FullText search was not installed with the second instance. None the less, I re-installed fulltext search (see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/827449). After doing this I no longer received the "Cannot be administered under the present account" error and the FTData directory was created for the second instance. But, at this point Full text search didn't work for both instances. I wasn't receiving any errors, but the catalogs were not getting populated. We later found that the switch in the KB article was incorrect for our servers. The article had us run "ftsetup.exe SQLServer$Instance 1 0 0 0" (incorrect). After we ran "ftsetup.exe SQLServer$Instance 0 1 0 0 0" (correct) FullText search began to function correctly for both instances.

To be honest, I don't think I had to reinstall everything. I believe I could have gotten away with just running ftsetup.exe for the second instance.

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I am glad you got it working,

Regards,
Filip