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Using select * from sys.fulltext_catalogs against my SQL Server 2008 database, I can see a full-text catalog.

I would like to know:

  • What is ftCatalog? Is a default value?
  • Could I remove it safely? How to do it?

Thanks for your help

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Thanks guys for your edit! –  GibboK May 25 '12 at 7:53
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up vote 1 down vote accepted

I'm no FTS expert, but I have never seen a default full-text catalog created by SQL Server and the documentation doesn't mention it. By observation, none of my SQL Server 2008 databases have anything in sys.fulltext_catalogs.

However, the example in the documentation I linked to uses "ftCatalog" as the example catalog name, so to take a wild guess, someone else with access to the database created the catalog by copying the example in the documentation.

Whether or not it's safe to drop depends on who created it and why. If it's a development server and you're the only developer working on the database then the risk of dropping it is limited. But if this is a production database then I wouldn't, unless you can definitely verify why the catalog is there. sys.fulltext_indexes might be a good place to start your research.

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Thanks Pondlife, now is clear, I thought that ftCatalog would appear as default as soon as a Full Text Index would be created.. this is not true, in fact, as you mention ftCatalog it is only an example of catalog name. from man documentation. –  GibboK May 25 '12 at 17:47
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