Microsoft Search Server Microsoft Search Server Microsoft Search Server (MSS) is an enterprise search platform from Microsoft, based on the search capabilities of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server. MSS shares its architectural underpinnings with the Windows Search platform for both the querying engine and the indexer. Microsoft Search Server was once known as SharePoint Server for Search. Microsoft Search Server has been made available as Search Server 2008, which was released in the first half of 2008. In 2010, Search Server 2010 http://www.microsoft.com/enterprisesearch/searchserverexpress/en/us/technical-resources.aspx became available, including a free version, named Search Server 2010 Express. The express edition will feature the same feature-set as the
Microsoft Search Server to extract the text of the file for full text indexing as well. The handlers and iFilters MSS uses are the same as used by SharePoint, Microsoft SQL Server and Windows Search as well. The data sources that are to be indexed are identified by their URIs and have to be configured prior to indexing. The indexer updates the search index as soon as an item is indexed ("continuous propagation") so that the items can be queried against even before the indexing crawl is complete. MSS can also federate searches to other search services (including SharePoint and web search servers)