Best Practices for Exchange Server 2003 Search Folders

When you use Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 or another client application to search for messages in a mailbox or public folder, Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 tracks the search results using special folders named search folders. A search folder is associated with the folder that contains the information that was searched. Search performance can vary, and searches can affect Exchange Server 2003 operations. For example, some types of searches may cause noticeable increases in the size of the Exchange Server 2003 transaction logs.

These topics explains the process that Exchange Server 2003 uses for searches, the different search methods you can use with Exchange Server 2003, and factors that can affect search performance. You can use this information to improve search efficiency and performance. In addition, if you are creating a custom application that conducts searches on Exchange Server 2003 data, you can use the information in these topics to determine the most efficient search methods.