How to Move the Microsoft Search Server Temporary Directory

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By default, the gather and filter temporary files (also known as temp files) are located on the Exchange Server 2003 system drive, which typically does not have the I/O throughput of the RAID array. You need to move this directory only one time for each server because all indexes on a server use the same temporary directory. To move the Microsoft Search Server temporary directory, perform the following procedure.

Before You Begin

This procedure is one of six steps that you should perform when optimizing full-text indexing. For more details about the entire process, see How to Optimize Full-Text Indexing.

Procedure

To move the Microsoft Search service temporary directory

  1. From a command prompt, run the SetTempPath tool. (For syntax, see the example below.)

  2. Stop and then restart the Microsoft Search service.

    Example   Enter the following command on the same line. It is shown on separate lines for readability:

    cscript "c:\Program Files\Common Files\System\MSSearch\Bin\settemppath.vbs" d:\temp

You can view the current location of the temporary directory at any time by running the preceding SetTempPath script with no parameters.

Note

On a cluster, the full-text index temporary directory must be located on a drive that will not fail over. Make sure that you place the temporary directory on a local drive, or on a drive on the RAID array or Storage Area Network that is configured to run only on a designated computer.