Configuring Full-Text Catalogs and Indexes for a Database

Configuring a user database for full-text search involves creating one or more full-text catalogs for the database and defining a full-text index on each table or indexed view on which you want to execute full-text queries.

Note

In SQL Server 2008, all databases are full-text enabled.

At the database level, full-text administration covers the following activities:

  • Creating full-text catalogs and indexes.

  • Altering existing full-text catalogs and indexes. For example, you can create and drop the metadata for one of more full-text catalogs. At the table level, you can enable or disable a table or indexed view for full-text search. At the column level, you can add or drop columns that support full-text queries.

  • Scheduling and maintaining full-text index populations. After adding or dropping a column, you will need to repopulate the associated full-text catalog. Repopulating can be done when you add the column, or it can be delayed and performed either manually or by job runs a scheduled population on the full-text index. Repopulating synchronizes the full-text index of the table with new data in full-text indexed columns.

  • Dropping existing full-text catalogs and indexes.

In This Section