Connect to Windows Desktop Search on Remote Machine

Question

I inherited a program which is using Windows Desktop Search (WDS) on a remote server to search indexed PDFss. The original coder did most of the code using VB 6 style programming, so when he accessed the Windows Desktop Search, he uses ADO Recordset objects.

Unfortunately, the code samples from Microsoft aren't working for me, as I keep getting an error saying "IErrorInfo.GetDescription failed with E_FAIL(0x80004005)."

Here is the code I am trying to use and the query I am sending:

Query:

SELECT "System.ItemPathDisplay" 
FROM "server"."SystemIndex" 
WHERE CONTAINS(*,'"widget*" AND "foo*"',1033) 
AND ("SCOPE" = 'file://server/networkshare') 
AND Contains(System.ItemType,'"txt"')  
ORDER BY System.ItemPathDisplay ASC 

Code:

// Thie uses SearchAPI interop assembly
CSearchManager manager = new CSearchManager();

// the SystemIndex catalog is the default catalog that windows uses
CSearchCatalogManager catalogManager = manager.GetCatalog("SystemIndex");

// get the ISearchQueryHelper which will help us to translate AQS --> SQL necessary to query the indexer
CSearchQueryHelper queryHelper = catalogManager.GetQueryHelper();

queryHelper.QueryWhereRestrictions = string.Format("AND (\"SCOPE\" = 'file://{0}/{1}')", "server", "networkshare");

// set the number of results we want
if (maxRows > 0)
{
   queryHelper.QueryMaxResults = maxRows;
}

// set the columns we want
queryHelper.QuerySelectColumns = "System.ItemPathDisplay";

if (sortCol != "System.ItemPathDisplay")
{
   // unless a sort column is specified in which case we will add that column too
   queryHelper.QuerySelectColumns = "System.ItemPathDisplay," + sortCol;
}

// if we have a file pattern 
if (filePattern.Length > 0)
{
   // then we add file pattern restriction, mapping cmd line style wildcards to SQL style wildcards
   string pattern = filePattern;
   pattern = pattern.Replace("*","%");
   pattern = pattern.Replace("?", "_");

   if (pattern.Contains("%") || pattern.Contains("_"))
   {
      queryHelper.QueryWhereRestrictions += " AND System.FileName LIKE '" + pattern + "' ";
   }
   else
   {
      // if there are no wildcards we can use a contains which is much faster as it uses the index
      queryHelper.QueryWhereRestrictions += " AND Contains(System.FileName, '" + pattern + "') ";
   }
}

// if we have file extensions
if (exts != null)
{
   // then we add a constraint against the System.ItemType column in the form of
   // Contains(System.ItemType, '.txt OR .doc OR .ppt') 
   queryHelper.QueryWhereRestrictions += " AND Contains(System.ItemType,'";
   bool fFirst = true;
   foreach (string ext in exts)
   {
      if (!fFirst)
      {
         queryHelper.QueryWhereRestrictions += " OR ";
      }
      queryHelper.QueryWhereRestrictions += "\""+ext+"\"";
      fFirst = false;
   }
   queryHelper.QueryWhereRestrictions += "') ";
}

// and we always have a sort column and direction, either the default or the one specified in the parameters
// so append an ORDER BY statement for it
queryHelper.QuerySorting = sortCol + " " + sortDirection;

// Generate SQL from our parameters, converting the userQuery from AQS->WHERE clause
string sqlQuery = queryHelper.GenerateSQLFromUserQuery(userQuery);

sqlQuery = sqlQuery.Replace("FROM \"SystemIndex\"", string.Format("FROM \"{0}\".\"SystemIndex\"", "server"));

// if they asked to show the sqlQuery
if (fShowQuery)
{
   // then output it to the console
   Console.WriteLine(sqlQuery);
}

// --- Perform the query ---
// create an OleDbConnection object which connects to the indexer provider with the windows application
System.Data.OleDb.OleDbConnection conn = new OleDbConnection(queryHelper.ConnectionString);

// open it
conn.Open();

// now create an OleDB command object with the query we built above and the connection we just opened.
OleDbCommand command = new OleDbCommand(sqlQuery, conn);

// execute the command, which returns the results as an OleDbDataReader.
OleDbDataReader WDSResults = command.ExecuteReader();

The error happens on the last line. Any help and/or thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your time.

Wade

Answer 1

I wonder if it's your Query (wrong quotes in the wrong places). This is mine:

SELECT System.ItemName, System.ItemPathDisplay, System.ItemType, 
       System.Search.Rank 
FROM servername.SYSTEMINDEX 
WHERE SCOPE='file://servername/WebContent' 
AND System.ItemType <> 'Directory' 
AND ( 
   CONTAINS(System.Search.Contents,'*asdf*') 
   OR
   CONTAINS(System.FileName,'*asdf*')
)