Why? Because Microsoft Search Server Express (MSSX) is a great product, as it includes many of the search elements and the core search engine of the commercial MOSS 2007 product.

 

Upgrading from WSS3 to MSSX is actually not that difficult (really!). In fact, I usually install WSS as a farm first anyway and then upgrade the servers to MSSX as a second step.

 

If you haven't got anything installed yet, Windows Server 2008 R2 x64 is a great platform. Make sure you install SQL Server Express separately upfront, so you can choose the proper "advanced" installation for WSS3. Anything from SQL Server 2005 SP3 and up will do, but I also really like the brand-new SQL Server 2008 R2 Express.

 

The upgrade process is really nothing more than running the MSSX installer and the usual wizard afterwards, whereas you should install on the Central Admin server first and configure the MSSX-specific settings on that machine after the wizard has finished. The upgrade procedure is well described in this document.

 

Of course, there's a catch (it would be too easy otherwise, wouldn't it? ;-) After the upgrade is completed you might be missing some vital MSSX components, and if you're not familiar with MSSX you might not even know what you're missing.

 

Here's a couple of screenshots that point out the short-comings of the upgrade results:

 

 

What is wrong here is that the links to the search administration pages are missing.

 

 

Well, not only are we missing the great "All Sites" scope for searching but even when adding a custom scope manually it simply won't show here.

 

One might be tempted to configure the "SmallSearchInputBox" but all attempts to do so are doomed. Both problems actually stem from the same problem and are simple to solve: the upgrade didn't automatically turn on the Web Application-level features for Search, as can be seen here:

 

 

Once you've activated these features the SmallSearchInputBox will display properly (and can also be configured nicely under "\12\TEMPLATE\FEATURES\OSearchEnhancedFeature\SearchArea.xml" and voila, we now have a proper Search Box and even search configuration links in the Site Administration page are now showing:

 

 

Well, unfortunately there are still two links missing (for the "Search queries" page and the "Search results" page), so I've written a little feature to add those missing links as well (the pages for this functionality are actually installed, just the links are missing), which you can download here.

 

Enjoy the MSSX product. Once you've configured the search I am sure you will. And it doesn't get much better than free!