IFilterShop MSG IFilter Server Edition Release 3.0 README

CONTENT OF README FILE


General Information

MSG IFilter is a plug-in that allows Microsoft Search products and services to index emails stored in MSG format, enabling customers to search and organize their content. MSG IFilter extracts all valuable information from saved emails and their attachments. This information includes MSG properties and content, list of attached files and their content. MSG IFilter also supports recursive indexing of MSG attachments.

MSG IFilter supports Indexing Service, SharePoint Portal Server, SQL Server Full-Text Search, Window Search Service and all other products based on Microsoft Search technology.


System Requirements

MSG IFilter requires Extended MAPI which is provided with MAPI-based applications such as Microsoft Exchange Server MAPI Client or Microsoft Outlook (ver. 98 or later). On Windows x64 platform MSG IFilter requires 64-bit edition of Microsoft Outlook 2010.

MSG IFilter supports the following Microsoft server operating systems:

MSG IFilter supports the following Microsoft desktop operating systems:

MSG IFilter supports the following Microsoft Search products


Information Retrieval

MSG IFilter extracts message body and the following metadata from emails stored in MSG format:

MSG metadataProperty NameProperty TypeDescription
FromFromVT_LPWSTRSender's display name and e-mail address
ToToVT_LPWSTRTo recipient's display name and e-mail address
CcCcVT_LPWSTRCarbon copy recipient's display name and e-mail address
BccBccVT_LPWSTRBlind carbon copy recipient's display name and e-mail address
CategoriesCategoriesVT_LPWSTRKeywords that help user keep track of items
ImportanceImportanceVT_LPWSTRSender's opinion of the importance of the message
SensitivitySensitivityVT_LPWSTRSender's opinion of the sensitivity of the message
SubjectSubjectVT_LPWSTRSubject of the message
HasAttachmentsHasAttachmentsVT_BOOLIndicates whether the message has attachments
CreationTimeCreationTimeVT_FILETIMEDate and time the message was created initially
LastModificationTimeLastModificationTimeVT_FILETIMEDate and time the message was last modified
SubmitTimeSubmitTimeVT_FILETIMEDate and time the message was submitted by Sender
DeliveryTimeDeliveryTimeVT_FILETIMEDate and time the message was delivered and stored at the server

In accordance to Microsoft IFilter specification, MSG IFilter defines each metadata as combination of Property Set and Property Name. All MSG metadata belong to {AB398F16-3FE9-4A6D-9264-AB4CDFBDD23F} Property Set GUID.

MSG IFilter indexes content of the attached files. Out of the box MSG IFilter indexes attached Microsoft Office, HTML and plain text files. For other file types it may invoke appropriate IFilters. Its functionality can be further extended by installing IFilters from IFilterShop or other providers. MSG IFilter supports recursive indexing of MSG attachments.

For each attached file MSG IFilter returns its name as text content of the MSG file. Text content is defined as standard Indexing Service "Contents" property with Property Set GUID = {B725F130-47EF-101A-A5F102608C9EEBAC} (PropertyStorage) and Property Name = 19 (0x13).


Office Document Properties

MSG IFilter outputs the following standard Indexing Service properties as duplicates of certain Message properties.

Property Friendly NameProperty Set GUIDProperty NameDescriptionOpenOffice element
DocAuthor{F29F85E0-4FF9-1068-AB91-08002B27B3D9}4Author of the documentFrom
DocCreatedTm{F29F85E0-4FF9-1068-AB91-08002B27B3D9}12Time document was createdCreationTime
DocKeywords{F29F85E0-4FF9-1068-AB91-08002B27B3D9}5Keywords for the documentCategories
DocLastSavedTm{F29F85E0-4FF9-1068-AB91-08002B27B3D9}13 Time document was last savedLastModificationTimee
DocSubject{F29F85E0-4FF9-1068-AB91-08002B27B3D9}3Subject of the documentSubject
DocTitle{F29F85E0-4FF9-1068-AB91-08002B27B3D9}2Title of the documentSubject


Installation Instructions

Setup file is a self-extracting archive that must be downloaded and opened on the machine where you wish to use MSG IFilter.

  1. Stop all appropriate Search services.
  2. Uninstall any previous version of MSG IFilter.
  3. Start setup file and follow the on-screen instructions.
  4. Start all appropriate Search services.
  5. Re-index catalogs containing MSG files.


Multiple Properties Output

By default MSG IFilter outputs multiple instances of the property as multiple properties. In products such as SharePoint Portal Server 2003 only one instance of the same value property can be indexed. MSG IFilter can be configured to output multiple instances of the property as a single value property. To enable this:

  1. Stop all appropriate Search services.
  2. Open registry key "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\IFilterShop\MsgFilter"
  3. Change the value of "MultipleInstancesMode" registry key to "1". If this value is set to "0" or missing, MSG IFilter will output multiple instances of the property as multiple properties.
  4. Start all appropriate Search services.
  5. Re-index catalogs containing MSG files.

Additional Setup Steps

Some Microsoft Search products require additional setup steps as described below:

SharePoint Portal Server 2001:

  1. Open the web folder for the workspace you are using
  2. Open the Management folder
  3. Open the Content Sources folder
  4. Click on "Additional Settings"
  5. Click on "File Types..."
  6. Make sure that ".msg" file type is included

SharePoint Portal Server 2003:

  1. Open "Site Settings" web page
  2. In the "Search Settings and Indexed Content" section click on "Configure search and indexing"
  3. Click on "Include file types"
  4. Make sure that ".msg" file type is included

Office SharePoint Server 2007:

  1. Open Shared Services Provider Admin Site
  2. In the "Search" section click on "Search settings"
  3. Click on "File type inclusions"
  4. Make sure that ".msg" file type is included

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0:

  1. Open registry key "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0\Search\Applications\<WSS Server Name>\Gather\Search\Extensions\ExtensionList"
  2. Add ".msg" extension to the list of indexable file types
  3. Restart Windows SharePoint Services Search

SharePoint Server 2010:

  1. In SharePoint Central Administration go to "General Application Settings" page
  2. In the "Search" section click on "Farm-Wide Search Administration"
  3. Click on " Search Service Application" link
  4. On the left side menu select "File Types"
  5. Make sure that ".msg" file type is included

SharePoint Foundation 2010:

  1. Open registry key "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\14.0\Search\Applications\<WSS GUID>\Gather\Search\Extensions\ExtensionList"
  2. Add ".msg" extension to the list of indexable file types
  3. Restart SharePoint Foundation Search

Windows Desktop Search:

When integrated with Windows Desktop Search, MSG IFilter uses temporary directory to process MSG files. By default it uses system temporary directory. For Window Desktop Search versions 3.x and higher MSG IFilter must be set to work with user specified temporary directory. To change temporary directory setting:

  1. Stop Windows Search service.
  2. Open registry key "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\IFilterShop\MsgFilter"
  3. Add new String value named "TempPath" and enter the full path to the new temporary directory. If this value is missing, empty or the path is not pointing to a valid directory, system temporary directory will be used. Please make sure that "Users" or "Authenticated Users" Group has "Full Control" permissions to the custom temporary directory.
  4. Start Windows Search service.
When using custom temporary directory, we recommend that you set it as "not indexable" in all your indexing products. Otherwise temporary files may be indexed. This will pollute the index and also can prevent temporary files from proper removal by MSG IFilter.

Vista Search, Windows 7 Search:

Configure custom temporary directory as described in "Additional Setup Steps" for Windows Desktop Search section above.


How to Uninstall

If you ever have to uninstall MSG IFilter application you can easily do it using any of the following methods:


Known Issues

PDF attachments are not getting indexed

MSG IFilter calls an IFilter registered for PDF files to index PDF attachments. Adobe PDF IFilter (versions 5.0 and 6.0) is an apartment threaded IFilter. Apartment threaded IFilters behave abnormally on some server platforms where indexing process is multithreaded. Follow the steps below to make Adobe PDF IFilter work on these platforms.

  1. Change the registry value "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{4C904448-74A9-11d0-AF6E-00C04FD8DC02}\InprocServer32\ThreadingModel" from Apartment to Both.
  2. Right click on the registry value "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\ContentIndex\DLLsToRegister" and select "Modify".
  3. Remove the entry corresponding to pdffilt.dll from the list. This will prevent Adobe PDF IFilter from re-registering itself each time Indexing Service is restarted.
  4. Restart all appropriate Search services.
  5. Re-index catalogs containing .msg files.
If you ever want to reverse these changes, locate pdffilt.dll and re-register it with regsvr32.exe.


MSG files are not indexed in Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Windows Desktop Search (32-bit versions)

Custom temporary directory has to be configured as described in "Additional Setup Steps" for Windows Desktop Search section above.


MSG files are not indexed by Windows Search on Windows x64 platforms

Current version of MSG IFilter cannot be integrated with Windows Search on 64-bit Windows platforms.


MSG files stored in remote server Catalogs are not indexed by Indexing Service

Indexing Service normally runs under Local System account. In order to index files stored on the remote servers, it impersonates a domain user. Depending on configuration Extended MAPI may not be able to access certain registry information when it is invoked in impersonated environment. This will in turn prevent MSG files from being indexed. Currently there are two workarounds available:

Workaround #1:

Domain User account used by Indexing Service to index files on the remote servers needs to be a member of "Local Administrators" group on the Indexing Service machine.

Workaround #2:

Exchange MAPI system needs to be configured to use file based profiles instead of using the registry. This workaround can only be used with Exchange Server MAPI Client component and older versions of Outlook (up to 2003). Please follow the steps below:

  1. Stop Indexing Service.
  2. Open registry key "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\IFilterShop\MsgFilter"
  3. Add new DWORD value named "MapiTemporaryProfiles" and set its value to "1". If this value is set to "0" or missing, Extended MAPI system will use registry based profiles when called by MSG IFilter.
  4. Start Indexing Service.
  5. Re-index catalogs containing MSG files.


MSG abstracts and highlights are not properly generated in Indexing Service environment.

Hit highlighting component of Indexing Service runs under the Internet Information Service built-in IUSR account. This causes impersonation problem described in "MSG files stored in remote server Catalogs are not indexed by Indexing Service" section above. Workaround #2 has to be implemented to solve the problem.


What's new in this version

Version 3.0

Version 2.1

Version 2.0

Version 1.9

Version 1.8


Contact Information

WWW:
http://www.ifiltershop.com
E-mail:
support@ifiltershop.com