SharePoint Search Configuration Gotcha

So after beating my head against the wall for half a day yesterday trying to work out what I had done wrong I finally worked it out.

When configuring the windows services search or the office search service from the Operations page in Central Admin make sure you use full account names eg DOMAIN\Username not just Username otherwise it will return an error message like ‘Error Osearch’ in the browser. In the ULS log, you will see:-

The call to SearchServiceInstance.Provision (server ‘Server’) failed. Setting back to previous status ‘Disabled’. System.ComponentModel.Win32Exception: OSearch (username)     at Microsoft.SharePoint.Win32.SPAdvApi32.ChangeServiceConfiguration(String strServiceName, String strAccountName, SecureString sstrPassword, IdentityType identityType, Boolean bDontRestartService)     at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPProvisioningAssistant.ProvisionProcessIdentity(String strUserName, SecureString secStrPassword, IdentityType identityType, Boolean isAdminProcess, Boolean isWindowsService, String strServiceName, Boolean dontRestartService)     at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPProcessIdentity.ProvisionInternal(SecureString sstrPassword, Boolean isRunningInTimer)     at Microsoft.SharePoin…     …t.Administration.SPProcessIdentity.Provision()     at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPWindowsServiceInstance.ProvisionCredentials()     at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPWindowsServiceInstance.Provision(Boolean start)     at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPWindowsServiceInstance.Provision()     at Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration.SearchServiceInstance.Provision()     at Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration.SearchAdminUtils.DeployCredentials(SearchServiceInstance localSearchServiceInstance, Boolean deployOnlyLocalInstance)   

Hopefully since I’ve done this wrong once I won’t do it again! 🙂