Installing dtSearch on a Network

To install dtSearch on a network, you can either set up dtSearch to run from a shared directory or you can install dtSearch on each user's computer.

If dtSearch is installed separately on each user's computer, it will generally load faster because local disk access is faster.  In either case, users can use shared index libraries or Recognize Index in the Index Manager to access shared network indexes.

See "Automatic deployment of dtSearch on a network" for information on deploying dtSearch using MSI files.

Running dtSearch from a shared network folder

To set dtSearch up to run from a shared network folder,

1.  Install dtSearch in a folder on the server that each user will have read-only access to.

2.  Client computers may need to install two Microsoft packages that supply software components that dtSearch depends on.  See "System Requirements" below for details.

3.  Create shortcuts for network users to run dtsrun.exe, dtSearch64.exe, or dtsearchw.exe.

4.  Use command-line options in the shortcuts to specify options to control how dtSearch runs (see below).

Command-line options

/dir <folder>
Specifies a location for the user's personal dtSearch folder, if one is not already set up for that user.  If the /dir command-line switch is not provided, dtSearch will see that is being run from a read-only directory and prompt the user for a folder to use for personal dtSearch settings. Using /dir prevents this prompt from occurring.  Once a personal dtSearch folder is created, the location is stored in the registry and the user will not be prompted again for a dtSearch folder. 

/dirstd
Specifies that the default location should be used for the personal dtSearch folder, if one is not already set up. [dtSearch 2022.01 and later]

/noupd
Suppresses the prompt to check for updates. [dtSearch 2022.01 and later]

/agreetolicense
Consent to the end-user license agreement without prompting. [dtSearch 2022.01 and later]

/sn xx-xxxx...
Apply a serial number if this installation does not already have one. [dtSearch 2022.01 and later]

/lib <index library>
Specifies a shared index library providing a list of indexes.

/cfg <options package>
Specifies a dtSearch options package file, providing a list of indexes as well as other settings (such as default stemming rules).

Examples

Suppose dtSearch is installed in a network drive that all users see as P:\dtSearch and that the network administrator's settings will be in P:\dtSearch\UserData.  The network administrator has created some shared indexes, which will be listed in the index library P:\dtSearch\UserData\ixlib.ilb.  The following shortcut will start dtSearch from any network workstation, with access to the indexes:

P:\dtSearch\bin\dtsrun.exe /dirstd /lib P:\dtSearch\UserData\ixlib.ilb

Now suppose that instead the network administrator installed dtSearch in P:\Program Files\dtSearch.  The shortcut should be modified to use quotation marks around all filenames, because of the space in "Program Files":

"P:\Program Files\dtSearch\bin\dtsrun.exe" /dirstd /lib "P:\Program Files\dtSearch\UserData\ixlib.ilb"

System Requirements

dtSearch requires the 64-bit and 32-bit versions of the "Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable Packages", which are available from Microsoft at these links:
     https://aka.ms/vs/17/release/vc_redist.x86.exe (Microsoft 32-bit Redistributable Download)
     https://aka.ms/vs/17/release/vc_redist.x64.exe (Microsoft 64-bit Redistributable Download)

The dtSearch installer includes both of these packages and will install them with dtSearch they are missing or out of date. 

If you are running dtSearch from a shared folder without installing it on each computer, then these components may need to be installed so dtSearch can run.  For more information on these components, please see: Redistributing Visual C++ Files (microsoft.com).