Did you happen to try giving [NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM] only SysAdmin rights? That is the service account MS Search runs under most of the time. I have not tried it, but...

This posting just saved us some major heartburn, thanks for posting the fix.

Here is a link to a related article that helps.

http://www.mcse.ms/message227280.html

In essence, if SQL server was not installed with the SERVICE accounts set to NT account initially, it seems the...