How to enable search for custom help collection in sharepoint 2010

When you create a custom help collection in Sharepoint 2010, it is not searchable by default. There is some articles on internet which pointed out that "Sharepoint Foundation Search" Service needs to be enabled. Anyway this is only half of the story.

First you need to start the "Sharepoint Foundation Search" in Central Admin. Go to Application Management->Manage Services on Server. Once it started the service name will change to "Sharepoint Foundation Help Search"

After that you need to set permission for Help Collection. The help collection which is installed for farm wide installation can be found under http://yourcentraladmin/sites/help . This site is hidden. You have to key in the address manually. The help file you install will be safe under the list "Product Help" in this site. First you need to make sure users can have read permission to this site.

Go to Site Permission and you will find a HelpGroup. You can give "Read" permission to this help group and add NT Authority\Authenticated Users to help group. In central admin you might not be able to find all the domain users. Anyway instead of adding every user to this help group adding the NT Authority\Authenticated Users should be enough.

After giving the permission you might not be able to go back to help window and search the help collection right away. There is a backend job which would refresh the search service to reflect the permission settings.

Go to job monitor in Central Administration and search for the "Sharepoint Foundation Help Search". The service has a job name "SharePoint Foundation Search Refresh". Run that service then start searching the keywords for your help collection. You should be able to search the help file.

To create you own help collection you can use "Help Collection Builder" from http://www.blackcompass.net/Products/Default.aspx . They have documentation on how to create the help file as well.