Searching SharePoint Help

While SharePoint does provide quite an extensive Help that is accessible to all users via the top right nav in the Portal, it is has no search capabilities and requires the user to always start from the index and navigate through and find what they are looking for. However since the "Help" is just a collection of webpages, you can use SharePoint Search to index it and allow users to search against it.

1. Goto Site Settings > Configure Search and Indexing
2. Add a New Content Source with Content Index: Non_Portal_Content and Content Source: Web Page or Web Site
3. Enter the following properties
Address: http://PortalServer/_vti_bin/help/1033/sps/html/SharePointHelp.htm
Description: SharePoint Help
Crawl Configuration: This Site - follow all links on this site
Source Group: SharePoint Help
Click OK and then start a Full Index
4. Now create a new Search Scope with the following properties
Manage Search Scopes > New Search Scope
Name: SharePoint Help
Topics and Areas: Include No Topics or Areas in this source
Content Source Groups: Limit the scope to the following groups of content sources: SharePoint Help

Click OK. Now once the indexing is completed your users will be able to select "SharePoint Help" from the search drop down box on the Portal and search against the included Help files.