When you have rolled out your Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server or Windows Sharepoint Services together with Microsoft Search Server, you probably want to be able to search all sites through any search field on any site.  But you still only see “This Site” as the only scope to select.

This is not fun.

First make sure you have created a Search Site.  Go to Site Actions, Create and select Sites and Workspaces.  Inthere, create a new site, with the Enterprise template Search Center.  Give it an url such as http://mysharepointserver/search/.

Next, go back to your main site, go into Site Actions, Site Settings, Search Settings and define a custom scope which links to your Search site, in this case /search/.

This will make the search scopes as defined in your Search Settings available, but chances are that your results are incorrect!

Next, you follow the advice written in this thread on the Technet Forums:

Modify C:Program FilesCommon FilesMicrosoft SharedWeb Server Extensions12TEMPLATEFEATURESOSearchEnhancedFeatureSearchArea.xml with adding the two following lines within the <Control> XML tag:

ShowDD
false

Next, modify C:Program FilesCommon FilesMicrosoft SharedWeb Server Extensions12TEMPLATELAYOUTSosssearchresults.aspx with the modification on line 101:

This turns your search box into a Search site throughout your Sharepoint environment.