Question : Short words in MSSQL full text search. Need them included!

I've spent several hours searching on line to find the answer to this one. Seems to me like is should be easy to get the answer, but the on line sources are spread out and unclear. So the solution I'm looking for must include fairly specific directions, not just "edit your stop word list," which I can't find anyway.

Using MS Server Express 2008 with a full-text search. My particular database REQUIRES that users be able to search for words as short as three characters--it's a specialized database and there are few "noise" words. Trouble is, as configured, full text search query will only bring up words 5 characters in length or longer.

Much of the on line documentation is still talking about "stop words," which seem to have been replaces by "noise words." Other information is just not clear and I'm pretty frustrated.

So:  Is there a place in configuring or addressing the full text search (MSSQL) where minimum word lengths can be specified?

If not, do all of the short words I want to search have to be manually entered into a list somewhere? If so, where? This would not be too inconvenient because the data is static and won't need much maintenance.

Are the parts of the SQL query language that I can use to "override" the minimum word length on the fly?

Thanks,
JS

Answer : Short words in MSSQL full text search. Need them included!

Fair enough.

First perhaps I should clarify something:
>>Much of the on line documentation is still talking about "stop words," which seem to have been replaces by "noise words." <<
Actually it is the other way around. Starting with SQL Server 2005 "Stopwords" replace "noise words".

Also, starting with SQL Server 2008, the noise-word files are no longer used.

In view of your requirements, may I suggest the following steps:
1. Drop all your stop words.  
2. Repopulate your Full-Text Catalog
3. Retry.

I also suggest you read up on the following articles:
Stopwords and Stoplists
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms142551.aspx

Word Breakers and Stemmers
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms142509.aspx