When you see a following error when you are working on Search Settings (adding rules etc...),
"The search service is currently offline. Visit the Services on Server page in SharePoint Central Administration to verify whether the service is enabled. This might also be because an indexer move is in progress."
Most of the times, your search service is online unlike what exception states. But if you run the following command, the magic happens and you no longer see the above error.
psconfig -cmd upgrade -inplace b2b -wait
The output looks like this (You will have no idea what was fixed under the hood :)):
Microsoft Windows [Version 5.2.3790]
(C) Copyright 1985-2003 Microsoft Corp.
C:\Documents and Settings\kthota>psconfig -cmd upgrade -inplace b2b -wait
SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard version 12.0.6413.1000
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation 2005. All rights reserved.
Performing configuration task 1 of 4
Initializing SharePoint Products and Technologies upgrade...
Successfully initialized SharePoint Products and Technologies upgrade.
Performing configuration task 2 of 4
Initiating the upgrade sequence...
Successfully initiated the upgrade sequence.
Performing configuration task 3 of 4
Upgrading SharePoint Products and Technologies...
Successfully upgraded SharePoint Products and Technologies.
Performing configuration task 4 of 4
Finalizing the SharePoint Products and Technologies configuration...
Successfully completed the SharePoint Products and Technologies configuration.
Total number of configuration settings run: 4
Total number of successful configuration settings: 4
Total number of unsuccessful configuration settings: 0
Successfully stopped the configuration of SharePoint Products and Technologies.
Configuration of the SharePoint Products and Technologies has succeeded.
C:\Documents and Settings\kthota>
