SharePoint: Adding Advanced Search and the All Sites Scope to top level sites

Scenario: You just created a new top level site, most likely using "/sites/" and you don't have "Advanced Search" or "All Sites" in the search scope dropdown. You do have both of these available on other sites. Or, you've added custom Search Scopes and they don't show up in the Scopes dropdown. Here's what I've seen:

• If you create a top level site based on a Publishing template (and search is properly configured) you will find "Advanced Search" or "All Sites" in the search scope dropdown.
• If you create a sub-site below a Publishing template site you will find "Advanced Search" or "All Sites" in the search scope dropdown and everybody is happy.
• If you create a top level site based on Team Site, or other non-Publishing site, you will only find a basic search box with only "This Site" and "This List" in the scope dropdown.

You could just tell your users to go to the Publish site and do their searches there, or...

Try this:

Note: if you try this and it works, or fails, please leave me a comment below with your results. Somehow it seems to be too simple! Thanks!

• Make sure you have search properly configured. I.e. Advanced Search and the Scope dropdowns are working fine from other sites.
• Make sure you have a Publishing top level site (with a Search Center site)
• Make sure your top level "/sites/" site is using the same Shared Service Provider (SSP). If your site is hosted on the same server as the Publishing site, then this is the default.
• Go to the "/sites/" site and then go to Site Actions -> Site Settings -> Site Collection Administration -> Search settings
• If your root site is a Publishing site with a Search Center then enter: "/SearchCenter/Pages" else the full path to the Publish search center: "http://www.litwareinc.com/SearchCenter/Pages" or create your own search center site and enter that path: "MySearchResults"
• Now go back to the home page of your "/sites/" site and see if you now have Advanced Search and the longer list of search scopes.
• Do a test search for something unique on your "/sites/" site.
• Note that if the above works, you will be redirected to the Search Results page of your Publishing site. This may confuse your users as they may not know how to get back to your site! To fix this, just create a sub-site below your site based on the Search Center template and enter this path in Search Settings. (or you could even create a Web Part Page and the Search web parts to build your own search page!

And just to wrap up this topic... here's some things I been told / read that don't seem to be true:

• You must setup Site Actions -> Site Settings -> Portal Site Connection (This seem to just add a starting point to the crumb trail at the top of the page)
• You must turn on the Publishing Features for the site. (I have not found any reason to related to search)