Well, I just tried it (opening an IndexSearcher) and got this exception...
java.io.FileNotFoundException: C:\blank\segments (The system cannot find the file specified) The directory c:\blank exists, but is empty. So, it seems you can just catch the exception and infer that your admin users aren't doing very well at keeping up <G>. Or you could test for the existence of the sebments file first, up to you. Best Erick
