You can't place an IDQ file on a virtual root that points to a remote UNC share.
Performance suffers until a master merge happens.
Shadow merges and Annealing merges can't be forced, they are self tuning. . Index can only search one catalog per query Index server to start Index server, install, and issue a query. Index server after creating a new .idq file, specify the path to the new catalog in the CiCatalog parameter. Then, with proper permissions on that directory for the user, issue a query against the new catalog, and indexing will begin. Using Anon browsing, all have access.