Ok... noob to this board... but came across the thread by way of Google. I was having this problem - exact same errors. Exact same diagnosis.

I think I got lucky... I did find an article that seemed to claim it had something to do with the account that the indexing service was trying to start up with. However, that was not enough.

I am on Vista x64, and also running SQL Server 2005, and prior to that, and concurrently still installed SQL Server 2005 Express (advanced). So I am not sure if there is a commonality there or not.

However, I was able to go into Programs and Features and "change" Microsoft SQL Server 2005 (64-bit) to get this fixed. However, after trying more simple methods, the only way it worked for me was to uninstall the FTS options that had been installed. When that finished I immediately did the same thing but this time INSTALLED FTS.

After the installation completed, I went into SQL Server Configuration Manager and under the SQL Server 2005 Services detail Right Click SQL Server Full Text Search -> Properties.

Stop the service here.

Change the Built In Account to Network Service

Start the service.

Start SQL Server (that was stopped during the uninstall process)

Went back into SQL Server Management Studio

Selected properties from my database - > files -> uncheck the full-text

Then saved.

Then went back into the same setting and re-enabled it.

Then when I went to the table level - > create full-text index. I can now select a language (before I saw an empty drop-down list)

Ok, I could be answering too early because I have not tested it yet... But it created it in a flash!!!