People search not working, peopleresults.aspx page does not exist and people search webparts missing

I have installed SharePoint 2010 and configured Managed Metadata Service, User Profile Service Application, Search Service Application and My Site settings. Also I created a web application with root site collection created with Publishing Portal template. Now I can search documents with no problem.

While doing a people search, it fails complaining that http://server/search/peopleresults.aspx missing. Then I found this article http://www.sharepoint911.com/blogs/laura/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?List=676af157-7d96-4e15-a987-54b8a3e4d948&ID=53 about similar problem. I followed the steps and realized that those people search web parts, such as people search box, people search core results, are missing in my SharePoint environment. I also tried to enable a whole bunch of features but to no avail.

Finally I found a workaround, here are the steps.

* delete the search subsite created by the publishing portal template
* create a managed path named search, you can name anything you want
* create a site collection under the search managed path, with Enterprise Search Center template
* change the My Site settings to reflect above change
* change search settings of the portal root site collection to reflect above change

I tried to create a subsite under root site collection, but only the Publishing templates are available. That is why I took the managed path route.

Not sure why I ran into the problem at the first place and not sure anybody else experienced this problem or not. Hopefully this can help somebody out there.