Property PopulationStatus is not available for FullTextCatalog... How to fix?
I found out that even if it is not installed it is still available on SQL Server Management Studio and you can create the indexes. It shouldn't allow...

Then I found this: SQL Server 2008 R2 Express - Installation Options, to allow FTS I need the 800MB version...



To check the status of FTS I found these queries:

SELECT
    FULLTEXTCATALOGPROPERTY(cat.name,'ItemCount'),
    FULLTEXTCATALOGPROPERTY(cat.name,'MergeStatus'),
    FULLTEXTCATALOGPROPERTY(cat.name,'PopulateCompletionAge'),
    FULLTEXTCATALOGPROPERTY(cat.name,'PopulateStatus'),
    FULLTEXTCATALOGPROPERTY(cat.name,'ImportStatus')
FROM sys.fulltext_catalogs AS cat

SELECT fulltextserviceproperty('IsFulltextInstalled')