Tech Battle Field

Sharepoint 2010 Certification Drive

2011-03-23T21:51:00.000-07:00

Preparing for a Sharepoint 2010 certificate 070-667, 070-668, 070-573, 070-576??

I see a nice initiative by www.shopSharepoint.com. Click below to their Blogs

Few useful links

2010-12-11T09:01:00.001-08:00

http://sharepointroot.com/2010/07/07/editing-contents-of-a-wsp-sharepoint/
http://mysharepointwork.blogspot.com/2010/02/ascx-webpart-using-system-using-system.html
http://www.allaboutmoss.com/index.php/2010/03/05/how-to-create-wsp-package-for-user-controls/

Interesting but an annoying thing with Visual WebPart Renaming

2010-12-07T16:24:00.000-08:00

When you rename the Visual Webpart, you might want to change the folder structure in which the user controls are deployed on the ControlTemplates and the safecontrol entries. You might need change all the new information (namespace, class name, folder name) in the SharepointProjectItem.spdata file.

Where to find this, I did a search on the project with the old name, boom I got this file opened automatically.

Running a sharepoint windows app in x64 Vs x86

2010-12-04T09:10:00.000-08:00

If you execute the following line of code on a Windows app and get the error on red specified :
=================================================================

SPSite site = new SPSite("http://yoursite.com");

SPWeb web = site.OpenWeb();

=================================================================

Error : The Web application at http://yoursite.com could not be found. Verify that you have typed the URL correctly. If the URL should be serving existing content, the system administrator may need to add a new request URL mapping to the intended application.

=================================================================

Issue is : you are not targetting the X64 - targeting x64 or AnyCpu & .NET 3.5 Framework in your Windows Application will resolve this issue.

=================================================================

Workflow as wsp - Create, Deploy & Move it to Production

2010-11-17T14:11:00.000-08:00

If you are creating a custom workflow or a resuable workflow through SPD 2010 for the first time, you'll end up with a question about how to move the same to production. Hope this helps.

1. Create the workflow in SPD
2. Save it as Template (Saves a soln file in the Site Assets folder)
3. Download the wsp file - Ref - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee662509.aspx
4. Move the wsp file to prod and deploy it - Ref - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff607872.aspx

Access Denied Host Header Sharepoint 2010 Windows Server 2008 R2

2010-09-28T11:18:00.000-07:00

If you are running into a weird issue, where you get prompted for your credentials repeatedly in your local sharepoint server and was denied access to the site, even though you are using an administrator account, and if this happens only when you create a nice host header and on 80 port, then you are here at the right place - Just read the below.

Method 1 works for me :

Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
In Registry Editor, locate and then click the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa\MSV1_0
Right-click MSV1_0, point to New, and then click Multi-String Value.
Type BackConnectionHostNames, and then press ENTER.
Right-click BackConnectionHostNames, and then click Modify.
In the Value data box, type the host name or the host names for the sites that are on the local computer, and then click OK.
Quit Registry Editor, and then restart the IISAdmin service.

Reference : http://support.microsoft.com/kb/896861/en-us

Branding your Search Center in Sharepoint 2010

2010-09-25T16:15:00.001-07:00

The OOTB search center doesn't have any navigation and the minimal.master doesn't show any top navigation. You could see the detail description of the issue here and John Ross explained the scenario here

However, The best simple solution is posted here http://shopsharepoint.com/blog/7-branding-your-search-center-in-sharepoint-2010.aspx

'Branding SharePoint 2010 Search Centers'

Add Vs Upload a document in a document library - Sharepoint 2010

2010-09-13T14:57:00.000-07:00

The document library provides a small link at the bottom that says "Add document" but it does show an upload pop up when you click that link. It definitely misleads users. So, here is few simple steps you could do to provide a link that can actually open a new document.

Normal behavior :

Things you could do to get the following output is specified below:

1. Create a Content Editor webpart under your library that can have the following HTML script

2. Now, to remove the original "Add document" link, goto the library webpart and set the Chrome Type to None. The original one will disappear.

Working with SharePoint document libraries

Customize your document library view based on the workflow status

2010-09-13T14:08:00.000-07:00

If you are looking to customize the doc view based on the workflow status, it's not straight forward to give the filter column with "Approved" status. No, it doesn't work with any Text enetered. You have to follow the following table for the status you want to filter by.

Status	Value
Not Started	0
Failed on Start	1
In Progress	2
Error Occurred	3
Canceled	4
Completed	5
Failed on Start(Retrying)	6
Error Occurred (Retrying)	7
Canceled	15
Approved	16
Rejected	17

Sharepoint 2010 Document Libraries doesn't have item-level privileges

2010-09-10T15:59:00.000-07:00

This is a simple cool post for solving the above issue :

http://www.endusersharepoint.com/EUSP2010/2010/04/09/configure-item-level-permissions-for-document-libraries-–-part-2-–-sharepoint-2010-edition/

Deploying a custom workinflow from SPD to a Prod environment

2010-09-10T15:07:00.001-07:00

If you are creating a custom workflow or a resuable workflow through SPD 2010 for the first time, you'll end up with a question about how to move the same to production. I tried the following :

1. Create the workflow in SPD

2. Save it as Template (Saves a soln file in the Site Assets folder)

3. Download the wsp file - Ref - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee662509.aspx

4. Move the wsp file to prod and deploy it - Ref - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff607872.aspx

But it didn't deploy the same in my Prod environment. Well, I should say it deployed but wasn't available on my Workflow list

Finally, I opened the prod site from SPD and published it directly. It worked without flaw.

Cannot save the property settings for this Web Part. Exception occurred. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80020009 (DISP_E_EXCEPTION))

2010-09-08T20:54:00.000-07:00

I personally hate this post...but it did work for my developer :

If you are using the "using" statement on the webpart page load, you might end up getting this.

Wrong Coding for this scenario :
using(SPWeb oWeb = SPControl.GetContextWeb(Context))
{
....
}

Correct way of using :

SPSite site = new SPSite(SPContext.Current.Site.ID);
--
site.Dispose();

Ribbon & Workflow Customization

2010-09-02T09:48:00.000-07:00

few nice posts on Ribbon Customization :

http://msmvps.com/blogs/cobrien/archive/2010/01/25/adding-ribbon-items-into-existing-tabs-groups-ribbon-customization-part-2.aspx
http://www.sharepointnutsandbolts.com/2010/01/customizing-ribbon-part-1-creating-tabs.html
http://koenvosters.wordpress.com/2009/11/05/howto-add-a-button-to-the-ribbon-in-sharepoint-2010/
http://patrickboom.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/extending-the-ribbon-with-a-send-unique-link-button/

WF Customization:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint-designer-help/video-create-an-approval-workflow-in-sharepoint-designer-2010-VA101897477.aspx

Looking for a Hyper-V Sharepoint 2010 image??

2010-09-02T09:25:00.001-07:00

here you go...

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=751fa0d1-356c-4002-9c60-d539896c66ce&displaylang=en

An exception of type Microsoft.SharePoint.Upgrade.SPUpgradeException was thrown. Additional exception information: Failed to call GetTypes on assembly Microsoft.Office.Server.Search, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c. Could not load file or assembly 'System.Web.DataVisualization, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.

2010-08-30T21:08:00.000-07:00

When you install sharepoint 2010 on Win 7, if you get the above error :

Download this chart control and install it

Disabling UAC in Windows 7

2010-08-30T12:20:00.000-07:00

I am sick and tired of the vista feature (UAC) in windows 7 and hence I decided to turn it off. My prev post explains what's UAC, however it doesn't say how you can disable it. Incase if you decided to do so, here's how you could do it (Please understand UAC before you do so).

1. Goto Control panel & Search for UAC in the search box on top
2. Move the slider to never notify.

SPWeb.Groups Vs SPWeb.SiteGroups

2010-07-20T21:48:00.000-07:00

SPWeb.Groups returns collection of cross-site groups which has some permission on the site. So if you add group from a site without any permission on the site, then this group wont appear in SPWeb.Groups collection, but it will appear in SPWeb.SiteGroups collection.

Unable to connect to SQL Server session database. The connection string (server='', database='SSP_DB') was returned by an instance of the IPartitionResolver type 'Microsoft.Office.Server.Administration.SqlSessionStateResolver, Microsoft.Office.Server, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=.....

2010-07-20T12:18:00.000-07:00

This is one of the wierd error you might get, if your SQL server hard drive is FULL. Clean up the space on your C drive and you should be all set.

NJ DMV Update - Nothing related to Sharepoint 2010

2010-06-30T11:02:00.000-07:00

Anyone who lives in NJ & has applied for H1B extension and if the extension is delayed for some reasons by HomeLand Security beyond 90 days (upto which the driver's license would be valid). You still can use the H1B Extension reciept notice original ( I797c - CaseType I129) to extend it to 240 days. A lot of the DMV's in new jersey doesn't know and all they expect is a valid I-94 which is pure dumbness. If you are in the same situation and looking to get this 240 days extension, please goto 45,Killmer Rd,Edison NJ. They do this right..no hazzles. It happened for my collegue, we nearly went to 3 DMV's before we went to Killmer Rd. Hope this helps. Good Luck :)

2010:Shell Script to deploy a solution

2010-06-29T14:46:00.000-07:00

1. Open Sharepoint 2010 Management Shell
2. Add the solution with this script - Add-SPSolution -LiteralPath "Path of your solution"
3. Now, you will find the new solution at the Central Admin>System Settings>Farm Management>Farm Solutions
4. Click Deploy to deploy the solution.
5. Do a IISReset

Note : You have to get used to Visual Studio 2010

SharePoint 2010 Document Library won't open PDFs

2010-06-21T09:52:00.000-07:00

I just discovered, by default Sharepoint 2010 document library doesn't open PDF files or any other file types that MS doesn't trust anymore. The library will force you to download the PDF file since it's not trusted.

You can do the following to resolve this :

1. Goto Central Administartor>Application Management>Manage Web Application>Select the Web App>Click General Settings
2. Change the 'Browser File Handling' from 'Strict' to 'Permissive'.

Glassy Buttons

2010-06-01T10:15:00.000-07:00

This website is awesome for designing your own buttons -
http://www.glassybuttons.com/buttonmill/glassy.php?button_text=&color=dc143c&grcolor=b0171f&width=130&height=75&radius=15&theight=45&tcolor=000000&bkcolor=clear&fname=Helmet+bold-ital&rcolor=ff3030&rgrcolor=b0171f&rtcolor=000000&imglocate=none&imgheight=12&imgname=&imgfore=auto&imgforecolor=000000&imgtran=auto&imgtrancolor=ffffff&quality=3&fromhere=1

SharePoint 2010 – Top 10 Resources to get you started…

2010-05-24T09:10:00.000-07:00

With the official launch of SharePoint 2010 last week, we thought now would be a perfect time for us to share some resources to help you to get started evaluating and learning about the new release.

This post contains links to download evaluation software, guides, demo virtual machines and lots more, for both Developers and IT Professionals.

1. Check out the Office 2010 & SharePoint 2010 Launch Keynote and on-demand sessions, and the SharePoint 2010 Product Site on Microsoft.com

2. Download the SharePoint 2010 Overview Evaluation Guide, the SharePoint 2010 Professional Developer Evaluation Guide and the SharePoint 2010 IT Professionals Evaluation Guide to quickly ramp up on platform updates and additions.

3. Check out the learning plans for IT Professionals, Developers and End Users and get started on your SharePoint 2010 learning plan.

4. Download the pre-configured Hyper-V SharePoint 2010 Evaluation and Demo Virtual Machine(~1.8GB) along with the SharePoint 2010 Walkthrough Guide for a chance to get hands on with SharePoint 2010 with zero set up and configuration.

5. Download 180 day trial versions of; SharePoint Server 2010, FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint, Office Professional Plus 2010, Windows Server 2008 R2, SQL Server 2008 R2 to install and evaluate SharePoint 2010 yourself, and while you’re downloading stuff here’s some links to the full versions of; SharePoint Foundation 2010, Search Server Express 2010,SharePoint Designer 2010

6. Watch the Getting Started with SharePoint 2010 for IT Professionals video series and theGetting Started with SharePoint 2010 for Professional Developers video series to get bite-sized video overviews of some of new and updated features.

7. Do the self paced IT Professional hosted virtual hands-on-labs and Developer hosted virtual hands-on-labs to get hands-on with SharePoint 2010 through a series of scripted tutorials, and if you want more, then download and install 10 getting started Developer Hands-on-labs.

8. Discover what’s new for end users with Getting started with SharePoint 2010 guides andTake SharePoint Server 2010 training at your desk.

9. Visit the TechNet and MSDN SharePoint 2010 sites for a wealth of technical reference documentation and prescriptive guidance through our categorized resource centers, such as the Installation and Deployment Resource Center to learn how to plan, install and configure SharePoint 2010 and the Upgrade and Migration Resource Center for the latest guidance and best practices for upgrading to SharePoint 2010.

10. Got questions? Search for an answer, or ask the community in the official MicrosoftSharePoint 2010 Forums.

Already a SharePoint 2007 expert?

Check out the free advanced training content for IT Professionals and Developers looking to upgrade their skills from SharePoint Server 2007 to SharePoint 2010.

We’ve got 36 modules of self paced IT Professional Advanced Training and Developer Advanced Training that includes audio and video recordings. We’ll also be adding 24 hosted virtual hands-on-labs in the very near future to accompany the training content – All for FREE and on demand.

Want to get certified on SharePoint 2010?

Take a look at the Microsoft Learning SharePoint 2010 Training Portal for information and expected availability dates for SharePoint 2010 Certification, Classroom training, E-Learning, MS Press books and Learning Snacks.

Courtesy : MS Sharepoint Facebook. I have to document this for my future references.

Exporting Excel Data to Sharepoint 2010 List

2010-05-19T10:18:00.000-07:00

One of my customer send me a lot of data in excel 2010 and wanted me to upload it onto a sharepoint list and it wasn't that bad to do that. I refered this post and it made my life easier.

The list cannot be displayed in Datasheet view...

2010-05-19T09:47:00.000-07:00

If you get this message,

The list cannot be displayed in Datasheet view for one or more of the following reasons:

- A datasheet component compatible with Microsoft SharePoint Foundation is not installed.
- Your Web browser does not support ActiveX controls.
- A component is not properly configured for 32-bit or 64-bit support.

when you try to open the Sharepoint 2010 List in the DataSheet view, do the following :

install the 2007 Office System Driver: Data Connectivity Components after you install Office 2010 64-bit on the machine.

Hope this helps

Sharepoint 2010 Release version Installation on Win Server 2003 R2

2010-05-16T14:32:00.000-07:00

My earlier post of installing Sharepoint 2010 is for the Beta 2 release. We got the release version last month. A trial download which is valid for 180 days is published on May 12th. A link for that is here.

Don't forget to install the WCF fix for R2 and Win7 is here prior to installing sharepoint.

Release version is so smooth and I had everything done without any error. I configured the search and created a new user profile synchronization connection to import all the users from AD. It went so smooth and took me couple of hours today-sunday :( to complete the entire installation. Am excited with the release version. They fixed a lot of issues (including the crazy user profile import issue)

Good Luck

Register for the Sharepoint 2010 launch event

2010-05-12T15:21:00.000-07:00

Sharepoint 2010 Installation Beta on Windows Server 2003 R2

2010-05-06T13:45:00.000-07:00

I find this link as the best resource for installing Sharepoint 2010 Beta on Win Server 2003.

http://mosshowto.blogspot.com/2009/11/installing-sharepoint-2010-windows-2008.html

I followed everything as it is but I encountered this error :

"An error has occurred while validating the configuration settings. An exception of type System.ArgumentNullException was thrown. Additional exception information: The errorData argument cannot be null or zero length. Parameter name: errorData"

I browsed the net for nearly 4-5 hours to see different solutions but eneded up here.

http://linium.us/ism/microsoft-solutions/sharepoint-2010-beta-here-we-go/

It didn't solve the problem yet until I turned-off the firewall. I thought it's something to do with the Sql Server Firewall, but it's both the firewall's (Sharepoint + Sql) that has to be turned-off.

My prev post defines the Issues encountered in Sharepoint 2010 Beta installed on Win 7

Please refer this post for a step by step installation guide

Windows Update Screwed me up once again - MOSS 2007 403 forbidden error

2010-04-27T09:49:00.000-07:00

I got a call from one of my customer last night that all the MOSS sites are throwing the 403 forbidden ('You are not authorised to view this page') errors including the Central Admin and "Yes" the windows automatic update screwed it all...Again.

The funny thing is if I browse mysite with "/default.aspx" included in the url, the site works

Have to do the following to get it fixed :

Open IIS Manager and go to Sites>Properties>Home Directory>Configuration, then in the Wildcard Application Maps box, add the aspnet_isapi.dll located in

C:\windows\microsoft.net\"framework" or "framework64"\v2.xxxxx

Ensure that the checkbox “Verify that the file exists” is UNchecked, otherwise error 404 page not found will be displayed. This is because the data is rendered from the SQL database and not from IIS locally, and SharePoint will process this on the run while the site is being accessed.

A nice reference here - http://etiennel.blogspot.com/2009/12/sharepoint-process-serving-application.html

Some Tips for SP installation

2010-03-25T13:58:00.000-07:00

1.If you are on the medium or big farm, after doing a patch update/hotfix, run the config wizard in all the servers and come back to the application server and run the config wizard, else you might encounter a concurrency error.

2. If you are trying to replace the content DB, DON't attach the new one before removing the existing one. Else, you might get some weird behavior after the restore. Also, make sure that you go and change the site collection administrator for the site you replaced the content DB.

MOSS 2007 Version Test & Hot Fixes

2010-03-25T13:52:00.000-07:00

The easiest way to test and verify whether you have the right versions of MOSS in Prod Vs Staging is to do the following :

1. Goto Central Administrator
2. Operations >Servers in Farm> You would find the appropriate version (something like 12.0.0.6421)

Now, check this link on what version/hot fix you need to match the version in Staging or in other environment.

For 2010 Version, follow this link

ClipBoard Issue

2010-03-25T08:35:00.000-07:00

The Clipboard is a temporary storage area used by all Microsoft’s operating systems including Windows Vista and Windows 7.The information’s such as text, files, graphics, sound, or video can be copied to the Windows Clipboard from one program or location and pasted elsewhere. The Windows Clipboard can only hold one piece of information at a time. Whenever something is copied to the Clipboard, it replaces whatever was there before automatically.In this article i explained how to create a desktop shortcut to clear the Clipboard content manually in Windows 7 or in Windows Vista.This will help you to increase your work speed and system performance when you are working with large files.Working with an empty memory dramatically increases the speed and Performance of Windows 7 or Vista computer especially with slower machines. And this is also a very useful to clear your clipboard if you copied something that you don’t want to leave on there for someone to see like credit card details etc.

Create a desktop shortcut to clear the Windows clipboard content

Right-click on the Windows 7 or Windows Vista desktop or elsewhere, and choose New \ Shortcut from the menu.
Then in the shortcut location box, enter the following command:

cmd /c “echo off | clip”

At this point you’ll have a desktop icon that will immediately clear the clipboard.
Right-click on the icon and choose Properties, and then change the Run drop-down to “Minimized” to make sure you don’t see the command prompt. You can also assign a shortcut key here.
If you click the Change Icon button and then browse down to this file, you can find a clipboard icon:%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll
Now we’ve got a desktop icon that will clear out the clipboard in Windows 7 or in Vista.

Courtesy/Originally Published at : http://www.tomstricks.com/how-to-create-a-desktop-shortcut-to-clear-the-clipboard-in-windows-7-or-in-vista/

You'll have your RDP connection guarenteed

2010-03-14T16:57:00.000-07:00

Use the below commandline to RDP into your remote computer. You will not get 'Maximum number of connection reached."

mstsc /v:IP /admin

My n/w admin told me this little command...sweet

Search Configuration on MOSS 2007

2010-03-11T22:46:00.000-08:00

Created a VM environment for one of my customer and did the following to configure search - pretty straight forward.

Start and configure the Search service

On the SharePoint Central Administration home page, click the Operations tab on the top navigation bar.
On the Operations page, in Topology and Services, click Servers in farm.
On the Servers in Farm page, click the server on which you want to configure the search service.
Click Start next to Office SharePoint Server Search.
On the Office SharePoint Server Search Settings page, in the Query and Indexing section, make sure that the Use this server for indexing content and Use this server for serving search queries check boxes are selected.
In the Default Catalog Location section, type a path to a physical folder to store the index files, or use the default location that is specified.
In the Contact E-Mail Address section, specify a valid e-mail address.
In the Service Account section, click Configurable, and in User name and Password, type the user name and password for the user account under which you want the Search service to run. The user account must be a member of the Administrators group on the computer that is running the Search service. If you want to use the principle of least privilege and select a unique user account that does not have administrative rights on your front-end servers or on your back-end database servers, see the Known Issues/Readme for Office SharePoint Server 2007 Beta 2. The user name must be in the format DOMAIN\username.
In the Web Front End And Crawling section, do one of the following:
- If you are configuring the search service on a server that provides Web services and renders Web content, click No dedicated Web front-end computer for crawling
- If you are configuring the search service on a server that is a standalone search server that does not provide Web services and render Web content, click Use a dedicated web front end computer for crawling, and then, in Select a web front end computer, click the computer you want to use for crawling.
Click Start.

Start the Windows SharePoint Services Web Application service You must start the Windows SharePoint Services Web Application service on every computer that you want to act as a Web server and was set up using the Complete option during Setup. This service is started by default on servers that were set up using the Web Front End option. To enhance security, you can leave this service turned off on application servers that do not provide Web content to client computers. Also, you do not need to turn this service on to use SharePoint Central Administration on a server.

On the SharePoint Central Administration home page, click the Operations tab on the top navigation bar.
On the Operations page, in Topology and Services, click Servers in farm.
On the Servers in Farm page, click the server on which you want to start the Windows SharePoint Services Web Application service.
Click Start next to Window SharePoint Services Web Application.

Create the Shared Services Provider

On the SharePoint Central Administration home page, click the Application Management tab on the top navigation bar.
On the Application Management page, in the Office SharePoint Server Shared Services section, click Create or configure this farm's shared services.
On the Manage this Farm's Shared Services page, click New SSP. Important: If you have not created a Web application for the SSP administration site, you need to create one before you create the SSP. If you have already created a Web application for the SSP administration site, skip to step 14.
On the New Shared Services Provider page, click Create a new Web application.
On the Create New Web Application page, in the IIS Web Site section, click Create a new IIS web site, and do not modify the default settings in this section.
In the Security Configuration section, under Authentication provider, select the appropriate option for your environment, and do not modify the default settings in the remainder of this section.
In the Load Balanced URL section, do not modify the default settings.
In the Application Pool section, click Create new application pool.
In Application pool name, enter the name of your application pool or use the default name.
Click Configurable, and in User name and Password, type the user name and password for the user account under which you want the application pool to run. The user account does not have to be a member of any particular security group. It is recommended that you use the principle of least privilege and select a unique user account that does not have administrative rights on your front-end servers or on your back-end database servers. You can use the user account that you specified as the Office SharePoint Server 2007 service account; however, if that user account is a member of a security group that has administrative rights on your front-end servers or your back-end database servers, you will not be following the principle of least privilege. The user name must be in the format DOMAIN\username.
In the Database Name and Authentication section, verify the database information and make sure that Windows Authentication (recommended)is selected.
In the Search Server section, do not modify the default settings.
Click OK. Upon successful creation of the Web application, the New Shared Services Provider page appears.
In the SSP Name section, in Web Application, select the Web application that you created for the SSP, and do not modify any of the default settings in this section.
In the My Site Location section, do not modify any of the default settings.
In the SSP Service Credentials section, in User name and Password, type the user name and password for the user account under which you want the SSP to run. The user account does not have to be a member of any particular security group. It is recommended that you use the principle of least privilege and select a unique user account that does not have administrative rights on your front-end servers or on your back-end database servers. You can use the user account that you specified as the Office SharePoint Server 2007 service account; however, if that user account is a member of a security group that has administrative rights on your front-end servers or your back-end database servers, you will not be following the principle of least privilege. The user name must be in the format DOMAIN\username.
In the SSP Database section, you can either accept the default settings (recommended), or specify your own settings for the database server, the database name, or the SQL authentication credentials.
In the Search Database section, you can either accept the default settings (recommended), or specify your own settings for the search database server, the database name, or the SQL Server authentication credentials.
In the Index Server section, in Index Server, click the server on which you configured the Search service. Note: If there is no index server listed in the Index Server section, then no server in your farm has been assigned the index server role. To assign the index server role to a server in your farm, follow the instructions in the "Configure the Search service" section earlier in this topic.
In the SSL for Web Services section, click No.
Click OK. Upon successful creation of the SSP, the Success page appears.
On the Success page, click OK to return to the Manage this Farm's Core Services page.

Configure indexing settings

On the SharePoint Central Administration home page, click the Application Management tab on the navigation bar.
On the Application Management page, in the Office SharePoint Server Shared Services section, click Create or configure this farm's shared services.
On the Manage this Farm's Shared Services page, click SharedServices1.
On the Shared Services Administration page, in Search, click Search Settings.
On the Configure Search Settings page, in the Crawl Settings section, click Default content access account.
In the Default content access account section, in Account, Password, and Confirm Password, type the user name and password for the user account that you want to use to crawl content on your sites. This account must be a domain user account. It is recommended that you use the principle of least privilege and select a unique user account that cannot modify content and does not have administrative rights on your front-end servers or on your back-end database servers. You can use the user account that you specified as the Office SharePoint Server 2007 service account; however, if that user account is a member of a security group that has administrative rights on your front-end servers or your back-end database servers, you will not be following the principle of least privilege. The user account that you specify will be added to the Web application Full Read policy for your farm. The user name must be in the format DOMAIN\username.
Click OK.
In the Crawl Settings section, click Content sources.
On the Manage Content Sources page, click Local Office SharePoint Server sites.
On the Edit Content Source page, in the Crawl Schedules section, under Full Crawl, click Create schedule.
In the Manage Schedules dialog box, configure schedule settings for full crawls of your content, and then click OK.
In the Crawl Schedules section, under Incremental Crawl, click Create schedule.
In the Manage Schedules dialog box, configure schedule settings for incremental crawls of your content, and then click OK.
In the Start Full Crawl section, select the Start full crawl of this content source check box, and then click OK.

I faced this following issue since I did the .Net framework 3.5 install before installing the MOSS. Installing 2.0 prior to installing is completely fine. Yes this is wierd. Anyway, I couldn't get the import connection created & couldn't see the crawl log page.

An error occurred while validating or updating the directory service connection. No connection was added.

Solved the same by the following way - Trust me this works if you installed 3.5 before installing MOSS 2007 (It took 2 hour to find this):

http://support.microsoft.com/Default.aspx?id=962928

Also, there is a dazzling post on the entire installation of MOSS 2007 - http://www.datasprings.com/Resources/ArticlesInformation/OverviewonInstallingSharepoint2007/tabid/774/language/en-US/Default.aspx

The requested operation requires elevation (Win 7 / Vista issue)

2010-03-01T08:43:00.000-08:00

When a get an error like the above in Windows 7 or in Vista, the primary reason is that you don't have enough privilege. You might encounter this error when you do a command line operation which doesn't have enough privilege for the user logged in.

Way to solve this is run the command line using the administrator. Start>All Programs>Accessories

I would suggest you reading the below post for in depth understanding of UAC - http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-vista/Your-permission-please-Understanding-User-Account-Control-in-Windows-Vista

How do you free up your Content database as it grows bigger?

2010-02-28T17:43:00.000-08:00

I had one of my customer having more than 48GB on the content DB.

After couple of search, I found the following method that worked for me:

1. Empty your sharepoint Recylce Bin (This actually gets you a lot of space) - Navigate to you Recycle Bin in two ways

http://yoursite/_layouts/AdminRecycleBin.aspx

http://yoursite//_layouts/storman.aspx

2. Defragment your content DB : Defragmentation of the database keeps the data organized. If you have installed Service Pack 2, then this happens automatically. If you have not installed Service Pack 2 then there are instructions for how to do this. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/943345

3. Shrink the DB - A shrink reduces the size of the database. If there is a very large amount listed reported as "space available" when you right click on a database in SQL Server Manager and look at properties then you may want to perform a shrink on the database. Note: The content db grows as data increases. It never shrinks. So, even when you empty the recyclebin, the size of the db won't be reduced though it's the unused space. So, to free up the unused space, we have to shrink the DB. However, it's not a good idea to shrink a DB very often.

The above provided me nearly 20GB which is half of the actual space.

How to find out the storage space allocation subsite/site level

2010-02-28T10:51:00.000-08:00

Very nice article...

http://blogs.msdn.com/sowmyancs/archive/2008/11/15/how-to-find-out-the-storage-space-allocation-details-a-site-through-code.aspx

How to determine whether a computer is running a 32-bit version or 64-bit version of the Windows operating system

2010-02-24T09:25:00.001-08:00

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/827218

SPException:The file abc.doc has been modified by on at Microsoft.SharePoint.Library.SPRequestInternalClass.AddOrUpdateItem(String bstrUrl, String bstrListName, Boolean bAdd, Boolean bSystemUpdate, Boolean bPreserveItemVersion, Boolean bUpdateNoVersion, Int32& plID, String& pbstrGuid, Guid pbstrNewDocId, Boolean bHasNewDocId, String bstrVersion, Object& pvarAttachmentNames, Object& pvarAttachmentContents, Object& pvarProperties, Boolean bCheckOut, Boolean bCheckin, Boolean bMigration, Boolean bPublish)

2010-02-18T22:52:00.000-08:00

This error occurs when you upload a file to a document library through the SharePoint UI and when the document library has an event receiver which updates the list item on ItemAdded(). The error doesn’t happen all the time (for instance, it happened only on our Prod) which lead us to conclude that it is due to some race conditions, especially knowing that event receivers are run in separate thread.

The error message is “The file … has been modified by … on ….” and the callstack leads to a COMException in the Microsoft.SharePoint.Library assembly, which is the managed wrapper of OWSSVR.dll. The full stacktrace looks something like this:

[COMException (0x81020037): The file abc.doc has been modified by on ]
at Microsoft.SharePoint.Library.SPRequestInternalClass.AddOrUpdateItem(String bstrUrl, String bstrListName, Boolean bAdd, Boolean bSystemUpdate, Boolean bPreserveItemVersion, Boolean bUpdateNoVersion, Int32& plID, String& pbstrGuid, Guid pbstrNewDocId, Boolean bHasNewDocId, String bstrVersion, Object& pvarAttachmentNames, Object& pvarAttachmentContents, Object& pvarProperties, Boolean bCheckOut, Boolean bCheckin, Boolean bMigration, Boolean bPublish) +0
at Microsoft.SharePoint.Library.SPRequest.AddOrUpdateItem(String bstrUrl, String bstrListName, Boolean bAdd, Boolean bSystemUpdate, Boolean bPreserveItemVersion, Boolean bUpdateNoVersion, Int32& plID, String& pbstrGuid, Guid pbstrNewDocId, Boolean bHasNewDocId, String bstrVersion, Object& pvarAttachmentNames, Object& pvarAttachmentContents, Object& pvarProperties, Boolean bCheckOut, Boolean bCheckin, Boolean bMigration, Boolean bPublish) +411

[SPException: The file abc.doc has been modified by on ]
at Microsoft.SharePoint.Library.SPRequest.AddOrUpdateItem(String bstrUrl, String bstrListName, Boolean bAdd, Boolean bSystemUpdate, Boolean bPreserveItemVersion, Boolean bUpdateNoVersion, Int32& plID, String& pbstrGuid, Guid pbstrNewDocId, Boolean bHasNewDocId, String bstrVersion, Object& pvarAttachmentNames, Object& pvarAttachmentContents, Object& pvarProperties, Boolean bCheckOut, Boolean bCheckin, Boolean bMigration, Boolean bPublish) +556
at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPListItem.AddOrUpdateItem(Boolean bAdd, Boolean bSystem, Boolean bPreserveItemVersion, Boolean bNoVersion, Boolean bMigration, Boolean bPublish, Boolean bCheckOut, Boolean bCheckin, Guid newGuidOnAdd, Int32& ulID, Object& objAttachmentNames, Object& objAttachmentContents, Boolean suppressAfterEvents) +3030
at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPListItem.UpdateInternal(Boolean bSystem, Boolean bPreserveItemVersion, Guid newGuidOnAdd, Boolean bMigration, Boolean bPublish, Boolean bNoVersion, Boolean bCheckOut, Boolean bCheckin, Boolean suppressAfterEvents) +632
at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPListItem.UpdateOverwriteVersion() +190
at Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.SaveButton.SaveItem(SPContext itemContext, Boolean uploadMode, String checkInComment) +256
at Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.SaveButton.SaveItem() +111
at Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.SaveButton.OnBubbleEvent(Object source, EventArgs e) +476
at System.Web.UI.Control.RaiseBubbleEvent(Object source, EventArgs args) +50
at System.Web.UI.Page.RaisePostBackEvent(IPostBackEventHandler sourceControl, String eventArgument) +39
at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint) +3215

Fix:

one way to fix the problem is changing your event receiver to update the list item using item.SystemUpdate(false) instead of item.Update(). Some people recommend to disable the event firing when calling the Systemupdate:

this.DisableEventFiring();

try

{

item.SystemUpdate(false);

}

finally

{

this.EnableEventFiring();

}

Little Tool for getting the cmd prompt from your win folder structure

2010-02-12T22:02:00.000-08:00

Save the following in a file and name it as "cmdhere.inf".
Right click the file and say install.
Navigate to any folder and right click and you will find an option to open the folder path in command center.

Enjoy the tool
==============================================

;
; "CMD Prompt Here" PowerToy
;
; Copyright 1996 Microsoft Corporation
;
[version]
signature="$CHICAGO$"

[CmdHereInstall]
CopyFiles = CmdHere.Files.Inf
AddReg = CmdHere.Reg

[DefaultInstall]
CopyFiles = CmdHere.Files.Inf
AddReg = CmdHere.Reg

[DefaultUnInstall]
DelFiles = CmdHere.Files.Inf
DelReg = CmdHere.Reg

[SourceDisksNames]
55="CMD Prompt Here","",1

[SourceDisksFiles]
CmdHere.INF=55

[DestinationDirs]
CmdHere.Files.Inf = 17

[CmdHere.Files.Inf]
CmdHere.INF

[CmdHere.Reg]
HKLM,%UDHERE%,DisplayName,,"%CmdHereName%"
HKLM,%UDHERE%,UninstallString,,"rundll32.exe syssetup.dll,SetupInfObjectInstallAction DefaultUninstall 132 %17%\CmdHere.inf"
HKCR,Directory\Shell\CmdHere,,,"%CmdHereAccel%"
HKCR,Directory\Shell\CmdHere\command,,,"%11%\cmd.exe /k cd ""%1"""
HKCR,Drive\Shell\CmdHere,,,"%CmdHereAccel%"
HKCR,Drive\Shell\CmdHere\command,,,"%11%\cmd.exe /k cd ""%1"""

[Strings]
CmdHereName="CMD Prompt Here PowerToy"
CmdHereAccel="CMD &Prompt Here"
UDHERE="Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\CmdHere"

Sql Restore Error

2010-02-11T10:15:00.000-08:00

I was doing a client implementation and in the process I have to do a SQL restore (48 GB, yes crazy). My customer uploaded the back-up to an ftp site and I tried downloading it from there.

I was getting the following error while restore. I did it with three different copy and everytime I got the same issue.
=======================================================================
The media family on device 'My_Content_DB.bak' is incorrectly formed. SQL Server cannot process this media family.
RESTORE HEADERONLY is terminating abnormally. (Microsoft SQL Server, Error: 3241)

=======================================================================

Cause.

The backup was corrupted. The file was transferred using FTP in text mode rather than binary mode.

Solution.

1.Downloaded Filezilla.
2. Asked my customer to upload it to ftp with the binary option. (Trasfer > changed the Format from Auto to 'Binary'.)
3. The backup file was transferred again using FTP in binary mode.
4. I did the same thing using Filezilla to download the back up file.
5. Restore operation was successful.

Baam Zoom! Done

Contivity VPN on Win 7 64 Bit

2010-02-10T17:05:00.001-08:00

Ok... I had a terrible experience with the Nortel website and couldn;t find out the Contivity VPN download for Windows 7 64 bit. It's insane why they don't have their own product on their website.

Anyway, after 10 days of search, I finally found out the latest Contivity Version for Win 7 64-bit machine at the sprint site. It's works like a charm.

http://www.sprint.com/business/products/products/popup/popupVpnIndex.html

Part 2 : 2010 on Windows 7 Issues

2010-01-21T09:02:00.000-08:00

This is a fantastic post that shows all the issues that you might encounter installing 2010 Beta on Win 7 and solutions to those :

http://rehmangul.wordpress.com/2009/12/09/sharepoint-2010-configuration-wizard-errors-on-windows-7/
http://rehmangul.wordpress.com/2009/12/08/installing-sharepoint-2010-on-windows-7/

It works sweet after this fixes.

Good Luck

Sharepoint 2010 Beta intallation on Windows 7 Ultimate

2010-01-13T10:08:00.000-08:00

Microsoft is excited to announce that sharepoint 2010 Beta can be installed in an Client OS (Win 7 & Vista).

*I installed Win 7 Ultimate 64 bit

*Tried installing sharepoint 2010 Beta and I was getting the following error:

Problem :
---------------------------

Setup Errors
---------------------------
Setup is unable to proceed due to the following error(s):
This product requires Windows Server 2008 (x64).Correct the issue(s) listed above and re-run setup.
---------------------------

Solution :
*The Setup extracts the file at this location - C:\Program Files (x86)\MSECache\

*Navigate to C:\Program Files (x86)\MSECache\oserver2010\Files\Setup\ *Open config file and add the below line

"<Setting Id="AllowWindowsClientInstall" Value="True"/>"

*Save and try the installation again. It should go smooth.

2010 Sharepoint Certification Information

2009-12-09T21:07:00.000-08:00

For the IT Pros
New on for IT Pros are 2 certifications. MCTS SharePoint 2010 Configuring and MCITP SharePoint 2010.
70-667 TS: Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Configuring
Microsoft Official Curriculum: Will cover configuration of SharePoint 2010 including deployment, upgrade, management, and operation on a server farm.
70-668 PRO: SharePoint 2010, Administrator
Microsoft Official Curriculum: Will cover advanced SharePoint 2010 topics including capacity planning, topology designing, and performance tuning.

For developers
Also for developers there will be 2 new certifications. MCTS SharePoint 2010 Application Development and MCPD SharePoint 2010.

70-573 TS: Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Application Development
Microsoft Official Curriculum: Five-day instructor-led course designed for developers with six months or more of .NET development experience. Course covers what you need to know to be an effective member of a SharePoint development team using Visual Studio 2010.

70-576 PRO: Designing and Developing Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Applications
Microsoft Official Curriculum: Five-day instructor-led training course designed for development team leads who have already passed the Developing on SharePoint 2010 technical specialist exam. The course covers choosing technologies for and scoping a SharePoint project, best practices for SharePoint development, configuring a SharePoint development environment, advanced use of SharePoint developer features, and debugging of code in a SharePoint project.

More info : http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/certification/master.aspx

Painted my thoughts

2009-12-08T13:04:00.001-08:00

Ordered my new wireless keyboard with smart touchpad

2009-11-30T14:39:00.001-08:00

I just ordered my new wireless keyboard with smart touchpad. Can't wait to use it on my TV...

http://www.amazon.com/2-4GHz-Wireless-Keyboard-Touchpad-Center/dp/B002UNFVK4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1259620682&sr=8-1

Geek Gadgets

2009-11-30T14:36:00.001-08:00

I find the geek gadgets from this site.. it's pretty cool
http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/

More Detail Description of 2010 from Jeff Teper

2009-11-23T14:16:00.000-08:00

http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2009/10/19/sharepoint-2010.aspx

Twenty Ten - Sharepoint Conference Preview

2009-11-17T13:52:00.000-08:00

I am really excited to share some of the information that I gathered so far in the Sharepoint Conference 2009. It’s been an amazing 5 days and the learning is just overwhelming and the very first thing that comes out of my mind is that 2010 upgrade will solve a lot of outstanding current customer issues right away. The sessions are tied to different tracks (Microsoft – Product techincal, MVP – product Technical, Partners – Session focused on different solutions developed on Sharepoint (on different space), Customers – Customer experience using Sharepoint).

Sharepoint 2010 Beta is going to be available to public in Nov 2009 and the actual release by mid of 2010. I tagged some of the information specific to the areas.

Great News - 2010 doesn't require an server OS. Win 7 works - Fantabulous

New things that come along with 2010 (All part of our volume license):

1. Great up-gradation to SharePoint Designer - FREE

2. FAST Search (Content Search, Profile search) – comes with 2010 Enterprise License - Though the session sucked as the guy from FAST was bragging his ass all along with the MS partnership than focussing on the actual content

3. Visual Studio 2010 – Completely 2010 Compliance, It comes with a lot of sharepoint project templates with greater integration to Office including teh webpart template (very usual for developers - webparts can be designed like an UC, finally they got this done).

4. Sharepoint Workspace – Comes with Sharepoint 2010 & this can be installed in users machine so that they can take all the sharepoint contents offline and can sync it later to the portal. This is I think one way of MS marketing to get the sharepoint workspace on every single user machine.

5. Sharepoint Foundation 2010 – Nothing but a fancy name to WSS V4

6. Sql Server Power Pivot For Sharepoint (SQL Server 2008 R2) – Reports from external

7. Performance Point integration with 2010 have mind blowing reports. The reports are ajaxified & it’s has a very nice UI. You should see it to appreciate this.

8. Sharepoint Online Cloud – Microsoft supports the Online hosting of sharepoint environments. This is specifically targeted for online websites like airlines, retail industries etc,

Some of the Issues/Features that we can solve/get right out of 2010 Release:

1. Built-In Spell Check -finally.
2. Cross Browser support for application.
3. 2010 is Ajaxified to a big extent.

4. Theming
5. Multi-Language support
6. Mobile support
7. Substantial Dialog improvements
8. Silver light support (Streaming Video is easier, I don't need to talk about this UI..you knw it)
9. Implementation of custom search is fast & easy (People, Content – Couple of millions of rows in seconds)
10. Performance is very good atleast in the demo’s
11. 2010 is very Scalable – no limitation on the list items (Million), Filter capabilities
12. Governance, Taxonomy is great
13. Visio Integration (Editable) - Workflows
14. In 2010, users can upload picture from their system, Can also upload Multiple Docs by drag & drop. Earlier it's a 2 step process, upload it to teh library and select teh image from there.
15. Sub-Folder creation for lists since it can handle only couple of 1000’s in 2007 (Now millions) & this feature is configurable in 2010 – 2007 had this limitation
16. Contract Documents Types (Content type)

17. The User logged-in Status is shown(Online, Busy, Chat)

18. Document Set – Tie a set of documents and let it go through certain workflow. I believe this is one of the best feature they have come up with.

Upgrading 2010 from 2007 ( a lot of details in there, I’ll update as and when I get some time):

1. 2010 requires a 64-Bit Processor
2. Upgrade is available from MOSS 2007 SP2 and the upgrade is very nicely planned and it even has a visual upgrades which is totally configurable. I am really thrilled with a lot of features that we have in the 2010 version.
3. Win 7/Vista Compatible
4. Visual Upgrade is another great feature where the user doesn’t know the upgrade until we turn it on.

Improved End User Experience:

1. New feature - Office look and feel (Ribbon)
2. New Feature - Tags
3. New Feature - Ratings
4. Improved Blogs
5. Stronger Office Integration – Excel/Powerpoint/Visio.
6. Navigation Improved & made easy

For the Developers:

1. Progress Reports (we would know the progress on what’s happening during the commandline) 2. Powershell – An alternate for ‘stsadm’ (Increasingly usable – major support by Microsoft)
3. Easy Integration of Info-path fom with sharepoint – Lists, web service
4. Infopath Form Debuging is easy, Info-Path webparts can be created in seconds
5. Package Info-path forms into a wsp and move it to another environment
6. Unique document Id for each document or a listitem in the libraries
7. SilverLight talking to sharepoint – Web Service, REST, Client Object Model, Rendering Data to Page
8. Fiddler can be used to debug
9. Map Control in SilverLight can be configured in the Sharepoint Lists so that the end points can be configured easily
10. Task Manager view, Tabs, Organizer on SilverLight integration gives rich UI

For n/w admins:

1. Virtualization of sharepoint 2010 can be doen through Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V
2. Sql mirroring is easy to configure – Failover Database Server
3. Backup of a particular item is possible (Sharepoint Items)
4. Change Password automatically and notify the administrator (Service account)
5. From AD we could see all sharepoint installation (2008) - Governance

Audit Mode - Windows 7

2009-07-10T18:26:00.000-07:00

When you try to install google chrome on Windows 7 or vista or XP if you are getting this following error, then that's because you are running OS in teh Audit Mode:

Error: Google Update installation failure with error 0x8004071c or Audit Mode Detected

Solution:

To resolve this issue, you'll need to edit your Windows registry.

1.Go to Start > Run.
2.In the window that appears, enter regedit and click OK.
3.Find the following registry key:
◦For Vista: The value of ImageState in HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\State
◦For XP: The value of AuditInProgress in HKLM\System\Setup
4.Right-click the registry key and select Modify.
5.Delete the value and click OK.

Linksys Wireless Connection Failure

2009-07-02T21:32:00.000-07:00

I configured the Linksys wireless router [WRT54G] couple of years before and it just worked great. I myself configured the password and everything worked great at my home.

Anyone comes in home takes my password and it just worked great most of the time. all these were with windows server 2003 and Dell machaines.

When I bought a new Hp DV9000 (XP) I had an issue connecting to the home wireless. I started browsing and found this solution:

Issue : Couldn't connect to the selected connection.

1. Installed an update
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/thankyou.aspx?familyId=17d997d2-5034-4bbb-b74d-ad8430a1f7c8&displayLang=en

Issue after the update : Acquiring Network address status and stayed there.

Did the following after that:

1. Browsed http://192.168.1.1/
2. used the user-id / password of the connection (default userid is empty & pwd is admin)
3. Navigated to wireless (Basic wireless settings), click Reset security and name your userid for SSID
4. Clicked save settings
5. clicked wireless security>copied the WPA shared key
6. Used the above key for connecting to my n/w. It worked.

Worked like charm...but I hated doing all this crap.

-V

Email content to a document library (MOSS 2007)

2009-06-22T12:42:00.000-07:00

let's assume the following names to the listed servers:

Domain Controller - DC12345

Exchange Server - ES12345

MOSS 2007 Server - SP12345 (SMTP Enabled)

Domain - mydomain.com

Do the following on the server DC12345:

1. Access AD and create an OU under the domain - mossmails

2. right click mossmails and click delegatecontrol and add the service account you used for AD

3. Click Next

4. Select "Create a Custom Task to Delegate". Next, Next

5. Grant Read, write and create child objects permisions

6. Access DNS (Administrative tools>DNS)

7.Add an MX record in DNS for MOSS Server (Open dnsmgmt, right click the mydomain.com and add a new MX (mail exchanger) record

8. Name the Host or child domain > sp12345

9. Fully qualified domain name > sp12345r.mydomain.com

Do the following on the server SP12345:

1. Central Admin.Operations>Topology& Services> Incoming Email Settings>Click Yes to enable incoming mail and the settings mode on Automatic

2. Say Yes to Sharepoint Directory management service

3. Specify the AD container as OU=mossmails,DC=mydomain,DC=com

4. SMTP mail server for incoming mail: sp12345.mydomain.com

5. Yes, Yes, check - create new distribution group/Delete distribution group

6. E-mail server display address: mylist@sp12345.mydomain.com

7. Accept mail from these safe e-mail servers: specify the IP of your exchange server ES12345

8. Now Create a document library (spidermails), say yes to allow this doc lib t recieve mails (email address : spidermails@sp12345.mydomain.com)

9. Spidermails>Click Settings – document library settings>Under Communication Settings>E-Mail Settings

10. In the E-Mail Security section Select Yes to Accept e-mail messages from any sender, OK

Back to the server DC12345 (to the active directory):

1. After the document library has been created and mail enabled a new contact (spidermails) should appear automatically in the "mossemails" OU in Active Directory

Do the following on the server EX12345:

1. Open the Exchange Management Console>Org Configuration > Hub Transport>New send connector

2. Name it "Moss" and make the intended use of this connector to Internal

3. Add the address where the connector should route the mails : sp12345r.mydomain.com

4. Under the Network : add your Ip of the moss server (MS12345)

5.Make smart host auth to None

6. Next & New

7. on the Exchange Management Console > Recipient Config>Mail Contact > spidermails > e-mail Addresses

8. (*important) Add the emails : Add these emails under SMTP : spidermails@mydomain.com & spidermails@SP12345.mydomain.com (ext)

9. Ensure that the External Email address is spidermails@sp12345.mydomain.com

Note :

1. Make sure that your WSS Timer service is running.

2.After sending the email (spidermails@mydomain.com) from outside, try checking the C:\Inetpub\mailroot\drop folder on the MS12345 server

3. Please use your service account that manages the Central admin

4. Grant rights to the OU mossemails that we created in AD to the app pool account you setup

Converting a Site from Windows Auth to FBA - Simple few steps

2009-06-18T08:09:00.000-07:00

1. take a look at this blog posting - http://www.andrewconnell.com/blog/articles/HowToConfigPublishingSiteWithDualAuthProvidersAndAnonAccess.aspx

2. If you don't want to create multiple applications, then just do those entries on the same web app and configure the default zone from windows to forms.

3. Once you setup anonymous access anyone can access your site

4. Grant privileges to the appropriate party (for the appropriate areas of the site)

5. Configure MySites for teh same using this post http://www.devcow.com/blogs/jdattis/archive/2007/03/01/Office-SharePoint-Server-2007-Forms-Based-Authentication-FBA-w-MySites-Walkthrough-Part-2.aspx

Content DB's & SSP's are sensitive - Beware of restoring ContentDB issues

2009-06-14T14:32:00.000-07:00

Last friday, I was trying to take a back-up of a contentDB from one farm to restored it to another without removing the contentDB on the second farm.

Farm1 had the latest content and I wanted to move the Content DB from there to Farm2.

Farm1 : http://farm1.spiderwool.com ContentDB : farm1_spider_ContentDB

Farm2 : http://farm2.spiderwool.com ContentDB : farm2_spider_ContentDB

Instead of removing the content database at the web app http://farm2.spiderwool.com and restoring with the farm1 content database. I directly restored the farm1_spider_ContentDB over farm2_spider_ContentDB

Note : Please read the full post before trying any commands specified.

I faced the following issues:

Issue 1:

Failure trying to synch web application ab9788f9-d490-4785-8d4a-3666e1af13d3, ContentDB 0f17f1de-d2cb-8890-9ead-c21fb54ac8d4 Exception message was A duplicate site ID 8768xdsd98-0c57-421b-be76-fa71f0f20375(http://) was found. This might be caused by restoring a content database from one server farm into a different server farm without first removing the original database and then running stsadm -o preparetomove. If this is the cause, the stsadm -o preparetomove command can be used with the -OldContentDB command line option to resolve this issue.

Issue 2:

MySite was crashing.

I tried the follwoing:

Try 1:

stsadm -o preparetomove -contentdb -site -oldcontentdb

Didn't help

Try 2:

Created a new SSP but the SSP admin application wasn't opening. I was getting a "Critical error Encountered. Contact your administrator" message.

Try 3:

X = days within you did this contentDB restoration

stsadm -o sync -listolddatabases
stsadm -o sync -deleteolddatabases
In my case, X =0

This definitely solved my duplicate issue (issue 1) but still didn't solve my Issue 2

Try 4 was the solution to get everything working:

1. Deleted the application http://farm2.spiderwool.com without removing the contentDB

2. created a new web application with same name http://farm2.spiderwool.com (contentDb : tempContentDB)

3. Removed the content DB (tempContentDB) of the new application

4. Added the content DB farm2_spider_ContentDB to the new app (http://farm2.spiderwool.com)

5. created a new SSP

6. SSP admin site was opening without any error

7. Added the appropriate import connections on user profiles. Did a crawl to get all the users

8. My web app http://farm2.spiderwool.com got associated to the new ssp. If not associate it manually.

9. ran this command

stsadm -o sync -listolddatabases
stsadm -o sync -deleteolddatabases
stsadm -o sync -listolddatabases (verification)

10. Things started working like a charm (Mysite started working). you can delete the old SSP if you want.

I nearly spent the whole weekend. Hope this saves some time.

Good Luck!

The specified string is not in the form required for a subject

2009-05-20T07:58:00.000-07:00

Error Message: The specified string is not in the form required for a subject

Solution : Subject = subject.Replace('\r', ' ').Replace('\n', ' ');

Note: occurs with smtp related c# code

stsadm Commands

2009-05-11T14:12:00.001-07:00

Take a look at the list of all the stsadm commands for stsadm utility

http://blogs.technet.com/josebda/archive/2007/03/22/complete-reference-of-all-stsadm-commands-with-options-in-moss-2007.aspx

SESSION HAS EXEEDED THE AMOUNT OF ALLOWABLE RESORCES

2009-04-27T09:51:00.000-07:00

Issue:

User loading an InfoPath web form gets an error message similar to the one below:

"This session has exceeded the amount of allowable resources."

Solution:

Visit "Application Event Log"
You should see something similat to the error below around the same time the user got the error:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: Office SharePoint Server
Event Category: Forms Services Runtime
Event ID: 5737
Description:
Number of form actions, 235, has exceeded 200, the maximum allowable value per request. This value is configurable and can be changed by the administrator. (User: ##, Form Name: Daily, IP: ,

Go to "Configure InfoPath Forms Service" in the "InfoPath Forms Services" section in "Application Management".
In the Number of actions per postback box, change the value to be above the number of form actions listed in the event log. The default value is 200.

Simple WebPart removal

2009-04-23T09:16:00.000-07:00

WebPart Developers WSS3.0/MOSS2007 run across the issue where a web part is dropped on to a page
and then Sharepoint errors out for one reason or the other. Sometimes, the user is directed to a Web Part Maintenance page,
which helps the developer remove the offending web part from the page.

However, there is no way to get to this page from any easily available link.

Resolution:

In order to get to the Web Part Maintenance page for ANY sharepoint url, access the maintainence page by doing the foll:

a) Append the querystring ?contents=1 to the url in the browser as shown below.

"Request Access" Feature in MOSS 2007

2009-04-21T13:03:00.000-07:00

By default the request access feature is enabled for all the site collection and the reply-to address is set to the e-mail address of the user who entered the SMTP server name. If you want to use a different e-mail address, you can specify a different individual or group e-mail account to receive access requests by the foll way:

Home > Site Actions > Site Settings > Modify All settings > Advanced Permissions > Select Settings > Access Requests>change the email id you want them to recieve these emails.

If you want to turn down the feature, uncheck the box and say "ok"

IE 7 Security Update issue

2009-04-17T13:12:00.000-07:00

After installing the security update for IE 7 (KB963027) , my application was working normal from the network but throws a popup on the actual box.

Two ways to rectify this issue

1. Uninstall this update

2. Get a life without IE 7

Yes, It justkilled most of my time here.

List All sharepoint Databases

2009-04-15T09:28:00.000-07:00

Do the following to find your sharepoint databases:

· 1. Content DBs: These are actually listed quite nicely in central admin. At least they gave us that: APP MANAGEMENT >> CONTENT DATABASES >> select each WEB APP you want to see a list of content DBs for.

· 2. Config DBs: This one was tricky and took me a while. Turns out this info is in the registry. Sigh. REGEDIT >> HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0\Secure\ConfigDb

· 3. SSP Config and Search DB: This one was obvious in hindsight: Central Admin >> SHARED SERVICES ADMINISTRATION >> click the EDIT PROPERTIES drop down on the SSP you want to look at. OR use this command to list out the info of an SSP - stsadm -o enumssp -all

4. Central Admin >> OPERATIONS >> Services on Server >> Windows Sharepoint Services Help Search>>Database Name

And to verify, please do the following:

1. Central Admin >> OPERATIONS >> PERFORM A BACKUP (which takes you to “/_admin/Backup.aspx”)

This page provides you a list of all items that are backed up by MOSS. It also lists other things than the DBs, but it’s nice enough to tell you what each item is.

2. refer this article - http://www.informationworker.co.za/blogs/mirror/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=525

Sharepoint Designer is free now

2009-04-10T09:36:00.001-07:00

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=baa3ad86-bfc1-4bd4-9812-d9e710d44f42

Enable WebClient Services - Mapping a sharepoiint site Content

2009-04-09T11:34:00.000-07:00

To map a sharepoint list or a document library we should do the folowing:

1. Enable and start the webClient services.

2. Goto Map a Network Drive and add the Sharepoint URL ("http:///"

Also, for accessing the sharepoint site thru network places do the following:

1. Map Network Drive, select the appropriate user, enable the wizard to create a shortcut.

2. Place the url and you should access the sharepoint content and can feel it like a file server.

View Actual Error (make changes to web.config)

2009-03-23T08:31:00.000-07:00

Make the following changes on web.config to make the actual error visible on the page

1. Customerrors = "On"
2. CallStack="true"

InfoPath Error - On .Net 3.5 SP1 update

2009-03-05T14:05:00.000-08:00

Are you getting errors like the following that makes you frustrated even after validating/checking the webservices URL Path:

1. Some rules were not applied

2. "An error occurred accessing a data source.
An entry has been added to the Windows event log of the server.
Log ID:5566"

If this happens only on certain servers then, the issue might be with the crazy .Net framework 3.5 SP1

If you're getting the above infopath error after installing .net framework 3.5 SP1, then perform the following. I broke my head for nearly 8 hours:

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
2. Locate and then click the following registry subkey: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa
3. Right-click Lsa, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
4. Type DisableLoopbackCheck, and then press ENTER.
5. Right-click DisableLoopbackCheck, and then click Modify.
6. In the Value data box, type 1, and then click OK.
7. Exit Registry Editor.
8. Restart the computer.

This should solve the issue.

Believ me, this costed me a lot of time for the second time. Damn it.

Programmatically adding pages to a MOSS Publishing site

2006-11-16T09:01:00.000-08:00

Another posting from Andy http://www.andrewconnell.com/blog/archive/2006/11/15/5168.aspx

Dual Authentication on a site - Lovely

2006-11-09T11:26:00.000-08:00

I had been waiting for this stuff for a while and Andy posted a beautiful article on how to go about it. Take a look at this link http://www.andrewconnell.com/blog/articles/HowToConfigPublishingSiteWithDualAuthProvidersAndAnonAccess.aspx

It's of great help to me!

Vin

Features - "You are not authorized to view this page" - Error 403

2006-10-26T08:11:00.000-07:00

Features are the new way to add functionalities to WSS 3.0 or MOSS 2007. If you are working with features a lot there is good chance you occasionally get a "You are not authorized to view this page" - Error 403 - when you try to manage your features - either site or web scoped. To manage features in the user interface you navigate to ManageFeatures.aspx.

This can be very frustrating and may have you scratching your head. The fix is actually simple. Chances are you manually added a new feature to the FEATURES directory and did not inherit the FEATURES permissions. The error is slightly misleading. You are most likely authorized to view the page but the account is not authorized to access one or more of the files contained inside of the new feature. The most common reason the new directory and files do not inherit the correct permissions is because you cut and pasted one or more of the files to the new location. Cutting and pasting will bring along it's permissions while copying and pasting will inherit the parent permissions. This is a file system issue and not a SharePoint or IIS issue.
The fix is simple, cut and paste the file out of the feature directory to another directory or the desktop and then COPY this newly created feature file(s) back to the features directory. The new files should now inherit permissions and ManageFeatures.aspx should load correctly.

Thanks to Darrin for pointing out this in his blog : http://support.knowledgelake.com/CS/blogs/darrin_bishops_workbench/default.aspx

The configured Role Provider (WindowsTokenRoleProvider) relies upon Windows authentication to determine the groups that the user is allowed to be a me

2006-10-12T07:38:00.000-07:00

when I try to create a user I get the following An error was encountered. Please return to the previous page and try again. The following message may help in diagnosing the problem: The configured Role Provider (WindowsTokenRoleProvider) relies upon Windows authentication to determine the groups that the user is allowed to be a member of. ASP.NET Role Manager cannot be used to manage Windows users and groups. Please use the SQLRoleProvider if you would like to support custom user/role assignment. at System.Web.Administration.WebAdminPage.CallWebAdminHelperMethod(Boolean isMembership, String methodName, Object[] parameters, Type[] paramTypes) at ASP.addUser_aspx.PopulateCheckboxes() in c:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50215\ASP.NETWebAdminFiles\Security\Users\addUser.aspx:line 28 at ASP.addUser_aspx.Page_Load() in c:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50215\ASP.NETWebAdminFiles\Security\Users\addUser.aspx:line 22 at System.Web.Util.CalliHelper.ArglessFunctionCaller(IntPtr fp, Object o) at System.Web.Util.CalliEventHandlerDelegateProxy.Callback(Object sender, EventArgs e) at System.Web.UI.Control.OnLoad(EventArgs e) at System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint)

Soln:

Here's what I have to do to get it fixed:
1). Go to the Provider Tab.
2). Make sure that a PROVIDER for the Role manager is not WindowsTokenRoleProvider for storing site management data.

The trial period for this product has expired

2006-09-27T14:49:00.000-07:00

I upgraded MOSS 2007 beta 2 to B2TR as per the MS doc but when I try to open the SharePoint central administration I got this message "The trial period for this product has expired".
And you can use a workaround given by MS to solve this.
And it's working for me......the official download link is http://download.microsoft.com/download/b/1/a/b1a6dceb-92a3-4808-8dac-b4e40c90ce00/StandaloneDCWorkaround.msi

Thanks!

Copying Page From One Site to Another

2006-09-07T07:55:00.000-07:00

Code Snippet that copies a page from one site to another :

// Fetch event data
RadTreeNode sourceNode = NodeEvent.SourceDragNode;
RadTreeNode destNode = NodeEvent.DestDragNode;
// Swap nodes in tree.
if (sourceNode != destNode.Parent)// && sourceNode.Category == "PAGE" && destNode.Category != "PAGE")
{
SPSite DestSite = new SPSite(destNode.ID);
SPWeb DestWeb = DestSite.OpenWeb();
SPSite SourceSite = new SPSite(sourceNode.Attributes["SPWEB"]);
SPWeb SourceWeb = SourceSite.OpenWeb();
SourceWeb.AllowUnsafeUpdates = true;
DestWeb.AllowUnsafeUpdates = true;
SPFile spFileOriginal = SourceWeb.GetFile(sourceNode.ID);
Byte[] binFileOriginal = spFileOriginal.OpenBinary();
string fileNameTarget = "CopyOf" + spFileOriginal.Name;
SPFolder destPagesFolder = DestWeb.GetFolder("Pages");
if (destPagesFolder != null)
{
if (spFileOriginal.CheckOutStatus == SPFile.SPCheckOutStatus.None)
{
spFileOriginal.CheckOut();
}
SPFile spDestFile = destPagesFolder.Files.Add(fileNameTarget, binFileOriginal, true);
SPLimitedWebPartManager wpmOrigin = spFileOriginal.GetLimitedWebPartManager(PersonalizationScope.Shared);
SPLimitedWebPartManager wpmDest = spDestFile.GetLimitedWebPartManager(PersonalizationScope.Shared);
foreach (System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts.WebPart wp in wpmOrigin.WebParts)
{
wpmDest.AddWebPart(wp, wpmOrigin.GetZoneID(wp), wp.ZoneIndex);
}
spFileOriginal.Update();
spFileOriginal.CheckIn("checkin - Page copied to the following location " + spDestFile.Url);
spFileOriginal.Approve("approve - Page copied to the following location ");
spFileOriginal.Publish("Published as well");
spDestFile.CheckIn("Copied version of the original page " + spFileOriginal.Url);
spDestFile.Approve("Copied version of the original page " + spFileOriginal.Url);
spDestFile.Publish("Copied version of the original page " + spFileOriginal.Url);
}
destNode.AddNode(sourceNode);
}
// Expand destination node to see result of swap immediately.
destNode.Expanded = true;
// Clear last active selection.

This form cannot be opened. It is not workflow enabled.

2006-07-26T13:46:00.000-07:00

I'll try these things first:

1. I wont add the forms (xsn's) through central admin.
2. if i have added already, i'll will be removing it from there.
3. I'll check the install.bat and check for the form path wherever I have specified (Important):
for ex,

::"%programfiles%\common files\microsoft shared\web server extensions\12\bin\stsadm" -o verifyformtemplate -filename AssignForm.xsn

The above form "AssignForm" should be in my sharepoint workflow libraray project location.

4. I'll check for the feature.xml, the feature id should be a unique GUID & will ensure that i have these lines under the properties tag

Remember, it's *.xsn

5. I'll open the workflow.xml and check for Guid which should be unique and more importantly will check for the form urn's

6. Once i am done with all these things, i'll run the install.bat from the command prompt, Will ensure that a folder with my project library name is created under this path "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\FEATURES\"
And the folder should hold the workflow.xml, feature.xml & all of your forms included in your install.bat.

Note: The install.bat will not spit out an error if it couldn't copy the forms. We have to ensure that the form path is right. I would suggest copying the xsn files and placing it in the project folder before running the Install.bat

Once you are done with all these, you can go to central admin->App Management->Manage Form Templates you could find your forms workflow enabled automatically.

The form cannot be displayed because session state is not available

2006-07-26T13:35:00.000-07:00

Try doing the following :

If you have a release version, try this

Open the web.config file for the site, search for the word "SessionStateModule" and uncomment that line.
Example: should be:>

if you are still using the Beta version, try this

1. Check http://officebeta.iponet.net/en-us/help/HA101530311033.aspx
2.
a. Install office server search manually from \OSRCHAPP\osrchapp.msi and re-run the configuration wizard again I got the Sharepoint Server Search role in central administration.
b.You could create the SSP (shared service provider) now
c.Crawl should work now. Try configuring your workflow, you should get rid of the bug.

Reading Pages Under a Site

2006-07-26T13:32:00.000-07:00

Use the foll code snippet to read the pages under a site (Postings under a channel in CMS 2002 terminology):

if (PublishingWeb.IsPublishingWeb(web)){
PublishingWeb publishingWeb = PublishingWeb.GetPublishingWeb(web);
// Postings under this Channels
PublishingPageCollection pages = publishingWeb.GetPublishingPages();
foreach (PublishingPage page in pages)
{
//page.Name
//page.Title;
//page.Url;
}
}

The security validation for this page is invalid. Click Back in your Web

2006-07-26T13:15:00.000-07:00

If you are getting the following error, while renaming the page title using publishingpage object
"The security validation for this page is invalid. Click Back in your Webbrowser, refresh the page, and try your operation again."

Code Snippet:

PublishingWeb publishingweb = PublishingWeb.GetPublishingWeb(newUri("http://YourPortal/Plans/"));
PublishingPage pp =publishingweb.GetPublishingPages()["Pages/TestArticle.aspx"];
pp.Title = e.Node.Text;
pp.Update();

You should check for this :

Navigate thru the followwing and turn the security validation Off

Central Administration--->application management---->web application settings-->"turn security validation off"