SharePoint 2010 Beta

It's been a while since I've posted anything here, but I thought I'd get off my lazy butt and start again. I've just finished installing SharePoint 2010 and am playing around with it. What I'll do over the next few months is post some of the nice features as well as some of the issues faces with SP2010.

SharePoint SP2 Crash

I've come across this error today,

[SPDatabaseGbwSequence] [ERROR] [4/30/2009 10:43:38 AM]: Upgrade object too new (build version = 12.0.0.6341, schema version = 2.0.0.0). Current server (build version = 12.0.0.4518, schema version = 3.0.1.0).

During the SharePoint wizard running after installing WSS and MOSS Sp2. The site still functions. Im looking into what hotfix has been installed that caused the schema to be upgraded and why SP2 is using the old schema. The install failed but the sites still function. Watch this space and I will let you know of a fix/workaround.

Fadi

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

Found the problem. It was GroupBoard. When you install Group Board it updates the schema. The fix is simple, uninstall group board, re-run the wizard, re-install GroupBoard and the problem is gone.

If you go to http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://technet.microsoft.com/de-de/library/cc288269.aspx&ei=6zD5SZqxOqjhtgfl9o2uDw&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=6&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dsharepoint%2Bhotfix%2BSPDatabaseGbwSequence%2Bschema%2Bversion%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1C1_____enUS323US323 you can see the fix. Only the German technet site talks about the error, the english one (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc288269.aspx) doesn't have the exact error message.

If that doesn't work, try forcing the upgrade by ding the following:

• "STSADM.EXE -o upgrade -inplace -forceupgrade –url http://site" for each web application you have.
• then run wizard "psconfig -cmd upgrade -inplace b2b -wait –force"

Fadi

WSS/MOSS Service Pack 2 is out!!!!!

SharePoint and MOSS SP2 are out now. Go to

Download links are :

MOSS: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=b7816d90-5fc6-4347-89b0-a80deb27a082

WSS: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=79bada82-c13f-44c1-bdc1-d0447337051b

Please test it out on a dev or test environment before installing it on a prod. Also, if it fails, just follow the steps I set out for SP1 crash (stsadm -o upgrade -forceupgrade)

Fadi

Removing the Name ActiveX control (Name.dll) From a Public Facing SharePoint Site

If you have a public facing site, some users that are using IE7 have come across this issue. there's 2 ways to do this.

1, Modify the master page:

Create the InitNoPresence.js file. To do this, follow these steps:
a. Copy the contents of the Init.js file to the InitNoPresence.js file on the front-end Web server.Note The Init.js file is located in the Drive:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web server extensions\12\Template\Layouts\1033 folder.
b. Start Notepad, and then open the InitNoPresence.js file.
c. In the section of the InitNoPresence.js file that contains the ProcessDefaultOnLoad function,
Change ProcessImn(); with // ProcessImn(); (comment it out)
Go to SharePoint designer, modify the master page by replacing
<SharePoint:ScriptLink language="javascript" name="init.js" runat="server"/>
with
<SharePoint:ScriptLink language="javascript" name="initNoPresence.js" runat="server"/>

2. Install feature

Larry Riemann and Randy Drisgill have written a cool feature that does it for you, go to http://www.codeplex.com/SPAXO and install it.

Fadi

SharePoint SP2 release date

SP2 for SharePoint will be out on the 28th of April 2009. To find out more details about what it includes, go to http://blogs.technet.com/office_sustained_engineering/archive/2009/04/16/service-pack-2-for-the-2007-microsoft-office-system-due-to-ship-april-28th.aspx

Fadi

Error: There is no web named "" when running content deployment

Hi all,

This error doesn't always appear during content deployment, it can also appear during site creation. I came across it the other day while content deployment was happening. After a bit of playing around with SharePoint, it turned out not to be a SharePoint error. The SQL box had run out of space. After deleting some unwanted databases, ran content deployment again and it worked fine.

Fadi

Page not Found error

Over the past couple of weeks, I've had many people ask me to fix their "page not found" error. Most of the say it appeared after:

• Backup/restore
• Export/import
• Create new site/sub site

99% of these people's problems was the master page couldn't be found (hence the "page not found" error). To fix this, you can either edit the site in SharePoint Designer (which is now free) and fix the master page (by either editing it, or uploading it, or publishing it), or create a feature that sets the master page and activate that feature.

If you have this problem and it's not the master page, please let me know and I can see if I can help.

Fadi

SharePoint Designer available for free

For those of you that are interested, SharePoint Designer is available free of charge from April 2.

Here's the link


http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepointdesigner/archive/2009/04/02/download-spd-for-free-today.aspx

Feb CU installation issues...

Not sure if any of you have had issues installing the Feb CU, but I've come across an issue that I thought I should share.

The installation worked fine, however the wizard failed. After hours of investigating why it failed, it turned out that a web.config was set to read only. After changing it, the wizard worked.

If you want to install the WSS and the MOSS Feb CU (I recommend you do, it fixes a lot of content deployment issues), here's the steps:

• Run the WSS CU setup
• Restart the server
• Run the MOSS CU setup
• Run the configuration wizard

If you are only using WSS, you can skip the step of installing the MOSS CU.

Fadi

Internet Explorer 8

IE8 if finally out. I recommend everyone download it. I'm playing around with it now, and I like some of the new functionality like the way the search box works.

Go to http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/default.aspx to download it.

Getting SharePoint to work on Vista

I did some searching and came across this interesting post. It actually shows you how to get SharePoint to work on Vista with SQLExpress as the database.

http://community.bamboosolutions.com/blogs/bambooteamblog/archive/2008/05/21/how-to-install-windows-sharepoint-services-3-0-sp1-on-vista-x64-x86.aspx

Fadi

Content Deployment

Many of you have played around with content deployment and gone insane trying to get it to work. After much trial and error, I've found the best way to get it to work is to create a blank site on the destination server. On the source server, set up content deployment and the first time around, do a full deployment. Once the full deployment has finished, change it to incremental deployment.

If you need more details, just email me and I'll be more than happy to help out.

Fadi

WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007 SP2

SP2 for WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007 has been announced. The release date is scheduled between February and April this year (2009).

Some of the improvements include:

• Improved Read-only content databases
• ECM Performance and Manageability
• Improved Index Rebuild Timer Jobs
• Upgrade Checker

I'll let you know closer to the release date if there's anything further included (I'm sure there will be).

Fadi

SPDisposeCheck Released

SPDisposeCheck v1.3.1 has been released (well a couple of weeks ago now). It will help improve your SharePoint assemblies. It inspects you assemblies and checks that you are correctly disposing of certain objects. Go to http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/SPDisposeCheck to download it.

Fadi

Audit Logs KB

Hi,

I'm not sure how many out there are using the out of the box Audit Logs, but I've come across an issue where if you try to generate a log, the whole system slows down. After doing some research, I came across this http://support.microsoft.com/kb/958127, but that doesn't address the issue where its not a custom report, as the other reports you have no control over the date range. If you've come across this before and know of a work around, please let me know.

Fadi

Bad SharePoint site Part 2

A few days ago I told you guys about a bad site created in SharePoint (http://www.deewr.gov.au/). Anyway, I was going through the site today and came across this
(go here to see the large image http://www.dhf.com.au/deewr.jpg)

look at all the things like "This is a default IPOD menu" and "Please edit me before use" and the "Please enter content here". So please people, when developing a site, make sure the content editors know how to put content on the page.

Fadi

SharePoint 2009 / WSS 4.0 / Office 14

Rumors of a new version of SharePoint/Office is already going around the net. From what I know, the beta is scheduled to be released in March 2009. Here's some features that are included:

• Native AJAX and Silverlight support
• More offline capabilities
• Microsoft Office files HTML viewers (following the line of OWA and EWA)
• Bi-directional BDC
• Native support for SQL Server tables as SharePoint lists
• Publishing module rewritten, to change the faulty Export / Import process
• More Business Intelligence capabilities for MOSS, as PerformancePoint 2007 matures
• Social networking improvements, maybe with Knowledge Management module included out-of-the-box

As soon as I know if there's any other features, I'll keep you posted. I know with SP2 of WSS3 there's a pre-upgrade checker as well as XSTL-based list view that will be available in WSS4.0.

Fadi

VSeWSS 1.3 CTP available for download...

VSeWSS 1.3 CTP is out. You can download it from

https://connect.microsoft.com/Downloads/Downloads.aspx?SiteID=428

The new features in VSeWSS 1.3 are:

· Can be installed on x64 Server OS machines running SharePoint x64. Previously only x86 Server OS could be used.
· Separate build commands for package, deploy and retract are added
· Command line build, package and retract commands are included enabling continuous integration and build servers. Previously command line build of SharePoint projects was very difficult
· Refactoring support for renaming of Web Parts. Previously renaming a web part required changes in several files in the project
· WSP View improvements for consistency of deleting feature elements, merging features and adding event receivers to features
· Solution Generator can now generate solutions from publishing sites. Previously only regular sites could be generated
· Allowing partial trust BIN deployments of web parts. CAS configuration must still be provided by the developer.
· New project item template for SharePoint RootFiles items
· Deployment will now optionally remove conflicting existing features on the development server prior to redeployment. Previously any feature name conflicts would result in an error
· Ancillary assemblies such as for business logic can now be added to the SharePoint Solution WSP
· Hidden features related to Site Definition projects are now shown in WSP View. They are no longer hidden
· For advanced users a fast deploy is included to update only the compiled assembly on the SharePoint development installation
· The User Guide is now installed with the extensions instead of being a separate download
The final release of VSeWSS 1.3 is planned for the North American Spring of 2009.

Cumulative update packages for the 2007 Microsoft Office core suite applications and for 2007 Microsoft Office servers

Hi,

There's been a KB article release by Microsoft titled "Cumulative update packages for the 2007 Microsoft Office core suite applications and for 2007 Microsoft Office servers". I recommend downloading it and installing it.

To download it, go to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/960709

It contains the following hotfixes:
956137 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/956137/ ) Description of the Office Migration Planning Manager (OMPM) hotfix package (Offscan.exe): October 28, 2008
OMPM
OCT
958651 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/958651/ ) Description of the 2007 Office system hotfix package: October 28, 2008
OCT
project.msp
959381 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/959381/ ) Description of the Project 2007 hotfix package: November 12, 2008
Project
ifswfe.msp
959382 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/959382/ ) Description of the Forms Server 2007 hotfix package: November 11, 2008
InfoPath
ime32.msp, ime64.msp (Japanese)
959636 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/959636/ ) Description of the Input Method Editor (Japanese) 2007 hotfix package (Ime32-ja-jp.msp, Ime64-ja-jp.msp): December 16, 2008
Input Method Editor
coreserver.msp
959637 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/959637/ ) Description of the SharePoint Server 2007 hotfix package (Coreserver.msp): December 16, 2008
MOSS/Search
ipeditor.msp, infopath.msp
959638 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/959638/ ) Description of the InfoPath 2007 hotfix package (Infopath.msp): December 16, 2008
InfoPath
ifswfe.msp
959639 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/959639/ ) Description of the Forms Server 2007 hotfix package (Ifswfe.msp): December 16, 2008
InfoPath
excel.msp, xlconv.msp, oartconv.msp, oart.msp
959640 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/959640/ ) Description of the Excel 2007 hotfix package (Excel.msp, Xlconv.msp, Oartconv.msp, Oart.msp): December 16, 2008
Excel and Graphics
excel.msp, xlconv.msp, xlview.msp
959641 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/959641/ ) Description of the Excel 2007 hotfix package (Excel.msp, Xlconv.msp, Xlview.msp): December 16, 2008
Excel Viewer
Outlook.msp
959642 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/959642/ ) Description of the Outlook 2007 hotfix package (Mso.msp,Outlook.msp): December 16, 2008
Outlook
Project.msp
959643 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/959643/ ) Description of the Project 2007 hotfix package (Project.msp): December 16, 2008
Project
sts.msp
959644 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/959644/ ) Description of the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 hotfix package (Sts.msp): December 16, 2008
WSS
Word.msp
959645 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/959645/ ) Description of the Word 2007 hotfix package (Word.msp, Wordconv.msp): December 16, 2008
Word
mso.msp
959647 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/959647/ ) Description of the 2007 Office system hotfix package (Mso.msp): December 16, 2008
Office Core
WSS uber-package
960010 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/960010/ ) Description of the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 cumulative update package (WSS server-package): December 16, 2008
WSS
MOSS uber-package
960011 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/960011/ ) Description of the SharePoint Server 2007 cumulative update package (MOSS server-package): December 16, 2008
MOSS
mso.msp
960053 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/960053/ ) Description of the 2007 Office system hotfix package (Mso.msp): November 19, 2008
Office Core
access.msp
960307 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/960307/ ) Description of the Access 2007 hotfix package (Access.msp): December 16, 2008
Access
mstore.msp
960308 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/960308/ ) Description of the 2007 Office system hotfix package (Mstore.msp): December 16, 2008
AWS
oart.msp, oartconv.msp
960310 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/960310/ ) Description of the 2007 Office hotfix package (Oart.msp, Oartconv.msp): December 16, 2008
Graphics
SPD.msp
960311 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/960311/ ) Description of the SharePoint Designer 2007 hotfix package (Spd.msp): December 16, 2008
SharePoint Designer
PowerPoint.msp
960312 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/960312/ ) Description of the PowerPoint 2007 hotfix package (PowerPoint.msp): December 16, 2008
PowerPoint
pjsrvapp.msp, pjsrvwfe.msp
960313 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/960313/ ) Description of the Project Server 2007 hotfix package (Pjsrvapp.msp, Pjsrvwfe.msp): December 16, 2008
Project Server
WSSmui.msp
960314 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/960314/ ) Description of the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 hotfix package (Wssmui.msp): December 16, 2008
WSS
OCT
960404 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/960404/ ) Description of the 2007 Office system hotfix package (OCT): December 16, 2008
OCT
OMPM
960405 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/960405/ ) Description of the Office Migration Planning Manager hotfix package (OMPM): December 16, 2008
OMPM
ime32.msp, ime64.msp (Korean)
960497 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/960497/ ) Description of the Input Method Editor (Korean) 2007 hotfix package (Ime32-ko-kr.msp, Ime64-ko-kr.msp): Decemeber 16, 2008
Input Method Editor
msdaipp.msp
960498 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/960498/ ) Description of the 2007 Office system hotfix package (msdaipp.msp): December 16, 2008
Office Core
ipeditor.msp, infopath.msp, powerpoint.msp, mso.msp
960499 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/960499/ ) Description of the 2007 Office system hotfix package (Infopath.msp, Ipeditor.msp, Mso.msp, Powerpoint.msp): December 16, 2008
InfoPath
nlgmsproof.msp, proof.msp (German)
960500 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/960500/ ) Description of the 2007 Office system hotfix package (Nlgmsproof.msp, Proof-de-de.msp): December 16, 2008
Proofing Tools
cpao.msp
960501 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/960501/ ) Description of the Outlook 2007 hotfix package (Cpao.msp): December 16, 2008
Outlook Calendar Printing Assistant
offfiltx.msp, onifilter.msp, visfilter.msp
960502 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/960502/ ) Description of the 2007 Office system hotfix package (Offfiltx.msp, Onifilter.msp, Visfilter.msp): December 16, 2008
iFilter Pack
xmleditverb.msp
960534 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/960534/ ) Description of the 2007 Office system hotfix package (Xmleditverb.msp): December 16, 2008
InfoPath
outlook.msp, mso.msp
960535 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/960535/ ) Description of the Outlook 2007 hotfix package (Mso.msp, Outlook.msp): December 16, 2008
Outlook
960930 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/960930/ ) Description of the Word 2007 hotfix package (Wordconv.msp): December 16, 2008
Word

Internet facing SharePoint Sites

Not sure if any of you are aware, but I've been working on an internet facing site for the past few months (scheduled to go live in March). There's a few things to keep in mind when developing internet facing site:
1, Size: Many people still have dial-up connections, so make your page small
2, Accessablity/usablity: make sure it works on all browsers/platforms
3, Managability: make use administrators can easily manage content on the site.
4, Search: out of the box search doesn't do partial keyword search.

Another thing to keep in mind is performance. Content deployment etc all have impact on the performance of the site.

Once the site goes live, I will publish the url and you can all see it. If you want an example of how not to develop a site, go to http://www.deewr.gov.au/ and you will see what I mean. I don't think they tried it on any browser other than IE7. It doesn't work under IE6 or IE8 properly, nor under Firefox (I haven't tried any other browser). Plus the page is heavy and takes minutes to fully load with a dial-up connection.

Fadi

New year, new issues

Here's a new issue and fix from Microsoft (please note, most of this is copied off their site)

Error message when you click Checked out to me in the "Manage Content and Structure" page after you filter the picture library by a custom column: "Cannot find column [repro]"

SYMPTOMS
In a Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS) site, you filter the picture library by a custom column in the "Manage Content and Structure" page. Then, if you click Checked out to me, you may receive the following error message:
Cannot find column [repro]

RESOLUTION
To resolve this issue, install hotfix rollup 959637. For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base
:
959637‚ Description of the SharePoint Server 2007 hotfix package (Coreserver.msp): December 16, 2008

Long time no post

Hi Everyone,

It's been months since I last posted anything. I've been flat out with too many projects. Anyway, I will try my best to keep the post coming.

Here's a quick one for you, there's a bug with SharePoint where if you delete an out-of-the-box permission group, you can't then enable the Office Publishing Feature. Microsoft's work around is to restore SharePoint to a version before deleting the group. I would recommend not deleting any group that's out of the box, just create your own and leave the others alone.

Fadi

ps, I hope everyone had an enjoyable break and has a happy new year.