February 2008 Archives

Made the mistake of installing SharePoint with the wizard (not a farm?) and realize at 4GB you are stuck? SharePoint was a pilot but it turned into a MASSIVE production system?

You'll want to read this...

Update MOSS - Upgrade SQL Express to Standard or Enterprise

If you installed the really basic/standalone way (and have WID), you'll want to read this one as there is a specific bit of information required to proceed (about 1/2 way down):Upgrade SharePoint SQL from WID to regular SQL

Keep finding more juicy stuff, just posting links so I can find them. :)

• Sample Master Pages
• Application Template Home Page
• GroupBoard Workspace 2007 template
• Microsoft Office Solutions Directory
• SharePoint Pedia
• Role Based Templates

Theming a Sharepoint Site

If you wish to create a custom theme in a WSS installation and wanted to install that theme into your Sharepoint installation, you will realize that there is no quick and easy one click method to do it. Below are the steps to illustrate what has to be done to upload a new theme to the WSS installation

1. After creating your theme, copy the content of the theme into the "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\THEMES" folder
2. Open SPTHEMES.XML located in "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\1033"
3. Add another child node to the tag to reflect the name of your new theme
4. Capture the screen of the new theme and save the file in "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\IMAGES". The name of the file is suppose to be the same as the name of the thumbnail as highlighted in point 3
5. Run iisreset.

Don't mind me, just screenshotting the SP1 Setup Switches

Text only version

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OK
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I find a big piece of migration that is often overlooked is the fact that 'we don't need to migrate everything'. While it probably seems painfully obvious, I like common sense solutions so I'll state it anyways.

Before migrating, or during migration, there should be a step for 'vetting' whether a document should even be imported. If a document is 'dead, tombstoned, unnecessary', whatever, it should either then be:

1. Destroyed
2. Archived somewhere other than SharePoint
3. Leave it in the original location (say the file server h:) but mark it as read only - if they need the document later, they move it to the writable SharePoint library at that time
4. Archived in a different library in SharePoint

All 4 of the above, if applied against X number of documents, will also help trim the size of the stuff we need to index and view (performance gains) and backup (availability restore window requirements). Typically, 3 or 4 seems to be the best choice for documents that are no longer relevant as it can be backed up on a less frequent timetable, is still searchable via the overall search functionality, etc.

I just think it's important to state this expectation clearly. It's a win/win and if not stated, there is a strong possibility they'll just shove every document into this library, impacting performance and bloating it unnecessarily.

I get asked quite often about Vista and should customers be upgrading now. The answer comes with the customers comfort and risk acceptance level frankly. As such, it is important to consider Microsoft's Product lifecycle.

Microsoft Product Catalog

Microsoft Product Lifecycle information

For XP specifically...

• April 14, 2009 is when you can no longer get - Incident support (no-charge incident support, paid incident support, support charged on an hourly basis, support for warranty claims), Security update support, The ability to request non-security hotfixes
• April 8, 2014 is when you can no longer get - Paid support, Security update support at no additional cost, Non-security related hotfix support requires a separate Extended Hotfix Support Agreement to be purchased (per-fix fees also apply)

Yes, you probably know that itgroove will protect you from Robots already (reference: itgroove Robot Protection), but did you know Old Glory can protect you as well? (SNL Sketch). Enjoy.

What is the Difference between BIS and BES?

Blackberry Internet Service

- Self-management of inbox; integrate up to 10 e-mail accounts
- Push e-mail /every 15 min (default, dependant on ISP)
- Contacts, appointments and tasks synched manually via USB only
- Deleted Messages: from device only

Blackberry Enterprise Server

- Complete real-time wireless synchronization of email, calendar, tasks and contacts
- Security level: AES encryption
- ITS Managed Security includes password protection and auto-erase in case of theft
- Deleted Messages: Can be deleted from both device and server

So, if you end up with Windows VM’s that were copied (not imported), you can end up with the same MAC Addresses. This can lead to ‘wierd’ behaviour if Windows Virtual Machines/Guests are on the same network and you will get intermittent (and often unexplainable) behaviour in regards to connecting, pinging, routing, whatever.

To fix:

1. Down the VM

2. Find the 'ethernet_card_address_type' in the VM's VMC file - such as... 0003FFxxxxxx

3. Remove the number so the line appears as follows:

4. After you remove the number, Virtual Server will create a new MAC address the next time you start the virtual machine.
Karel, cc’d you for your notes as although today was a little different, the problem/fix described above is what we had to deal with a few weeks ago and I imagine there might be a few VM’s floating around the office based on that original copy.

Reference: http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver/en/library/8f68598a-95e0-402d-b22b-c34db68397b41033.mspx?mfr=true

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I have found a solution as follows:

Here's the quick fix...

1) Backup the log file by right clicking on the database and selecting backup

2) Set the Config database to simple recovery model (Right Click on database / properties / options)

3) Right click on database and select Tasks/Shrink/Files and select file type = log, action = release unused space

Reset back to full recovery model, if desired.

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More for my own reference and to remember:

Adding a SharePoint Web Application
Creating a new Web application is the most common option. When creating a new SharePoint Web application, you create a new database to store data, and define the authentication method used to connect the SharePoint application to that database.

Extending a SharePoint Web Application
Choose Extend an existing web application if you need to have separate IIS Web Sites that expose the same content to users. This is typically used for extranet deployments where different users access content using different domains. This option will reuse the content database from an existing Web application.

Site Collections
Only one at the root, the rest will be under /sites (by default, you can create your own paths). Site collections have their own quotas, owners, usage reports, etc.

Tips on Sizing - http://blogs.msdn.com/joelo/archive/2007/01/31/tips-on-site-collection-sizing.aspx

WSS 3.0 Backup Time Metrics
15GB stsadm backup < 1 hour
15GB stsadm restore = 1 hour
15GB stsadm delete site collection = 19 minutes