Tuesday, May 26, 2009
[via Stefan Gossner]
We have recently discovered a bug with Service Pack 2 (SP2) that affects all customers that have deployed it for SharePoint Server 2007. During the installation of SP2, a product expiration date is improperly activated. This means SharePoint will expire as though it was a trial installation 180 days after SP2 is deployed. The activation of the expiration date will not affect the normal function of SharePoint up until the expiration date passes. Furthermore, product expiration 180 days after SP2 installation will not affect customer’s data, configuration or application code but will render SharePoint inaccessible for end-users. We are working to release a hotfix to automatically fix this issue. A manual work-around is currently available and involves customers re-entering their Product ID number (PID) on the Convert License Type page in Central Administration. For more information and detailed steps please read this KB article. (The KB link is not currently active, it will be available within the next 48hrs) Read more on the official SharePoint Team blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2009/05/21/attention-important-information-on-service-pack-2.aspx
Monday, May 04, 2009
[via Bob Fox]
New additions in MOSS 2007 SP2
preupgradecheck - Bob shows how he ran this new stsadm switch on his test lab. It is available in SP2 to preview readiness in upgrading to SharePoint Server 2010. He provides helpful insight on what this information provides.
Backup, Set your databases to Read Only - "If you run this command on a working environment there will always be a chance for the job to fail if users are adding content to the sites. To prevent this we now have a new feature that allows us to lock the DB and make it read only."
GetSiteLock / SetSiteLock - Example, "A company has multiple organizations that it owns and for some reason one of those companies goes under. The information that was listed on that companies site is still something that other employees want to consume but we don't want any more data being posted to this or have any changes made. Couple fixes come to mind to solve this. We can change the sites security permissions giving everyone read access. This, depending on the complexity of the sites security, can take a great deal of time. We could also archive the data someplace else (perhaps on another portal thats being used for Archive or DR purposes)….both take time and are not alot of fun. OR we can run a simple command and in one sweep render the site in 3 different states using the new command line tool setsitelock."
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
If you believe Microsoft's Virtual PC has been abandoned or VMWare is too pricey for your budget, give the free Open Source alternative a try. I have been reading some forums and blog posts from some happy folks using it. Also, as of this posting date, the community is really active in keeping it cutting edge.
Virtual Box - http://www.virtualbox.org/
"VirtualBox is a family of powerful x86virtualization products for enterprise as well as home use. Not only is VirtualBox an extremely feature rich, high performance product for enterprise customers, it is also the only professional solution that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL)."
[via Stefan]
Office 2007 Service Pack 2 including the service packs for WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007 has just been released. Be sure to read the KB articles below as they contain important information about SP2 including known issues with these service packs.
KB Article Links
Description of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SP2 and of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Language Pack SP2
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953338
Description of 2007 Microsoft Office servers Service Pack 2 (SP2) and of 2007 Microsoft Office servers Language Pack Service Pack 2 (SP2)
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953334
Download Links
Please check the above listed KB articles. They contain the download locations for the service packs and language service packs.
Installation Steps
Be sure to follow the instructions about how to install software update for WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007.
Please also check SharePoint Team Blog and Updates Resource Center for SharePoint Products and Technologies when the articles go live.
Related Resources
About Service Pack 2 for SharePoint Product and Technologies
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=148551
Service Pack 2 Overview
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=148374
Updates Resource Center for SharePoint Products and Technologies
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/sharepointserver/bb735839.aspx
The full list of changes in SP2 (Excel 2007 format)
Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SP2 Changes
MOSS 2007 SP2 Changes
You can also go to this KB article for a full list of downloads for Office System 2007 SP2 (client & server).
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968170
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
Dependence on foreign oil sources has got to stop here in the USA. It seems that we'll be waiting decades before the government helps in setting up the infrastructure and pushing municipal fleets to use Natural Gas.
How can we do our part? Do it yourself! Yes, it is possible. I came across a great resource for you DIY'ers who love gadgets and saving money at the same time.
Here's the skinny ==> http://tinyurl.com/d3vk9t <===
Thursday, April 02, 2009
Join me by emailing President Obama and your Members of Congress today to ask them to support the NAT GAS Act of 2009.
http://tinyurl.com/dz2guf
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Have you ever wanted to kick out a report via ASP.NET but have not figured out how to force page breaks? Well, here's the easy on it:
style="PAGE-BREAK-AFTER: always"
You can make your report as simple or complex as you like with pure ASP.NET and a javascript print function - you're in business.
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Anyone else come across this phenomenon? I thought something in my style settings was doing this at first. Then I started out from scratch. I created a new Website with a new webform. Introduced a GridView control and wrapped it up with a Panel control and printed it out. Hot Pink, baby! The culprit seems to be the Panel control.
[update] turned out to be related to the printer driver for the Ricoh printer line
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
I caught this over at Stefan's blog. MSDN's ramp up site has a SharePoint Development Track available, located directly at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/rampup/dd221355.aspx.
Some of the tracks include:
Level 1: Web Parts
Did you know that in SharePoint you can build pages as easy as in ASP.NET – and allow end users to create dashboards? Web parts allow for creating components of Web user interface that can be reused on multiple Web pages. These are introduced in ASP.NET and built on in SharePoint where they can be added to pages by end users and managed by IT Professionals. In this topic you will learn about building simple Web parts for SharePoint and how to connect them back to SharePoint site data.
Level 2: Data Lists
Did you know that SharePoint developers can work with data from lists that users get access to too? Data lists provide data storage for end users in SharePoint. End users can create lists with schema all through the SharePoint user interface and they can create, edit, and view the data. All of this data can be programmatically accessed by developers and this topic is all about that.
Level 3: Event Handlers
Did you know that SharePoint developers can automatically process data that your users upload via a spreadsheet? Event handlers (or event receivers) are custom code that runs on the SharePoint server in response to something that happens on the server. Event handlers can be useful for running business logic in response to data being added to the site. This topic shows how to create simple event handlers and investigates ways that event handlers can be used in SharePoint.
Level 4: Workflow
Did you know that you can write WF workflows in SharePoint without having to worry about storage, persistence, or how to interact with the user? Workflow in SharePoint allows for implementation of processes that require interaction such as email approvals or form completion by people in your organization. This topic shows you how to create simple workflows in SharePoint using Visual Studio that involve approvals from people by email and for meeting room resource bookings with an administrator.
Level 5: Silverlight Web Parts
Did you know that you can build rich Internet applications with SharePoint? Silverlight is a new Web user interface technology from Microsoft that allows for each implementation of animations and videos. This topic shows how a SharePoint user interface can be enhanced by using Silverlight in Web parts as part of a SharePoint site.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Are you getting duplicate entries in your DropDownList control when using AppendDataBoundItems="true" and pulling in data from a datasource? This is one of those things that trips me up ever so often. The solution is to set EnableViewState="false" on the control. This prevents the previous items from being cached in the ViewState.
Hope this helps. If so, leave a comment of your experience.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
I kept getting a Failure while applying Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2 today for 'Database Services' and 'Analysis Services'. It was a brand new installation so I couldn't think of anything that would cause this. I found a kb on Microsoft's site that fixed the failure for 'Database Services'. I'm still getting the failure on Analysis Services. I will update this post when I find the solution.
Missing your SQL Server Management Studio after installing SQL Server 2005? When creating my Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) development environment I had the same problem. Thankfully, Pete Orologas posted a solution and it worked for me. Apparently, if there is already a \Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Tools folder that exists then the installer moves on to the next step. How does that subfolder get there? Well, if you install Visual Studio before SQL it creates the folder when installing SQL Express. Or if you install the SQL Express edition it will create the tools folder.
THE SOLUTION?
Rename the Tools folder to something like Tools_bkup and run the "SqlRun_Tools" exe or msi file. This is located on the install media inside the {drive}:\{platform_specific_pathing}\Tools\Setup subfolder.
This worked for me. I hope it helps in your situation. Leave comments of your experience.
Thursday, September 04, 2008
"cannot get the list schema column property from the SharePoint list"
Have you ever got this error? Recently, when troubleshooting a problem my manager was having while Exporting a custom list from MOSS 2007 WSS 3 to Office Excel 2003 I found a solution.
I found a thread of folks experiencing the same issue. In that thread I found that someone had pinpointed their problem to a date column. They changed the definition from date to 'Single Line Of Text' and then back to "Date" (Date Only) and fixed the problem.
So, I tried that and everything started working again. I have Office 2007 installed on my PC and didn't have this problem. I tested it out in our training room which has Office 2003 installed. Another strangety in SharePoint land but mystery solved on this end.
Other references:
http://epes.wordpress.com/2008/02/09/sharepoint-cannot-get-the-list-schema-column-property-from-the-sharepoint-list/
http://forums.technet.microsoft.com/en-US/sharepointgeneral/thread/5454b84f-6af5-4d3d-9671-45aa4aa9e418/
[update] Apparently, there's a post SP1 hotfix available here --> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941422
Hope this helps others that might be pulling their hair out. Post a comment if it does.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
This weekend I took it upon myself to upgrade my subText blog to version 2.0. I'm glad I backed up everything before attempting the debacle. My first clue should have been it's only a few days old since it was released. I went through the steps of wiping out all old files and ftp'ing all the new ones and merging my web [dot] config differences. I got an error pointing to an assembly that was suspect. After searching on SourceForge.net forums I downloaded the latest DotNetOpenID assembly and copied it over to the bin folder. Then I got the Upgrading in Progress splash screen. Then, I came across a posting from Paul Wideman. He found the bug in the code related to not working well with partial trust environments like GoDaddy, Webhost4life and others. I downloaded his patch and applied it with TortoiseMerge and compiled the Framework assembly, copied it up to the bin directory - thinking this would fix that problem. Nadda! Still had the Upgrading - be patient screen. So, after 24 hours of my blog being down I made the decision to roll back to version 1.x. And I was so looking forward to the new version 2 features. I apologize to anyone trying to access anything on my blog during this down time. I think I'll wait until a new verified and seasoned version is released.
[update] For my sake as well as others, here are some references of others having problems and how they worked them out:
http://www.kowitz.net/archive/2008/08/15/upgrading-to-subtext-2.0-fail.aspx
Monday, August 04, 2008
I have started a SharePoint resource page. I have been recommending (and still do) some of the great ones out there. However, I have found that some of my experiences and needs differ in a lot of ways. As with others, my resource page has started out as something I use to personally reference in my day-to-day work routine. If it helps others that would be great too. Here's the beginnings of my MOSS SharePoint InfoPath Workflow .NET Resource Page. It will be growing significantly over the coming days.
Waynester's SharePoint Resource page