SharePoint Technologies...from the field

One week to go until the SBTUG extravaganza!

Only one week to go until Kathy Hughes and I will be demoing SharePoint 2010 locally.

There will be prizes but best of all, attendees on the night will probably be the first in Australia to see the latest versions of SharePoint 2010. We are talking about the latest, newest builds and not the Technical Preview!

For more information check out:

http://www.sbtug.com/

Walkthrough - Building a Service Pack 2 and Cumulative updates slipstreamed MOSS2007 install

This article will walk you through building a self contained SharePoint 2007 installation with all the necessary service packs automatically applied as part of the installation.

You wont have to worry about performing a post service pack installation as the installer will do this for you. Once done you should have a fully patched SharePoint 2007 installation ready to go.

Any newer updates that are released after you have installed using the slipstreamed method will have to be applied manually. (The SharePoint product team is committed to releasing updates every two months)

We will be building both x86 and x64 media sets and its very important that you make sure that the right version/bitness is copied to the correct destination folder. x86 is copied to x86 and x64 is copied to x64.

If you are planning to install MOSS/WSS onto Windows Server 2008 R2, then you will need to have Service Pack 2 pre-installed as part of your MOSS2007 install.

You can also slipstream the SP2 trial bug fix into the installation package so you can solve this issue at the same time. Here is more information on the slipstream bug:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/971620

What you will need:

1) A copy of MOSS 2007 with Service pack 1 already installed. I usually grab this .ISO from MSDN

2) A copy of MOSS & WSS Service pack 2 both x86 and x64 bits.

You can get more details here on SP2:

http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2009/04/28/announcing-service-pack-2-for-office-sharepoint-server-2007-and-windows-sharepoint-services-3-0.aspx

3) Any Post SP2 cumulative updates - Currently as of writing this is June 2009 Cumulative Updates.

These can be downloaded from here:

• MOSS - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/970948
• WSS - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/970946

NOTE - I would recommend installing the SP2 slipstream fix before installing any cumulative updates.

Steps to build the install media:

1) copy the SharePoint 2007 .ISO to c:\temp\MOSS 2007 Install

2) Mount the .ISO (I use Virtual clone drive but there are other tools that work just as well) and copy the complete folder structure out to say c:\temp\MOSS 2007 Install\. You should have a folder structure the same as below:

3) Copy the WSS/MOSS Service Pack 2 install bits to the following folder structure. Its important to keep the MOSS and WSS installers separate.

4) Now we need to extract the correct version/bits into their respective destination folders so that they can be copied into the main install branch as per Step 2.

5) Firstly lets start with WSS x86 SP2:

6) We need to extract the service pack executable installer into its individual component files so we can copy them to the correct destination Updates folder later on

7) Execute the following command, this will extract the necessary files into C:\temp\MOSS SP2\WSS\x86:

"C:\temp\MOSS SP2\WSS\x86\wssv3sp2-kb953338-x86-fullfile-en-us.exe" /extract:"C:\temp\MOSS SP2\WSS\x86"

8) Copy the files that were extracted into the C:\temp\MOSS Install\x86\Updates folder. (See screenshot):

9) Repeat Steps 5-8 for WSS x64, MOSS x86 and MOSS x64. Ensure that you copy the correct WSS/MOSS version into their correct ‘bitness’ folder;

C:\temp\MOSS Install\x86\Updates\ –> For x86 Architecture

C:\temp\MOSS Install\x64\Updates\ –> For x64 Architecture

10) IMPORTANT - Delete the wsssetup.dll file from the ‘C:\temp\MOSS Install\x86\Updates\’ and ‘C:\temp\MOSS Install\x64\Updates\’ if you plan to use MOSS only and not WSS by itself.

You should be good to go and ready to install. If all went well your SharePoint version should be: 12.0.0.6510.

Good luck.

Save the date – SharePoint 2010 presentation at SBTUG on Wednesday 28 October 2009.

Kathy Hughes (SharePoint MVP and author) and I will be co-presenting the first Australian public SharePoint 2010 demonstration at the Sydney Business and Technology User Group (SBTUG) on October 28th.

Check out: www.sbtug.com for more details and make sure you RSVP

Its going to be a big night!!

Windows Server 2008 R2 - NLBS and VMware – Workaround!

**Firstly - This isn’t a VMware bashing post just a product workaround tip **

Recently I have been working on a customer site and they were keen to build a new MOSS 2007 server farm on Windows Server 2008 R2 as IIS 7.5 has some very cool silverlight streaming technology that they wanted to leverage.

Given that they are a VMware shop I am restricted to the virtualisation technology I could use, I prefer Hyper-V (of course) but the client runs VMware so we have to stick to that.

I built a medium size MOSS 2007 server farm and implemented the NLBS feature and all seemed to hum along for a while. Then suddenly NLBS just stopped! No IP traffic was being routed to anywhere. Then the networking stack in each of the VMs was falling over. The Virtual machines themselves were freezing.

This was serious!!

After a quite a bit of digging we found that VMware doesn't support Windows Server 2008 R2 unless you are running VSphere v4.0. Even then the support is limited. It is noted as being ‘experimental’.

Interesting……

After a bit of troubleshooting, debugging and searching we found the problem. You cannot use the VMware NBT100 virtual network drivers, you need to use the VMXNet driver for NLBS to work properly on Windows Server 2008 R2 with VMware.

We also upgraded to vsphere v4.0 and changed all the VMs to use the VMXNet virtual NIC driver. Happy days!

So here are my three key tips to ensure NLBS for MOSS works on VMware:

1) Use multicast – Unicast isn't recommended by VMware and you will require to implement ARP configuration changes etc.

2) DONT use the NBT100 VMware virtual NIC driver. It doesn't work and will cause you many hours of grief. *trust me on this*

3) DO USE the VMXNet VMware virtual NIC drivers. This seems to work in my customer specific environment. All of my tests seemed positive.

I would be interested to hear if others have had similar experiences with this.

MOSS 2007 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Support

With the RTM release of Windows Server 2008 R2 I have been receiving many questions about what level of support we are providing for Windows Server 2008 R2 and MOSS 2007.

I can confirm that if you have MOSS Service Pack 2 installed, we are supporting Windows Server 2008 R2.

More details can be found here on the SharePoint Team Blog:

http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2009/04/28/announcing-service-pack-2-for-office-sharepoint-server-2007-and-windows-sharepoint-services-3-0.aspx

ForeFront client security and MOSS2007 installation - TIP

If you install Forefront client security on any server in your MOSS2007 farm you might find that things suddenly stop working and you get ISAPI filter loading errors appearing in your event logs.

Here’s how to get up and running again.

1) Read this article. kb952167 - Folders may have to be excluded from antivirus scanning when you use a file-level antivirus program in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 or in SharePoint Server 2007.

I would suggest implementing all of the folder exclusions mentioned in the article to all servers in your farm.

2) Ensure that the IIS_WPG and IIS_ADMIN_WPG groups both have Read and Execute permissions to the following folder: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Forefront Security\SharePoint.

You will need to set this permission on each server in your farm.

You should be good to go.

WebPart Development - AJAX Tab control – Tab contents not displaying

I found something very interesting the other day when playing around with the AJAX tab control in a custom WebPart.

I created a WebPart that displays some data using the AJAX tabcontrol and found some interesting gotchas when working with it.

Firstly I found that databinding and adding tabs to the the tab container has to be done in a specific order, otherwise no data appears.

Here is the offending code:

//Tab1
this.m_Tab1Items = this.GetTab1Data();
this.m_Tab1View = new Repeater();
this.m_Tab1View.DataSource = this.m_Tab1Items;
this.m_Tab1View.DataBind(); 
this.tabs[0].Controls.Add(this.m_Tab1View);
                
//Tab2 
this.m_Tab2Items = this.GetTab2Data();
this.m_Tab2View = new Repeater();
this.m_Tab2View.DataSource = this.m_Tab2Items;
this.m_Tab2View.DataBind(); 
this.tabs[1].Controls.Add(this.m_Tab2View); 

All looks ok.

But the weird thing is that no data was appearing. I viewed the source of the page and there is actual content but no data was being displayed. Very Weird!

After much tinkering about I changed the code to what is shown below and voila! it works.

//Tab1
this.m_Tab1Items = this.GetTab1Data();
this.m_Tab1View = new Repeater();
this.m_Tab1Items.DataSource = this.m_Tab1Items;
this.m_Tab1View.DataBind(); 

                
//Tab2 
this.m_Tab2Items = this.GetTab2Data();
this.m_Tab2View = new Repeater();
this.m_Tab2Items.DataSource = this.m_Tab2Items;
this.m_Tab2View.DataBind(); 


//add tabs
this.tabs[0].Controls.Add(this.m_Tab1View);
this.tabs[1].Controls.Add(this.m_Tab2View);

It seems that the AJAX tab control is quite particular in the way it displays data.

So the order seems to be.

1. Retrieve the data
2. Bind the data to the DataSource of a repeater control
3. Add the Repeater control to the tab
4. Add the tab to the tab container.

Bingo!!!

Hopefully this saves you hours of debugging and troubleshooting!

PowerShell script to create AD groups from a .CSV file

Here is a script that I used recently on a project that might be of use to you all.

You need to pass the .csv file as a parameter and let the script do the rest!

The file has to be in the format of:

ADGroupName
MyGroup1
MyGroup2
MyGroup3

The script is below:

#######################################################################################################
#
#    Author:         Aaron Saikovski - Aaron.Saikovski@microsoft.com
#    Version:         1.0 - Built using V1.0 RTM build of powershell
#    Date:             13th May 2009
#   Description:     Creates AD Domain global groups
#                    The script assumes it's run on a domain controller. 
#                    It could also be run remotely and just adjust the script with a DC name
#    Usage:             ImportADGroups.ps1 ADGroupFile.csv
#                    Example - ImportSPGroupsV1.1.ps1 "ADGroupFile.csv"
#
#######################################################################################################

#Set params
param (   
    [string] $ADGroupFile = ""
)

###########################################################################################
#Set the DC, OU domain information - Set depending on your environment
$objOU = [ADSI]"LDAP://localhost:389/OU=YourOUName,DC=Example,DC=com"
###########################################################################################

#Check that we have an AD grouplist
if ($ADGroupFile -ne "")
{
    #loop over the groups in the .CSV file
    ipcsv $ADGroupFile | foreach {

            #get the ADGroupname from the .CSV
            $ADGroupName = $_.ADGroupName;
            #ensure the site name isnt empty or blank
            if ($ADGroupName -ne "")
            {
                Write-Host -ForegroundColor green "###########################################################################################";
                Write-Host -ForegroundColor green "Adding ADGroup - $ADGroupName";
                #Create the AD Group
                $objGroup = $objOU.Create("group", "CN=" + $ADGroupName)
                $objGroup.Put("sAMAccountName", $ADGroupName )
                $objGroup.SetInfo()
                Write-Host -ForegroundColor green "###########################################################################################";
                Write-Host;       
            }       
    }   

    Write-Host;
    Write-Host -ForegroundColor Yellow "**AD Group Processing complete**";   
}
else
{
    Write-Host -ForegroundColor red "You must specify the AD group file.";
}

Another 2 SharePoint exams passed today!

I decided to bite the bullet and finally complete the last two of the SharePoint 2007 exams, 70-541 and 70-542. I am now eligible to apply for the Microsoft Certified Master program in SharePoint (MCM)  :-)

I did a few hours study, reviewed the training requirements and did a few practice exams.

Given that this is the product that I specialise in and pretty much spend all of my days working with I didn't find the exams too difficult.

My weakest result was with the Business Data Catalog as I don't use it that often and haven't done so for a while.

Anyway here are are my marks:

70-541 – WSS App dev – 857. Pass mark of 700

70-542 – MOSS App dev – 820. Pass mark of 700

I am pretty pleased and now to get onto the Masters program.

DoggieRescue - EMERGENCY APPEAL

The combination of the economic downturn, decreasing donation income and ever increasing costs has brought DoggieRescue (www.doggierescue.com) to the point where it will have to close its doors unless it can raise $75,000.

So far they have raised close to $20,000, but they need our help.

Here is where the appeal total is at now, as you can see they have a long way to go:

So to those dog lovers out there dig deep and help out this very worthy cause. They run solely on donations and receive no government funding.

They have even made the news:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/lifeandstyle/lifematters/downturn-threatens-dog-shelter/2009/04/06/1238869906396.html

More info about the emergency appeal can be found here:

http://www.doggierescue.com/articles/emergency.htm

Visual Studio 2008 custom workflows not starting - TIPS

I was doing some SharePoint Workflow development the other day in Visual Studio 2008 and I had the situation where my workflows wouldn't start after they have been deployed.

I found that if the following aren't configured correctly, none of your workflows will start and throw unexpected errors.

Here are some things to check to ensure that your custom workflows will start as expected:

1) Ensure that the workflow.xml references the right ‘PublicKeyToken’ value of the underlying workflow assembly.

To get this value, build and deploy your workflow and get the public key value from the GAC, replace this value in your workflow.xml.

The assembly in the GAC should match the value in the workflow.xml otherwise you will get a workflow assembly not found error when trying to execute.

2) Don't change the onWorkflowActivated1 correlation token. Leave it set to the default. If you changed it, change it back. (Don't be tempted like I was)

3) Ensure that each new task has its own correlation token. I tried sharing these (I was trying to be clever) but it doesn't work.

The rule is each new task and related actions, use a new correlation token.

4) Ensure the namespaces for the Visual Studio project matches what is in the workflow1.cs and workflow1.designer.cs files.

If you change namespaces for the Visual Studio project also change the namespaces in the workflow1.cs and the workflow1.designer.cs files as well.

If you change the namespace in the project, it will still compile, but the workflow wont run. Change in all three places.

5) Remember to deploy any external libraries that your workflow depends to the GAC as part of your build process in Visual Studio. Otherwise your workflow will fail as it cannot find the external dependency.

The command to set a post build event is as follows:

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.0A\Bin\"gacutil /i "$(TargetPath)" /f

Hopefully these tips will save you a lot of time!

MOSS2007 cannot crawl Vignette based sites – Solved!

Recently at a client site I experienced a strange error when trying to crawl Vignette based sites from MOSS 2007.

All seemed to be configured ok and all the latest service packs and patches had been installed.

I checked the crawl logs and found the following error message highlighted in red:

I found that it crawled the content but returned ‘0’ results indexed and there were no errors. Weird!

The next step was to turn up the verbosity of the ULS logging and have a poke around. I grabbed a coffee and as this was going to take some time to resolve.

(Stay tuned for a 101 post on ULS log troubleshooting)

I rechecked the content sources just to be sure and also checked the content access/crawler account for any permission issues. All seemed ok and nothing stood out.

As part of my troubleshooting process I decided to follow my own rule when troubleshooting SharePoint.

‘Don't try to fix it, Delete it, recreate it and try again’

So I deleted the content source, recreated it and this time I added a trailing ‘/’ to the start address url and reran the crawl. Also set the ‘Only crawl within the server of each start address’ option.

(See the following screenshot)

Magic!

The crawl worked with no errors. The trick is to ensure that you have a trailing ‘/’ on any Vignette based content sources.

After doing this I could index Vignette sites and perform searches against these content sources.

Hopefully this saves you some time.

Technet Live Event - Windows 7 Client - An Update for IT Pro’s

The Windows 7 beta is here and everyone’s talking about it.  In this session we’ll discuss what Windows 7 means for the IT Pro and enterprises and mid-market customers in general.  Technologies covered include DirectAccess, BranchCache, Federated Search, Bitlocker to Go and the ways in which Windows 7 streamlines PC management.  Demo’s include DirectAccess, BranchCache, Bitlocker to Go, User Account Control changes and many of the management changes.

Date: Friday March 6th 2009 
Time: 11:00AM – 12:15PM (GMT +10 Sydney Daylight Savings Time)
Register here:
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/InviteOnly.aspx?EventID=20-3A-E4-E8-8D-B9-92-84-7B-55-BD-AA-42-90-2A-1E&Culture=en-AU

SharePoint Workflow Permissions Tip

I recently found some differences when developing Workflows in Visual Studio and SharePoint Designer (SPD).

Here is what I discovered:

• Visual Studio developed Workflows - deployed at the server level, run under the System Account. They do not require any permissions by the user/initiator of the workflow. Also these workflows are strong named and placed in the GAC. So be careful.
• SharePoint Designer developed workflows - These are called ‘Declarative’ workflows and only have have the permissions that the initiator has. So any actions that the workflow needs to perform will inherit the permissions of the initiator and NOT the System account.

This is bit of a trap for young players.

Please donate to the Australian Red Cross - Victorian bushfires 2009 – Appeal - Updated

The southern states of Australian were devastated by the worst bushfires in our history over the weekend. Many people have lost their homes and over 100 people have lost their lives.

This is the worst natural disaster that Australia has ever experienced and you can help out by donating to the Australian Red Cross Bushfire appeal:

http://www.redcross.org.au/vic/services_emergencyservices_victorian-bushfires-appeal-2009.htm

Our thoughts and prayers are with all of those affected.

**UPDATE **

I got an email from a contact in the UK Red Cross recently asking me to put a link to their site where people in the UK can both donate money and also find any relatives that might be missing or affected by this tragedy.

Here are the links for those living in the UK :

UK donations: http://www.redcross.org.uk/bushfires

UK Family locator link: http://www.redcross.org.uk/standard.asp?id=90835

Thanks to all for all the messages of sympathy and support.