Morten Schioldan

gazillion spelling errors on blank sharepoint publishing pages

2011-12-09T19:54:00Z

Some publishing page layouts show a gazillion spell check error on just blank pages. After some research it turns out that the User Contact field control will cause a large number of spell check errors just by been on the page.

Workaround is to add a piece of javascript to the page in order to tell the spellchecker to ignore the user contact control.

1. first add a <div id="'excludeContentFromSpellCheck'"> tag around the user contact control

2. then add the following javascript

var a = document.getElementById('excludeContentFromSpellCheck');

var b = a.getElementsByTagName('input');
for (var i = 0; i < b.length; i++)

        {
             b[i].setAttribute("excludeFromSpellCheck", "true");
        }

var c= a.getElementsByTagName('textarea');
for (var i = 0; i < c.length; i++)

        {
             c[i].setAttribute("excludeFromSpellCheck", "true");
        }

Access Denied trying to uninstall assemblies from GAC

2010-11-09T13:12:00Z

On a SharePoint 2010 development server running Windows Server 2008 R2, I had to uninstall some assemblies in the GAC and I kept getting access denied, when trying to delete them. This was the case both using gacutil.exe and the Windows Explorer when running in Administrative mode.

So, looking for at a way to do this, I had to change a Local Security Policy, in order to allow them to be deleted:

* Open Local Security Policy MMC

* Goto Security Settings -> Local Policies -> Security Options

* Locate "User Account Control: Run all administrators in Admin Approval" and change the setting from Enabled to Disabled

* Reboot and now the assemblies can be deleted

IMPORTANT! Never ever do this on a production system, and always turn it back on afterwards.

Upgrading custom content types to 2010

2010-10-29T07:19:29Z

A key learning for everyone trying to upgrade 2007 custom solutions to SharePoint 2010.

If you have custom content types which inherit form the Page publishing content type (or any publishing content type), you will be able to upgrade your sites and create subsites - BUT you will not be able to create new site collections, or activate your custom content type feature on a standard publishing site, UNLESS you have the Inherits="TRUE" added to the ContentType element.

It seems not be a hard requirement for non-publishing content types.

Bottomline is that the Inherits="TRUE" attribute is new to SharePoint 2010, and when using inheritance you must make sure always to include this for new custom content types.

SharePoint 2010 Logical architecture planning

2010-07-29T08:08:00Z

My favorite piece of TechNet documentation just got updated for SharePoint 2010.

Check out the documentation and download the Visio diagrams:

Configuring incoming and outgoing e-mail

2010-06-15T20:56:32Z

I was testing out a few things in a lab with Exchange 2010 and SharePoint 2010, and I naturally wanted to configure incoming and outgoing mail.

The safe place to look is of couse there: E-mail Integration for SharePoint Foundation 2010.

But being really Exchange-stupid, I needed some help and I found theses two guides below, which especially had nice screenshots of the Exchange 2010 pieces of the puzzle:

Now, of course I had some problems anyway -- some because I was trying to do it too fast and missing some steps, but also a few weird things, I want to share:

* Most importantly, the timer service did not pick up the incoming eml messages in the SMTP drop folder - they were just sitting there. I had Incoming Email configured to "Automatic", which means it should pick up the drop folder location from the SMTP service. But for some reason, it couldn't contact the service. So, I ended up changing it to "Advanced" and entering the folder location of the drop folder, and then it worked.

* Also, I enabed the directory services in order to get the email contact created automatically. It created the contact fine, but it only added an external address for the contact - which meant it wasn't directly available in outlook contacts. So, when I added an internal SMTP address (same email address of course) then it worked. Again being at exchange 100-level, I didn't have a clue - but it worked and I got my things tested - which was want I wanted in the lab....

SharePoint 2010 RTM - "Trail period has expired" error

2010-06-15T09:15:58Z

So, I was building 4 server medium-ish farm on Friday, and everything when fine until i spun up the first site collection just to test the Office Web Apps install -- and then it failed; "Trail Period has expired" - hmm.

RTM software - check

Right product key - check.

Very wierd - so, I found this post of a similar problem, and sure thing it worked. Adding more rights for the app pool account did the trick.

I want to investivate this a bit more, so I'll update, if I find a solution without giving more access rights.

Planning and deployment downloadable books for SharePoint 2010 are now available

2010-04-27T16:42:00Z

Beta versions of the planning and deployment downloadable books for SharePoint 2010 are now available on TechNet.

SharePoint 2010 RTM

2010-04-20T14:44:00Z

Very cool --- http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2010/04/16/sharepoint-2010-reaches-rtm.aspx

End of support for MOSS 2007 SP1

2010-04-14T07:16:00Z

There are a few different dates out there and it's highly confusing to figure out a straight answer ... But it's worth noting that the normal support policy for service packs has been extented with a grace periode of approx. 3 months, which makes the end of support date for MOSS 2007 SP1 July 13th 2010.

I guess the calculation is that the normal support has been extented until the 2nd Tuesday following the first CU after SP2 (and with all stars aligned....)

Building high quality WCM sites - part 1

2009-12-19T20:27:00Z

I've helped build a few WCM sites the part couple of years, and for each project learned more about what it takes to a) be predictive, b) be interactive and lastly c) produce high quality sites. To me those three are the key things to focus on build WCM sites (or any SharePoint solution for that matter, but it's especially true for WCM sites). And not supprisingly - its not the technical tasks and skills that prove difficult -- often times its more about the process and meeting the right expectations.

I thought that I would spend some time in a small series to post about findings, experiences and also share some of the tooling that help support build high quality sites.

Be Predictive -- So this is very most a process thing. Build the vision and scope based on requirements, and take the time to do A PROPER Logical Design and Information Architecture analysis.

Be interactive -- NEVER do waterfall projects on SharePoint. It is so much more valuable to iterate and have interaction on smaller releases. SharePoint customization is a great fit for this.

Produce high quality -- Do not underestimate the value of investing in proper release and build management in a SharePoint project. For any larger project it will be a lifesaver in the end. Releasing and building WCM artifacts in a larger team of developers and UX designers can be a challenging task, and form my experience, it cannot be done without incorporating and build test content.

Look out for the next posts where I'll dive into each of these...

Microsoft Certified Master - SharePoint 2007

2009-12-05T04:55:00Z

I just got news that I've officially qualified as a SharePoint 2007 MCM. What a great early Christmas present!

I can only recommond this experience to everyone out there doing SharePoint stuff. It has been one of the best learning experiences that I've encountered.

It's an incredible eye-opener, and still after two weeks the depth and breath of the content is still trying to sink in.....

Back home

2009-11-24T00:57:00Z

I managed to survive the 3 weeks of SharePoint MCM training, and I just arrived back home yesterday from Redmond. I'm now up at 2am with a major jet lag - great -

Anyway, it was a great training and it's highly recommended -- Cool content and really awesome people!

Getting ready to leave for SharePoint MCM...

2009-10-28T07:58:00Z

I'm getting ready to leave for 3 weeks of intensive SharePoint training in Redmond participating in rotation 4 of the SharePoint Microsoft Certified Master program.

Reading through the posts from previous participants it sounds like an awesome experience.

SQL Server 2008 Mirroring and "Restoring..." database state

2009-10-20T15:29:00Z

In SQL Server 2008 -- after you have restored your SQL Server databases to the mirror server and setup the connection between the principal and mirror instances, then you will discover that the database will stay in a "Restoring..." state.

In SQL Server 2005 it said DatabaseName (Mirror, Synchronized / Restoring...), but this behaviour has changed for the 2008 version, where it show says: DatabaseName (Restoring...).

This is not a configuration error and the mirroring is configured correctly (as you can se if you right click on the database, select Tasks and Mirror...).

Have a look here for more info:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/956005

401 error when configuring sharepoint with kerberos on IIS7

2009-10-20T12:27:00Z

When you first configure kerberos authentication on IIS7 you will very likely experience 401 authentication errors when you try to access the site.

To workaround this problem, change the authentication to have kernel-mode authentication turned off.

On each front-end open IIS Manager, click the web site. Open the "Authentication" feature and select Windows Authentication. Then click advanced settings in the Actions pane. Remove the "Enable Kernel-mode authentication" checkmark and click OK.

This was tested on Windows Server 2008 R2, MOSS 2007 SP2 running a five-server baseline setup.

Installing SharePoint on Windows Server 2008 R2

2009-10-07T21:12:00Z

You will need to slipstream the install with SP2. Have a look at this post from Jie Li:

http://blogs.msdn.com/opal/archive/2009/05/08/install-moss-2007-wss-3-0-on-windows-server-2008-r2-you-will-need-sp2-slipstream.aspx

Setting up NLB in Windows Server Hyper-V

2009-10-07T21:05:00Z

I was setting up Microsoft NLB in a couple of Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V images... and since infrastructure in general is one of my weaker sides, I was looking for help.

I came across a couple of articles which helped me:

* A Guide which is very easy to follow: http://www.jppinto.com/index.php/2009/05/install-and-configure-wlbs-nlb-on-windows-server-2008/

* Support article on how to configure MAC address: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/953828

Exporting publishing sub-sites to new site collections

2009-06-24T17:27:00Z

As usual Stefan writes great posts - this one is about supported export/import scenarios using stsadm.

It an absolute must read if your doing MOSS publishing portals.

http://blogs.technet.com/stefan_gossner/archive/2009/05/27/limitations-of-stsadm-o-export-import-related-to-publishing-sites.aspx

Great tip when creating page layouts

2009-06-04T09:14:00Z

Came across some must-know information, if you create page layouts and have trouble updating the layouts.

When creating publishing page layouts they are nicely wrapped in features to avoid customization of the pages in SharePoint. However, if you use SharePoint Designer to create/modify your page layouts it will automatically add meta information to the page, which tells SharePoint always to customize the page.

See a great blog post from Becky about the issue here.

Not a folder-kind-of-guy...

2009-05-19T21:03:00Z

I love search -- and I always use search to find things that I need; files, emails, code etc .etc. etc.

I hate folders -- and never stick things in folders-in-folders-in-folders-in-folders. So whether it's.cs files in VS, or mails in Outlook -- I always keep them in one big folder.

...oddly enough none of my collegues agree.

MOSS 2007 Search for Content Owners - ensure good data quality to improve the search experience

2009-05-16T21:25:00Z

To ensure good data quality and improve the search experience of the site make sure to:

enter Title and Description for pages and sites – especially remember the default page, when creating a new site
use readable URL names and titles.
don’t contract words in URL, but use hyphens (“-“) instead, like “news-article-about-software.aspx”
avoid special characters like & / ‘ etc. in URLs
avoid spaces in URLs, instead use hyphens.
avoid special national characters, instead use ASCII representation, where for Danish content ø=oe, æ=ae, å=aa
do cross linking in the site, but enter meaningful link texts in articles when making cross references, like instead of “more…”, use “More about SharePoint…” . This will improve the search quality of the site.
do not bury important content in a deep URL

Optimizing MOSS 2007 Search

2009-05-16T20:57:00Z

On friday I did a TechNet webcast about optimizing MOSS 2007 Search.

It can be found recorded here:

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032416746&Culture=da-DK

The webcast was with Danish speak, but the slides are in English and they are attached below.

Hidden Search Object

2008-02-22T09:24:00Z

The hidden search object is an internal singleton instance that is used by all the result web parts on the search result page. The web parts pass properties and settings to the hidden object and use it to handle all query specific logic.

Since the class is marked as internal it is only accessible within the search assembly. It cannot be used and specialized in custom web parts.

The hidden object parses the HTTP Post/Get information of the request and runs the query using the SharePoint object model - either using the FullTextSqlQuery or the KeywordQuery class.

The query results are made available as xml to the consuming result web parts, which in turn will render results using XSL transformations.

Search Center Search Result Page Infrastructure

2008-02-19T14:16:00Z

The search result page is a core piece of the search user interface since it owns:

Building the query
Issuing the query against the SharePoint index
Receive results and organizing the results
Rendering results and interaction with the user

Web parts

The result page contains several web parts that all interact and they each own part of the search experience:

Web part	Description
Core Results	The main web part of the result page. The core results web part will show the ranked results order by relevance by default.
High Confidence Results	This web part will show best bet results, special terms, people and keyword definitions for the query. Exactly what is visible can be configured in the shared web part properties. High confidence results will always rely on exact keyword matches
Search Best bets	This web part will show best bet results
Search Paging	Paging web part will control paging of the result
Search Summary	This web part provides a summary of the query. It is outputting the keyword/scope that’s being queried.
Result Statistics	This web part will show the statistics of the query. Basically number of results, total number of results and the elapsed query time.

All of the web parts use the same hidden object instance to

initiate the query and configure properties
get the results in xml when they are ready

All the web parts specify a result search ID that they are associated with – default is query1.

Advanced Search Box

2008-02-19T14:12:00Z

The advanced search box is available for more specialized queries filtering different scopes, properties and free text clauses.

Find documents with

The standard advanced search web part uses FREETEXT SQL clause for "find document with..." keyword terms. Below samples are shown of how keywords are translated:

All words (AND)

Keywords: john smith

SQL clause: freetext(defaultproperties, '+john +smith')

Phrase

Keywords: "john smith"

SQL clause: freetext(defaultproperties, '"john smith"')

Any words (OR)

Keywords: john smith

SQL clause: freetext(defaultproperties, ‘john smith’)

Note, this is how the hidden object submits the OR query by using the freetext(defaultproperties, ‘john smith’) – However, if the query is done using the Search WebService it will interpreted it as an AND query. This is most likely because the hidden object uses KeywordInclusion.AnyKeyword on the FullTextSqlQuery object.

None of words (NOT)

Keywords: john Smith

SQL clause: freetext(defaultproperties, '-john -smith')

The different clauses work across the different keyword inputs, fx:

All words

Keyword: john

None of words

Keyword: Smith

SQL clause: freetext(defaultproperties, '+john -smith)

Property restrictions

"Add property restrictions..." allows the user to select filtering on individual properties, like author, title or description. The properties will change depending on the selected result type. The available properties for All results are the following:

Author

Description

Name

Size

URL

Created date

Last Modified Date

Created by

Last Modified by

You can add your own custom properties by 1) mapping the crawled property to a managed property and 2) changing the result type xml of the advanced search web part to include the property. Using the result type xml you can also add new types of results for specialized content types.

Even though the user interface says "contains" in the operator drop down, it is important to note that that it actually doesn’t use a CONTAINS SQL clause. Instead it uses a LIKE statement, for example a property search on author is translated to the following clause: (Author LIKE '%john%').

None of the search component use the CONTAINS clause. That means that asterisk (*) cannot be used as wildcard operation in any of the standard search web parts and UI.

Note, adding property restrictions to the query will most like slow down the query.

Scopes

As a final option the advanced search gives to the possibility to filter results based on either language, item type or site scope.