I recently went through the process of applying the latest SharePoint 2013 Cumulative Update on my multi server SharePoint 2013 Farm.   To my surprise, I found the total time to apply the patch (install the bits) took over 5 hours per SharePoint...

This is my first of many SharePoint 2013 blogs and I’m starting with Search.  I like the new Search UI for users and the look is so much cleaner with the hover panel, search blocks, etc..  I’m really curious how customizing the Search refinement...

I ran into an interesting problem where accessing the 2010 Search Service Application administration page returns a 503 Server unavailable for the Crawl Status.   Usually, a 503 indicates that the application pool is stopped that is hosting a site...

I’m baaaaackkkkkkk,  lol.   I apologize for taking about a 6 month break but I’m back and will have some new fresh blog content starting now.   I recently ran into an interesting scenario with a request to change the Host Header...

I recently ran across an interesting issue where InfoPath forms were calling OOB SharePoint 2010 web services. In particular, these forms contained one or more fields which called SharePoint OOB web service. These forms were published to web applications...

SharePoint Administrator’s running this script want to perform the following tasks for a specified site: 1. Add new Headings and Links to the Quick Launch Bar 2. Add new links to existing Headings on the Quick Launch Bar 3. View the Quick Launch layout...

SharePoint Administrator's that run this script usually want to answer one of the following questions:     1. Is Anonymous Access enabled anywhere in my Site Collection.  If so, where?     2. I want to confirm Anonymous...

This is a summary to provide a glimpse of the Client to Server interaction when a user attempts to open a word document from a SharePoint 2010 Document Library.   A lot of decision making goes behind each attempt when factoring in client Operating...

I know troubleshooting Search Query issues in SharePoint 2010 can be a difficult tasks.  Usually, the problem I’m asked to tackle is why are my queries slow?   I wanted to provide some additional detail and a behind the scenes look at what...

I recently had a request to provide a SharePoint Administrator the ability to export out a crawl log to a CSV file using PowerShell.  Luckily, I found Vijay’s (Thanks Vijay!) post which saved me a ton of time: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/spses/archive...

I apologize it’s been so long since I’ve published any new blog content.  I recently moved into a new position in Microsoft as a Premier Field Engineer.  I’m really enjoying it so far and will start pumping out new blog content soon.  For...

Troubleshooting SharePoint Performance issues are probably the most challenging issues for a SharePoint Administrator to troubleshoot. Collecting Performance Monitor output can take time because not only must you understand the options available in the...

Snapshots and SharePoint 2010 are a great thing in that they provide an additional level of fault tolerance for any SharePoint 2010 farm.  A SharePoint Administrator can quickly restore Sites, Lists, or items from a snapshot.   This out...

I’m excited to kick this series off because I really think PowerShell rocks. The goal of this series is to provide some automation for SharePoint Administrators to perform various deployment and/or troubleshooting tasks. To use the script simply copy...

I recently worked on an interesting issue with SharePoint 2010 Content Types. The specific request was the following: A request to create an additional Content Type in a Document Library that wasn’t visible to other Document Libraries within...

The manage access requests feature is great for allowing users that don’t have permissions to a SharePoint site requests access. This link is exposed when users attempt to access a site they don’t have permission to. Clicking on...

We have two main issues with provisioning User Profile Service Application. First, props go out to Sheyi at Microsoft who’s done some extremely valuable work in discovering, troubleshooting, and communicating these issues. Also, I need to give props...

Recently, some of my coworkers and I started to see some customer problems where membership wasn’t populating for users my sites. Membership population issues are complex and difficult to troubleshoot if you’re not sure where to start looking...

I’ve seen a couple of these issues come from our customers so wanted to get the word out. When crawling PPTX files with embedded links in 2007 generates the following error in the crawl logs: “The filtering process could not be...

I ran into a particularly unique issue where any user was unable to create alerts for one discussion board. All other libraries, lists, and discussion boards worked and the same users could create alerts with no problem. Steps to validate you’re...

I recently had an interesting issue where the customer was getting the following errors accessing the User Profiles and properties link within his SSP. “An error has occurred while accessing the SQL Server database or the Office SharePoint Server...

Introduction into Problem I had an interesting issue with People Picker performance and SharePoint 2007 that is deserving of some additional documentation. As many of you know, the people picker is built in feature of SharePoint and assists in looking...

I moved back to my original role as a Support Escalation Engineer so future posts are going to be random. Some post involve troubleshooting both SharePoint 2007/2010. I’ll also still continue to post the How To/Conceptual stuff with SharePoint 2010...

This blog is intended to fill some gaps and provide a foundation to understand components in the claims model and how these components work together. Claims will provide a huge benefit which I will outline some of those benefits below. I suspect this...

My beta rotation ended this May and I’m back in my role of supporting Premier Customer’s with various SharePoint issues. Please no v2 issues :) This was my first experience joining any sort of beta program at MSFT. I really feel fortunate...