SharePoint Support - Microsoft Fargo

Closing Up Shop..

2009-06-19T23:44:38Z

..and moving to the new SharePoint Support blog, spblog. Thank you for taking the time to view this blog, and looking forward to posting on the new blog along with support engineers from around the world!

Important Information Regarding Service Pack 2 for Office Servers

2009-05-22T16:31:13Z

We take product quality seriously and make every effort to avoid and resolve issues that adversely impact our customers. Unfortunately, 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)

We want to assure our customers that this issue does not impact data integrity or their SharePoint deployment in any other way.

For your convenience, below are some answers to questions that you may have and we will update this blog post with a link to the hotfix as soon as it’s available.

We apologize for any inconvenience this issue may cause you.

Jeff Teper
Corporate Vice President
SharePoint.

Q&A

Which products are affected by this?
Applying Service Pack 2 to any of the following products will result in this issue: Office SharePoint Server 2007, Project Server 2007, Form Server 2007, Search Server 2008 and Search Server 2008 Express.

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 is not affected by this issue.

What can I do to fix it?
To work around this issue customers will need to re-enter their Product ID numbers (PID) on the Convert License Type page in Central Administration. Please see this KB article for detailed steps. (The KB link is not currently active, it will be available within the next 48hrs)

Customers can also wait for the hotfix (available for free from http://support.microsoft.com) to resolve this issue.

Product ID numbers (PIDs) can be retrieved by logging into the Volume Licensing Service Center.

Note: For Search Server 2008 Express the only way to resolve this issue is to apply the hotfix.

What is Microsoft doing to fix it?
Microsoft is working on a hotfix and public update for the product. We will update this blog post with details and a link to the hotfix as soon as it is available.

Do I need to update all of the servers in my farm?
No. The Product ID number only needs to be entered once.

What if I haven’t installed SP2 yet but want to? What should I do?
You can continue to plan for and install Service Pack 2 for SharePoint Server 2007 with the additional step of re-entering your Product ID number after the installation is complete by following the instructions in this KB article. (The KB link is not currently active, it will be available within the next 48hrs)

Does this issue impact anything else?
The issue only activates the product expiration date. The activation of the expiration date does not affect the normal function of SharePoint up until the expiration date passes, at which point SharePoint will be inaccessible for end-users. This issue does not affect customer’s data, configuration or application code.

I can’t find/don’t know my original PID, where can I find it?
Product ID numbers (PIDs) can be retrieved by logging into the Volume Licensing Service Center.

Troubleshooting Content Deployment

2009-05-15T22:39:48Z

A newly published series of articles has been published to TechNet providing guidance on troubleshooting our old friend, Content Deployment. The series is divided up into the following sections:

· Determine sites and subsites

· Plan content deployment

· Administer content deployment

· Configure content deployment settings

· Administer content deployment paths and jobs

· Create a new content deployment job

There is also a new topic section, Troubleshoot content deployment, which covers common errors and problems. Hopefully this information will make your next content deployment attempt go much smoother!

SharePoint Server 2010 Preliminary System Requirements

2009-05-14T21:08:51Z

A very nice guideline for, again, preliminary requirements for 2010 was put out by Richard Riley from the SharePoint Technical Product Management team. There are some very big changes in store for the next release, the biggest being no more 32 bit. The other big one to note is that Server 2003 will not be supported at all.

As usual, some of these specs may change, but this should give you a good baseline to start planning:

SharePoint Server 2010 will be 64-bit only.
SharePoint Server 2010 will require 64-bit Windows Server 2008 or 64-bit Windows Server 2008 R2.
SharePoint Server 2010 will require 64-bit SQL Server 2008 or 64-bit SQL Server 2005.

In addition to the requirements listed above we also wanted to share with you some preliminary detail about SharePoint Server 2010 browser compatibility.

To ensure the best possible experience across multiple browsers we’re focusing our SharePoint 2010 engineering efforts on targeting standards based browsers (XHTML 1.0 compliant) including Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8 and Firefox 3.x. running on Windows Operating Systems. In addition we’re planning on an increased level of compatibility with Firefox 3.x and Safari 3.x on non-Windows Operating Systems. Due to this focus Internet Explorer 6 will not be a supported browser for SharePoint Server 2010.

So, what can you do today to get into the best shape for SharePoint Server 2010?

Start by ensuring new hardware is 64-bit. Deploying 64-bit is our current best practice recommendation for SharePoint 2007.
Deploy Service Pack 2 and take a good look at the SharePoint 2010 Upgrade Checker that’s shipped as part of the update. The Upgrade Checker will scan your SharePoint Server 2007 deployment for many issues that could affect a future upgrade to SharePoint 2010.
Get to know Windows Server 2008 with SharePoint 2007, this post is a great starting point.
Consider your desktop browser strategy if you have large population of Internet Explorer 6 users.
Continue to follow the Best Practices guidance for SharePoint Server 2007.
Keep an eye on this blog for updates and more details in the coming months.

Below are a few common Q&A’s (which we’ll add to as required)

Q: What about Internet Explorer 6 and SharePoint 2010 publishing sites?
A: The Web Content Management features built into SharePoint 2010 will provide a deep level of control over the markup and styling of the reader experience. These features will enable customers to design pages that are compatible with additional browsers for viewing content, including Internet Explorer 6. A standards based browser such as Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8 or Firefox 3.x will be required to author content.

Q: Is Internet Explorer 6 officially supported by Microsoft?
A: Official Microsoft Product Support for Internet Explorer 6 will expire in July 2010. You can find additional information on Microsoft’s Support Lifecycle Policy including specific dates, product information and support offerings here: http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifepolicy.

Q: Why are you only supporting the 64-bit versions of SQL Server 2005 or 2008 for SharePoint Server 2010?
A: This decision was based on our current test data for SharePoint Server 2010 and real world experience from customers running SharePoint Server 2007 with 32-bit SQL Server. SharePoint performance and scalability can benefit significantly from 64-bit SQL Server and the throughput increases are significant enough for us to make the difficult decision to only support SharePoint Server 2010 on 64-bit SQL Server 2005 or 2008. It has been our strong recommendation for some time that SharePoint Server 2007 customers take advantage of 64-bit SQL Server due to the inherent performance and scale benefits it can provide.

April Cumulative Update Now Available

2009-05-11T19:39:06Z

Update: The uber packages are now available as well:

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 April cumulative update package
http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=968850

Office SharePoint Server 2007 April cumulative update package
http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=968851

The latest round of CUs is now out. The April CU can be applied after you install the recently released Service Pack 2, as this does not contain this particular CU. The April CU can be considered a Service Pack roll-up, so to keep yourself fully up to date, install Service Pack 2, then the April CU.

More information below:

968857 Description of the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 hotfix package (Sts.msp): April 28, 2009
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;968857

968859 Description of the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 hotfix package (Coreserver.msp): April 28, 2009
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;968859

A very good tip from the Product Team blog. If you want to be fully up to date when deploying a new WSS/MOSS farm, updates should be deployed as such:

1. Service Pack 2 for WSS 3.0
2. Service Pack 2 for MOSS 2007
3. April CU for WSS 3.0
4. April CU for MOSS 2007

WSS and MOSS SP2 KB Articles

2009-04-28T19:04:15Z

Here is a list of KB articles that may be of importance, both pre-deployment and post deployment of Service Pack 2. This list will be updated as new KB articles come on-line.

General:

List of all 2007 Office system Service Pack 2 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Service Pack 2 packages
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968170/

Description of Office SharePoint Designer 2007 Service Pack 2 (SP2) and of Office SharePoint Designer Language Pack 2007 Service Pack 2 (SP2)
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;953292

List of all Windows SharePoint Services and SharePoint Server Pre-Upgrade Checker knowledge base articles
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/960577/

Known issues that you may experience when you install the 2007 Microsoft Office suite Service Pack 2 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Service Pack 2
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968173/

WSS:

Technical details about the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Service Pack 2 (SP2) releases
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;970359

Description of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SP2 and of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Language Pack SP2
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;953338

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Service Pack 2 provides a change in the way that a Windows SharePoint Services site that is in forms-based authentication mode responds to an anonymous access request from SharePoint Designer 2007
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968788/

You may be unable to delete certain site collections in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968787/

After you install Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Service Pack 2, the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 database can be auto-defragmented
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968785/

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Service Pack 2 provides support for host header-based site collection crawls
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968786/

Groove, Groove Server, InfoPath, InfoPAth Server, Outlook, and WSS all block new files with the installation of SP2
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968768/

Error message when you try to install an update for 2007 Office programs or Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 if the Windows system drive has insufficient free disk space: "The installation of this package failed"
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;943589

MOSS:

Technical details about the 2007 Microsoft Office Servers Service Pack 2 (SP2) releases
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;970358

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/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;953334

You are prompted unexpectedly to restart the computer after you install a 2007 Office service pack or a 2007 Office update
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;942995

No SharePoint Server 2007 Service Pack 2 .msp files are installed if you have the Stswwsp1.msp file in the Updates folder
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;968283

The Area Service Web service is removed from SharePoint Server 2007 after you install the 2007 Microsoft Office servers Service Pack 2
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;968998

When you query a new user property in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, nothing is returned
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;968778

WSS 3.0 Service Pack 2 is now available!

2009-04-28T16:25:21Z

953338 Description of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SP2 and of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Language Pack SP2

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;953338

Download links:

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Service Pack 2 (x86)

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=79BADA82-C13F-44C1-BDC1-D0447337051B

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Service Pack 2 (x64)

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=20A100C0-BD58-40CD-A5D9-36C1986FBED9

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Language Pack Service Pack 2 (x86)

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=085E5AC8-58F6-4CF9-8012-33B95EE36C0F

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Language Pack Service Pack 2 (x64)

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=2C2B6CAF-B46D-45EB-AC4D-DEAAA48C3A2C

Downloadable list of issues that are fixed:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/C/2/C/C2C36159-600C-4EEA-B80A-F988EE7A418F/2007%20Office%20Service%20Pack%202%20Changes.xlsx

Service Pack 2 includes all public updates, security updates, cumulative updates, and hotfixes that were released through February 2009. It is recommended that you have 5x to 6x the size of the package free to have a successful deployment; this has increased from the requirements needed for SP1.

Service Pack 2 has some areas of improvement. These include:

Faster more reliable content migration and data backup/restore

Reduced memory consumption

Smoother upgrade experience

Significant database performance adjustments

Updated integration for forms authentication

Advanced permissions management

Helpful administrative tools, which I will cover in a separate post

Expanded browser compatibility

One tool administrators should take note of is the Pre-Upgrade Checker, which ships in the service pack. This can be used to assess the server for potential upgrade issues you may run into when you are planning for the next version of WSS.

Service Pack 2 also adds host header-based site collection crawling for WSS, which was lacking in the product previously.

Service Pack 2 adds stsadm commands to help you list and delete site collections in your farm. Please review the following KB article for more information:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;968787

Please take note of the following KB article:

Known issues that you may experience when you install the 2007 Microsoft Office suite Service Pack 2 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Service Pack 2

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;968173

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server Service Pack 2 is now available!

2009-04-28T16:24:18Z

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/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;953334

Download links:

2007 Microsoft Office servers Service Pack 2 (x86)

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=B7816D90-5FC6-4347-89B0-A80DEB27A082

2007 Microsoft Office servers Service Pack 2 (x64)

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=B7816D90-5FC6-4347-89B0-A80DEB27A082

2007 Microsoft Office servers Language Pack Service Pack 2 (x86)

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=01C6A3E8-E110-4956-903A-AD16284BF223

2007 Microsoft Office servers Language Pack Service Pack 2 (x64)

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=66C5026F-9F47-4642-8378-2526918009FA

Downloadable list of issues that are fixed:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/C/2/C/C2C36159-600C-4EEA-B80A-F988EE7A418F/2007%20Office%20Service%20Pack%202%20Changes.xlsx

Service Pack 2 has some areas of improvement. These include:

IE 8 is now a Level 1 supported browser

Mozilla Firefox V2 and V3 have been added to the Level 2 supported browser list

SSP databases are no longer deleted when running the following command:

Stsadm –o deletessp –title <SSPTitle> -force

Stsad, -o migrateuser is improved when migrating from one user to another user who has been deleted from the SharePoint site

Improved error messages and permissions handling in the Business Data Catalog

The Profile Change Cleanup job should no longer cause the transaction logs to grow to a large size

Long URLs are now logged correctly by Usage Analysis

A sub-site owner who has no permissions to the top level Team Site is able to make sub-sites under his own site

Search stability and speed is improved

Forms-Based Authentication search is now supported by search.asmx

You can reinitialize a query server for only 1 SSP so that you have zero search downtime:

Stsadm –o osearch –reprovisionindex –ssp <sspname>

Backup and restore of search has improved

If a crawl is stopped, the next crawl will be forced to do a full crawl even if an incremental crawl is set

Please take note of the following KB article:

Known issues that you may experience when you install the 2007 Microsoft Office suite Service Pack 2 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Service Pack 2

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;968173

Service Pack 2 for the 2007 Microsoft Office System - April 28th is the day!

2009-04-16T17:42:56Z

You can stop holding your breath, as the release date for Service Pack 2 for Office 2007 was announced: April 28th is the big day! Mark that day down in your calendars and get those browsers warmed up.

There are, of course, numerous fixes, enhancements, etc for all the products, but since this blog covers SharePoint, I wanted to point out just a small part of what's coming up:

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SP2 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server SP2:

An STSADM command line that scans your server farm to establish whether it is ready for upgrade to the next version of SharePoint and provides feedback and best practice recommendations on your current environment.
SP2 offers support for a broader range of Web browsers.
Substantial improvements to Forms-based authentication.

Windows Server 2008 SP2 and Windows Server R2 will be supported on their release.

Enterprise Content Management (ECM):

The performance and stability of content deployment and variations feature has been improved.
A new tool has been added to the STSADM command-line utility that enables a SharePoint administrator to scan sites that use the variations feature for errors.

Excel Services:

SP2 makes it easier to configure Excel Web Access Web Parts on new sites.
Several rendering, calculation, and security issues have been resolved.
Some display issues have been addressed.
Improved compatibility with Mozilla Firefox browsers.

Forms Server:

Memory requirements and the page load times for large browser-rendered forms have been reduced.
Browser rendering of various controls, such as the 'cannot be blank' asterisk and the rich text field has been improved.

Project Server:

Better memory management in the queue service.
Performance to certain database table indexes is improved.
Resource plans, build team, cost resources, and the server scheduling engine have improved.

Search Server:

Improvements to the reliability and stability of very large corpus crawls.
Backup-restore has been improved.
A new command has been introduced to the stsadm.exe tool that lets a SharePoint Administrator to tune the Query processor multiplier parameter.
Improved accuracy in searches involving numbers.

A few more tidbits about what’s coming down the pipeline for the client side can be found on the Office Sustained Engineering blog. Of course, I am working with a beta engineer to get a few sneak peeks at new features, and will be posting a lot about that in the near future.

SharePoint 14 is now Microsoft SharePoint 2010

2009-04-15T23:51:45Z

Over on the SharePoint product group blog, they’ve announced that, along with the name change to Exchange Server 2010, the next version of MOSS will be called Microsoft SharePoint 2010. Check out the full details on the PG blog!