Joe Rodgers : Sharepoint

Lastest WSS and MOSS Patches - 10/2008

rodgerjt — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 23:11:00 GMT

Please refer to the newest updates, posted here:

http://blogs.msdn.com/josrod/archive/2008/12/17/latest-wss-and-moss-patches.aspx

UPDATED: 12/11/2008 - 957693 was relased with 957175 built in (they are identical patches [complicated stort as to why this had to be]), so if you have installed 957693, you don't need to install 957175. If you installed 957175, you won't need to install 957693, when you install the Oct CU updates on your farm. Again, they are identical patches, so you only need to install one of them. If you try to install both, you will get an error message when you try stating that "this update is already installed."

Microsoft has released the October cumulative update (CU) packages for WSS 2007 and MOSS 2007. The WSS CU has two packages and MOSS has five packages.

The information listed below assumes your farm has SP1 installed for both WSS and MOSS. If you are running a farm that is pre-SP1, you need to install WSS and MOSS SP1 prior to installing the updates below. If you are building a new farm using media with SP1 integrated, you have WSS and MOSS SP1 already, so you only need to install the updates below. Keep in mind, any updates that are labeld "Local" are language specific and may require you to install the same patch severals times, once for each language of MOSS you have installed. I have yet to figure out why the product group will sometimes release a single patch with all the languages included and sometimes the releaes a seperate patch for each lanaguage. I know most customers prefer a single patch, as it greatly reduce the number of patches you need to install, which is always a good thing.

WSS Packages

957691 WSS Global – Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 hotfix package (Sts.msp): October 28, 2008
956612 WSS Global (DST) – Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 that applies to daylight saving time (DST) changes

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server Packages

957693 MOSS Global – SharePoint Server 2007 hotfix package (Coreserver.msp): October 28, 2008 (Not necessary if patch #8 has already been installed)
958567 MOSS Local – SharePoint Server 2007 hotfix package (Coreservermui.msp): October 28, 2008
955586 MOSS Local (DLC) – SharePoint Server 2007 post-2007 Microsoft Office servers Service Pack 1 hotfix package (Dlcmui.msp): July 23, 2008
958569 MOSS Global (DLC) – SharePoint Server 2007 hotfix package (Dlc.msp): October 28, 2008
955937 MOSS Security – MS07-057: Security update for Excel Services in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007: October 14, 2008
957694 MOSS Forms Server (MOSS Enterprise SKU only) – Forms Server 2007 hotfix package (Ifswfe.msp): October 28, 2008
951597 MOSS Security - MS08-069: Security Update for 2007 Microsoft Office System Servers: November 11, 2008
957175 MOSS Security – MS08-077: Security Update for 2007 Microsoft Office System Servers: December 08, 2008 (Not necessary if patch #1 has already been installed)

I can’t stress enough the need to review the software update procedures. Checking and removing orphaned content is a vital prerequisite for update installation, orphaned content will cause some packages to fail. One additional orphan check that is not detachable by STSADM -o databaserepair, that I also highly recommend running, is outlined here.

Deploy software updates for Office SharePoint Server 2007

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263467.aspx

Deploy software updates for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc288269.aspx

Lastest WSS and MOSS Patches - 9/2008

rodgerjt — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 23:13:00 GMT

For those of you that are building a new WSS and/or MOSS farm, I've assembled a list of the patches you will need to build a "lastest and greatest" farm. The list below is published for an RTM farm, but if you have a farm in production already, you only need to install the patches dated after your current patch level. For example, if you have the IU installed, you only need to install 957109 and 956057 for WSS and 955586, 956056 and 953397 for MOSS.

To hopefully clear up some confusion, for localized WSS and MOSS patches, you need to install a localized patch for every lanague you have installed. At a minimum, this is one patch, which is for the base lanaguge of MOSS you have installed. For example, if you have an English SKU of WSS and MOSS, you need to install the English WSS and MOSS localized patches. If you have a German SKU of MOSS installed, you need to install the German WSS and MOSS localized patches. You will also need to install a localization patch for each language pack you have installed. So if you have an English SKU of WSS and MOSS and have the German and Spanish language packs installed, you need to install a English, German and Spanish localization update.

Lastest bits required for WSS 2007

1. WSS SP1

2. WSS Localized – 957109 – August 26^th Package

3. WSS Global – 956057 – August 26^th Package

Lastest bits required for MOSS 2007 (in addition to the WSS bits above)

1. MOSS SP1

2. MOSS Global – 951297 – July 15^th Package (a.k.a. IU package)

3. MOSS Local (Document Life Cycle) – 955586 – July 23^rdPackage

4. MOSS Global – 956056 – August 26^th Package

5. MOSS Global – 953397 – MS08-043: August 12^th Package

I can’t stress enough the need to review the software update procedures. Checking and removing orphaned content is a vital prerequisite for update installation, orphaned content will cause some packages to fail. One additional orphan check that is not detachable by STSADM -o databaserepair , that I also highly recommend running, is outlined here.

Deploy software updates for Office SharePoint Server 2007

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263467.aspx

Deploy software updates for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc288269.aspx

WSS and MOSS Infrastructure Updates Released

rodgerjt — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 01:13:00 GMT

Today we released some very important updates for WSS 3.0, SharePoint 2007, Project Server 2007, Search Server 2008 (Full and Express) and Project Professional 2007. This updates includes fixes for several areas of the product, including search, content deployment, performance and some core platform components. I’ve included the links to the WSS and MOSS updates below for your convenience. Because of the magnitude and amount of updates included in these package, I strongly encourage you to schedule these updates for deployment into your environments.

Search Enhancements

The Infrastructure Update for MOSS contains the new Enterprise Search features that were shipped in Search Server 2008 and Search Server 2008 Express that were are not already in SharePoint Server 2007; this includes Federated Search capability, a unified administration dashboard and several Search core platform performance updates. Additional information on the new search capabilities can be found here.

Content Deployment Enhancements

For the folks that are using Content Deployment, there are a number of additional fixes included in this update that are not in the Content Deployment ( 952704 & 952698) update released on May 20^th. Details on the additional content deployment fixes can be here.

MOSS 2007 Links

Description of the Microsoft Office Servers Infrastructure Update: July 15, 2008

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951297

Issues that are fixed in Microsoft Office Servers by the Microsoft Office Servers Infrastructure Update

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953750/

Installation Instructions

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc718729.aspx

Download Links:

(x86) http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=3811C371-0E83-47C8-976B-0B7F26A3B3C4

(x64) http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=6E4F31AB-AF25-47DF-9BF1-423E248FA6FC

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Links

Description of the Infrastructure Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0: July 15, 2008

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951695

Issues that are fixed in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 by the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Infrastructure Update

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953749/

Installation Instructions

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc288269.aspx

Download Links:

(x86) http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=256CE3C3-6A42-4953-8E1B-E0BF27FD465B

(x64) http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=3A74E566-CB4A-4DB9-851C-E3FBBE5E6D6E

Windows SharePoint Services & Microsoft Office SharePoint Server hotfixes for March 27, 2008

rodgerjt — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 20:55:00 GMT

The latest post SP1 global WSS and MOSS patches are:

Description of the SharePoint Server 2007 hotfix package: March 27, 2008

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=950487

Description of the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 hotfix package: March 27, 2008

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=950484

The lastest post SP1 localized WSS (no localized MOSS patches after SP1 yet) patch is:

Description of the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 hotfix package: February 22, 2008

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=948957

You need all three of these patches installed to be running the most current WSS and MOSS updates.

Your build number will be 12.0.0.6308 after this installation.

WSS 2003 Post SP3 Hotfix Package Released

rodgerjt — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 01:47:00 GMT

Details are in KB941412, but it's got a couple notable updates, one specifically for a New Zealand DST change. You'll have to contact MS to get the download or use our new hotfix request system linked in the KB.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941412

Grant Users Admin Access to all Site Collections per Web Application

rodgerjt — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 20:09:00 GMT

In SharePoint 2003, we had an option in the central admin to add users and/or domain groups to a group called "SharePoint Administrators". This group was granted full control for all site collections within the farm. Many customers took full advantage of this solution, in particular larger organizations that staff a helpdesk for their SharePoint environments. Helpdesk personnel where able to work directly on in a site collection to help resolve user issues without having to be granted access to the site collection by a site administrator. The flip side to this coin is information sensitivity. The users in the "SharePoint Administrators" group had free rain to browse site collections with minimal auditing.

In WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007, we have incorporated a two-tier architecture for administrators. We still have the concept of a "SharePoint Administrator" but we now call it a "Farm Administrator." The Planning for Security Roles TechNet articles does a great job of outlining the permissions and capabilities users in the "Farm Administrator" role can do and not do. In short, we we still provide helpdesk personal and administrators to access any site collection in the farm, however they now have to grant themselves access to the site collection before then can access it, which is recorded in the audit logs.

Now for those environments that do not have the auditing requirements designed into the "Farm Administrator" functionality and desire the functionality from SharePoint 2003, there is a way to grant individual users and/or domain groups access to all existing and future site collections in the farm. To do this, navigate to Central Admin > Application Management > Policy for Web Application. This area will allow you to grant an individual user or group access to a specific web application (and zone). The permission set you can grant someone is not extremely granular, but you have the option of granting Full Control, Read Only Access, Deny Write or Deny All, which I imagine works for most situations.

Forms Authentication with WSS 3.0 & MOSS 2007

rodgerjt — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 01:37:00 GMT

Steve Peschka has released a great three-part article on Forms Authentication. If you are planning on hosting a multi-authentication environment, these article are a must read. Steve provides some sample web.config settings and also offers some troubleshooting tips for getting your FBA site up and running.

Forms Authentication in SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (Part 1 of 3): Introduction
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb975136.aspx

Forms Authentication in SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (Part 2 of 3): Forms Authentication Samples
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb975135.aspx

Forms Authentication in SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (Part 3 of 3): Differences Between Forms Authentication and Windows Authentication
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb977430.aspx

Announcing the Microsoft iFilter Pack

rodgerjt — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 19:33:00 GMT

For all you folks that have been waiting for Microsoft to release an iFilter pack for Office 2007 file formats, you wait is over. Not only do we search Office 2007 files, but we've included support for crawling ZIP files, which I bet a lot people will take advantage of. The complete list of iFilters in the download are:

• Metro (.docx, .docm, .pptx, .pptm, .xlsx, .xlsm, .xlsb)
• Zip (.zip)
• OneNote (.one)
• Visio (.vdx, .vsd, .vss, .vst, .vdx, .vsx, .vtx)

This iFilter pack will provide support for the following products:

• SPS 2003, MOSS 2007, Search Server 2008, Search Server 2008 Express
• WSS 2007
• Exchange 2005
• SQL 2005, SQL 2008
• Windows Desktop Search 3.01, WDS 4

This iFilter pack will provide support for x86 and x64 systems and all of the iFilters are multi-threaded to make crawling the content faster. You can download the pack from the Microsoft download site.

The database on \Microsoft##SSEE is not accessible to missing Windows Internal Database signatures

rodgerjt — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 04:46:00 GMT

One of the more frequent issues we are seeing with the installation of our most recent WSS v3 hotfix, KB934525, is the error message "The database <databasename> on server\Microsoft##SSEE is not accessible to missing Windows Internal Database signatures" being logged in the server event log.

(SSEE = SQL Server Embedded Edition, which is what you get when you install WSS 3.0 without using a seperate SQL instance. SSEE is also know as WYUKON, WSSEE, WID or Windows Internal Database).

Event Type: Error Event Source: Windows SharePoint Services 3 Event Category: Topology Event ID: 6800 Date: 10/17/2007 Time: 8:09:40 PM User: N/A Computer: HOME Description: The database WSS_Content on <SERVER_NAME>\Microsoft##SSEE is not accessible to missing Windows Internal Database signatures.

To verify if you are experiencing this problem, look for something like the following from Services in Server page in Central Administration. Note how Windows SharePoint Services Web Application is showing Starting but no stop option.

If you experiencing this issue, you should also have entries like the following in the upgrade.log log file:


[SPServerSequence] [DEBUG] [10/22/2007 7:44:21 AM]: Web service Instance SPWebServiceInstance Parent=SPServer Name=<URL> not added. Status = Provisioning

A solution is available to administrators experiencing the issue.

Run the following STSADM operations to stop and start the SPWebService:

stsadm -o provisionservice -action stop -servicetype spwebservice -servicename ""
stsadm -o provisionservice -action start -servicetype spwebservice -servicename ""

Instantiate the upgrade by executing psconfig.exe or psconfigui.exe

The cause of this issue appears to be because the SPWebService instance failed to finish provisioning. The status of that service is marked as provisioning. However, it has done enough provisioning work so that the user sites are working and/or during upgrade, the upgrade code skipped any web service instances that are not online, upgrading the administration sites; however, skipping the user sites.

SharePoint Hotfix and SP Deployment

rodgerjt — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 15:39:00 GMT

I seen a few instances of companies attempting to use HFNetChkPro to deploy WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007 hotfixes to their farm environments. Hotfixes and service packs for WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007 do not install like "normal" patches we see for the O/S. SharePoint requires unique patch deployment steps, which makes the use of HFNetChkPro or other automated patch deployment tools a bit complicated. The steps below are from the TechNet article Deploy software updates for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.

The following approach updates the database from the first front-end Web server, so that when you run the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard (psconfig.exe) on the subsequent front-end Web servers, they can simply connect to the updated database, rather than attempting to upgrade the database.

You must update the Web servers in your server farm in the following order:

The files from the software update must be installed on all the Web servers in the server farm by running the software update installation on each Web server up to the point where the following dialog box displayed:

You must run setup to install new binary files for every server in your server farm. If you have multiple servers in your server farm, run setup and the configuration wizard on the other servers now, and then return to this server and click OK to continue.

Complete the software update by clicking OK in the dialog box on one Web server that hosts the Central Administration Web site (front-end Web server) for the server farm.
Complete the software update, one Web server at a time, for the rest of the server farm.

Create a New SharePoint Permission Level and Bind it to an Existing SharePoint Group

rodgerjt — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 16:16:00 GMT


This example will create a new permission level, called Example_xxxxxxxxxxx.  After creation, it binds the permission level to an existing SharePoint Group called Foo.
using (SPSite site = new SPSite( "http://moss/sites/PermExample" ))
{ 
   using (SPWeb rootWeb = site.RootWeb)
   {
       string permissionLevelName = "Example_"+System.DateTime.Now.Ticks.ToString();

        // Create a new Permission Level
        SPRoleDefinition newPermissionLevel = new SPRoleDefinition();
        newPermissionLevel.Name = permissionLevelName;
        newPermissionLevel.Description = "Example Permission Level";
        newPermissionLevel.BasePermissions = 
                SPBasePermissions.AddListItems |
                SPBasePermissions.BrowseDirectories |
                SPBasePermissions.EditListItems |
                SPBasePermissions.DeleteListItems |
                SPBasePermissions.AddDelPrivateWebParts;

        // Add the permission level to web
        rootWeb.RoleDefinitions.Add(newPermissionLevel);

        // Bind to the permission level we just added
        newPermissionLevel = rootWeb.RoleDefinitions[permissionLevelName];

        // Create a new role Assignment using the SharePoint Group "Foo"
        SPRoleAssignment roleAssignment = new SPRoleAssignment( (SPPrincipal)rootWeb.SiteGroups[ "Foo" ] );

        // Add the Permission Level to the Foo SharePoint Group
        roleAssignment.RoleDefinitionBindings.Add(newPermissionLevel);

        // Add the new Role Assignment to the web
        rootWeb.RoleAssignments.Add(roleAssignment);

        rootWeb.Close();
   }
   site.Close();
}

SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Service Pack 3 & Windows SharePoint Services Service Pack 3 available for download

rodgerjt — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 21:57:00 GMT

Description of SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Service Pack 3

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=923644

Issues that are fixed in SharePoint Portal Server 2003 by SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Service Pack 3

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=938795

SharePoint SP3 Download Site

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=AB086D48-1148-48DE-B4EC-A6298367E5F0&displaylang=en

Description of Windows SharePoint Services Service Pack 3

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=923643

Issues that are fixed in Windows SharePoint Services by Windows SharePoint Services Service Pack 3

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=938793

Windows SharePoint Services SP3 Download Site

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=2BBFC89B-EB59-49FF-B58F-684693CB25A7&displaylang=en