Error message "An item with the same key has already been added" after installing MOSS2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh

When you get the error message when loading any from using Forms Services (custom created form or default workflows) "An item with the same key has already been added" the solution is quite simple.

Error: An item with the same key has already been added.

System.ArgumentException: An item with the same key has already been added.
at System.ThrowHelper.ThrowArgumentException(ExceptionResource resource)
at System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary`2.Insert(TKey key, TValue value, Boolean add)
at System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary`2.Add(TKey key, TValue value)
at Microsoft.Office.InfoPath.Server.SolutionLifetime. TokenizedNameTable..ctor(EnhancedBinaryReader reader)
at Microsoft.Office.InfoPath.Server.SolutionLifetime. Solution.<>c__DisplayClass8.b__7()
at Microsoft.Office.Server.Diagnostics. FirstChanceHandler.ExceptionFilter(Boolean fRethrowException, TryBlock tryBlock, FilterBlock filter, CatchBlock catchBlock, FinallyBlock finallyBlock)
at Microsoft.Office.Server.Diagnostics. ULS.SendWatsonOnExceptionTag(ULSTagID tagID, ULSCat categoryID, String output, Boolean fRethrowException, TryBlock tryBlock, CatchBlock catchBlock, FinallyBlock finallyBlock)
at Microsoft.Office.InfoPath.Server.SolutionLifetime. Solution.Deserialize(EnhancedBinaryReader reader, SolutionIdentity solutionIdForErrorsOnly)
at Microsoft.Office.InfoPath.Server.SolutionLifetime. Solution.ConstructFromSerializedStream(Stream stream, String assemblyRootFolder, SolutionIdentity solutionIdForErrorsOnly)
at Microsoft.Office.InfoPath.Server.SolutionLifetime. SolutionCache.<>c__DisplayClassb.b__7()
at Microsoft.Office.InfoPath.Server.SolutionLifetime. SolutionCache.EnsureObjectInCache[T](HttpContext context, SolutionIdentity solutionId, String cacheId, ValidateCacheObject`1 validateCacheObject, CreateCacheObject`1 createCachedObject, AddToCache`1 cacheObject)
at Microsoft.Office.InfoPath.Server.SolutionLifetime. SolutionCache.EnsureAdminSolutionInCache(HttpContext context, SolutionIdentity solutionId, FormTemplate formTemplate)
at Microsoft.Office.InfoPath.Server.SolutionLifetime. SolutionCache.GetAdminSolutionById(SPSite site, HttpContext context, SolutionIdentity solutionId, Solution solutionInCache, String cacheId)
at Microsoft.Office.InfoPath.Server.SolutionLifetime. SolutionCache.GetSolutionById(SPSite site, HttpContext context, SolutionIdentity solutionId)
at Microsoft.Office.InfoPath.Server. Controls.XmlFormView.DataBindInternal(SolutionMetaInformation solutionMetaInformation, DocumentMetaInformation documentMetaInformation, String absoluteSolutionLocation, Boolean hasCloseHandler, Document& document)
at Microsoft.Office.InfoPath.Server. Controls.XmlFormView.StartNewEditingSession()
at Microsoft.Office.InfoPath.Server. Controls.XmlFormView.EnsureDocument(EventLogStart eventLogStart)
at Microsoft.Office.InfoPath.Server. Controls.XmlFormView.<>c__DisplayClass3.b__1()
at Microsoft.Office.Server.Diagnostics. FirstChanceHandler.ExceptionFilter(Boolean fRethrowException, TryBlock tryBlock, FilterBlock filter, CatchBlock catchBlock, FinallyBlock finallyBlock)

In the event log it says

Source - Office Sharepoint Server
EventID - 5333
Category - Forms Services Conversion and Deployment 1:30:57PM

Detected converted data version mismatch. Solution Id:938c6d9d-5264-4ba3-8a20-8417e03d2cbf:ver:12.0.0.1, expected version:4, saved version: 3. (User: MOSS\Admin, IP: 10.10.1.1, Request: http://MOSS/_layouts/CstWrkflIP.aspx?List={FAB78E36-0CAB-4B30-ADC5-248813312DF8})

Source - Office Sharepoint Server
EventID - 5368
Category - Forms Services Runtime 1:31:10PM

Exception occurred during request processing. (User: MOSS\Admin, Form Name: , IP: 10.10.1.1, Request: http://MOSS/_layouts/CstWrkflIP.aspx?List={FAB78E36-0CAB-4B30-ADC5-248813312DF8}, Form ID: , Type: ArgumentException, Exception Message: An item with the same key has already been added.)

Solution:
Open an command prompt and run "stsadm -o reconvertallformtemplates".

Do not run from the Run option in the Start menu!

Adding users from another forest using scripts (for audience compilation)

Like described earlier in post Audience Compilation In Multi Forest, it is not possible to use groups from a different forest in audience compilation.

As a workaround Microsoft suggested to create groups in the Sharepoint domain and add users (NOT GROUPS) from the other domain to this group. If you try to use DSMod to add the users from the other domain to the group (for example to add many users to a group), you will receive an error message: "The specified user does not exist".

This error is described in article KB892239 and is because DSMod also does not support multiple forests. The article gives a VBScript code example to work around this issue and add users via VBScript. That way adding users batch-wise is still possible.

Audience compilation in a multi forest environment

When you are trying to create an audience based on a membership of an Active Directory group and that group is located in a domain in another trust.......quit trying, it won't work. This can only be done with a workaround.

I have been in contact with Microsoft Support and they wrote me the following:

---

ACTION:
You have two Windows 2003 Active Directory Forests. Two Domains in these Forests are trusted (External Domain Trust, no Forest Trust). You have given some users from the External Domain permission to access SharePoint. This works so far. Now you want to create an Audience based on the membership of a Group in the External Domain.

RESULT:
You cannot compile this Audience. You receive the error:
One or more values typed on this page are not valid. Check the text for the indicated fields.

CAUSE:
This is as Design Limitation of SharePoint. SharePoint cannot read across the own Active Directory Forest because of the technique used to access it.

RESOLUTION:
The work around this Design Limitation follow these steps:
1. Create a Domain Local security group in the Domain where SharePoint resides 2. Add *users* from the External Domain domain to this group 3.
Create a Audience with a rule specifying the Domain Local group created in step 1 4. Compile the audience

---

So just create a local group in the Sharepoint Active Directory and add the users of the other domain to that group. Audience compilation then will work and users are added to the audience!!

Design Sharepoint and ISA Server 2004

Recently I have been working on a Sharepoint Portal Server 2003 implementation at a customer. The requirements of this customer were:

1. The portal must be available internally and externally.
2. One single url of entry. All users must access the portal using the same url.
3. Internal users must not be bothered with logging onto the portal.
4. Internal users must use the same entry path as the external users, because the Sharepoint servers are behind firewalls (yes, AD traffic is going through the firewalls).
5. To be able to use the domainname for different purposes, they would like to use the path mapping functionality in ISA Server 2004. For example: the portal can be accessed externally using www.domain.com/portal.

To meet the requirements we had do the following:

1. Publish the site externally and internally using ISA Server 2004.
2. For external users basic authentication must be configured. ISA Server presents a login box to the user and using "basic delegation" sends these credentials to the Sharepoint server if valid. If the user does not enter valid credentials, ISA Server does not allow the user to connect to the webserver.
3. For internal user integrated authentication must be configured. Using integrated authentication Internet Explorer is able to send the current logged on credentials to the server, automatically logging on the user.
4. Use https (SSL) for both internal as external users. A single entry point will be maintainted.

To accomplish this several technical limitations had to be resolved:

• The two authentication methods cannot be configured on the same publishing rule in ISA Server. Two seperate paths must be created, one configured with basic authentication, the other with integrated authentication.
• When you configure integrated authentication on both the ISA Server and IIS, users can experience multiple login boxes during browsing of the site. This is because ISA uses the same HTTP headers as the webserver (see link 1). This can be solved various ways:
  1. Use basic authentication for internal users as well - This is not an option because the users will have to login when accessing the portal and documents.
  2. Connect to the Sharepoint servers directly, not using the ISA Server - This is not an option from architectural point of view.
  3. Use ISA Server 2006 which is able to do delegation of integrated authentication - This is not an option because ISA Server 2006 is currently in Beta and the customer does not want to use beta software in production environments.
  4. Switch off authentication on the ISA Server and only authenticate on the IIS server - This is the easiest way to go. Only internal users use this path, so validation by the ISA Server is not an absolute requirement.
• The path mapping functionality is not supported with Sharepoint (see link 2). This requirement had to be dropped.

The final design we came to is:

1. Configure two ip addresses on the ISA Server
2. Configure two listeners and corresponding rules:
   * the first listner/rule for the internal ip address and no authentication (IIS/Sharepoint will handle the authentication)
   * the second listner/rule for the external ip address and basic authentication
3. Configure the Sharepoint web server on both integrated and basic authentication.
4. Configure a split DNS situation. Externally the domainname sharepoint.domain.com points to the second ip address, internally to the first ip address.

Link 1: Users Repeatedly Prompted for Credentials
Link 2: Reverse Proxy Configurations for WSS and ISA Server

Sharepoint usage statistics

After returning from a well deserved (as I may say so :-) vacation in The United States I found an article on the Internet about Sharepoint Portal Server usage analysis.

Analysis by using the IIS logs does not work and the Usage Analysis UI is only provided in WSS. This aricle describe the why and how to work around these issues:
Your Top 10 List...Or How To Gather Usage Statistics with SharePoint

Lots of Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server 2007 info!!

Here are some links to information about Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server 2007:

• Microsoft Office Preview
• Microsoft Office Beta Online
• IT Content for 2007 Office System Beta 2 (required for Office Beta pages) (AuthInstall.msi)
• Deploy Office SharePoint Server 2007 (Beta 2) on a single server
• Deploy Office SharePoint Server 2007 (Beta 2) in a server farm environment
• Using SQL Server 2005 for MOSS2007
• Installing a New Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Portal: Step-by-Step Instructions
• Deploy Language Packs in Office SharePoint Server 2007
• Introduction to Excel Services and Excel Web Access
• 2007 Microsoft Office Servers Beta Known Issues/ReadMe
• Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services (version 3) Beta Known Issues/ReadMe
• Site with lots of MOSS2007 links

Performance Issues Delay Office 2007

"by Stuart J. JohnstonJune 29, 2006"

Microsoft acknowledged Thursday that it has, at least slightly, delayed delivery of Office 2007, primarily for performance issues.

"Based on internal testing and Beta 2 feedback around product performance, we are revising our development schedule to deliver the 2007 Microsoft Office system by the end of year 2006, with broad general availability in early 2007," said a statement provided by a Microsoft spokeswoman.

Beta 2 of Office 2007 just started in late May when it was given out to attendees at Microsoft's annual Windows Hardware Engineering Conference in Seattle.

No one knows at this point, exactly how much extra time will be needed to assure the gigantic product is fully tested and optimized, and the company declined to speculate, saying, as always, that quality will determine schedules and not vice versa.

"Feedback on quality and performance will ultimately determine the exact dates," the statement said

Sharepoint, databases and transaction logs

Recently I some servers of a customer experienced some SQL errors. The SQL transaction logs filled up really quickly, filling up the disk and causing Sharepoint to stop functioning. On the blog of Bill English I found a really usefull article about Sharepoint, databases, transaction logs and recovery models: SQL Databases, the LDF files and Sharepoint Portal Server backups

Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server 2007 Beta 2 has been released!!

Last tuesday (May 23th 2006) Microsoft released the Beta 2 version of the upcoming Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server 2007. This Beta is publicly available and can be downloaded at Office Preview

Besides MOSS2007 Beta 2, Microsoft also release Windows Vista Beta 2 for everyone who is a MSDN subscriber. More info can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/

How to hide the Quick Launch bar very easily

On his blog, Todd Bleeker shows a very easy way to hide the Quick Launch bar:
- Just add a Content Editor Webpart to your page
- Add the following text in the Source Editor:

- Click Ok and voila, you are done! The Quick Launch bar is now hidden.
- To get it back, just delete the Content Editor webpart you have just created.

Source: Blog Todd Bleeker

Article about the appearance of Bill Gates at the Sharepoint Conference 2006

CNN has published an article about the presentation of Bill Gates at the Sharepoint Conference 2006 yesterday:
http://www.crn.com/sections/breakingnews/dailyarchives.jhtml?articleId=187203303

Live from the Sharepoint Conference 2006

Here is another post, but this time not from The Netherlands. Right now I am in the keynote/opening session of the Sharepoint Conference 2006 in Bellevue, Washington USA. In about 10 minutes Bill Gates is going to open the conference.

Over the next few days I am hoping to hear a lot about the upcoming Sharepoint 2007 (MOSS 2007) product. Of course, every cool thing I hear will be posted here!!

CU and happy Sharepointing!!

Yorick

"We need to figure this out".......Huh?!?!?

On his blog, Victor Vogelpoel is showing something he found in the code of the Dataviewer Webpart. Looks like the programmers did not know what to do with it: We need to figure this out :-)

Usefull tool: iFilter Explorer

A colleague of mine pointed me to a tool called iFilter Explorer. With this tool you can view which iFilters are installed on a machine and which products are able to use them (Sharepoint, SQL, Desktop search, etc). Very usefull!!

This tool can be found at: http://citeknet.com/

Restore via SPSBackup might fail when back-end is running SQL 2005

Since SPS SP2 the use of SQL Server 2005 as back-end database server is supported for Sharepoint (WSS and SPS). But when a backup is made using SPSBackup and restored again, the following message might appear both in SPSBackup as in the Eventlog: "SQL Server restore failed. Error: The operation failed on server <servername>.".

In the log which has been created in the Program Files\Sharepoint Portal Server\Logs directory the following is logged:

00012E8C CRI 00000000 00000E5C Connecting to SQL Server <servername> ...
00012ED2 CRI 00000000 00000E5C Connected to SQL Server <servername>
00012ED2 CRI 00000000 00000E5C Connected To Server
00012ED2 CRI 00000000 00000E5C Entering RestoreDB for database <portalname>1_SITE ...
00012ED2 CRI 00000000 00000E5C Entered Critical Section in RestoreDB for database <portalname>1_SITE ...
00012ED2 CRI 00000000 00000E5C Left Critical Section in RestoreDB for database <portalname>1_SITE ...
00012FCC UNK 00000000 000007F8 Overall % Completed: 0%
00013008 CRI 80045510 00000E5C GetDatabaseByName Failed. Trying to obtain path from master database.
0001313F CRI 00000000 00000E5C Command Text sent to SQL is: RESTORE DATABASE [<portalname>1_SITE] FROM DISK = N'\\backup\bk-<servername>-<portalname>1_SITE.SPB' WITH FILE = 1, NOUNLOAD , STATS = 5, RECOVERY , REPLACE , MOVE N'<portalname>1_SITE' TO N'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL\data\<portalname>1_SITE_Data.MDF', MOVE N'<portalname>1_SITE_log' TO N'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL\data\<portalname>1_SITE_Log.LDF', MOVE N'sysft_ix_<portalname>1_SITE' TO N'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL\data\<portalname>1_SITE_Data.MDF'
0001313F CRI 00000000 00000E5C Database <portalname>1_SITE does not exist, proceeding to restore it.
0001313F CRI 00000000 00000E5C Restoring database <portalname>1_SITE ...
000131A3 CRI 80040C68 00000E5C Failed to restore the database.
000131A3 UNK 00000000 00000E5C No error information available
000131A3 UNK 00000000 00000E5C No error information available
000131A3 UNK 00000000 00000E5C Exception in BackupSQL: Source=SQLBkMgd, Message=The operation failed on server <servername>. For more information, see the Microsoft Windows Event Log on that server.
000131A3 UNK 00000000 00000E5C BackupSQL Thread setting its status to completed and exiting

After copying and pasting the query into the SQL Management Studio, SQL returns the following error:

Msg 3176, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
File 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL\data\<portalname>1_SITE_Data.MDF' is claimed by 'sysft_ix_<portalname>1_SITE'(65537) and '<portalname>1_SITE'(1). The WITH MOVE clause can be used to relocate one or more files.
Msg 3013, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
RESTORE DATABASE is terminating abnormally.

The above information indicates that two parameters of the query point to the same name. Investigation of the query turns out that this is the case. Both the SITE database as the index are being restored to the same MDF file:
MOVE N'<portalname>1_SITE' TO N'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL\data\<portalname>1_SITE_Data.MDF',
MOVE N'sysft_ix_<portalname>1_SITE' TO N'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL\data\<portalname>1_SITE_Data.MDF'

The solution to this problem is installing the hotfix KB914445. Unfortunatelly this hotfix cannot be downloaded from the Microsoft site, so you have to call Microsoft to ask them to send it to you by email. Or if you have access to the Premier site, download it there.

"Restore operation is not completed successfully when you use the SharePoint Portal Server Backup and Restore tool (Spsbackup.exe) to restore a portal site from backup

You use the SharePoint Portal Server Backup and Restore tool to back up the portal site. However, when you try to restore the portal site from backup, the operation is not completed successfully. This problem occurs if the following conditions are true:

You use Microsoft SQL Server 2005 as the database back end for SharePoint Portal Server 2003.

You configure the Enable full-text search and index component option for content that is hosted on the portal site.

In this situation, the restore operation is not completed successfully because of a file naming conflict that occurs in SharePoint Portal Server 2003."

[UPDATE] The mentioned hotfix has been included in the SharePoint Portal Server 2003 post-Service Pack 2 hotfix package: June 16, 2006 (KB919175)

Automatically applying a theme to a WSS site when it is created

On his blog, Ishai Sagi describes a method he has found to automatically apply a certain theme after it has been created.

"WSS site definitions dont support setting a default theme. This leave the administrator with three options, none of them recommended:

1. Have users manually set a theme after creating a site (ugly!)
2. Set the company theme to a site, and save it as template and deploy the template globaly in the server (complicated, and also disconnects the sites from the file system templates, making it hard to change in the future)
3. Change the default css files and not use the theme (extremely ugly - why are the themes for??? also does not support multiple templates with different themes)

The solution I found for the problem is to add in the site definition a link to a custom page that will run code when the site is created. the code will apply the theme to the new site.

Step 1 - Changing The Site Definition

1. Create the site definition that you want
2. Go into the "xml" folder and open the "onet.xml" file in notepad or visual studio (or any editor)
3. Find the "Configurations" tag at the bottom, and for every configuration you want to change add the following in the "Configuration" tag (where it says "THEMENAMEHERE" write your theme name. This may be case sensative):
   <ExecuteUrl Url="_layouts/1033/ThemeSetter.aspx?Theme=THEMENAMEHERE" />

Step 2 - Creating the ThemeSetter ASPX Page

1. Open "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\60\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\1033"
2. Create a new text file, rename it to "ThemeSetter.aspx"
3. Open the file for editing, and paste the following code into it:

<html dir="ltr">
<%@ Page Language="C#" ValidateRequest="False" %>
<%@ Import Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.ApplicationPages" %>
<%@ Register Tagprefix="SharePoint" Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls" Assembly="Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=11.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" %>
<%@ Register Tagprefix="Utilities" Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities" Assembly="Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=11.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" %>
<%@ Import Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint" %>
<%

SPWeb myNewWeb = SPControl.GetContextWeb(Context);
myNewWeb.AllowUnsafeUpdates = true;
myNewWeb.ApplyTheme(this.Page.Request["Theme"].ToString());
myNewWeb.Update();
Response.Redirect(myNewWeb.Url);

%>
</html>

Step 3 - Reset the IIS
for the changes to take affect, you will need to reset the IIS.

Now, create a site from the site definition, and the site should automatically be with the theme."

Link: http://spstips.blogspot.com/2006/03/automatically-applying-theme-to-site.html

Sharepoint databases

Sharepoint uses SQL (or MSDE) for its data storage. By default several databases are created. Here is a small summary of the databases and their purpose.

• Configuration database (Default: Sharepoint_Config_db) - In a Windows Sharepoint Services environment, there can be multiple front-end Web servers that contain several websites whose content is stored in one of a number of back-end databases. To keep the front-end Web servers stateless, a centralized database is needed to keep track of which content database holds the data for a specific site. When a front-end Web server receives a request for a page from a site, the first connection it must make is to this configuration database. For performance reasons, this information is cached on the front-end Web servers for subsequent requests and the cached information is used by the front-end Web server thereafter.
  
  During installation Sharepoint Portal Server adds extensions to the configuration database created by Windows Sharepoint Services. These extensions include adding a new schema and modifying tables by adding new stored procedures. This means that WSS cannot connect to a SPS configuration database and vise versa.
  
  There is only one configuration database

• Profiles database (Default: <portalname>1_PROF) - This is the is the profiles database. It contains all the information relating to peoples profiles, including those imported from the AD, and audiences.

• Services database (Default: <portalname>1_SERV) - This database stores component settings in order to provide services to the Sharepoint Portal Environment. It contains alert definitions, notifications and the gatherer logs. Also called component settings database.

• Content database (Default: SPS <portalname>1_SITE, WSS STS_<machine name and guid>) - This is the content database for a given virtual server. By default it contains all the portal and team site information including documents and lists.
  
  Content databases provide content to the front-end Web servers when it is requested. All site content -including site documents, list data, Web Part properties, as well as user names and rights- are stored in the content databases. You can create as many content databases as needed to support the websites on your server. This can range from just one to thousands, depending on the number of users.

Theme messes up the WSS search box

Over the last few weeks I have been working on an issue with the search box in WSS. For some reason the seach box couldn't be selected, causing the user not to be able to do a search. After trying to disable and enable the full-text indexing (and experiencing the problems I have described in my previous post) I found out that when I move the mouse to the top of the search box, I could select the search box. Some troubleshooting later I found out that the theme was the cause:
- Somehow the theme did move the graphics of the search box down, but not the search box control.

Our theme-creation-guy fixed this issue by modifying the theme,adding
"position: relative" to the ".ms-searchform" class.

A simple solution for something so simple, but which has taken me weeks to figure out. You always start thinking in difficult solutions :-)

"Thread was being aborted" while enabling Full-text indexing

If you, due to problems, disable the WSS full-text indexing component, it might be possible that you receive an error when you try to enable the component again:
-------------------------
Error:

Thread was being aborted
-------------------------

This can be solved by performing the following steps (source: WSS Administration Guide):
- Stop Microsoft Search service
- Stop MSSQLServer service
- Start MSSQLServer service
- Start Microsoft Search service
- Open the SQL Query Analyzer
- For each content database run:
exec proc_DisableFullTextSearch
exec proc_EnableFullTextSearch
This enables the FTS outside of Sharepoint. After these steps are performed, Sharepoint must still be configured to show the search box.
To do this, check the enable full-text indexing component in the central admin.

If the error still occures, increase the time-out value for the Central Admin site.
This can be done by increasing the "executionTimeout" value (default 600 seconds) in the web.config in
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\60\TEMPLATE\ADMIN\1033
(<httpRuntime executionTimeout="600">)

Error "<!-- #RENDER FAILED -->" when doc.lib. contains more documents than the Item Limit

When a view of a document library is sorted by "Created" or "Modified" and an Item Limit is set, it is possible the error message "<!-- #RENDER FAILED -->" is displayed when you click the "Next" button. Somehow WSS has difficulties displaying batches of documents when they are sorted on a date field. To solve this, just don't sort by Created or Modified, or don't use an Item Limit and everything will work fine!!

Webcast Sharepoint Portal Server 2007

Microsoft has placed a webcast about Sharepoint Portal Server 2007 on their site. In this webcast all new features in Sharepoint 2007 are discussed.

Using SPUserUtil to synchronize SharePoint user Display Names and Email addresses with the information in Active Directory

Keith Richie published an article on his blog in which he describes how to sync user display names and email address in Sharepoint with Active Directory information.

Quote:
"SharePoint provides a feature for users to use different Display Names and Email addresses across the site collections they are members of. This information is cached in the tp_Title and tp_Email columns in the UserInfo table for every site collection in which the user has permissions. The individual user can update their information or the administrator can do it by visiting the siteusrs.aspx page for every site collection. This allows a user to utilize say, different email addresses for alerts on the same SharePoint Virtual Server but in different site collections. One scenario is where I may want to alert myself of changes to content on one site collection using my work email address, while content from another site collection should send alerts to my personal email address.

The problem with this, is that most enterprise customers I have worked with find this feature really annoying :). They prefer the users account display name and email address to be consistent to what the have established in their corporate environment, and it is an administrative nightmare to to update this information across literally 10's of 1000's of site collections. It also confuses users of SharePoint when their information changes (Say a contractor becomes a full time employee, etc). It can also cause administrative headache for administrators when they try to change security information on their sites (in some places we try to look up the account with the old NT Login Name). You can however, re-sync SharePoint with the current information in active directory by using SPUserUtil"

• Using SPUserUtil to synchronize SharePoint user Display Names and Email addresses with the information in Active Directory

Another interesting article of Keith is an earlier article about what to do when the name of a user account changes:

• Using SPUserUtil to update accounts when the NT Login Name changes

Removing a Meeting from a Meeting Workspace

Yesterday a user had the problem that a canceled meeting could not be removed from a meeting workspace. After searching the Internet I found the following article on the Microsoft site: Removing a Meeting from a Meeting Workspace

It is not possible to solve this issue via the GUI, but you have to do this programmatically via the Sharepoint object model. This article describes the steps to be taken and provides a small piece of example code. Just follow the steps in the article (make new C# project and past the code) and run the program. Then enter the meeting workspace url and id of the meeting which should be canceled.....and voila now you can delete the meeting via the GUI.

Features in next version of Sharepoint

An excerpt taken from a beta document that will soon be available as part of an Office 12 Reference Series:

NOTE: This is based on the BETA1 release of Office 12. Some features may be altered or cut entirely prior to the final release.

Office 12 is the next release of the Microsoft Office System. It consists of both client and server-side elements.

The Office client (a full refresh of the current office suite) features a revolutionary new user interface. The new interface is intended to open up the functionality in Office by making relevant functions available at the right time depending on what the user is doing (i.e. show all the table format functions when the user is working on a table).

To compliment the Office client, there is also a new server offering. The server (currently referred to as ‘Office Server’) constitutes of the next version of the following products:

• SharePoint Portal Server 2003
• Content Management Server 2002
• Office Server is based on a new version of Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 (or WSS)

Office Server builds on the functionality of the above products but offers additional capabilities such as Workflow, Record Management, Forms and Business Intelligence.

Document Management
Office Server builds on the capabilities of SharePoint 2003 by offering significantly improved DM capabilities. The concepts of sites and document libraries remain the same, but the following new features apply:

• Full item-level security
• Central metadata control (Column templates)
• Content types (the ability to provide users with a selection of content types to choose from. Content types drive the document template, workflow, metadata and many more settings)
• Major-minor version control with draft visibility control
• Document publication and auto-update
• Integrated workflow
• Recycle bin
• Offline capabilities (through Outlook or My Documents)
• Vastly improved integration between client and server
• Change auditing
• Email support (users can email content into document libraries)
  

Record Management
Based on the core document management capabilities, Microsoft has introduced a record management capability in Office 12 called the ‘Official File Repository’. This is a place where official files get sent, organised, maintained and ultimately disposed of.

Files in the official repository have policies that govern their retention and disposal in addition to normal record management capabilities such as holds.

Workflow
Office 12 builds on top of Microsoft’s upcoming Windows Workflow Foundation (WWF) by adding WWF integration into all Office 12 lists and libraries in addition to several out-of-the-box document-based workflows, including:

• Document Approval
• Document Sign-off
• Document Feedback Gathering
• Document Moderation
• Disposition Approval
• Issue Tracking

WWF itself is a very rich workflow framework which allows creation of either simple, non-code workflows (via Frontpage) or more complex workflows (via Visual Studio.net).

To compliment the WWF, Microsoft has introduced InfoPath Forms Server as part of Office Server. Infopath server provides online renditions of Infopath forms and directly plugs into the workflows that run within Office 12.

Web Content Management
Office 12 Server is the combination of what we currently know as SharePoint and CMS. Therefore it inherits all of the capabilities of CMS 2003, which include:

• Online web content management
• Content change workflow (provided by WWF)
• Page version control and publication (same as documents)
• Multiple versions of a site (multi-lingual, accessibility)
• Images and resource galleries (provided by lists)
• Centrally controlled structure
• Full control over layout and graphics (via improvements in ASP.net such as Master Pages and navigation controls)

Search, Retrieval and People
Building on the search capabilities of SharePoint 2003 and knowledge gained from the public the MSN search utility, Microsoft have significantly improved the search capability for Office 12. The search will index a plethora of content sources including Websites, SharePoint Portals, File Systems and Relational Databases (and more) and make their content searchable from within the main portal.

The results themselves are much more relevant than the 2003 version, this is from several improvements to the core algorithm and additional features including ‘did you mean’, de-duplication and query term highlighting.

As with Sharepoint 2003, people are a core objects in Office Server, but their profiles are now much richer and the server will automatically calculate social distance, working relationships and working patterns for people.

Just a few of the key differentiators between V2 and V3:

• List Item Security (including versioning) is implemented in V3 allowing increased flexibility and granularity. Lists and document libraries also have a recycle bin functionality where as in V2 these Recycle Bins were constructed by ISVs.
• The introduction of Windows Workflow Foundation (WF). WF will serve as the core for anything workflow related in future releases of windows and at some point will see integration with BizTalk (WF will eventually handle BizTalk Orchestration). Out Of The Box workflows exist within the Office 12 Server and simple workflows can be created with little technical knowledge using FrontPage. WF is highly extensible and allows any competent developer to create their own workflows and activities (not just for Office 12, but for pretty much any application)
• As mentioned above, the new Office 12 Server will consist of and combines CMS and Sharepoint Portal Server.
• Something not mentioned above is the new Excel Server, adding the ability to store and manage Excel spreadsheets from a central server, allowing the creation of rules to determine who can access what and how. Calculations and formulae can also be performed on the server.

Unwanted Authentication Prompts

Daniel McPherson discusses the topic "Unwanted Authentication Prompts", the causes and their solutions on his blog. Very usefull information!!

Aggregating RSS feeds in SPS 2007

A collegue of mine logged a wish at the Office 2007 beta program about the aggregation of RSS feeds in SPS 2007. Below the wish and the respons of Microsoft:

"Given Sharepoint3's widespread adoption of RSS syndication, why is there no *built-in* Sharepoint RSS aggregation webpart?
I realise that both Outlook-12 and IE-7 have aggregation support, but neither is a good substitute for a strong internal Sharepoint facility.
I realise also that there are a number of 3rd-party Sharepoint RSS aggregation web parts available, (and these are also not too difficult to write in house) but I'd prefer native S'point support (i.e. an aggregator web part).
Also, will shipping S/point3 make it easier to find RSS feeds? Seems unnecessarily messy right now.

I'd prefer native SharePoint support for a facility (i.e a web part) that would, for example, allow aggregation on, say, the Home Page of the portal. The web part could aggregate all postings with a Weblog Category of "HomePage"."

Answer Microsoft:
"This issue has been fixed in a newer build of Office 12. The Product team says there is a web part for anonymous RSS feeds - it's called the RSS Viewer Web part. It is part of Beta 2."

So it looks like there will be RSS aggregation support in the new release of Sharepoint.

Office Sharepoint Server 2007 is born

There’s been an MS announcement regarding naming, packaging and pricing of the O12 technologies. Some details at: 'Office 2007' It Is and at: The 2007 Microsoft Office

The main name to remember is ‘Office Sharepoint Server 2007’ – that’s what the server set will be branded as and will include the CMS, EPM, InfoPath Forms and Excel server components. For the enterprise customers it will be the CAL level that dictates which extra components can be used.

Sharepoint information

Some more Sharepoint reading materials:

• SharePoint Products and Technologies Document: Planning and Designing SharePoint Products and Technology Solutions for Geographically Dispersed Sites


• Troubleshooting Windows SharePoint Services


• SQL Server 2005 Performance Test Results


• Very good WSS Network and Load Balancing white paper

SQL Reporting Services

A customer requested a posibility to get an overview of all available team sites and their sizes on a periodic basis. To fullfill this request I looked into the possibilities of SQL Reporting Services. I installed it as a test on our development Sharepointenvironment together with the Report Pack for Sharepoint 2003. This report pack consists of sql scripts which create the databasesin which the Sharepoint data will be stored, a data extraction tool and example reports.

Steps to install and configure SQL Reporting Services:

• Install SQL Reporting Services


• Install SP2


• Install SQL Server Report Pack for SPS2003


• Run scripts to create databases


• Config data extraction tool (edit config)


• Edit supplied batch with extraction tool


• Perform http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;906508


• Install LogParser


• Configure SQL Reporting Services


• Create data source


• Import sample reports


• Create and install own reports

With Reporting Services you can enable users to log onto a website and run the reports. The users can even configure Reporting Servicesto mail the reports to themselfs periodically via a scheduler.

More information:

• Reporting Services


• SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services Service Pack 2 (SP2)


• Microsoft SQL Server Report Pack for Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003

Problems with the search functionality after installing Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1

When you have a server farm with three servers or more (e.g. web/search server, job/index server and database server, The job component on a different server than the web component) you might experience some problems with the search functionality after installing Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1.

In the RTM version of Windows Server 2003 it is sufficient to grant the Sharepoint Admin account Power User permissions on the job/index server. But as of Service Pack 1 for Windows Server 2003, the account must have Administrator permissions. When you have configured the account as Power Users, the search functionality will stop functioning after the installation of Service Pack 1. To solve this, add the account to the local Administrators group.

More information: Searching no longer works on Microsoft Office Sharepoint Portal Server 2003
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;555309

ReGhost.NET - A Ghost Hunter Alternative for the Desktop

Sharepoint uses a feature called "ghosting":

"As everyone knows, all pages within SharePoint are stored in the database. This effectively means that for each document, you will find a row in the docs table for that document. The actual file is stored in the Content column. This is true for all files. However, there is one exception - some .aspx pages don’t actually have their content stored in the database. Instead, these pages reference files which exist on the server’s file system. These pages are considered ghosted pages."
(http://www.bluedoglimited.com/SharePointThoughts/ViewPost.aspx?ID=4)

Once a page has become unghosted, getting it back to a ghosted state is very difficult.

• How can you tell if a page is ghosted or unghosted? Quite simply – you can’t.
  There is no way to determine the state of your page. Unfortunately, this functionality simply didn’t make its way into the product. In an ideal world, you would never need to know if a page is ghosted or not. However, we don’t live in an ideal world.
• Is it possible to “reset” an unghosted page to its original ghosted state? No.
  This ties into the previous answer. Straight out of the box, there is no way to return a page to its original ghosted state.

(http://www.bluedoglimited.com/SharePointThoughts/ViewPost.aspx?ID=5)

But now there is a solution for this problem!! Matthew Cosier has created a tool called ReGhost.NET which is able to reghost a unghosted page. This marvellous tool is available for download at: http://www.gotdotnet.com/workspaces/workspace.aspx?id=6eff7d8a-92ee-4525-a625-b592bb9d0c95

List of SharePoint Blogs and Bloggers!

Mark Kruger compiled a list of Sharepoint Blogs and Bloggers and posted it on his own blog.

A whole lot of Sharepoint information for the taking!!

How to export a theme which is applied to a WSS site

With FrontPage it is possible to change the currently applied theme, apply different theme to a site and create you own theme and apply it to a site. The downside is that only the site collection in which new themes or changed themes are created can use this theme.

When your theme has been applied and you would like to install it on the server so that everybody is able to use it, you are not able to export the theme. To solve this do the following:

• Open the site via FrontPage (File>Open Site)
• Browse to the folder _themes\<theme>
• In this folder you will find the currently applied theme with all the css files and images. Copy these files to your local machine and use them to create a server wide theme.

How to Prevent Zip file Corruption in Sharepoint 2003

A lot of people have problems with zip files when they are placed in a Sharepoint Document Library. They beome corrupted when downloaded. The cause of this problem is not Sharepoint, but IIS. The following document describes the steps to be taken to reconfigure IIS in order to support zip files without corruption: http://www.combined-knowledge.com/Downloads/How%20to%20Prevent%20Zip%20file%20Corruption%20in%20Sharepoint%202003.pdf

Windows SharePoint Services Administrator's Guide v1.8

Back from a week snowboarding in Val Thorens and it is time for a new post!!

Microsoft has just released a new WSS Administrator's Guide. It has received version number 1.8.

"Version 1.8
This version of the Administrator's Guide includes updates about using Windows SharePoint Services with Microsoft SQL Server 2005 and Microsoft Windows Server R2. The following topics are new:

• Installing and Configuring ASP.NET
• Migrating from WMSDE to SQL Server 2005

Updated topics include the following:

• Backing Up and Restoring Databases by Using the SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 2005 Tools
• Backing Up and Restoring Web Sites
• Backup and Restore Options for Windows SharePoint Services
• Changing the Application Pool Identity for a Virtual Server
• Configuring Two Virtual Servers to Host the Same Content
• Hardware and Software Requirements
• Installation Considerations for Windows SharePoint Services
• Installation Points for Windows SharePoint Services
• Installing and Using Service Packs for Windows SharePoint Services
• Introducing Windows SharePoint Services
• Managing and Customizing Search
• Managing Content Databases
• Managing Sites and Subsites
• Managing the Configuration Database
• Migrating and Upgrading Web Sites
• Migrating from WMSDE to SQL Server 2000
• Preparing Front-End Web Servers for Windows SharePoint Services
• Remote SQL Server Deployment
• Security Considerations for Server and Site Configurations
• Separate Active Directory Directory Service Organization Unit Deployment
• Server Farm Scalable Hosting Mode Deployment
• Single Server Deployment
• Troubleshooting Other Issues
• Upgrade Considerations
• What's New in Windows SharePoint Services Service Pack 2

This download contains information about managing Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services, including:

• Planning
• Deployment Scenarios
• Installation
• Security
• Configuration
• Administration
• Backup and Migration
• Maintenance
• Customization
• Troubleshooting
• Reference "

The guide can be found at: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=a637eff6-8224-4b19-a6a4-3e33fa13d230&displaylang=en

Checking site usage analysis

I have recently noticed that on one of our Sharepoint environments the usage analysis processing was not running on one virtual server.To solve this issue I found the following article on the Microsoft site: Usage Analysis Tools in SharePoint Products and Technologies

To check if the usage analysis processing is running for a specific virtual server use the following command:
stsadm -o getproperty -pn job-usage-analysis -url http://<virtual server URL>

To configure the usage analysis processing use:
stsadm -o setproperty -pn job-usage-analysis -pv “daily between hh:mm:ss and hh:mm:ss” -url http://<servername>

After setting this property, the usage analysis processing worked fine again.

Problems with installing WSS SP2

Some months ago a customer wanted to install all missing patches on two of our Sharepoint environments. One of the missing patches was Windows Sharepoint Services Service Pack 2 (WSS SP2). Unfortunately the admin that was installing the patches wasn't aware that the SP shouldn't have been installed. During the installation of the SP something went wrong, I am not exactly sure what, causing WSS to be uninstalled instead of upgraded. This resulted in a broken Sharepoint Portal Server 2003 installation. The Sharepoint Portal Administration service wouldn't start anymore, the Central Admin virtual server was gone, the ISAPI filter in IIS was gone and the files in the "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions" folder were also gone.

The only error messages I got were:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* System log:
Source: Service Control Manager
Event ID: 7000
Description: The SharePoint Portal Administration service failed to start due to the following error:
The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Application log:
Source: .NET Runtime
Event ID: 0
Description: The description for Event ID ( 0 ) in Source ( .NET Runtime ) cannot be found. The local computer may not have the necessary registry information or message DLL files to display messages from a remote computer. You may be able to use the /AUXSOURCE= flag to retrieve this description; see Help and Support for details. The following information is part of the event: .NET Runtime version 1.1.4322.2300- spsadmin.exe - Common Language Runtime Debugging Services: Application has generated an exception that could not be handled.

Process id=0x4d0 (1232), Thread id=0x1684 (5764).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The strange thing is that the eventlog indicated that the SP had been installed correctly: "Installation Successful: Windows successfully installed the following update: Windows SharePoint Services Service Pack 2 (KB887624)"

I have no clue if this might have been of any influence on the problem, but the problems occured when WSS SP2 was installed using Microsoft Update on a small (1 server) and a medium farm (2 servers). A large farm (3 servers) on which the WSS SP2 was installed at the same time in the same way was upgraded correctly.

The only solution to repair the environments was:

• Manually uninstall Sharepoint Portal Server (repair and uninstall failed with an error message)
• Remove the C:\Program Files\Sharepoint Portal Server folder
• Remove the SPSAdmin, SPSAlert and MSSharepointPSSearch services (e.g. via XNet - www.kixtart.org)
• Remove the HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Sharepoint Portal Server registry key
• Remove the HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Sharepoint Portal Server registry key
• Remove the Microsoft Office Sharepoint Portal Server 2003 item from Add/Remove Programs via the registry
• Reinstall SPS2003
• Do NOT use the old config database, but create a new one
• Restore the portals by using the existing databases
• Restore team site virtual servers by extending new ones (create new database), add the old database and then remove the newly created database
• Reinstall all webparts, styles, themes, etc

After performing these steps, one of our environments refused to index the portal and WSS sites. After consulting and troubleshooting with Microsoft, I ended up with reinstalling the entire environment.

I hope you won't encounter the same problems as I have, but in case you do, the above instructions will work to restore your environment. It has taken me about three days to fix something somebody else broke in 30 minutes.

Default values of webpart properties

When you add a webpart to a page, the "Allow Close" checkbox is automatically checked. This enables the users to close a webpart. Most users don't know how to retrieve this closed webpart and call the helpdesk, causing extra calls.

About a month ago a customer asked me if it is possible to uncheck the "Allow Close" checkbox by default. I went on a big Internet search and found the following solutions:

1. Add locklayout="true" to zone declaration
2. Change the webparts dwp file by adding tags

Add locklayout="true" to zone declaration
<WebPartPages:WebPartZone runat="server" Title="loc:TitleBar" ID="TitleBar" LockLayout="true" AllowPersonalization="false">

Specifies whether or not Web Parts within the zone can be added, deleted, resized, or moved. The LockLayout property works the same regardless of whether the Web Part Page is in personal or shared view. If set to True, the specific Web Part properties for each Web Part in the zone that are affected are: Zone (ZoneID), Part Order (PartOrder), Visible on Page (IsVisible), Height (Height), Width (Width), Allow Close (AllowRemove), and IsIncluded (the Close command on the Web Part menu). Other Web Part properties are not affected. If set to False, the Web Part properties determine whether modifications can be made (along with the appropriate site permissions). This behaviour is not desireable. I only want the Allow Close to be changed.

Change the webparts dwp file by adding tags
It is possible to add some tags to the webparts dwp file, which define a default value for a certain property. These tags are:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<WebPart xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WebPart/v2">
    <Title>Content Editor Web Part</Title>
    <FrameType>Default</FrameType>
    <Description>Use for formatted text and images.</Description>
    <IsIncluded>true</IsIncluded>
    <ZoneID>Left</ZoneID>
    <PartOrder>3</PartOrder>
    <FrameState>Normal</FrameState>
    <Height />
    <Width />
    <AllowRemove>false</AllowRemove>
    <AllowZoneChange>true</AllowZoneChange>
    <AllowMinimize>true</AllowMinimize>
    <IsVisible>true</IsVisible>
    <DetailLink />
    <HelpLink />
    <Dir>Default</Dir>
    <PartImageSmall />
    <MissingAssembly />
    <PartImageLarge>/_layouts/images/mscontl.gif</PartImageLarge>
    <IsIncludedFilter />
</WebPart>

When the tag "<AllowRemove>false</AllowRemove>" is added to the dwp file, the "Allow Close" checkbox is unchecked (for that webpart) by default!

Blog by the Sharepoint Development team

The Sharepoint Development team has just (like the IE Development team) created their own blog.

"SharePoint Team Blog - A blog from the SharePoint Development Team

We thought it’d be a good idea to create a broad SharePoint blog, where we can talk about topics across the SharePoint family, details on the next versions we will release later this year with Office 12 and Windows Server, insights into our decisions/process, and what we are learning from seeing customers and partners use SharePoint to help them be more effective. That’s the purpose of this blog."

The blog can be found at: http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/

New beta version of SPStatus (version 1.1) released

"The SharePoint Status Report extracts hyperlinks directly from the SharePoint system and then checks the status of each hyperlink. The hyperlinks are extracted from all Portal Areas, Links Lists and Content Editor Web Parts, located in the Portal and Team Sites. The link status is then displayed in a detailed report that allows you to resolve and manage any issues that have been detected.

Displayed below is a typical SharePoint Status Report and you can see from this report that the status of the links is obvious. As you find broken links then you can use the “Area” and “Link Edit” columns to update or delete the link."


More information: http://james.milne.com/SPStatus/default.htm
Download v1.1: http://james.milne.com/SPStatus/download/

New iFilters released

JPEG IFilter 1.0 Released
(PRLEAP.COM) AimingTech Company announces the version 1.0 of JPEG IFilter for Microsoft Indexing Service. The software component is free for non-commercial use and 30-day trial for commercial use.
JPEG IFilter is a content indexing filter for JPEG (JFIF) image files. The IFilter is compatible with indexing services based on the Microsoft Search technology: Microsoft Indexing Service, Windows Desktop Search, Microsoft SharePoint Portal. JPEG IFilter extends the services capabilities to index the JPEG files (extensions JPG, JPEG, JPE, JFIF) and to perform content search for them.
http://www.prleap.com/pr/18549/

Audio Video IFilter 1.0 Released
Audio Video IFilter is a content indexing filter for WMA, WMV and MP3 files. The IFilter is compatible with all services based on the Microsoft Search technology: Microsoft Indexing Service, Windows Desktop Search, Microsoft SharePoint Portal etc.
http://press.xtvworld.com/article7900.html

Virtual Server 2005 issues

Some of the Sharepoint environments at our customer are installed on Virtual Server 2005. After installation of Virtual Server 2005 the network connection of the host system was dropped when files were copied from the host system to the guest system. The only solution to get back up and running was a reboot of the host system (and therefore also the guest systems).To resolve this issue I ran into the following solution: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/888750/

The resolution involves adding a registry key which disables "Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) segmentation offloading".This functionality is not fully implemented in Virtual Server 2005, which causes the connection to be dropped. By disabling the functionality on the host system, the problems were gone.


I also found an update for Virtual server 2005 which is supposed to improve the performance. Especially with Windows Server 2003 SP1.

Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 Updated Additions: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=a963433c-193b-41ac-af6e-ab7ab2db8541&DisplayLang=en

Overview of the Updated Additions: When you upgrade a guest operating system that is running under Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 to Microsoft Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 1 (SP1), you may experience decreased performance in comparison with the original-release version of Windows Server 2003 as described here. This issue occurs because the Virtual Machine Additions included with Virtual Server 2005 does not have the performance optimizations that are required for Windows Server 2003 with SP1. Virtual Server 2005 was released many months before the release of Windows Server 2003 SP1.

More troubleshooting information about the Explorer View

Over the past few months I ran into several problems with the Explorer View (like http://share-point.blogspot.com/2006/01/sharepoint-explorer-view-does-not-work.html). I have gathered the following information about the Explorer View:

• A user was not able to copy documents via drag and drop from the Explorer View to another folder (desktop or other Explorer View). When he clicked the document and dragged it to another folder, normally the mouse pointer changes into a drag and drop icon. But that didn't happen. He couldn't drag and drop any document.To investigate the issue I added the site url to the Trusted Sites and tried it again. This time the drag and drop now did work. I compared the settings of both zones and changed the settings of the Local Intranet Zone to see which setting was causing the problem. It turned out that the option "Miscellaneous>Launch Programs and Files in an IFRAME" was set to "Prompt" by default in the Local Intranet Zone and set to "Enabled" in the Trusted Sites Zone. After changing this setting to "Enabled" in the Local Intranet Zone the drag and drop functionality worked again.
• Cannot open a Web folder document that is located on a Microsoft Sharepoint Portal Server-based server - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/329919/en-us
• Windows XP SP2, if the Internet Explorer Advanced setting 'Show Friendly HTTP Errors' is unchecked, Internet Explorer may show a pop-up error and terminate the request to fill the iFrame. Check the 'Show Friendly HTTP Errors' setting again.

Some extra info provided by Daniel McPherson (MS SPS Rapid Response Engineer)

• Issues with the Explorer ViewFQDN and not in Intranet Zone - http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;303650
• URL Length - Limited to 260, depends on patch level, KB892211

- What components are involved?

• WebClient Service (OS Windows 2003/XP)
• Web Folders (Office and SharePoint Client) - There is an update http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=17c36612-632e-4c04-9382-987622ed1d64%26displaylang=en%2520

Default webparts are listed as Untitled in a site based on the Meeting Workspace template

I just ran into the problem that webparts in the webpart library on a site based on the Meeting Workspace template were listed as Untitled. An article on the Microsoft site gave the solution:

SYMPTOMS
When you create a new Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services Web site that uses a Workspace Meeting template, and you want to add Web Parts to the Web site, you may find that some Web parts appear "Untitled" (without the quotation marks) when you view the list of available Web parts. For example, when you click Modify This Workspace, click Add Web Parts, click Create Lists, and then click Browse, five of the Web parts that are listed under Web Part List in the Add Web Parts pane appear as "Untitled" (without the quotation marks). You cannot add these Web parts to the Web site.

CAUSE
The problem occurs because the path of the Web parts in the Onet.xml file that is used in Meeting Workspace templates is incorrect. The WebPartPopulation section of the Onet.xml file contains the following incorrect path:
..\STS\lists\wplib\dwp

The path is incorrect because the path contains two "." characters (without the quotation marks), and "." characters (without the quotation marks) are restricted characters. Therefore, the instantiation of the ghost file fails. A limitation exists in the provision process for modules where the Setup path can only refer to files that are located in subfolders of the current site template folder.

SOLUTION
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/839877/en-us

Retrieve Home link in the Top Navigation

Source: http://domdeb.poon.ca/Lists/Announcements/DispForm.aspx?ID=20

"So you've played with the homepage in your WSS site and now the Home link is gone from all your pages. You can get it back without manually editing the top navigation area of all your pages, with the help of FrontPage.

• Open your site in FrontPage 2003.


• At the bottom of the Web Site pane, click on the Navigation link. This will switch to the Navigation Pane view.


• In the Navigation Pane, right-click on SharePoint Top Navbar icon and select Add Existing Page... in the selction menu.


• In the Insert Hyperlink dialog box, select the desired page, click OK to accept the selection.


• Drag the new page to the correct location in the top navigation and rename the title as appropriate.

Congratulations, you successfully saved your top navigation.

Even though I don't render the standard top navigation on this site anymore, it does still make a difference when I'm navigating through admin pages. I usually type in the url to the usage stats page, my most common admin page for viewing. I've lost the Home link on all these admin pages, making a little difficult to move around. A minor annoyance that I ignored until a collegue did the same thing to a production team site today. That prompted me to hunt around FrontPage for a solution, something simple but not entirely obvious either.

On a final note, I'm really not a fan of using FrontPage to modify SharePoint pages. I'm still unnerved by some automatic changes it makes to your markup, much less the markup itself. Even so, there's no denying the fact that FrontPage is a powerful tool for making SharePoint customizations, modifications that seem impossible without it. Managing the top navigation is just one example."

Copy Document Libraries and Lists to other sites.......use SMove

Do you want to copy document libraries or lists to other sites?? You have several options, but the easiest one is using SMove. Just select the document library/list and drag it to another site. There just drop it and SMove starts copying. Real easy!!

More info?? See http://www.triplewood.com/triplewood/html/SPUtils.aspx

How to deal with "Orphaned Sites"

I just ran into an orphaned site. The site was listed in the stsadm enumsites as "The Web site that is referenced here is not in the configuration database". Attempting to create a new site with the same name (and afterwards removing it again) failed with the message "Site with that name already exists". Deleting it with stsadm was also useless.

A little "google-ing" gave me some links to the blog of Keith Richie, a MS employee. He posted two articles about orphaned sites and how to deal with them:

Part 1: http://blogs.msdn.com/krichie/archive/2005/10/25/484889.aspx
Part 2: http://blogs.msdn.com/krichie/archive/2005/10/31/487365.aspx

Worked like a charm!!

Sharepoint tips from Andre Kieft

Andre Kieft (MS SPS Support Engineer) posted 31 tips for Sharepoint on his blog "Share-Port":

Tips from working on the SharePoint Force - http://blogs.technet.com/akieft/archive/2005/11/30/415336.aspx

Sharepoint Explorer View does not work when the Managed Path name contains a "/"

When a managed path has a slash ("/") in its name, the Explorer View in the team sites which are created in this managed path will not work.

For example a managed path "sites/department1" has a team site "test". When you try to view a document library using the Explorer View, a "Page Cannot Be Displayed" error message is displayed.

My first post

Hello all,

This is the first post at my Sharepoint "Share-Point Blog". I will try to post all kinds of usefull Sharepoint tips and tricks and at the same time build some kind of knowledge base. If you have any usefull information.....let me know!

CU!

Yorick