Max Yermakhanov's Blog

Attaching old Content Database to new Web Application in MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0

max — Thu, 08 May 2008 20:20:36 GMT

If you have recently re-attached your content database to the new web application in SharePoint 2007 (whether because you have moved your SharePoint install or simply because you had to re-create the web application on your current server), you might have noticed a new error (Event ID: 5555; Event Source: Office SharePoint Server) occurring hourly in the Event Log of your web-front SharePoint server.

The description of the error tells you to run stsadm – o preparetomove, which doesn't seem to fix the problem, unfortunately. This command only prevents the error 5555, if you run it before moving and re-attaching your content databases. To fix error 5555, you need to run stsadm –o sync instead.

In my case, running the following command made error 5555 disappear:

stsadm -o sync -DeleteOldDatabases 0

As usual: ALWAYS BACKUP YOUR SHAREPOINT BEFORE MAKING ANY CHANGES TO ITS CONFIGURATION

One Year Anniversary

max — Thu, 01 May 2008 18:13:00 GMT

Today was my one year anniversary in my new job as an IT Manager at ObjectSharp. It's been an interesting year; a year full of new experiences and surprises, mostly good ones.

One year ago I have traded a job at a public sector for one in a private sector. I have traded a stable and secure environment with clear guidelines, managerial or supervision rules and specific working times for a more open managerial style, openness to new ideas and more flexibility in rules with fewer guidelines. And, honestly, I have no regrets so far. After a year, I'm having more fun than ever. It's fascinating working with a team of exceptional people from a range of disciplines whose commitment to excellence is steadfast. At ObjectSharp, I got a chance to work with the newest and coolest technologies from Microsoft (often even before those technologies were available to the general public.) Here, I am working with a talented team of professionals who not only know how to get those technologies to work, but they know how to make them work better and more efficient. I love it!

On sad note, today I was expecting balloons, hugs, high fives, or even just a disgusted "I can't believe your still here". Nothing. Well, there is still time... ;)

Note: Later that day I did get a few high fives, no balloons though J

Getting around the limitation on a number of controls on SharePoint page

max — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 14:53:42 GMT

Apparently there is a limit on a number of controls you can have on a SharePoint page. By default, no more than 200 controls are allowed on the SharePoint page. Not sure, why this limitation is there, but it is. To get around this problem, you need to increase the MaxControls setting in your web.config file:

</PageParserPaths>

</SafeMode>

In my case, I have MaxControls parameter set to 300.

Team System Web Access 2008 SP1 CTP and Work Item Web Access 2008 CTP are now available

max — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 14:51:29 GMT

Team System Web Access 2008 SP1 CTP (Community Technology Preview) and Work Item Web Access 2008 CTP are now available for download. Even though it's only CTP version at the moment, don't let it discourage from using it, because it seems to be working very well. By the way, you still have to have Team Explorer 2008 installed to use TWSA and/or WIWA, which is not a big deal since it's free and most of us already have it installed anyway. For those who don't have Team Explorer 2008 installed, it can be downloaded for free from http://www.microsoft.com/Downloads/details.aspx?familyid=0ED12659-3D41-4420-BBB0-A46E51BFCA86&displaylang=en.

Team System Web Access 2008 SP1 has some really great features:

Single instance with multiple languages (9 languages are available: ENU, CHS, CHT, DEU, ESN, FRA, ITA, JPN, KOR)
Support for specifying field values in the URL for creating new work items (works in both TSWA and WIWA)
Share ad-hoc work item queries
Shelveset viewer
Improved search support

Team System Work Item Web Access 2008 CTP allows users to use some work item tracking feature without having TFS client access license (CAL.) A user without TFS CAL can use WIWA to:

Create new work items
Edit the work item you have created
See the list of work items you have created

However, user cannot:

See work items created by others
List, view, edit or run work item queries
Add, edit or remove work item links (except attachments and hyperlinks)
Access documents stored on the project portal
Access project reports
Access source control
Access team build

Specs for WIWA can be found at http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/teamsystem/bb936702.aspx

SharePoint public-facing website and Microsoft Office documents

max — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 19:40:00 GMT

When you have a public-facing site built using SharePoint technologies, opening Microsoft Office documents (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio, etc.) stored on this website requires user to login. You can hit Cancel at the login prompt and still be able to see the document, but having a login prompt displayed to the Internet users, sort of defeats the purpose of having SharePoint-built public facing website with anonymous access turned on. This happens becuase Microsoft Office is closely integrated with MOSS or WSS 3.0 now, and MS Office is now able to recognize that the document is stored within SharePoint, so the appropriate SharePoint authentication/authorization tools kick in. This problem can be resolved mostly by implementing two simple steps (assuming you have already enabled anonymous access on SharePoint):

Disable 'Client Integration' for the web application under Central Admin Home Page >> Application Management >> Authentication Providers
Remove the OPTIONS verb from the <HTTPHandlers> registration line in web.config file

Enabling anonymous access on MOSS 2007 / WSS 3.0 web applications

max — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 19:37:29 GMT

To enable anonymous access for a web application within SharePoint:

1. Go to Central Administration >> Application Management >> Authentication Providers.

make sure to pick correct web application from the drop-down list at the top-right corner of the page.
select the Membership Provider (most likely it will be "Default") and enable check "Enable anonymous access" checkbox.
click OK to save the settings.

2. The step above will usually enable anonymous access in IIS Manager, but just be sure:

open IIS Manager
right-click on your website and click on "Edit" under Authentication and Access Control
make sure "Enable anonymous access" is checked

3. We now need to explicitly enable anonymous access on our website(s)

browse to the website
click Site Actions >> Site Settings >> People and Groups >> Site Permissions
click on Settings >Anonymous Access and enable anonymous access for the site

* Anonymous access will be also enabled on all subsites that inherit security settings from the parent site.

How open source has influenced Windows Server 2008

max — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 14:16:00 GMT

I have found a very interesting article on Technet on how open source community has influenced Windows Server 2008. I think it is very encouraging that Microsoft is taking user’s feedback seriously and trying to integrating the improvements developed by open source community into its system. And, if they make a few bucks along the way by doing this, so be it.

One has to admit, there's no better enterprise level system then Windows server. Not yet, anyway. It's streamlined and well designed; it's an excellent tool for desktop and user support/control (OUs and policies). Exchange, ISA, WSUS, and many others integrate naturally into AD. It is about what public knows the best, at work, at home, and in the library. As much as I love Linux, it's not even close to being there. It's all dispersed, scattered-around collection of technology DIY's, that works, but has no core. For those who want to learn more about Windows Server 2008 and, as I am, are too lazy to read a book, here are some clear installation instructions from TrainSignal:

http://www.trainsignaltraining.com/w...on/2008-02-28/

It will be interesting to see a similar lists for other Microsoft products, such as Office, SQL Server or Visual Studio.

Installing SQL Server 2005 on Windows Vista or Windows 2008: IIS 7.0 problem

max — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 14:27:00 GMT

Recently I tried to install SQL Server 2005 on Windows Vista and I have received a warning message for IIS Feature requirement on the System Configuration Check page of the SQL Server 2005 Setup program. This means that you won’t be able to install SQL Server components, requiring IIS, such as Reporting Services. The problems occurs because IIS 7.0 is much more customizable and has much more components, so some of the components required for RS installation are missing from the default IIS 7.0 install. Here is the list of the IIS components required for Reporting Services:

Component	Folder
Static Content	Common HTTP Features
Default Document	Common HTTP Features
HTTP Redirection	Common HTTP Features
Directory Browsing	Common HTTP Features
ASP.Net	Application Development
ISAPI Extension	Application Development
ISAPI Filters	Application Development
Windows Authentication	Security
IIS Metabase	Management Tools
IIS 6 WMI	Management Tools

For instructions on how to install missing IIS components in Windows Vista, go to: http://www.iis.net/default.aspx?tabid=2&subtabid=25&i=957 (http://www.iis.net/default.aspx?tabid=2&subtabid=25&i=957).

For instructions on how to install missing IIS components in a Server Core installation of Windows Server 2008, go to: http://www.iis.net/default.aspx?tabid=2&subtabid=25&i=956

The solution is also explained in Microsoft KB920201.

Fixing TFS reports after an upgrade/migration to TFS 2008

max — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 18:11:44 GMT

Microsoft has made quite a few changes to reports in TFS 2008. As you can see form the table below in TFS 2008 we do not only have 6 new reports, but some of the existing reports have been modified/removed (new reports are in red, removed reports are in orange).

TFS 2005 default reports

TFS 2008 default reports

Actual Quality vs Planned Velocity
Bug Rates
Bugs by Priority
Bugs Found Without Corresponding Tests
Builds
Load Test Summary
Project Velocity
Quality Indicators
Reactivations
Regressions
Related Work Items
Remaining Work
Scenario Details
Tests Failing Without Active Bugs
Tests Passing With Active Bugs
Unplanned Work

Actual Quality vs Planned Velocity
Bug Rates
Bugs by Priority
Bugs Found Without Corresponding Tests
Builds
Exit Criteria
Issues List
Load Test Detail
Load Test Summary
Project Velocity
Quality Indicators
Reactivations
Regressions
Related Work Items
Remaining Work
Scenario Details
Tests Failing Without Active Bugs
Tests Passing With Active Bugs
Unplanned Work
Work Item with Tasks
Work Item with TestResults
Work Items

This means that when you upgrade/migrate to Team Foundation Server 2008, your reports will no longer work as the schema has changed. To resolve the issue you need to download the new process template (http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/teamsystem/aa718795.aspx) and add or update your reports on TFS server.

To add new report:

Go to your Reports server (http:// [SERVERNAME] /reports)
Click on Upload file
Browse to the report file (.rdl) you want to upload and click OK to upload
Click on newly uploaded report file and click on Properties
Set up data sources by clicking on Data Sources (Don't forget to click Apply button)
Depending on report, you might also have to set up default parameters by clicking on Parameters (Don't forget to click Apply button)
Click on View to make sure that report is displaying properly

To update existing report:

Go to your Reports server (http:// [SERVERNAME] /reports)
Click on report that you want to update and click on Properties
Click on Update
Browse to the report file (.rdl) you want to upload and click OK to upload
Make sure that data sources are configured properly by clicking on Data Sources (Don't forget to click Apply button)
Depending on report, you might also have to set up default parameters by clicking on Parameters (Don't forget to click Apply button)
Click on View to make sure that report is displaying properly

Note: You will have to update reports for each TFS project

Missing Timer job definitions after SharePoint move

max — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 17:19:11 GMT

If you have recently moved your SharePoint site (WSS 3.0 or MOSS 2007) from one hardware to another using backup/restore procedure, you might have noticed a few missing timer jobs definitions: Scheduled Approval, Scheduled Page Review, Scheduled Unpublish, Variations Propagate Page Job Definition, and Variations Propagate Site Job Definition. In our case, we had multilingual SharePoint site that stopped propagating variations after SharePoint move, so the content created in one language was not re-created in another. Very frustrating…

After looking into the problem, I discovered that SharePoint does not restore those timer job definitions by default. Naturally, not having those jobs will cause problems with scheduled publishing as well as variations propagation. To get those timer job definitions back on the list and running again, you will have cheat a little by creating a new site collection using Publishing Portal or Collaboration Portal templates. Creating new site collection using Publishing Portal or Collaboration Portal templates will force SharePoint to create missing timer job definitions. New site collection can be removed shortly after created.

Note: Changes made in variations since the SharePoint move might take while to propagate. To expedite the propagation you can manually force the variations update.

Editing SharePoint documents (WSS 3.0 or MOSS 2007) in Microsoft Windows Vista/Office 2007

max — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 21:26:00 GMT

Users of Microsoft Windows Vista and Office 2007 might have encountered an error "Unknown error trying to lock file" when they click Edit Document. This error however didn't occur for users of Microsoft XP with Office 2007. As far as I know the problem occurred because of the changes made in the Web Client service in Vista and the way Office was communicating with Sharepoint. Installing Microsoft hotfix 943280 and patching your Web Folders with 907306 didn't resolve the problem. Trying numerous workarounds described on the web didn't resolve the problem either. The only workaround that worked setting the office applications to run in "Windows XP SP2 compatibility mode", but then why would you run Windows Vista. You could say this is another reason to go back old Windows XP.

Luckily with the release of SP1 for Vista this problem disappears! So, thank you Microsoft for solving this problem, although I hope such problems will be resolved faster and more efficiently. I would wish that those problems will not exist in the first place, but then I start thinking that if all software would run smoothly, it will make a life of IT guys pretty boring. So, thank you Microsoft for keeping IT guys busy/employed! J

Note: Don't forget to upgrade your SharePoint servers to SP1.

SharePoint search and anonymous users

max — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 03:19:00 GMT

If you have a public Sharepoint site (MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0) that is accessible to anonymous users and you’re not using custom scopes, you probably already noticed that every time users try to search they get a user prompt. To get pass this prompt you must enter valid username, otherwise you’ll get famous “Access Denied” page. So much for anonymous access, right?

Anyway, the problem is with OSSSearchResults.aspx page, specifically with one of the inheritance reference that ASPX page. I’m talking about the part of the code that sets the inheritance of the page from the generic application page base class, which is not really required for this page to function properly.

To allow anonymous users to search your publicly available sites you need to remove that inheritance from the code, so find part of the code inside the <Page> tag that states “Inherits="Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.LayoutsPageBase" and remove that part of the code (not the whole line, just the part that inhertis the application page base.) OSSSearchResults.aspx page is usually stored at C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS on your SharePoint server. Make sure you backup the file before making any changes!

Making those changes will not only allow anonymous users to search the SharePoint content, but also will keep the SharePoint search secure, meaning that anonymous users will only be able to search the part of the SharePoint they have permissions to view.

Installing Service Pack 1 on your WSS3/MOSS2007 server(s)

max — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 16:12:15 GMT

First of all, you must backup SharePoint. Upgrading to SP1 should not break your WSS3/MOSS2007 install, but it's always better to be safe than sorry.

In my case we have 32-bit installation of SharePoint server, so these guidelines will refer to 32-bit version of SP1 for WSS3/MOSS2007, but as far as I know the guidelines can also be used for installation of SP1 on 64-bit instances of SharePoint server (just make sure you download 64-bit version of Service Pack file). You can download Service Pack 1 from Microsoft website (For MOSS installations, Service Pack 1 for both WSS3 and MOSS2007 must be installed):

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Service Pack 1 (27.3Mb)
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Service Pack 1 (78.9Mb)

Now that you've backed up your SharePoint install and downloaded the updates, you're ready to install the service pack. First, let's install Service Pack 1 for WSS3:

Stop the World Wide Web Publishing Services
1. Go to Start >> Administrative Tools >> Services
2. Select World Wide Web Publishing Service and click Stop
Install the Windows SharePoint Services Service Pack 1
1. Run the downloaded executable file WSS3 SP1 (wssv3sp1-kb936988-x86-fullfile-en-us.exe)
2. Accept the licensing terms. Technically you should read the EULA terms before accepting, but nobody I know actually does it, so...
3. Click Continue and click OK when prompted to remind the administrator to update all SharePoint servers.
4. Click OK when the installation completes.
If you have MOSS2007 installed then skip SharePoint Configuration Wizard (i.e. close it, if prompted) and proceed to installing SP1 for MOSS 2007. If, however, you only have WSS3 installed, then run SharePoint Configuration Wizard, start World Wide Web Publishing Service and that's it.

Second, if you have MOSS2007, we need to install SP1 for MOSS2007:

Install the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server Service Pack 1
1. Run the downloaded executable file (officeserver2007sp1-kb936984-x86-fullfile-en-us.exe)
2. Accept the licensing terms. Technically you should read the EULA terms before accepting, but nobody I know actually does it, so...
3. Click Continue and click OK when prompted to remind administrator that you update all SharePoint servers.
4. Click OK when the installation completes.
Run SharePoint Configuration Wizard
1. If SharePoint Configuration Wizard won't run automatically after SP1 install go to Start >> All Programs >> Microsoft Office Server >> SharePoint Product and Technologies Configuration Wizard
2. Click Next at the Welcome screen and click Yes when prompted with the warning about restarting services
3. Click Next at the Completing the SharePoint Product and Technologies Configuration Wizard and click OK when prompted to remind the administrator to update all SharePoint servers
4. Go get a cup of coffee because the wizard might take a while to complete
5. Click Finish after the configuration completed
Start World Wide Web Publishing Service to make your SharePoint server accessible by users again
1. Go to Start >> Administrative Tools >> Services
2. Select World Wide Web Publishing Service and click Start

If you want to make sure that you have successfully updated your WSS3 or MOSS2007 to Service Pack 1 you can do that through SharePoint Central Administration or Add/Remove Programs. To verify the SharePoint version through SharePoint Central Administration:

Open SharePoint Central Administration, go to Operations tab
Under Topologies and Services section click Servers in farm to list your SharePoint server(s)
If you see "Version: 12.0.0.6219" next to your SharePoint server, then you have successfully upgraded that server to Service Pack 1.

Alternatively, you can verify the SharePoint version through Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel:

Go to Start >> Control Panel >> Add/Remove Programs
Select Microsoft Office SharePoint Server and click on "Click here for support information"
If you see "Version: 12.0.0.6219", then you have successfully upgraded that server to Service Pack 1.

Please note that if you have multiple SharePoint Servers (WSS3 and/or MOSS2007) you need to update all of them to Service Pack 1!!!

Fixing MSSQL Reporting Services add-in after the migration of SharePoint site to a new server (WSS 3.0 or MOSS 2007)

max — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 21:57:04 GMT

If you're thinking about migrating WSS 3.0 or MOSS 2007 sites to a new server, you need to remember to reinstall any third-party webparts you have installed on the old Sharepoint server. So if your Sharepoint instance have Reporting Services webpart installed you will have to re-install it, but before you do that make sure you remove old webpart from the Web Part Gallery and remove (or comment out) any references to the old RS webpart from web.config file in the Sharepoint's virtual directory.

Note: If you don't remove the references to the old RS webparts, you won't be able to get reports to display properly no matter how many times you re-install the webpart.

TFS and Sharepoint

max — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 02:32:30 GMT

To install TFS you must have Sharepoint Services 2.0 installed on the same server. Even though there hacks that allow you to integrate TFS with Sharepoint 3.0 that could be installed on another server, there still certain restrictions in place. One of them is Sharepoint naming conventions for when you install TFS:

Application Pool Name: TFSWSS (use TFSSERVICE account)

Application Pool Name: TFSWSSADMIN (use TFSSERVICE account)

Configuration Database Name: STS_Config_TFS

Content Database Name: STS_Content_TFS

Username to use: TFSSERVICE account

You can change those names later on though. Hopefully this issue will be addressed in Orcas…