SharePoint

Moving My Blog

Matthew McDermott — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 04:37:00 GMT

After more than 2 years of hosting under Mindsharp I am moving to my company blog: http://blogs.catapultsystems.com/matthew. I want to thank the terrific folks at Mindsharp for thier support over the years.

Matthew

Announcing Search Server 2008

Matthew McDermott — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 07:38:00 GMT

Microsoft has announced the new name and branding for MOSSFS as Microsoft Search Server 2008. The Express Edition is free! Look for more news and information here: http://www.microsoft.com/enterprisesearch/

Vista Desktop Search for SharePoint

Matthew McDermott — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 06:51:00 GMT

You should be reading Joel Oleson’s blog. If you did you would gain the wisdom of the ages as it pertains to SharePoint. Anyway, quite often he posts cool tips to enhance and extend the usability of SharePoint. This post is one example. If you have Vista, you can add a SharePoint search center URL for Instant Search.

1. Click on Start Button.

2. Type Gpedit.msc, Group Policy Editor will open (Click Allow if prompted for elevated privileges)

3. Navigate down and expand the following tree nodes: User Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Instant Search.

4. Double Click Custom Instant Search Internet search provider.

5. In the Custom Instant Search Internet search provider Properties dialog edit the following settings:

a.       Choose Enable

b.      Enter Search My SharePoint for the string

c.       Enter http:///searchcenter/pages/results.aspx?k=%w for the URL

d.      Click OK

6. Close Group Policy Editor

You may need to Reboot or run the following command in a command window as Administrator Gpupdate /force

Hiding Authoring Controls from Anonymous Users

Matthew McDermott — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 08:58:00 GMT

I have been working on our latest initiative this weekend, MOSS Connect. As I was plowing through issues I ran across an article by DLC where the author was hiding different page elements from anonymous users with the following tag (Change the ! to the appropriate open or close tag, I cannot get them to render here):

!Sharepoint:SPSecurityTrimmedControl PermissionsString="BrowseDirectories" runat="server"!
[content to be rights-trimmed]
!/Sharepoint:SPSecurityTrimmedControl!

It occurred to me that I could hide Welcome and Site Action menu from anonymous users in the same way. This is how I did it on MOSS Connect:

!Sharepoint:SPSecurityTrimmedControl PermissionsString="BrowseDirectories" runat="server"!
!TABLE!
!TBODY! !TR!
!!-- Login --!
!TD!
!wssuc:Welcome id=IdWelcome runat="server" EnableViewState="false"!!/wssuc:Welcome!
!/TD!
!TD!
!!-- Site Actions Menu --!
!PublishingSiteAction:SiteActionMenu runat="server"!!/PublishingSiteAction:SiteActionMenu!
!/TD!!TR!!/TR!
!/TBODY!!/TABLE!
!/Sharepoint:SPSecurityTrimmedControl!

Oh, now you are wondering how you would log in. We use AAM so the authoring web uses NTLM (or Kerberos), if you are using the same URL for authoring simply point your browser at a protected page like _layouts/settings.aspx.

MSDN Knowledge Network Blog Post

Matthew McDermott — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 10:59:00 GMT

My guest blog post has been posted on MSDN. The article discuses Catapult Systems' use of Knowledge Network.

http://blogs.msdn.com/kn

Unable to remove SharePoint Portal Server 2003 following upgrade to MOSS

Matthew McDermott — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 06:50:00 GMT

We just ran into this over the weekend. After a successful upgrade to MOSS we tried to uninstall SharePoint Portal Server 2003. The uninstaller hung several times without successfully removing the application. It turns out that the uninstaller was unable to stop the “SharePointPS Search” service. I manually shut the service down and disabled it. Following a reboot, the uninstallation completed without error.

.NET Runtime Fatal Error

Matthew McDermott — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 05:40:00 GMT

I was configuring search and when I clicked the SSP link for the Search Usage Reports (http://server:port/ssp/admin/_layouts/SpUsageSspSearchQueries.aspx) the page paused forever and then prompted me to login, then showed Service Unavailable. Turns out the entire Application Pool shut down.

Checking the logs I found:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: .NET Runtime Event
Category: None
Event ID: 1023
Date: 1/26/2007
Time: 10:01:42 AM
User: N/A
Computer: MOSS02
Description: .NET Runtime version 2.0.50727.42 - Fatal Execution Engine Error (7A05E2B3) (80131506)
For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

This is resolved in this kb: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/913384

Rather than wait for the hot fix, I just logged into the server as the SSP app pool account and that created the profile.

Knowledge Network to be Released as a "Technical Preview"

Matthew McDermott — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 05:22:00 GMT

The KN team has announced that Microsoft decided Knowledge Network will released as a Technical Preview. While the decision is a disappointment to those of us who have worked with KN, the reasons for the decision touch on many of the factors that have placed Microsoft and the SharePoint technologies head and shoulders above the competition. I plan to continue to use and promote (and support) KN in our own environment and with our clients. I am looking forward to our feedback improving the product. Go Team!

You can read all about it on the KN Team Blog.

Update 2003 Document Library Images to 2007

Matthew McDermott — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 09:13:00 GMT

For those of you working with office 2007 and still working on Windows SharePoint Services Version 2 or SharePoint Portal Server 2003 document libraries here is a review of how to add icons to your server and editing the DOCICON.XML file.

Office 2007 introduces new file extensions like docx, dotx, pptx, xslx, etc. When added to a document library the generic icon is displayed and the associated menu does not include the familiar “Edit in...” menu item. The process of adding recognized file extensions is as follows:

Obtain the appropriate image files, I got mine from the images directory on my new MOSS server. (icdocx.gif, icpptx.gif, icdotx.gif, icxslx.gif,...)
Copy the images to the images folder in the 60 hive. Usually: c:\program files\common files\microsoft shared\web server extensions\60\template\images
Edit the DOCICON.XML file, adding a mapping for each new image type. Copy the predecessor and edit to work for the new file type:

Restart IIS by running IISRESET from the command line.
Browse to the document library containing the Office 2007 documents and you should see the correct images displayed.

SharePoint B2TR to RTM Upgrade

Matthew McDermott — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 06:19:00 GMT

I have seen some great information on the steps necessary to complete an upgrade from Beta 2 Technical Refresh to the release version of MOSS. The most complete is Joel Oleson's blog on the topic. Follow the directions carefully and you will be successful, unless something “odd” happens. In my case I followed the directions to the letter and still failed to upgrade my server. Here is a rundown of the scenario and how I solved it.

Topology (2 machines): Single (complete) web front end, single SQL 2005 server

Following the directions closely the Configuration Wizard failed on step 8 (of 9). The wizard directed my to the PSC log:

PSCDiagnostics_12_7_2006...log
12/07/2006 12:33:36 8 ERR            Task upgrade has failed with an unknown exception
12/07/2006 12:33:36 8 ERR            Exception: Microsoft.SharePoint.Upgrade.SPUpgradeException: Upgrade completed with errors. Review the upgrade.log file located in C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\Logs\Upgrade.log. The number of errors and warnings is listed at the end of the upgrade log file.
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.Upgrade.SPManager.RunUpgradeSession(IUpgradable root, Boolean bRecursive)
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.PostSetupConfiguration.UpgradeTask.Run()
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.PostSetupConfiguration.TaskThread.ExecuteTask()

Following the log I opened Upgrade.log
[WebApplicationSequence] [ERROR] [12/7/2006 10:30:14 AM]: Action 12.0.3.0 of Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal.Upgrade.WebApplicationSequence failed.
[WebApplicationSequence] [ERROR] [12/7/2006 10:30:14 AM]: The specified user or domain group was not found.
[WebApplicationSequence] [ERROR] [12/7/2006 10:30:14 AM]:    at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSecurity.ResolveUser(String userName, String& displayName, Byte[]& sidBytes)
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPPolicy..ctor(String userName, String displayName, SPPolicyCollection parent)
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPPolicyCollection.Add(String userName, String displayName)
   at Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration.SearchAdminUtils.EnsureFullReadAccess(SPWebApplication webApplication, String username)
   at Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration.BasicSearchFeatureReceiver.FeatureActivated(SPFeatureReceiverProperties properties)
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPFeature.DoActivationCallout(Boolean fActivate, Boolean fForce)
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPFeature.Activate(SPSite siteParent, SPWeb webParent, SPFeaturePropertyCollection props, Boolean fForce)
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPAdminFeatureCollection.Add(Guid featid, SPFeaturePropertyCollection props, Boolean fForce)
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPFeatureCollection.AddInternal(Guid featureId, SPFeaturePropertyCollection properties, Boolean force, Boolean fMarkOnly)
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPFeatureCollection.Add(Guid featureId, Boolean force)
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal.Upgrade.ActivateSearchWebAppFeatures.EnsureFeatureActivated(Guid featureId)
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal.Upgrade.ActivateSearchWebAppFeatures.Upgrade()
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.Upgrade.SPActionSequence.Upgrade()

The log does not indicate which user was not found. After several blind attempts to determine the cause, I returned to the logs directory and looked at other logs created near the same time and found the SharePoint server log (server name is MIDLAND).

MIDLAND-20061207-####.log
12/07/2006 10:30:14.42 OWSTIMER.EXE (0x0AC8) 0x03E4 Search Server Common Search Featurization 8wpn High Found OSS Search service account 'doghouse\moss_search_service'.
12/07/2006 10:30:14.44 OWSTIMER.EXE (0x0AC8) 0x03E4 Search Server Common MS Search Administration 0 High Adding policy for indexing account 'doghouse\moss_search_service' on web application 'http://midland:1024/'.
12/07/2006 10:30:14.44 OWSTIMER.EXE (0x0AC8) 0x03E4 Windows SharePoint Services Feature Infrastructure 88jm High Feature receiver assembly 'Microsoft.Office.Server.Search, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c', class 'Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration.BasicSearchFeatureReceiver', method 'FeatureActivated' for feature 'bc29e863-ae07-4674-bd83-2c6d0aa5623f' threw an exception: Microsoft.SharePoint.SPException: The specified user or domain group was not found. at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSecurity.ResolveUser(String userName, String& displayName, Byte[]& sidBytes) at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPPolicy..ctor(String userName, String displayName, SPPolicyCollection parent) at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPPolicyCollection.Add(String userName, String displayName) at Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration.SearchAdminUtils.EnsureF...

Somewhere along the line the search account was deleted from the domain. Once I recreated the account everything proceeded as detailed in Joel's instructions. This is not a normal situation, but can be used as a case for reviewing the logs to help find the root cause of your upgrade errors.