Bill Baer /bɛːr/

I’ve been receiving this question frequently this week so I’m sure others are asking as well: Question Can I upgrade prerelease versions of Microsoft SharePoint Server or Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 to the release version when it becomes available? Answer No, the prerelease (beta) versions of Microsoft SharePoint Server and Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 are for evaluation purposes only and upgrade to the release version of these products when they become available is not supported.

Today we announced general availability of the public beta versions of Microsoft SharePoint Server and Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010. This post describes the prerequisite software requirements and provides links to additional hardware and software requirement resources for Microsoft SharePoint Server and Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010. Contents Web and Application Server Preparation Database Server Preparation Additional Notes Web and Application Server Preparation Microsoft SharePoint Server and Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 provide the Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products Preparation Tool (PrerequisiteInstaller.

The SharePoint Products TechCenter on TechNet has been updated to include documentation and resources specific to Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010. The SharePoint Products TechCenter beta resources include categorized documentation and guidance on planning, deploying, and operating Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 and product evaluation guides in addition both to resource centers and technical references specifically designed to provide both general product and feature overviews, guidance on managing privacy, permissions, read-only sites and more.

Intermittent connectivity to a database server hosting Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies databases can occur for a number of reasons. In some cases it may be related to a simple database connection timeout configuration setting in Windows SharePoint Services or in other cases it may be one or more operating system and/or hardware configurations. In this post we’ll examine several options and configuration settings that can be adjusted to help isolate or mitigate such occurrences.

I read a great article on the SharePoint Team Blog during the morning commute providing insight into how sharepoint.microsoft.com was both evaluated and optimized for performance by Tony Tai – SharePoint Senior Product Manager, Microsoft Corporation and Ed Robinson – Chief Executive Officer, Aptimize Ltd. Read more…

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New documentation was recently published which provides guidance and examples on how to configure your server farms for minimal downtime during software updates http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee514459.aspx.

Automating your Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies installations can provide both consistency and efficiency while reducing the potential for human error. This is the third post on the subject of leveraging PowerShell to provide configuration logic for your environment(s). In this example we cover the configuration of Diagnostic Logging through PowerShell and a source Xml manifest. For previous examples see http://blogs.technet.com/wbaer/archive/tags/Powershell/default.aspx. Instructions Copy the source below into somefile.ps1. Copy the Xml source in DiagnosticsLogging.

Conference season is upon us and it’s gearing up to be a great way to close out the year - join me at the 2009 Microsoft SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center October 19th through October 22nd, 2009 or for those locally and can’t make the conference join me at the 2009 Pass Community Summit with Burzin Patel November 2nd through November 5th, 2009 at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center in Seattle.

Do you have questions or are you looking for best practices on integrating line of business applications with Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies, taking advantage of publishing and content oriented capabilities, or creating collaborative interactions around business processes? If you answered yes to any of these questions, I’d recommend reading the just published content, Developing SharePoint Applications, in the Patterns and Practices Developer Center. This guidance will help developers and architects accelerate construction of advanced applications through both examples and documentation, ensures alignment with recommendations and best practices and compliments existing platform documentation.