Bill Baer /bɛːr/

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Bill Baer /bɛːr/
Bill Baer is a Senior Product Manager for Microsoft 365 at Microsoft in Redmond, Washington.

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Posts

The new SharePoint Embedded Visual Code extension

 

SharePoint Embedded

 

What’s SharePoint Embedded? SharePoint Embedded is a headless platform that you can use to build and manage content-centric applications using the rich platform services of Microsoft 365. SharePoint Embedded lets you build apps and services integrating the advanced security and compliance features of Microsoft 365 (such as sensitivity, eDiscovery, retention, etc). Think of SharePoint Embedded as a container built on the Graph API that you can extend to your own apps.

Kick off the new year with an offer from SharePoint Premium...

 

SharePoint Premium SharePoint SharePoint Syntex Microsoft Syntex

 

SharePoint Premium is the next evolution of Microsoft Syntex with an emphasis on advanced content management in Microsoft 365. Read the announcement at https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/sharepoint-premium-blog/introducing-sharepoint-premium-the-future-of-ai-powered-content/ba-p/3981076. SharePoint Premium enriches, organizes, and secures content to improve Copilot experiences through services like document tagging to extract metadata from images and documents, manage and secure SharePoint sites and libraries, and protect and archive information across Microsoft 365, and more. To help you get started with pay-as-you-services as part of SharePoint Premium, a new promotional offer will be available on January 1st, 2024 that provides monthly free capacity for select SharePoint Premium services including:

A quick trip around taxonomy tagging

 

SharePoint Premium Microsoft Syntex Taxonomy Tagging Keyphrase Extraction

 

Taxonomy Tagging What is it? Taxonomy Tagging is one of the earlier content tagging features of SharePoint Syntex (alongside image tagging), later becoming Microsoft Syntex when it transitioned to the PAYG billing model and allows you to automatically tag documents in SharePoint libraries with terms configured in the term store. Terms are stored in a managed metadata column (also known as a taxonomy column) on the item, making the documents easier to search, sort, filter, and manage.

Understanding classifiers in Microsoft Syntex and Microsoft Purview

 

Microsoft Syntex Purview Information Governance

 

Every day, we use Outlook, Teams, SharePoint, and OneDrive to exchange important and/or sensitive information which can include financial reports and data, contracts, product information, sales reports and projections, competitive analysis, patent information, customer and employee information, etc. It’s easy to see that content is the lifeblood of an organization. BYOD (bring your own device) and remote work mean people can access their e-mail, chats, and files from just about anywhere, on any device, transforming these devices into repositories of information - and frequently it’s sensitive information that can be easily shared within and in some cases, outside of the organization.

What's new in Microsoft Syntex

 

Microsoft Syntex Licensing

 

New in Microsoft Syntex Changes to the SharePoint Syntex (per user license) On July 1st, 2023 the SharePoint Syntex license will be retired and shift to a pay-as-you-go model with Microsoft Syntex. Microsoft Syntex is the evolution of SharePoint Syntex, which takes many of the best capabilities from SharePoint Syntex, introduces new capabilties, and puts them into a single pay-as-you-go model. PAYG is a new way to pay for Microsoft Syntex using an Azure subscription which allows you to get started without a license commmitment or upfront pricing which provides more value and greater flexibility.

File Request with Sharepoint

 

SharePoint File Request

 

External File Request is now available in Microsoft 365 for SharePoint document libraries, while OneDrive has provided this capability for a few years (see https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-onedrive-blog/onedrive-roadmap-roundup-november-2019/ba-p/1054066), this expansion now supports an easy and secure means to request files from anywhere, to include where there is not a Microsoft 365 entitlement (I.e. individuals who are not licensed for Microsoft 365). What’s a File Request? File requests can orignate by a variety of means, for example, file requests can originate through a workflow tied to a business process or a simple hyperlink.

A primer on SharePoint Advanced Management

 

SharePoint Advanced Management Purview E5

 

About SharePoint Advanced Management Microsoft Syntex - SharePoint Advanced Management is a Microsoft 365 add-on that provides a suite of features that help: Manage and govern SharePoint and OneDrive Enhance Microsoft 365 secure collaboration capabilities Comparing compliance options in Microsoft 365 SharePoint Advanced Management and Microsoft 365 compliance capabilities both provide comprehensive compliance and data governance solutions to help manage risk, protect and govern sensitive data, and respond to regulatory requirements; however, differ in scope and intended audience.

Setting up a Service Worker with Hugo

 

Hugo Service Worker

 

Static sites are fast, we all generally agree to that, but they could be faster… One way we can achieve this is through a good service worker led caching strategy, for example, pre-fetching resources that the user is likely to need in the near future, such as the next few pictures in a photo album. In this post we’ll walk through how to build out a basic service worker for a Hugo website (which is largely similar to the use of service workers in any other context).

Index and query time merging unpacked

 

Microsoft Search Microsoft Graph connectors Federation

 

The amount of information we create has grown exponentially, and more often is distributed across multiple locations, making finding the right information, at the right time, increasingly difficult. One solution to this challenge is to merge your on-premises information with your information in Microsoft 365, but occasionally business requirements, corporate and/or regulatory compliance, or other constraints may limit the ability to merge or store data in the cloud. In this post we’ll cover two examples, index-time and query-time merging.

Search notes, changes to the conversations vertical

 

Search Notes Microsoft Search Verticals Conversations Messages

 

Updates to the Conversations vertical in SharePoint, Office.com, and Microsoft Bing. Starting March 2022, there will be several upcoming changes to the ‘Conversations’ vertical in Microsoft Search. In March 2022, Conversations, as it exists, will be renamed to ‘Messages’ in Microsoft Bing (in April for Office.com) – providing results for Outlook and Teams conversations and later in July for SharePoint. Yammer conversations will be contained within the new Yammer vertical in Microsoft Bing, Office.

Search notes, custom verticals and refiners

 

Search Notes Microsoft Search Verticals Refiners Filters

 

This week we shipped custom verticals and refiners on SharePoint content worldwide. Search verticals only show results of a certain type or from certain content. Examples are Files or News. By default, Microsoft Search shows the verticals All, People, Files, Sites, and News. You can add search verticals that are relevant to your organization that represent content indexed with one or more Microsoft Graph … keep reading. Vertical and filter customization on SharePoint content allows a Microsoft Search administrator to edit out-of-the-box search verticals, such as Files, Sites, News, etc.

Installing Kali on Apple silicon with Parallels

 

Kali Linux Parallels Apple MacBook M1 macOS

 

I wrote this post primarily as a future point of reference for getting started with Kali Linux on Apple’s silicon (with Parallels). Kali Linux is an open-source, Debian-based Linux distribution geared towards various information security tasks, such as Penetration Testing, Security Research, Computer Forensics and Reverse Engineering. You can learn more about Kali at https://kali.org. Assuming you have Parallels 16+ you can either use the free systems installer with Parallels to install Kali or optionally, for more control over Kali’s configuration and a bare bones installation, you can install Kali from an image.

Resetting git credentials with Atom

 

Github git Atom 403

 

NOTE TO SELF Reset Atom’s personal access token Atom authenticationt to Github is through a personal access token. Personal access tokens (PATs) are an alternative to using passwords for authentication to GitHub when using the GitHub API or the command line. To reset your personal access token open the Command Pallet from Packages | Command Pallet | Toggle. Enter Github: Logout. Remove git stored credentials on the device Open Terminal and enter:

Search notes, new apis

 

Search Notes Microsoft Search Microsoft Graph APIs SDK

 

New APIs (preview) are available for Microsoft Search. These new APIs include Bookmarks and QnA. If you’re unfamiliar with Bookmarks and QnA, you can get caught up here: Answers in Microsoft Search Bookmark answers versus authoratative pages bookmark resource type A bookmark is an administrative answer in Microsoft Search results for common search queries in an organization. A bookmark has many properties which allow administrators to make common resources more accessible in their organization.

Search notes, verticals

 

Search Notes Microsoft Search Search

 

STUB Verticals A search vertical only shows results of a certain type or from certain content. Examples are Files or News. By default, Microsoft Search shows the verticals All, People, Files, Sites, and News. You can add search verticals that are relevant to your organization that represent content indexed with one or more Microsoft Graph connectors. Microsoft Graph connectors The ‘All’ vertical contains high value entities to include, but not limited to:

Bookmark Recommendations in Microsoft Search

 

Bookmarks Answers Microsoft Search

 

Bookmark Recommendations Bookmark Answers in Microsoft Search provide the flexibility for you to curate and promote curated resources on top of ranked results to help guide users to authoritative resources. Bookmark Answers are designed to help employee’s way find the organization and quickly identify the best and most relevant resource curated by you or your organization such as authoritative sites or documents to satisfy the searchers’ intent. Examples of Bookmark Answers can include sites, documents, or even files such as the Human Resources site, policy document, or more.

Acronym Answers in Microsoft Search

 

Answers Acronyms Microsoft Search

 

What are Answers in Microsoft Search? An Answer is a highly relevant and high confidence result that satisfies a user intent expressed as a query/question in search, presenting the most relevant information needed to get a job done and help users to faster task completion. An Answer is a way to address user intent. When searching, the user typically types in characters and keywords to express an intent. Recognizing the keywords that are triggers for specific intents is important, but it is even more important that the content that is shown in search satisfies the user intent.

Demystifying Topic Answers

 

Microsoft Search Answers Topics

 

Since the announcement of Microsoft Viva on February 4, 2021, I’ve come across a lot of questions and conversations surrounding Topics, specifically Topic Answers, and what a Topic Answer is… In the past I’ve posted quite a bit on Answers and their relationship to Microsoft Search, whether File Answers, Acronyms Answers, or something else - see https://wbaer.net/2020/10/making-the-most-of-answers-in-microsoft-search/. To put simply, a Topic Answer, is just one of the many forms of “Answers” generated by Microsoft Search.

Installing mkcert on Apple Silicon using brew

 

SSL Go Apple Silicon Development

 

On occassion you’ll want or need to run your local development environment/site with HTTPS. For example, if your production site uses HTTPS, you may want your local development site to behave like an HTTPS site. I for one, like to aggressively diagnose any issues early in the development process before committing changes to production. Simply put, if you would like to use HTTPS with your local development site and access https://localhost or https://somedomain.

Azure Machine Learning and Apple Silicon 101

 

Apple Silicon AzureML Python

 

Getting Started This will be the first part of multi-part series on setting up an Azure Machine Learning environment on Apple Silicon. In this series we’ll evaluate webmentions using Python and Jupyter. I purposely chose this arrangement as it’s something I’ve been working on over the past several weeks here on this site. At each part of this series, I’ll explain what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, and what we hope to accomplish.

Taking forward back

 

Off Topic

 

Wow! It’s amazing to look back and realize it’s been exactly 19 years since I first registered this domain. Way back then, Opera and Netscape Navigator were the browsers of choice and many of us were still listening to the beautiful hum of our modems - animated GIFs were the equivalent of styrofoam cups…unavoidable, and Windows XP was just a few months old…perhaps most surprisingly Nickleback was leading the Billboard 100 with “How you remind me”.

Now serving webmentions

 

Webmentions Hugo Go Indie

 

Over the course of the past several weeks as I’ve made the transition from dynamic (WordPress) to static (Hugo), I’ve been looking at ways I could not only decentralize social, but also build that overarching objective into the fabric of this site. Here enters webmention, a W3C recommendation as of January 2017. So what exactly is webmention? Well, as defined by the W3C, webmention is a simple way to notify any URL when you mention it on your site.

Getting started with Lunr.js and Hugo

 

Lunrjs Hugo Go

 

UPDATED 4/22/2022 A few months ago I posted on using Algolia Search with Hugo. As mentioned in that post, I currently use Lunr to serve the purposes of search on this site and am finally getting around to posting how to pull together the two. Lunr, unlike other search services, has no external dependencies and works either within the browser or on the server with node.js - at its core it’s a small, full-text search library for use in the browser.

Transitioning from Authoratative Web Pages to Answers in SharePoint Online

 

Microsoft Search SharePoint Answers

 

As Authoratative Pages are scheduled to be deprecated in SharePoint Online, now is the time to start thinking about how to deliver similar functionality with Microsoft Search. For background, authoritative pages are those that link to the most relevant information as decided by the search administrator, specified as a URL. SharePoint search uses this list to calculate the rank of every page in the index. For example, if an administrator wanted to rank the companies HR site above ranked results, an authoratative page could be configured for https://contoso.

Simple build automation with Visual Studio Code and Hugo

 

Hugo Go Visual Studio Code VSCode

 

Over the past month or so I’ve been working more and more with Hugo as I rebuild and consolidate my old dynamic sites see https://wbaer.net/2020/12/going-static/. At the onset I had initially elected Nova App as my preferred editor of choice, but most recently have started using Visual Studio Code. With Nova I had a shell script I would run in Terminal (macOS) when developing my site, but now that I’m using Visual Studio Code I decided to use tasks.

Changes to Microsoft Search in SharePoint Online (Updated 01/11/21)

 

Microsoft Search FQL KQL Search

 

Last month we shared changes we’re making to Microsoft Search in SharePoint Online as we continue our journey of bringing Microsoft Search to your favorite Microsoft 365 productivity apps and services. As a result of this announcement, we’ve seen questions as to whether FQL (FAST Query Language) is being deprecated as a result of these changes. The simple answer is no, FAST Query Language is not being deprecated; however, there are some features of FAST Query Language that are being deprecated:

Getting Started with Hugo and Algolia Search

 

Hugo Go Algolia

 

This is more or less a continuation of my previous article on moving to Hugo from Wordpress. When it comes to search and static site generators such as Hugo, there are a seemingly unlimited number of options available to you - one of most popular I researched was Lunr, and while I temporarily opted to leverage Algolia to support search on this site, I ultimately decided upon Lunr. That said, while Lunr supports my needs right now, I’m hoping someone will find some benefit out of how to use Algolia with Hugo (easily).

Going Static

 

Open Source Static Hugo Go lunr GitHub Utterances

 

You’ve probably noticed some changes around here over the last couple of days. After 15 years of maintaining my blog and 20 of maintaining this domain I’ve decided to consolidate the two - my “splash” page at wbaer.net and blog at blog.wbaer.net. For the last 15 years I’ve maintained my “technical” blog on TechNet or more recently (with the sunsetting of TechNet blogs a while ago) on Wordpress.com. Wordpress.com at the time was more or less the proverbial “path of least resistance" since TechNet had transitioned from Telligent to WordPress several years ago - making the migration options an easy decision.

Improving search relevance in Microsoft Teams

 

Microsoft Search Microsoft Teams Relevance Search

 

As we continue to ease into working remotely, search has evolved beyond its traditional perception of providing simple utilitarian value, to now serving as a proxy to person-person interactions, quick hallway conversations, and unstructured meetings – effectively search has become the “digital water cooler” for many businesses. The ability to find information in context has become increasingly important, not only because we’re more distributed, but so is information; however, you need to be able to not only discover information in context but have the assurance that the results are the most relevant to you and your task.

What’s new with Answers in Microsoft Search

 

Acronyms Answers Bookmarks Microsoft Search

 

NEW FEATURE: Bookmark Recommendations (FEATURE ID: 68864) Bookmark Answers in Microsoft Search provide the flexibility for you to curate and promote curated resources on top of ranked results to help guide users to authoritative resources. Bookmark Answers are designed to help employee’s way find the organization and quickly identify the best and most relevant resource curated by you or your organization such as authoritative sites or documents to satisfy the searchers’ intent.

Microsoft Search 101

 

Microsoft Search Overview

 

What is Microsoft Search? Microsoft Search is the evolution of search at Microsoft. Microsoft Search transforms the way people in an organization find the information they need—no matter where they are in their cloud journey. Either integrated with Microsoft 365 or as a standalone solution, Microsoft Search is a secure, easily managed, enterprise search experience that works across Microsoft 365 applications and services to deliver more relevant search results and increase productivity.

Should I stay or should I go...Bookmarks vs Promoted Results

 

Answers Bookmarks Microsoft Search Promoted Results Query Rules

 

What’s a promoted result? In brief, Promoted Results are a component of query results that allow you to promote a search result to appear above ranked results. For example, for the query “sick leave”, a query rule could specify a particular result, such as a link to a site that has a statement of company policy regarding time off work or otherwise, the promoted result link. What’s a Bookmark? Bookmarks are one of many Answers in Microsoft Search.

Hindsight is 360

 

Microsoft Life

 

Hindsight is 2020, or for me, 360. I’m humbled to be writing this post, having joined Microsoft a few short weeks before the XBOX 360 was released, just shy of 15 years ago. As a humble kid from Germany who joined Microsoft by way of Colorado - it has been an amazing journey. That journey has been amazing, challenging, and rewarding. I had a dream of becoming of a veterinarian…and in the early 1990’s that is what I had majored in - and by a strange turn of events, I ended up realizing my true passion while accidentally working at Apple (to make ends meet) in the early to mid-1990’s working as a storage engineer on the Apple Power Macintosh 7 series.

Making the most of Answers in Microsoft Search

 

Microsoft Search

 

What are Answers in Microsoft Search? An Answer is a highly relevant and high confidence result that satisfies a user intent expressed as a query/question in search, presenting the most relevant information needed to get a job done and help users to faster task completion. An Answer is a way to address user intent. When searching, the user typically types in characters and keywords to express an intent. Recognizing the keywords that are triggers for specific intents is important, but it is even more important that the content that is shown in search satisfies the user intent.

A primer in machine reading comprehension

 

AI Microsoft Search MRC Semantic Search

 

If you’ve been following the various news and announcements from Microsoft on Microsoft Search at events like Build and Microsoft Ignite, you’ve probably come across a demo or two on Machine Reading Comprehension (MRC). For example, a search for “Can I bring my dog to work?” in Microsoft Search in Bing. Let’s explore what MRC is… In brief, MRC is the ability to read and understand unstructured text and then answer questions about it or effectively algorithms that can learn to answer questions about new documents with limited amounts of training data, incorporate common sense, and leverage external knowledge about the world.

4 simple tips to being more productive in 2020 with AI and Cortana in Microsoft 365

 

AI Microsoft 365 Productivity

 

Time is our most valuable resource and with the rapid pace of work and ever expanding amount of information we need to process, it’s often hard to find time to manage our work. AI and Cortana in Microsoft 365 puts you at the center so you can do your best work with intelligent, natural, and personalized productivity experiences. Here are four tips to being more productive in 2020 with AI in Microsoft 365.

SharePoint Virtual Summit 2019

 

Events SharePoint Conference SharePoint Virtual Summit SPC SPC19 SPVS

 

Stay tuned here on May 21st, 2019 at 12:00 P.M. PDT to watch the SharePoint Virtual Summit captured live from the SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas. Catch up on the Jeff Teper keynote to see all the SharePoint and Microsoft 365 news in action to help you stay productive and focused on what matters to you. Microsoft 365 empowers individuals, teams and organizations to be creative, collaborative, and effective with an integrated suite of experiences that are simple, superior, smart and secure.

Using a Flic Smart Button as a PowerPoint Remote

 

Code Samples Events Flic PowerPoint Remote Control SharePoint Conference

 

When speaking at conferences, you usually spend a lot of time time asking the organizer questions like “what inputs will you have, will there be a digital switcher, etc.”. This usually leads to carrying an array of adapters to be sure you’re prepared for those circumstances where there’s just VGA at the podium when you need micro/mini HDMI, DVI, USB to RJ45, and more… One of the most common requirements is something to control your presentation.

A Fibonacci guide to the 2019 SharePoint Conference

 

Events Microsoft 365 SharePoint Conference 2019 SPC SPC19

 

With 200+ sessions across all things Microsoft 365 at 2019 SharePoint Conference there’s no doubt you won’t be able to make them all in the 3 core days of the conference. Whether you plan to be there in person or watch the keynote live here’s a Fibonacci guide of key Microsoft 365 sessions organized by topic of interest. SharePoint Portal Server 2001 Sessions (0) Session Title Session Code SharePoint Conference Keynote (1)

Search notes, connecting your data into search and services

 

Search Notes Azure Search Microsoft 365 Microsoft Search Microsoft Teams Office 365 Groups Search

 

Microsoft Search is a new cohesive search capability in Microsoft 365 enabling you to find, command, navigate and discover items across your organization’s network of data, transforming your search bar into a resource for collective knowledge. An AI-powered insight engine that connects content across Windows, Office apps, Office.com, SharePoint, OneDrive, and third-party ecosystems to surface relevant, personalized results, whether it’s a recent chat, people card or a document a coworker shared.

Microsoft 365 migration on your terms with new improvements to the SharePoint Migration Tool

 

Migration & Upgrade OneDrive for Business SharePoint SMAT SPMT

 

We’re excited to announce new improvements to the SharePoint Migration Tool for the month of February. Designed to be used for migrations ranging from the smallest set of files to a large scale enterprise migration, the SharePoint Migration Tool will let you bring your information to the cloud and take advantage of the latest collaboration, intelligence, and security solutions with Office 365. Over the past several months we’ve been continually working to add features to the SharePoint Migration Tool to help you accelerate your journey to Microsoft 365, from support for full site migrations, to incremental improvements to the user experience – the SharePoint Migration Tool is designed to support migrations of all sizes.

The Story of SPC

 

Events SharePoint Conference SPC19

 

The Beginning. Our inaugural SharePoint Conference took place in Bellevue, Washington in May 2006, with Keynote speaker Bill Gates calling SharePoint the most “revolutionary” element in all of Microsoft Office, and an eager group of hardcore techies listened as announcements, demonstrations, and previews detailed the future of information sharing with the upcoming release of Office SharePoint Portal Server 2007. SPC06 outlined where we wanted the industry to go, and how we were going to get it there… together.

Join us at the SharePoint Conference – May 21-23, 2019 in Las Vegas!

 

Events SharePoint Conference SharePoint Conference 2019 SPC19

 

The SharePoint Conference is fast approaching – lf you’re an IT Professional, implementer, decision maker, business user, or developer you don’t want to miss the SharePoint Conference. Join us as Microsoft unveils its vision, roadmap, and latest innovations across SharePoint, OneDrive, Yammer, Microsoft Teams, Stream and Office 365. We cover all things teamwork related to help our customers succeed with Microsoft 365. This promises to be the largest and most comprehensive event dedicated to SharePoint in 2019.

Kick start the new year and your cloud migration with new SharePoint Migration Tool improvements

 

Migration & Upgrade OneDrive for Business SharePoint SharePoint Migration Tool SPMT

 

We’re excited to announce new improvements to the SharePoint Migration Tool for the month of January. Designed to be used for migrations ranging from the smallest set of files to a large scale enterprise migration, the SharePoint Migration Tool will let you bring your information to the cloud and take advantage of the latest collaboration, intelligence, and security solutions with Office 365. Improvements this month include: A new, updated UI aligned with the Office 365 user experience This release of the SharePoint Migration Tool includes improvements to the user interface with a new, simplified control service more aligned to the visual themes of SharePoint Online.

Migrating to Microsoft Teams using the SharePoint Migration Tool

 

Migration & Upgrade OneDrive for Business SharePoint SPMT

 

The SharePoint Migration Tool lets you migrate lists or files from your SharePoint on-premises document libraries or from your on-premises file shares and easily move them to either SharePoint, OneDrive or Microsoft Teams in Office 365. It is available to Office 365 users. Designed to be used for migrations ranging from the smallest set of files to a large scale enterprise migration, the SharePoint Migration Tool will let you bring your information to the cloud and take advantage of the latest collaboration, intelligence, and security solutions with Office 365.

What’s new and what’s coming w/ SharePoint & OneDrive Security, Compliance, & Administration – October 2018

 

Administration Compliance OneDrive for Business Security Security and Compliance SharePoint

 

What’s new and what’s coming with SharePoint & OneDrive Security, Compliance, and Administration – October 2018 Edition In today’s complex and regulated environment, businesses need to focus on building more secure solutions that deliver value to their customers, partners, and shareholders—both in the cloud and on-premises. Microsoft has been building enterprise software for decades and running some of the largest online services in the world. We draw from this experience to keep making SharePoint and OneDrive more secure for users, by implementing and continuously improving security-aware software development, operational management, and threat-mitigation practices that are essential to the strong protection of your services and data.

Unleash your SharePoint admin superpowers with new admin center capabilities

 

Administration SharePoint SharePoint Admin Center

 

At Microsoft Ignite, we announced several exciting new features coming to the new SharePoint admin center. Today we’re excited to share that we’ll start to roll out these features worldwide later this month to organizations that have “Targeted release for everyone” turned on. What’s coming in this release? Make the new admin center your default admin center… The new SharePoint admin experience provides a completely revamped SharePoint admin center that draws heavily on our modern principles… an administrative console designed to help IT achieve more, so their users can achieve more.

The world has changed since 2010, end of support for Groove 2010 products

 

End of Support Groove Migration & Upgrade

 

Today’s business environments are very different to those of 10+ years ago. Groove Server has been a trusted friend for peer-to-peer collaboration over a decade, but there are better ways to deliver against today’s business expectations and technical possibilities. It’s time to upgrade to a modern workpkace, taking advantage of ubiquitous connectivity and access to the cloud for scale, agility and performance. For Groove Server 2010 end of support is October 13th, 2020.

New capabilities coming soon to the SharePoint Migration Tool

 

Migration & Upgrade

 

The SharePoint Migration Tool is designed to simplify your journey to the cloud through a free, simple, and fast solution to migrate content from on-premises SharePoint sites and file shares to SharePoint or OneDrive in Office 365. The SharePoint Migration Tool allows you to accelerate your journey to Office 365 overcoming obstacles typically associated with migration projects. With the SharePoint Migration Tool you can evaluate and address the information that matters the most to your organization, the Libraries, and now Lists that form the foundation of the SharePoint experience.

SharePoint Conference 2019 Call for Papers

 

Events SharePoint Conference

 

The 2019 SharePoint Conference is just a little over seven months away. And we’re pleased to announce our global Call for Papers! The SharePoint Conference has an amazing line-up planned for 2019 and we’re looking for great speakers and content to round out our agenda. Do you have a great story to tell? Do you have a passion for sharing your knowledge with others? Do you like helping others solve common challenges?

SharePoint spaces, a new dimension for your intranet

 

Mixed Reality SharePoint SharePoint spaces

 

_Everything you can imagine is real. _ **-Pablo Picasso ** Last week at Microsoft Ignite we continued to build on the momentum of our 2018 SharePoint Conference in May - sharing the latest news, announcements, and investments we’re bringing to SharePoint Online as your intelligent and engaging intranet in Office 365. In addition to delivering innovation to bring you an intelligent and engaging intranet, we’re also continuing our journey to introduce a new dimension to your intranet through SharePoint spaces.

What’s new in security, compliance & administration for SharePoint & OneDrive from Microsoft Ignite

 

Administration Classification Compliance Labels Migration & Upgrade Rentention Security Security and Compliance

 

Innovation in the cloud drives tremendous business value, and it delivers new capabilities to the IT professionals who work tirelessly to support, configure, administer, and secure their organizations’ content and services. Office 365 empowers you to support sophisticated requirements for security and compliance, to manage day-to-day operations, and to maximize the value of Office 365 to people in your organization. We’ve built Office 365 with global scale, exceptional reliability, and support for compliance across industries and geographies on top of intelligent security that keeps your service and content protected and private, we give you granular and dynamic controls so that you can manage access and distribution of your organization’s sensitive information.

SharePoint Virtual Summit 2018

 

Events OneDrive for Business SharePoint SharePoint Conference SharePoint Virtual Summit SPC SPC18 SPVS

 

Join us at the SharePoint Virtual Summit, for the live-stream coverage of the opening keynote at SharePoint Conference North America on May 21, 2018. At this free online event, you will hear from Microsoft Corporate Vice President Jeff Teper and General Manager Seth Patton as they share the latest product innovations and roadmap across SharePoint, OneDrive, Yammer, Microsoft Teams, and Office 365. See live demos illustrating how you can transform your workplace and learn how to tap into rich experiences across your intranet to inform and engage people.

The Microsoft SharePoint Migration Tool v2 is now Generally Available

 

Migration & Upgrade SharePoint SharePoint Migration Tool SMAT SPMT

 

Last month we announced open beta for the next generation of the SharePoint Migration Tool with new capabilities to include support for SharePoint Lists, programmatic destination site creation and more. Today we’re pleased to announce this version (v2) of the SharePoint Migration Tool is now generally available. The SharePoint Migration Tool is designed to simplify your journey to the cloud through a free, simple, and fast solution to migrate content from on-premises SharePoint sites and file shares to SharePoint or OneDrive in Office 365.

Hybrid SharePoint & Office 365 Learning Opportunities at SharePoint Conference North America

 

Events Hybrid Migration & Upgrade SharePoint SharePoint Conference SPC

 

Attending SPCNA? Come learn about hybrid scenarios with SharePoint and Office 365 in a post-conference workshop. As an attendee of the workshop you’ll receive a $500.00 Azure Pass, a complete SharePoint Server 2016 environment and an Office 365 Tenant that you can use to build your skills and complete hands on labs, both while at the workshop and even after the event. If you’ve already registered for the conference you can add the workshop to your registration by creating a new workshop-only registration at http://sharepointna.

Unmanaged Device Access Policies are Generally Available

 

Administration Conditional Access OneDrive for Business Policies Security and Compliance SharePoint

 

In March 2017 we introduced device-based policies for SharePoint and OneDrive, that enable administrators to configure Tenant-level policies. Device-based access policies for SharePoint and OneDrive help administrators ensure corporate data is not leaked onto unmanaged devices such as non-domain joined or non-compliant devices by limiting access to the content to the browser, preventing files from being taken offline, printed, or synchronized with OneDrive. On September 1st, 2017 we continued to evolve our conditional access investments to address the ever-changing security landscape and business needs by introducing new levels of granularity with conditional access that allow administrators to scope device-based policies at the site collection level.

A new customer resource for SharePoint and OneDrive security and compliance news, training, and more

 

Migration & Upgrade OneDrive for Business Security and Compliance SharePoint

 

Security is at the heart of what we do… Microsoft has been building enterprise software for decades and running some of the largest online services in the world. We draw from this experience to keep making SharePoint and OneDrive more secure for users, implementing and continuously improving security-aware software development, operational management, and threat-mitigation practices that are essential to the strong protection of your services and data. Today we’re pleased to announce a new resource center where you can get the latest news on our security and compliance investments for SharePoint and OneDrive in addition to presentations, free training, eBooks and more.

SharePoint Migration Tool Beta adds early preview capabilities

 

FastTrack Migration & Upgrade SharePoint Migration Tool

 

In January we announced General Availability of our SharePoint Migration Tool [https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/SharePoint-Blog/General-Availability-of-the-SharePoint-Migration-Tool-amp/ba-p/143689], designed to simplify your journey to the cloud through a free, simple, and fast solution to migrate content from on-premises SharePoint sites and file shares to SharePoint or OneDrive in Office 365. Based on our continuous learning and experience from Microsoft FastTrack and feedback from you, we’re pleased to announce new capabilities available in the SharePoint Migration Tool through our new open beta.

Coming soon to the new SharePoint Admin Center

 

Administration Security and Compliance SharePoint

 

In May 2017 we unveiled our plans [https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/SharePoint-Blog/Introducing-the-new-SharePoint-Admin-Center/ba-p/70294] to simplify SharePoint administration through delivering an administrative experience that’s intuitive, intelligent, and simple. Since then we’ve made available the new admin experience as Preview for customers who have enabled Targeted Release at the Tenant level. In the next several weeks in our preview we’ll be introducing new updates on our journey to deliver an administrative console designed to help IT achieve more, so their users can achieve more.

Office 365 Attack Simulator and Mitigating Common Attacks (Part 1)

 

Attacks Brute-Force Office 365 Attack Simulator Passwords Phishing Security Security and Compliance

 

When it comes to security your best line of defense is one that is reactive versus one that is proactive; however, how do you know how you’ll respond to a security incident if one hasn’t yet to occur…that’s where Attack Simulator in Office 365 shines, it’s what sets the security solutions we provide apart from other cloud services. Attack Simulator is designed to put you ahead of curve and keep you in front of the proverbial 8 ball.

SharePoint Conference North America has it all, and MORE!

 

Events SharePoint SharePoint Conference SPC18 SPConf

 

SharePoint Conference North America has it all, and MORE! Get more by registering NOW! http://tiny.cc/SPCNA_REG There are 4 main reasons why people attend technical conferences and the SharePoint Conference North America (SPCNA) has all of them, and MORE! With the constantly changing world of technology, people need to know what’s new before the competition does. SPCNA has the sessions and workshops to keep you ahead of the curve. Learning with the best of the best from Microsoft and top industry thought leaders from engineering and marketing.

DLP Policy Tips are now available across new endpoints in Office 365

 

Compliance OneDrive for Business Security Security and Compliance SharePoint Sharing

 

This summer we introduced a consistent, coherent sharing experience across the Web and desktop – these improvements allow you to share Office 365 files directly from File Explorer on PC and Finder on Mac, in addition to the latest versions of Office on the desktop and Office 365 web experiences. The updates we made provide a simplified sharing experience, so you can share files and folders easily with partners both internal and external, while retaining the right level of security – so whether you share on the web, in Explorer on Windows 10 and Windows 7, or Finder or the Mac, the sharing experience is secure, consistent and simple.

SharePoint and OneDrive Management, Migration, and Security Updates

 

Administration OneDrive for Business Security and Compliance SharePoint SharePoint Admin Center SharePoint Migration Tool

 

In this post: SharePoint Admin Center Updates SharePoint Migration Tool Updates OneDrive Files Restore Microsoft has been building enterprise software for decades and running some of the largest online services in the world. We draw from this experience to keep making SharePoint and OneDrive more secure for users, implementing and continuously improving security-aware software development, operational management, and threat-mitigation practices that are essential to the strong protection of your services and data.

Top 7 Reasons to attend SharePoint Conference North America (SPC18)

 

SharePoint Conference SharePoint Conference 2018 SPC18

 

SharePoint Conference North America promises to be the largest and most comprehensive event dedicated to SharePoint, OneDrive, and related technologies in 2018. Since our first SharePoint Conference in 2006 and each thereafter I’ve been blown away by the passion and creativity demonstrated by our community. 2018 promises to be a watershed moment for SharePoint and we can’t wait to share with you what we’re working on and I wanted to share with you my top 7 reasons (one for each previous SharePoint Conference + 1 for 2018) for why you should join me and almost 100 of our SharePoint and OneDrive team in Las Vegas, Nevada May 21-23 for the event.

SharePoint Conference North America

 

SharePoint SharePoint Conference SPC SPC18 SPCNA

 

The SharePoint Conference North America is less than ~123 days away, if you’re an IT Professional, implementer, decision maker, business user, or developer you don’t want to miss this SharePoint Conference. The SharePoint Conference North America promises to be 2018’s premier event for SharePoint and related technologies, featuring over 140 sessions (8,400 minutes) of content under one roof. In addition, SharePoint Conference North America is the host for this years SharePoint Virtual Summit where we’ll share the latest innovations, vision, and strategy across SharePoint and OneDrive.

General Availability of the SharePoint Migration Tool & SharePoint Migration Assessment Tool Updates

 

FastTrack Migration & Upgrade OneDrive for Business SharePoint

 

GENERAL AVAILABILITY TODAY Taking advantage of cloud services doesn’t have to be difficult or a long-phased migration project. Today we’re excited to announce General Availability of the SharePoint Migration Tool, a simple, and fast migration solution to help you migrate content from on-premises SharePoint sites and file shares to SharePoint or OneDrive in Office 365. Based on the learning and experience from Microsoft FastTrack, the SharePoint Migration Tool from Microsoft was designed to help you bring your information to the cloud and take advantage of the latest collaboration, intelligence, and security solutions with Office 365.

Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection for SharePoint, OneDrive and Microsoft Teams now available

 

Administration ATP OneDrive for Business Safe Links Security and Compliance SharePoint

 

When moving your organization to cloud services, security concerns add another layer of consideration; one of trust. Security and compliance is an ongoing process, not a steady state. It is constantly maintained, enhanced, and verified by highly-skilled, experienced and trained personnel. We strive to keep software and hardware technologies up to date through robust processes. To help keep Office 365 security at the top of the industry, we use processes such as the Security Development Lifecycle; we also employ techniques that throttle traffic and prevent, detect, and mitigate breaches.

Hybrid Self-Service Site Creation Now Available in SharePoint Server 2016

 

Hybrid SharePoint SharePoint Server 2016

 

Hybrid self-service site creation allows an administrator of SharePoint Server 2016 to redirect the site creation experience to SharePoint Online where users are prompted to create sites through the modern site and group creation flow. To configure hybrid self-service site creation: Install the November 2017 Public Update for SharePoint Server 2016. Once installed, the option to configure hybrid self-service site creation will be available in SharePoint Central Administration. To configure hybrid self-service site creation, select the Web application to configure and follow the configure options.

Introducing Idle Session Timeout in SharePoint and OneDrive (Preview)

 

Administration Cookie ISSO KMSI OneDrive for Business Security and Compliance Session SharePoint Timeout

 

There’s a new culture of work; one that is increasingly diverse, geographically distributed, and mobile. Connectivity is ubiquitous and the ability to work remotely has become an ingrained part of the work practice. People have come to expect to be able to access email and documents from anywhere on any device - and for that experience to be seamless, among these trends includes the increasing use of shared systems, such as kiosks to access and work with corporate data.

Office 365 Data Loss Prevention Block Access with SharePoint and OneDrive

 

Administration Data Loss Prevention OneDrive for Business Policies Policy Tip Security and Compliance SharePoint

 

Last week we announced Office 365 Data Loss Prevention Block Access (https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Security-Privacy-and-Compliance/Policy-Tips-in-SharePoint-Online-and-OneDrive-for-Business-at/ba-p/116158) with SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business. Office 365 Data Loss Prevention Block Access prevents the potential for overexposure of sensitive information by allowing a Tenant administrator to configure Data Loss Prevention Policies limiting how and with whom sensitive information can be shared. For example, if a document is determined to contain sensitive information, for example U.S. Financial Data, a DLP policy can prevent that information from being shared externally or with guests while providing real-time policy information to the user attempting to initiate the share.

Security at the Site-Collection Level in SharePoint Online

 

Administration Conditional Access Security & Compliance Security and Compliance SharePoint

 

Balancing security and usability are core to ensuring people can collaborate effectively without interrupting the necessary flow of information across organizations. With SharePoint Online we’ve been at work developing security and sharing controls that are scoped at the site collection level. This allows Tenant administrators to configure more restrictive controls at the site collection level, than those that are configured at the Tenant level providing a balance between the need to protect corporate information and the requirement to collaborate effectively across and outside of the corporate boundary.

Accessibility in SharePoint Online

 

Accessibility SharePoint

 

There are no limits to what people can achieve when technology reflects the diversity of everyone who uses it. We believe in what people make possible - at Microsoft, our mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Across SharePoint and OneDrive our most important work is making our technology accessible to people of all abilities. Over the past several months we’ve been working towards this vision with improvements across how and where people collaborate ensuring our experiences both create and support opportunities for everyone.

Site-Scoped Limited Access Policies in SharePoint Online

 

Administration Conditional Access Security & Compliance Security and Compliance SharePoint

 

In March 2017 we introduced device-based policies for SharePoint and OneDrive, that enable administrators to configure Tenant-level policies. Device-based policies for SharePoint and OneDrive help administrators ensure corporate data is not leaked onto unmanaged devices such as non-domain joined or non-compliant devices by limiting access to the content to the browser, preventing files from being taken offline or synchronized with OneDrive. On September 1st, 2017 we’ve continued to evolve our conditional access investments to address the ever-changing security landscape and business needs by introducing new levels of granularity with conditional access that allow administrators to scope device-based policies at the site collection level.

Stay ahead of data residency requirements with Multi-Geo Capabilities in Office 365

 

Administration Compliance Data Residency Data Sovreignty Events Multi-Geo OneDrive for Business Security Security and Compliance SharePoint

 

Governments around the world are strengthening laws and regulations to protect citizens’ data, preserve national security, and protect business interests. Last week at Microsoft Ignite we announced new Multi-Geo Capabilities in Office 365 to help ensure you remain compliant with services to include SharePoint, OneDrive, and Exchange. The new Multi-Geo Capabilities in Microsoft 365 with SharePoint and OneDrive provide global organizations a solution to maximizing the value of Office 365, including SharePoint and OneDrive, while meeting data residency and compliance requirements.

SharePoint & OneDrive Security & Compliance Updates from Microsoft Ignite

 

Events OneDrive for Business Security & Compliance Security and Compliance SharePoint

 

Last week at Microsoft Ignite we shared our investments, our vision, and strategy for addressing today’s most challenging business and technology trends that are ever broadening the threat landscape. From meeting complex corporate and governmental regulatory compliance, to addressing a more mobile and connected workforce, SharePoint and OneDrive and uniquely positioned to address your business needs. Stay ahead of data residency requirements with Multi-Geo capabilities in Microsoft 365 Governments around the world are strengthening laws and regulations to protect citizens’ data, preserve national security, and protect business interests.

Announcing Availability of Feature Pack 2 for SharePoint Server 2016

 

Feature Packs SharePoint SharePoint Framework SharePoint Server 2016

 

When we launched SharePoint Server 2016, we shared the vision for SharePoint Server 2016 as a foundational release, born in the cloud, and built for continuous innovation. Today we’re pleased to announce our continued investments on this journey and commitment, the availability of Feature Pack 2. Through the September 2017 Public Update for SharePoint Server 2016 we’re delivering several new features based on customer feedback and developer needs, highlighting these investments, the SharePoint Framework.

Device-based Policies Updates with SharePoint and OneDrive

 

Conditional Access Security and Compliance

 

The risks to information exposure have increased in today’s collaboration landscape because users don’t always work on desktop computers. Access controls now need to account for users connecting their mobile devices to non-secure networks or using their own unmanaged devices. These new access controls start with conditional access policies. Conditional access allows you to keep your corporate data safe while providing your users a secure environment in which they can work from any device.

Ignite 2017 Pre-Day Training - SharePoint and Office 365 Hybrid Scenarios

 

Administration Events Hybrid Microsoft Ignite Office 365 OneDrive for Business SharePoint

 

Join myself, Neil Hodgkinson, Spence Harbar, Bob Fox, and other industry experts for a Microsoft Ignite pre-day training on implementing hybrid scenarios with SharePoint and Office 365. Cloud computing has become a popular way to reduce capital and operational expenditures, renew IT innovation, and gain the advantage of more rapid software delivery to meet the needs of business. However, compliance, data sovereignty, sensitivity concerns, or a significant investment in customization may limit your organization’s ability to take advantage of this.

Secure your information with SharePoint and OneDrive

 

Administration OneDrive for Business Security Security and Compliance SharePoint Online

 

Today at the SharePoint Virtual Summit, we unveiled the latest innovations for SharePoint and OneDrive, including powerful integrations across Office 365, Windows and Azure - and while we continue to drive forward with a cloud-first, mobile-first vision - security and compliance are at the foundation of everything we do. Microsoft has been building enterprise software for decades and running some of the largest online services in the world. We draw from this experience to keep making SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business more secure for users, implementing and continuously improving security-aware software development, operational management, and threat-mitigation practices that are essential to the strong protection of your services and data.

SharePoint Server 2016 and beyond...

 

Roadmap SharePoint SharePoint Server 2016

 

Today at the SharePoint Virtual Summit, we unveiled the latest innovations for SharePoint and OneDrive, including powerful integrations across Office 365, Windows and Azure - and while we continue to drive forward with a cloud-first, mobile-first vision - we’re excited to also announce new innovation for our customers on-premises. When we launched SharePoint Server 2016 in May of 2016, we shared a vision of a server that was cloud-born and future-proof.

Introducing the new SharePoint Admin Center

 

Admin Administration Security and Compliance SharePoint SharePoint Online

 

Today at the SharePoint Virtual Summit, we unveiled the latest innovations for SharePoint and OneDrive, including powerful integrations across Office 365, Windows and Azure. Innovation in the cloud drives tremendous business value, and it delivers new capabilities to the IT professionals who work tirelessly to support, configure, administer, and secure their organizations’ content and services. We’ve built Office 365 with global scale, exceptional reliability, and support for compliance across every industry and geography.

New MAXPATH limits in SharePoint and OneDrive

 

MAXPATH OneDrive for Business SharePoint

 

Last month we announced support for # and % across SharePoint and OneDrive (https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/wbaer/2017/04/06/new-support-for-and-in-sharepoint-online-and-onedrive-for-business/) and now in addition to adding support for # and % we’re also increasing MAXPATH or otherwise SharePoint and OneDrive’s Url path length restrictions from 256 Unicode code units to 400. This new limit section applies to the total length of the URL path to a folder or a file in SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business but not to the length of any parameters.

MinuteMonday - Create Network Location-Based Conditional Access Policies in SharePoint Online

 

Conditional Access Security and Compliance

 

The days of the corporate boundary beginning at the firewall are over, today’s corporate boundary is the end user. Connectivity is ubiquitous and with an endless number of devices available, people have an increasing number of options for staying connected at anytime, anywhere. As a first step to providing administrators security and control in a mobile and connected world are conditional access policies. Conditional access provides the control and protection businesses need to keep their corporate data secure, while giving their people an experience that allows them to do their best work from any device.

FileChecker Migration Assessment Sample Available for SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business

 

Assessment Code Samples Migration & Upgrade OneDrive for Business Samples SharePoint

 

Know before you go… If you’re considering migrating file shares or other file-centric containers to OneDrive for Business or SharePoint Online it’s useful to understand if the source files are supported for storage or synchronization. This code sample at https://github.com/wbaer/FileChecker helps to identify illegal characters, length restrictions, and more in one or more file names that can potentially prevent proper synchronization with Microsoft SharePoint and OneDrive for Business or fail to render through the Microsoft SharePoint or OneDrive for Business Web UX.

jQueryUI Accordion Widget SharePoint Framework Client-Side Web Part Sample Available

 

jQuery jQueryUI SharePoint Framework

 

The published sample at https://github.com/wbaer/jQueryUI-Webpart combines the tutorials available at https://dev.office.com/sharepoint/docs/spfx/web-parts/get-started/build-a-hello-world-web-part and demonstrates how you can use the jQuery UI Accordion widget to render SharePoint list data using content panels for presenting information in a limited amount of space and supports the configuration of effects and interactions through the Property Pane. jQuery UI is a set of user interface interactions, effects, widgets, and themes built on top of the jQuery JavaScript Library you can use to build highly interactive web applications.

New support for special characters in SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business

 

Characters OneDrive for Business SharePoint

 

As William Shakespeare wrote in Romeo and Juliet “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Files are as unique as the people who create them and we’re constantly working in SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business to support a broad array of types and naming conventions. In the upcoming weeks, we’ll be shipping support for # and % as supported characters in file and folder names across document libraries in SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business.

16 Years Ago Today - SharePoint Portal Server 2001 RTM

 

SharePoint SharePoint Portal Server 2001

 

16 years ago today we announced Release to Manufacturing of SharePoint Portal Server 2001. SharePoint Portal Server is a flexible solution that can search and index the most important enterprise content sources across an organization and make the information available to anyone in the company via a familiar user interface. The new server combines enterprise-level search functionality developed by Microsoft research, with integrated document management tools and flexible, easily customizable enterprise portal capabilities.

A Simple Guide to Setup your Mac (OSX or macOS) Development Environment for the SharePoint Framework

 

Getting Started SharePoint Framework SPFx Tutorials

 

Prerequisites Before you can build and test solutions on a live SharePoint environment, you will need an active Office 365 Tenant. Follow the instructions https://dev.office.com/sharepoint/docs/spfx/set-up-your-developer-tenant to setup your Office 365 Developer Tenant. Overview The SharePoint Framework is a Page and Part model that enables fully supported client-side development, easy integration with the Microsoft Graph and support for open source tooling. This guide will help you prepare your OSX or macOS development environment for developing solutions with the SharePoint Framework.

Which OneDrive for Business Sync Client is Right for Me?

 

OneDrive for Business

 

I want to sync SharePoint and OneDrive for Business libraries on-premises To sync on-premises instances of OneDrive for Business or SharePoint site libraries (when you don’t have an Office 365 business or 21 Vianet subscription), you need to use the previous OneDrive for Business sync client (Groove.exe). If you’re not sure which version of OneDrive you’re using, or which version of OneDrive you need, see also Which version of OneDrive am I using?

Hybrid Self-Service Site Creation now available for SharePoint Server 2013

 

Hybrid Hybrid and Coexistence SharePoint Server 2013

 

@williambaer At the center of collaboration is the site and modern Team Site in Office 365 are core to discovering and showcasing the most relevant and important information to you and your business. While SharePoint Online in Office 365 is an attractive alternative to on-premises business solutions with SharePoint. You might want to or need to deploy specific solutions in the cloud while still maintaining your on-premises investments or gradually move to cloud using a staged, workload-driven approach.

Security and Compliance in SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business

 

Security and Compliance

 

In today’s complex and regulated environment, businesses need to focus on building more secure solutions that deliver value to their customers, partners, and shareholders—both in the cloud and on-premises. Microsoft has decades-long experience building enterprise software and running some of the largest online services in the world. For SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business we use this experience to implement and continuously improve security-aware software development, operational management, and threat-mitigation practices that are essential to the strong protection of services and data.

Device-based Conditional Access Policies Rolling out to First Release for SharePoint and OneDrive

 

Conditional Access OneDrive for Business Security & Compliance Security and Compliance SharePoint

 

The collaboration landscape has changed, people expect to work across both boundaries and devices, to bring content with them versus bringing themselves to content. Location, location, location is the best choice when buying or selling a home, but introduces new challenges when it comes to securing that content. Ubiquitous connectivity and the proliferation of devices means responding to new security challenges. SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business are uniquely positioned to help you address these challenges… Over the past several weeks we’ve introduced a variety of policies, to include location-based policies, that provide contextual controls at the user, location, device, and app levels and we’re excited to share you can now explore new device-based policies in First Release.

Hybrid Scenarios with SharePoint and Office 365 Updates and Recap + Hybrid Taxonomy GA

 

Hybrid Hybrid and Coexistence Office 365 SharePoint

 

Cross-posted from my post on the Microsoft Technical Community at https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/SharePoint-Blog/Hybrid-Scenarios-with-SharePoint-and-Office-365-Updates-and/ba-p/47571#M204. Ubiquitous connectivity, the proliferation of devices – the rise of the cloud. The cloud has become mainstream and services such as Office 365 are an attractive alternative to on-premises business solutions with SharePoint. However, for a variety of reasons, you might want to or need to deploy specific solutions in the cloud while still maintaining your on-premises investments. For some organizations, you may wish to gradually move to cloud using a staged, workload-driven approach.

File Security in SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business (Whitepaper)

 

OneDrive for Business Security Security & Compliance Security and Compliance SharePoint Online

 

When choosing a cloud collaboration platform, the most important consideration is trust in your provider. Microsoft SharePoint and OneDrive for Business are covered by the core tenets of earning and maintaining trust: security, privacy, compliance, and transparency. With SharePoint and OneDrive, they’re your files. You own them and control them. The Microsoft approach to securing your files involves: A set of customer-managed tools that adapt to your organization and its security needs.

Unified eDiscovery and Data Loss Prevention in Office 365 Recap and Updates

 

Data Loss Prevention Ediscovery Security Security & Compliance Security and Compliance

 

Unified eDiscovery and Data Loss Prevention in Office 365 allows Tenant Administrators to create, manage, and secure content from a unified console (Office 365 Security and Compliance Center). To date, Tenant Administrators have had to manage Data Loss Prevention for SharePoint, OneDrive for Business, and Exchange in two separate locations, the Office 365 Security and Compliance Center and the Exchange Admin Center respectively. In January 2017, Data Loss Prevention was centralized for SharePoint, OneDrive for Business and Exchange in the Office 365 Security and Compliance Center.

Conditional Access Policies with SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business

 

Administration OneDrive for Business Security & Compliance Security and Compliance SharePoint SharePoint Online

 

The days of the corporate boundary beginning at the firewall are over, today’s corporate boundary is the end user. Connectivity is ubiquitous and with an endless number of devices available, people have an increasing number of options for staying connected at anytime, anywhere. The freedom to work fluidly, independent of location has become an expectation as has the freedom to access email and documents from anywhere on any device—and that experience is expected to be seamless.

IT, SharePoint Server 2016, and Beyond…

 

Administration SharePoint

 

The English philosopher Alan Watts once said “The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance”. Recent discussions are that of the changing role of SharePoint IT…as the cloud becomes mainstream, this conversation will inevitably thrive as a broader topic that transcends SharePoint. And while change may be to exist, opportunity continues to rise – the cloud has given way to capabilities previous impossible behind the firewall, from predictive analytics to machine learning, to infinite storage, and on-demand access to content and conversations.

A Fibonacci Guide to SharePoint Sessions at Microsoft Ignite 2016

 

Events

 

With 211 sessions tagged SharePoint at Microsoft Ignite there’s no doubt you won’t be able to make them all in the 4 core days of the conference. Whether you plan to be there in person or watch later here’s a Fibonacci guide of key SharePoint sessions organized by topic of interest. SharePoint Portal Server 2001 Sessions (0) Session Title Session Code Session Details Microsoft Ignite Keynote (1) Session Title Session Code

SharePoint Server 2016 Beta 2 Hybrid Scenarios

 

Hybrid Hybrid and Coexistence SharePoint SharePoint Server 2016

 

SharePoint Server 2016 Beta 2, released on November 18th, 2015, introduces several new hybrid capabilities that drive end-user familiarity and provide further abstraction of Office 365 when coexisting with SharePoint on-premises to include a new hybrid extensible App Launcher and profile redirection. Extensible App Launcher The App Launcher is a familiar feature in Office and it’s now been extended to SharePoint Server 2016. The App Launcher provides a common location to discover new apps and navigate SharePoint on-premises and Office 365.

Durable Links in SharePoint Server 2016 IT Preview

 

SharePoint SharePoint Server 2016

 

Prerequisites SharePoint Server 2016 IT Preview Office Online Server Preview Overview Durable Links provide a resource Id based link for Web Application Open Platform Interface Protocol (WOPI) documents served by SharePoint and Office Online Server. The resource Id assigned to individual documents is stored in the content database related to the source document. When using Durable Links when a user selects a link to a specific document, SharePoint Server 2016 IT Preview looks up the file by the resource Id and opens it in Office Online Server Preview.

Distributed Cache in SharePoint Server 2016 IT Preview

 

Distributed Cache PowerPoint Automation Services SharePoint SharePoint Server 2016

 

Overview The Distributed Cache service provides in-memory caching services to several features in SharePoint Server 2016 IT Preview. Some of the features that use the Distributed Cache service include: Newsfeeds Authentication OneNote client access Security Trimming Page load performance These features use the Distributed Cache for quick data retrieval. The Distributed Cache service stores data in memory and does not have a dependency on databases in SharePoint Server 2016 IT Preview.

System Center Operations Management Pack for SharePoint Server 2016 IT Preview

 

Administration Management Pack SharePoint SharePoint Server 2016 System Center Operations Manager

 

A new System Center Operations Manager Management Pack is now available for SharePoint Server 2016 IT Preview. The Microsoft SharePoint Server 2016 IT Preview Management Pack is designed to be used for monitoring SharePoint Server 2016 IT Preview events, collecting SharePoint component-specific performance counters in one central location, and for raising alerts for operator intervention as necessary. By detecting, sending alerts, and automatically correlating critical events, this management pack helps indicate, correct, and prevent possible service outages or configuration problems, allowing you to proactively manage SharePoint servers and identify issues before they become critical.

SharePoint Server 2016 IT Preview Web Templates

 

SharePoint SharePoint Server 2016

 

The following table documents all Web Templates available in SharePoint Server 2016 IT Preview. For a downloadable version see also http://1drv.ms/1Lf6Cin. Name Title Description Compatibility Level ACCSRV#0 Access Services Site Microsoft Access Server 14 ACCSRV#0 Access Services Site Microsoft Access Server 15 ACCSRV#1 Assets Web Database 14 ACCSRV#3 Charitable Contributions Web Database 14 ACCSRV#4 Contacts Web Database 14 ACCSRV#5 Projects Web Database 14 ACCSRV#6 Issues Web Database 14 ACCSVC#0 Access Services Site Internal

Search Scale and Resiliency Improvements in SharePoint Server 2016 IT Preview

 

Performance SharePoint SharePoint Server 2016

 

Improvements in performance and scale in SharePoint Server 2016 IT Preview search now allow search to scale up to 500 million items, an increase of 250 million items SharePoint Server 2013 [http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262787.aspx#Search] based on 10 million items per index partition. In SharePoint Server 2013 and SharePoint Server 2016 IT Preview each index partition contains a subset of the whole search index. If the number of indexed items is high in relation to how much memory the server has, affects the query response time negatively.

SharePoint Server 2016 IT Preview Image in Windows Azure Platform Gallery

 

SharePoint SharePoint Server 2016 Virtualization Windows Azure

 

SharePoint Server 2016 IT Preview is now available in the Windows Azure Platform Gallery. The image is based on the current Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter release and includes a complete installation of SharePoint Server 2016 IT Preview. Getting Started To get started with SharePoint Server 2016 IT Preview on Windows Azure navigate to the Windows Azure Portal (https://manage.windowsazure.com/) and sign-in with your credentials. Select + New. Select Compute, click Virtual Machine and then click From Gallery

Navigating List View Thresholds in SharePoint Server 2016 IT Preview

 

Performance SharePoint SharePoint Server 2016

 

Overview In SharePoint Server 2013 the List View Threshold specified the maximum number of list or library items that a database operation, such as a query, can process at the same time outside the daily time window set by the administrator during which queries are unrestricted. In SharePoint 2013 the List View Threshold is set to 5,000 or 20,000 for users and auditors respectively. Typically a users’ initial experience with List View Threshold is when it has been exceeded, the resultant error: The number of items in this list exceeds the list view threshold, which is 5000 items” as documented at https://support.

Fast Site Collection Creation in SharePoint Server 2016 IT Preview

 

Fast Site Collection Creation SharePoint SharePoint Server 2016

 

Fast Site Collection Creation is a new capability in SharePoint Server 2016 IT Preview that improves Site Collection creation performance by reducing Feature activation overhead. Similar to the approach associated with MinRole Site Collections that support Fast Site Collection Creation are Feature-optimized. Fast Site Collection Creation is a mechanism designed to improve provision performance of Site Collections through instrumenting a copy operation using SPSite.Copy at the Content Database level. The primary vehicle in addressing this scenario is the enablement of a Site Master or master copy of the Site Collection for an enabled Template that provides the source Site Collection when a request is made for creating a new Site Collection.

Sensitive Information Types in SharePoint Server 2016 IT Preview

 

Ediscovery SharePoint SharePoint Server 2016

 

One of the key improvements to eDiscovery in SharePoint Server 2016 IT Preview is the introduction on Sensitive Information Types to eDiscovery. In SharePoint Server 2016 IT Preview Data Loss Prevention is now built into Enterprise Search. It allows you to search for sensitive content in your existing eDiscovery Center, keeping content in place and enabling you to search in real time. SharePoint Server 2016 IT Preview provides a wide range of sensitive information types from different industry segments and geographies, such as credit card numbers, Social Security numbers (SSNs), bank account numbers, and other types, many of which you may already be using to search for sensitive content in email.

Simplifying Hybrid Configuration with the new Hybrid Scenario Picker

 

Hybrid Hybrid and Coexistence SharePoint Server 2013

 

This month we continued to invest in simplifying the Office 365 and SharePoint 2013 hybrid experience with the new hybrid scenario picker available in the Office 365 Administration Center. Overview The hybrid scenario picker is designed to help customers get up and running quickly with in-market and future hybrid scenarios by providing quick access to hybrid scenarios such as OneDrive for Business and SharePoint Sites in addition to programmatically configuring hybrid prerequisites to include Server-to-Server (S2s) and OAuth connections.

What’s new in SharePoint Server 2016 Installation and Deployment

 

Microsoft Ignite SharePoint SharePoint Server 2016

 

At Microsoft Ignite in Chicago, IL we disclosed the initial infrastructure investments we’re making in SharePoint Server 2016. This article describes initial investments made in installation and deployment of SharePoint Server 2016. NOTE Features and capabilities are subject to change. System Requirements Scenario Deployment type and scale Processor RAM Hard disk Database server running a single SQL instance Development or evaluation installation with the minimum recommended services 64-bit, 4 cores

Microsoft Ignite When and Where

 

Events

 

With Microsoft Ignite just a few days away I wanted to take a moment to share my schedule and additional details surrounding some of the sessions I’ll be delivering and where you can connect with me if you have any questions about SharePoint or related technologies… Sun. 5/3 PRE14 SharePoint Server 2013 and Office 365 Hybrid Training [http://ignite.microsoft.com/session/sessionmoreinfo/?topicid=17a87e5b-069d-e411-b87f-00155d5066d7] Join myself, Steve Peschka, Sesha Mani, Fabian Williams, Luca Bandinelli, and Neil Hodgkinson as we kick-off Ignite with a complete day of hybrid SharePoint and Office 365 - not only will you learn about the best practices for implementing hybrid scenarios with SharePoint, hands on experience, and expert guidance, but you’ll also be the first to hear about our next generation hybrid investments in SharePoint 2016 and beyond.

The SharePoint Journey

 

Conferences and Events Events Microsoft Ignite Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 OneDrive for Business SharePoint SharePoint Foundation 2010 SharePoint Portal Server 2003 SharePoint Server 2010 SharePoint Server 2013 SharePoint Server 2016 Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

 

Microsoft Ignite will open the window to our vision, strategy, and future for SharePoint and provide a first look at most recent developments with SharePoint Server 2016. From the business value for organizations looking to modernize their workplace and infrastructure to the technical value it will deliver to IT Professionals and Developers as well as new hybrid investments for those customers looking to enrich their existing investments with cloud innovation. With Microsoft Ignite just around the corner, it’s time to look back and provide a little historical SharePoint information.

Top 3 sessions to learn more about SharePoint Server 2016 at Microsoft Ignite

 

Events Microsoft Ignite SharePoint SharePoint Server 2016

 

Top 3 sessions to learn more about SharePoint Server 2016 at Microsoft Ignite. BRK2188 What’s new for IT Professionals in SharePoint 2016 http://ignite.microsoft.com/session/sessionmoreinfo/?topicid=c9ae257c-3695-e411-b87f-00155d5066d7 In this session you’ll learn about the core platform investments we’re making in SharePoint 2016 from deployment and implementation, patching and upgrade, improvements, in addition to both new and changes to existing services in SharePoint. We’ll demonstrate new installation techniques, monitoring, and more. If you’re responsible for deploying, managing, or planning SharePoint implementations this session is for you.

SharePoint IT…evolving?

 

Administration Hybrid and Coexistence IT Office 365 Office Graph OneDrive for Business SharePoint Yammer

 

The English philosopher Alan Watts once said “The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance”. A recent #CollabTalk topic was that of the changing role of SharePoint IT…as the cloud becomes mainstream, this conversation will inevitably thrive as a broader topic that transcends SharePoint. And while change may be to exist, opportunity continues to rise – the cloud has given way to capabilities previous impossible behind the firewall, from predictive analytics to machine learning, to infinite storage, and on-demand access to content and conversations.

SharePoint and Read-Only Domain Controllers (RODC)

 

AD DS Administration RODC SharePoint SharePoint Server 2013

 

The question of read-only domain controllers (RODC) and SharePoint comes up frequently in conversation and on forums, whether not supported, and what potential issues can be expected if implemented with SharePoint. This article will help address some of these questions. FAQ Q: Can I use a read-only domain controller (RODC) with SharePoint 2013? A: Yes; however, there are limitations and constraints with certain operations (see below). An implementation of RODC with SharePoint should assume a writable replication partner.

Document Property Promotion and Demotion Overview and Considerations

 

Administration IT Pro Resources SharePoint SharePoint Server 2013

 

Overview Document Property Promotion and Demotion is a Feature in versions of SharePoint designed to synchronize specific metadata across documents and its parent List columns and/or fields. Property promotion refers to the process of extracting values from properties of a document and writing those values to corresponding columns on the list or document library where the document is stored. Property demotion is the same process in reverse. Values are read from list columns and written to document properties.

ULS Viewer and SharePoint 2010

 

Administration SharePoint SharePoint Server 2010 ULS Viewer

 

So you downloaded the ULS Viewer and fired up on your SharePoint 2010 environment only to see something like this? -— System.TypeInitializationException: The type initializer for ‘UlsGump.AboutForm’ threw an exception. —> System.TypeLoadException: Could not load type ‘System.Reflection.CustomAttributeExtensions’ from assembly ‘mscorlib, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089’. at UlsGump.AboutForm..cctor() — End of inner exception stack trace — at UlsGump.MainForm.MainForm_Load(Object sender, EventArgs e) at System.Windows.Forms.Form.OnLoad(EventArgs e) at System.Windows.Forms.Control.CreateControl(Boolean fIgnoreVisible) at System.Windows.Forms.Control.CreateControl() at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmShowWindow(Message& m) at System.

Implementing Azure Blob Storage (ABS) with SQL Server 2014 and SharePoint 2013 [Updated]

 

Administration Hybrid and Coexistence SharePoint SharePoint Server 2013 Windows Azure

 

Overview NOTE (8/26/2014) With any solution that externalizes the unstructured content with SharePoint you need to understand the limitations and optimal use of those solutions as documented at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff628583(v=office.15).aspx to include related latency and performance requirements. With any application organizations face consistent key challenges such as high efficiency and business value, complex configuration, and low total cost of ownership. Extending applications to the cloud in hybrid scenarios addresses many of these challenges, whether distributing SharePoint content across on-premises and Office 365 while leveraging search as a service (hybrid search) or externalizing data, extending it to the cloud with Remote Blob Storage or related technologies.

ULS Viewing Like a Boss (ULS Viewer is now available)

 

Administration SharePoint SharePoint Server 2010 SharePoint Server 2013 ULS Viewer Unified Logging Service

 

I’m excited to announce we’ve published a new and improved version of the ULS Viewer. About the Unified Logging Service The Unified Logging Service (ULS) is the primary logging mechanism in SharePoint to make it easier to develop applications, expose in-depth information for debugging, and vehicle to isolate problems or threshold issues when they are encountered. ULS writes events to the Trace Log and stores them in the file system.

Managing Sites Pages in SharePoint Server 2013 w/ OneDrive for Business Redirection in Service Pack 1

 

Administration SharePoint

 

Overview Service Pack 1 introduced new functionality that allows IT administrators to selectively redirect their users OneDrive for Business libraries to Office 365. In addition to OneDrive for Business redirection, Service Pack 1 also allows for the redirection of users Sites pages to SharePoint Online. When redirecting the Sites pages, when a user selects Sites on the navigation bar in SharePoint Server 2013 they are redirected to SharePoint Online. Since there is no affinity between content followed across SharePoint Server 2013 and SharePoint Online, users are presented only with local (SharePoint Online) content followed.

OneDrive for Business Managed Deployment

 

IT Pro Resources OneDrive for Business

 

Overview OneDrive for Business is cloud storage for business similar to the personal experience provided by OneDrive. It’s the place where employees can store, sync, and share their files across multiple devices with ease and security. Built through the evolution of personal sites, OneDrive for Business provides the ability for an organization to provide their users enterprise grade data mobility across devices and screens and includes both a synchronization client for offline availability and simple upload experience and a Web UX to manage content through the rich capabilities of SharePoint.

Quick Starting Demos and Windows PowerShell

 

Administration Code Samples Events Hyper-V Windows Powershell

 

Preparing virtual machines for demonstrations can be a tedious process, compounding this is when virtual machines need to be started or shut down in a specific order. For example, starting database servers prior to starting web servers, or starting the preferred active node before the passive node. Starting those machines; however, is only a portion of the process, in most cases you will want them to be “available” before starting a subsequent machine.

Yammer Redirection in SharePoint Server 2013 Service Pack 1

 

Administration Code Samples Hybrid Service Pack 1 SharePoint SharePoint Server 2013 Yammer

 

In previous articles I discussed redirecting OneDrive for Business to Office 365 in SharePoint Server 2013 Service Pack 1. In addition to new functionality that allows IT administrators to redirect OneDrive for Business and Sites pages to Office 365, Service Pack 1 also allows IT administrators to activate Yammer as the default social experience for SharePoint Server 2013. When activated, the Newsfeed link in the navigation bar is replaced with a Yammer link that directs users to the organizations’ Yammer network.

SharePoint 2013 and Office 365 Hybrid

 

Hybrid Hybrid and Coexistence SharePoint SharePoint Online SharePoint Server 2013

 

The French philosopher, Henry Bergson, once said “to exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.” While the Nobel Prize winner wasn’t talking about the software and services world, the thought is extremely applicable to technology- from development to administration to use. The adoption of, and change to, cloud computing is maturing at a rapid rate…but the move needs to be thoughtful.

Code Samples, Simple Translation using CSOM, REST, and Machine Translation Services

 

Code Samples Machine Translation Services OneDrive for Business SharePoint SharePoint Server 2013

 

Machine Translation Services is a powerful Shared Service Application in SharePoint Server 2013 that provides automation synchronous and asynchronous translation of documents, folders, and sites. The code samples in this post provide simple examples of synchronous document translation using the Client Side Object Model in managed (C#) applications and Windows PowerShell in addition to accessing Machine Translation Services via REST. CSOM The Client Side Object Model (CSOM) provides a rich alternative to earlier Web Services in providing an object-oriented system for interoperating with SharePoint data from a remote (client) machine.

File and Folder Considerations with OneDrive for Business [UPDATED 12/10/2014]

 

Administration Code Samples OneDrive for Business SharePoint Server 2013

 

Updated 8/12/2014 – Removed & as an illegal character. & character is now supported with OneDrive for Business sync client and Web UX. Updated 8/22/2014 – Updated to include prohibited types per http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/office365-sharepoint-online-small-business-help/types-of-files-that-cannot-be-added-to-a-list-or-library-HA101907868.aspx. Updated 8/23/2014 – Updated to include optional UI-based scanning (FileCheckerUI.exe). Updated 8/31/2014 – Updated FileChecker.exe (integrated desktop and command line application). Updated 12/10/2014 – Updated to remove prohibited characters {, }, [, ], ~, and .. Updated FileChecker.

Service Pack for SharePoint Server 2013 1 Recalled [Updated]

 

Administration Service Pack 1 SharePoint SharePoint Server 2013

 

Service Pack 1 update is now available. Refer to the information below to acquire the updated Service Pack for your product: NOTE For a list of previously published KB’s refer to the recall information in the original post below. Product KB SharePoint Foundation http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2880551 SharePoint Server http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2880552 Project Server http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2880553 SharePoint Server Language Pack http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2880554 SharePoint Foundation Language Pack http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2880555 Office Web Apps Server http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2880558 Customers with Service Pack 1 Deployed

SharePoint Server 2013 Trial Image in Windows Azure China Platform Gallery

 

Administration SharePoint SharePoint Server 2013 Virtualization Windows Azure

 

The SharePoint Server 2013 Trial image is now available in the Windows Azure China Platform Gallery. The image is based on the current Windows Server 2012 Datacenter release and includes a complete installation of SharePoint Server 2013 Enterprise Trial patched with the March Public Update. NOTE Additional configuration is required to use the SharePoint Server 2013 Trial image include 1) a database server running SQL Server 2008 R2 or SQL Server 2012 2) a server running AD DS.

Outbound Hybrid Infrastructure Configuration Made Easy for SharePoint Server 2013 and Office 365

 

Hybrid Hybrid and Coexistence OneDrive for Business SharePoint SharePoint Server 2013

 

Over the past several weeks since we’ve released Service Pack 1 for SharePoint Server 2013 I’ve configured several PoC and demo environments with OneDrive for Business redirection to Office 365 with an outbound hybrid search topology. Over the course of configuring these environments I found it to be easier to programmatically configure the more complex aspect (outbound infrastructure) and hopefully will be able to share the solution soon… The solution I put together is a Windows Form (makes it easy to redistribute and iterate upon), simplifies the configuration and scripting of outbound infrastructure (example below).

One-Way Outbound Hybrid Search Step-by-Step and OneDrive for Business

 

Hybrid Hybrid and Coexistence Office 365 OneDrive for Business SharePoint SharePoint Server 2013

 

Recently we introduced a number of new coexistence scenarios in Service Pack 1 including redirection of OneDrive for Business and Yammer. Redirection of OneDrive for Business enables IT to provision cloud storage for users OneDrive for Business document libraries; however, in a hybrid scenario the content in that storage should be discoverable both on-premises and online. The most common configuration to support OneDrive for Business redirection is an outbound search topology where users can return results from both on-premises and online within the on-premises search portal.

OneDrive for Business Redirection to Office 365 Overview

 

Hybrid IT Pro Resources Office 365 OneDrive for Business SharePoint SharePoint Server 2013

 

At the 2014 SharePoint Conference we announced the new OneDrive for Business SKU in addition to changes in Service Pack 1 functionality that enable IT administrators to selectively redirect their users to OneDrive for Business in Office 365 from SharePoint Server 2013. Planning The initial prerequisite steps to implementing OneDrive for Business redirection to Office 365 in Service Pack 1 is choosing the most effective identity management/federation options to suit your business needs.

SQL Server 2014 and SharePoint Server 2013

 

Administration IT Pro Resources SharePoint SQL Server 2014

 

3/21/2014 is the first full day of Spring, and the first full day of SQL Server 2014 RTM. Undoubtedly the question will be asked when will SharePoint Server 2013 support SQL Server 2014. While it remains early, SharePoint Server 2013 will support SQL Server 2014 with the April Cumulative Update. Resources SQL Server 2014 Home [http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/products/sql-server/] What’s new in SQL Server 2014 [http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb500435(v=sql.120).aspx] Comments: March 2020 CU for SharePoint 2013 product family is available for download – Stefan Goßner - Mar 2, 2020

Quick Starting Demos with Windows PowerShell

 

Administration Code Samples Events IT Pro Resources Virtualization Windows Powershell

 

Preparing virtual machines for demonstrations can be a tedious process, compounding this is when virtual machines need to be started or shut down in a specific order. For example, starting database servers prior to starting web servers, or starting the preferred active node before the passive node. Starting those machines; however, is only a portion of the process, in most cases you will want them to be “available” before starting a subsequent machine.

SharePoint Server 2013 Trial in Windows Azure [Updated]

 

SharePoint SharePoint Server 2013 Trial Windows Azure

 

An updated SharePoint Server 2013 Trial image is available in the Windows Azure Platform Gallery. The image is based on the current Windows Server 2012 Datacenter release and includes a complete installation of SharePoint Server 2013 Enterprise Trial patched with the March Public and December Cumulative Updates. NOTE Additional configuration is required to use the SharePoint Server 2013 Trial image include 1) a database server running SQL Server 2008 R2 or SQL Server 2012 2) a server running AD DS.

HOW TO: Rename Search Service Application Databases on the “Same” Server

 

Administration SharePoint SharePoint Server 2013

 

There are a number of articles that describe how to rename and move the Search Service Application databases in SharePoint Server 2013; however, limited guidance on renaming the Search Service Application databases on the same server. The process itself differs little from the former, but worth documenting. Step 1 Suspend the Search Service On the Start menu, click All Programs. Click Microsoft SharePoint 2013 Products. Click SharePoint 2013 Management Shell. In the SharePoint 2013 Management Shell, enter the following Windows PowerShell statement to suspend the search service: $SearchService = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication Suspend-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication -Identity $SearchService

Still haven’t registered for SharePoint Conference 2014?

 

Hybrid SharePoint Conference SharePoint Conference 2014

 

If NLB, UPA, MMS, MDS, DEC, AAM, FIM, AAG, RBS, ALM, ECT, KPI, WIF, ACE, ACL, BDC, ULS, OWA, ECS, LOB, SID, SPN, SSO, UDF, DAV, SQL mean anything to you you’ll want to be at SPC. Ever want to know why your provider hosted app keeps throwing a 401 when accessing SharePoint content? Want to know how to use MFA with SharePoint 2013? Sure you can delete something, curious on how to expunge it?

Not to be missed...SharePoint Conference 2014

 

Events SharePoint Conference SharePoint Conference 2014

 

SharePoint Conference 2014 is less than ~75 business days away, if you’re an IT Professional, implementer, or decision maker you don’t want to miss this SharePoint Conference. In today’s world of converging technologies and operating models, IT Professionals are under more demand to deliver value and foster innovation within organizations. The 2014 SharePoint Conference for IT Professionals recognizes these challenges and delivers deep technical and business content to ensure the IT Professional not only comes away with a more fundamental understand of SharePoint, but also its related technologies and infrastructure.

SharePoint 2013 Support for Windows Server 2012 R2

 

Administration SharePoint SharePoint Server 2013

 

Summary Currently, Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 is not supported for installation on computers running the Windows Server 2012 R2 operating system. Installing SharePoint Server 2013 on a computer that is running Windows Server 2012 R2 could lead to unexpected behavior, therefore, Microsoft does not support SharePoint Server 2013 in Windows Server 2012 R2. SharePoint Server 2013 with Service Pack 1 and SharePoint Foundation 2013 with Service Pack 1 will offer support for Windows Server 2012 R2.

SharePoint Conferences, Looking Back...

 

Events SharePoint

 

With SharePoint Conference 2014 registration now open, it seems appropriate to look back and provide just a little historical SPC information. There have been 5 previous SharePoint Conferences. 2006 The inaugural SharePoint Conference, SharePoint Conference 2006 was held in Bellevue, Washington on May 15th, 2006 at the Meydenbauer Convention Center with the keynote delivered by Bill Gates. The theme…“Connecting People, Process, and Information”. 2008 The second SharePoint Conference was held in Seattle, Washington at the Washington State Trade and Convention Center on March 4th, 2008 with the keynote delivered by Kurt Delbene and Bill Gates.

SharePoint Server 2013 Trial in Windows Azure [Updated]

 

SharePoint SharePoint Server 2013 Windows Azure

 

An updated SharePoint Server 2013 Trial image is available in the Windows Azure Platform Gallery. The image is based on the current Windows Server 2012 Datacenter release and includes a complete installation of SharePoint Server 2013 Enterprise Trial patched with the March Public and August Cumulative Updates. NOTE Additional configuration is required to use the SharePoint Server 2013 Trial image include 1) a database server running SQL Server 2008 R2 or SQL Server 2012 2) a server running AD DS.

Overview of Shredded Storage in SharePoint 2013

 

Security and Compliance SharePoint SharePoint Server 2013 Shredded Storage

 

Shredded Storage is a new storage model implementation in SharePoint Server 2013 used to provide smoother I/O patterns, improve data transfer performance, and reduce storage utilization when using historical versions with SharePoint. This whitepaper provides a background of SharePoint products storage evolution and the implementation specifics and benefits of Shredded Storage in SharePoint 2013. Download: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=39719

SharePoint Server 2013 Trial in Windows Azure

 

SharePoint SharePoint Server 2013 Windows Azure

 

An updated SharePoint Server 2013 Trial image is available in the Windows Azure Platform Gallery. The image is based on the current Windows Server 2012 Datacenter release and includes a complete installation of SharePoint Server 2013 Enterprise Trial patched with the March Public and April Cumulative Updates. NOTE Additional configuration is required to use the SharePoint Server 2013 Trial image include 1) a database server running SQL Server 2008 R2 or SQL Server 2012 2) a server running AD DS.

Deploying Remote BLOB Storage with SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn Availability Groups

 

Administration AlwaysOn Remote BLOB Storage SharePoint SharePoint Server 2013

 

AlwaysOn Availability Groups can provide a high-availability and disaster recovery solution for SQL Server Remote Blob Store (RBS) BLOB objects (blobs). AlwaysOn Availability Groups protects any RBS metadata and schemas stored in an availability database by replicating them to the secondary replicas. AlwaysOn Availability Groups Overview The AlwaysOn Availability Groups feature is a high-availability and disaster-recovery solution that provides an enterprise-level alternative to database mirroring. Introduced in SQL Server 2012, AlwaysOn Availability Groups maximizes the availability of a set of user databases for an enterprise.

SharePoint Server 2013 March 2013 Public Update

 

Administration Cumulative Updates SharePoint SharePoint Server 2013

 

The March 2013 Public Update for SharePoint Server 2013 was released on March 12, 2013 and in addition to resolving several issues, features new and added capabilities such as the ability to configure multiple app domains in when using AAM or Host Header configurations. For a complete list of fixes included in this update see also Description of the SharePoint Server 2013 update: March 12, 2013. NOTE Ensure adequate disk space is available to extract the SharePoint Server 2013 March 2013 Public Update content.

SharePoint Server 2013 Extranet and Office 365 External Sharing Considerations

 

Administration Security and Compliance SharePoint

 

Introduction What is an Extranet? A common definition for the term Extranet is a network that enables controlled access to external users or an extension of an organization’s intranet extended to external users to include customers, partners, suppliers, etc. in isolation from other internet or intranet users. Extranet topologies with SharePoint Products have become an increasingly popular solution to enable collaboration with partners, customers, and external users; however, can be complex to implement and maintain over time.

Introduction to System Status Notifications in SharePoint 2013

 

Administration Code Samples SharePoint SharePoint Server 2013 Windows Powershell

 

SharePoint 2013 implements new System Status Notifications designed to provide site users information about lifecycle events to include availability of upgrade, maintenance, and read-only states. System Status Notifications present important information about a SharePoint deployment and its availability, whether during upgrades, routine maintenance, or conversion to read-only. Users are kept “in the know” as they receive a prominent banner on their sites that provides insight into the activity being performed—helping reduce calls to the help desk and subsequent burden on IT.

Get Started with SharePoint Server 2013 Quickly on Windows Azure

 

Administration SharePoint SharePoint Server 2013 Windows Azure

 

In order to remain competitive in today’s business climate you need to be able to respond to change and challenges quickly. Sometimes that means adjusting your SharePoint infrastructure on a moment’s notice to maintain a competitive advantage. Infrastructure as a Service solves these challenges through a ready-to-use, pay as you go solution which means you can deploy in hours as opposed to days, whether you’re looking to deploy a simple SharePoint-based Internet site or to quickly provision a development environment.

Shredded Storage and the Evolution of SharePoint’s Storage Architecture

 

SharePoint SharePoint Server 2013 Shredded Storage

 

A number of questions have been asked surrounding Shredded Storage in SharePoint 2013. To better understand the benefit of Shredded Storage and what is provides from a relational database BLOB data storage perspective it’s helpful to understand the evolution of SharePoint’s storage model. Past and Present SharePoint Portal Server 2001 SharePoint Portal Server 2001 represented the first commercially available version of SharePoint and utilized a unique, new storage model based on the Web Storage System originally implemented in Exchange Server 2000.

Introduction to User License Enforcement in SharePoint Server 2013 [Updated]

 

Administration SharePoint SharePoint Server 2013 SPC219 User License Enforcement

 

Introduction SharePoint Server 2013 introduces new User License Enforcement capabilities that enable the definition, assignment, and mapping of licenses to users associated with specific Active Directory security groups. For example an administrator can map Enterprise features to individual users who appear in the ‘Enterprise CAL’ Active Directory security group or limit usage of Duet capabilities to users in the ‘Duet CAL’ Active Directory security group. By default in SharePoint Server 2013 User License Enforcement is disabled when SharePoint Server 2013 is deployed and must first be enabled to begin assigning, using, and implementing user licensing capabilities.

Introduction to Machine Translation Services in SharePoint 2013

 

Administration Machine Translation Services SharePoint SharePoint Server 2013 SPC219

 

Introduction SharePoint Server 2013 introduces several new service applications; among them is the new Machine Translation Service. The new Machine Translation Service enables you to reach more people with new cloud-based translation services capable of translating not only sites, but also their content. These services have a comprehensive set of APIs, REST, and CSOM support, so content can be pre-translated when needed, or translated on the fly by users—asynchronously, synchronously, or streaming.

Introduction to PowerPoint Automation Services in SharePoint Server 2013

 

PowerPoint Automation Services SharePoint SharePoint Server 2013 SPC219

 

Introduction PowerPoint Automation Services is a new service application in SharePoint Server 2013 that provides automatic server-side conversion of PowerPoint Presentations from one format to another, for example, a PowerPoint Presentation in Open XML File Formar .pptx format can be converted into Portable Document Format (.pdf) for archival purposes, distribution to clients who do not have Microsoft PowerPoint installed, or to protect the presentation from editing. PowerPoint Automation Services supports conversion of Open XML File Format (.

Introduction to Shredded Storage in SharePoint 2013 [RTM Update]

 

Security and Compliance SharePoint SharePoint Server 2013 Shredded Storage SPC219

 

Introduction Shredded storage is a new data platform improvement in SharePoint 2013 related to the management of large binary objects (I.e. BLOBS such as Microsoft PowerPoint Presentations, Microsoft Word Documents, etc.). Shredded Storage is both improves I/O and reduces compute utilization when making incremental changes to document or storing documents in SharePoint 2013. Shredded Storage builds upon the Cobalt (I.e. File Synchronization via SOAP of HTTP) protocol introduced in SharePoint 2010.

RTM Trial Now Available

 

SharePoint SharePoint Conference 2012 SharePoint Server 2013 SPC219

 

If you missed the announcement at SPC219, SharePoint Server 2013 RTM Trial is now available. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/hh973397.aspx

Introduction to Minimal Download Strategy in SharePoint 2013

 

Minimal Download Strategy SharePoint SharePoint Server 2013 SPC219

 

Introduction Minimal Download Strategy in SharePoint 2013 improves rendering performance when browsing content where large parts of the page do not change providing a more fluid navigation experience. For example when navigating between a site’s home page and Shared Documents page only the content that has changed between the source and destination page (controls and placeholders in the content area) are downloaded and the Url subsequently updated where the chrome is persisted.

Windows PowerShell Command Builder 2.0

 

SharePoint SharePoint Server 2010 SharePoint Server 2013 SPC219 Windows Powershell

 

A new updated version of the Windows PowerShell Command Builder is now available. The Windows PowerShell Command Builder for Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Microsoft SharePoint 2013, SharePoint Online, and Microsoft Office 365 is an HTML 5 application that is designed to help IT professionals and power users learn how to use Windows PowerShell for administrative tasks. The Windows PowerShell Command Builder enables IT professionals and power users to visually assemble commands related to SharePoint 2010, SharePoint 2013, SharePoint Online, and Office 365 in the browser and take those commands to their respective products.

Windows PowerShell 3.0 and SharePoint Server 2013

 

Administration SharePoint SharePoint Server 2013 SPC219 Windows Powershell

 

SharePoint 2013 includes Windows Management Framework 3.0 the as one of the new prerequisites to installation and configuration. Included in the Windows Management Framework 3.0 is Windows PowerShell 3.0. Windows PowerShell 3.0 extends upon the usability of Windows PowerShell 2.0 while maintaining backward compatibility with Windows PowerShell 2.0. Windows PowerShell 3.0 includes a number of new capabilities that can help administrators of a SharePoint farm including new session management, Web access, and scheduling capabilities.

SharePoint Server 2013 Software Prerequisites

 

Administration SharePoint SharePoint Server 2013 SPC219

 

Web and Application Servers Minimum Windows Server 2008 R2 with Service Pack 1 (Standard, Enterprise, or Datacenter) Requires KB 2554876, KB 2708075, KB 2759112 Optional Windows Server 2012 (Standard or Datacenter) Prerequisites Web and Application Servers Web Server (IIS) Role Application Server Role Microsoft .NET Framework Version 4.5 SQL Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 Native Client Microsoft WCF Data Services 5.0 Microsoft Information Protection and Control Client (MSIPC) Microsoft Sync Framework Runtime v1.

What’s new for IT Professionals in SharePoint Server 2013

 

SharePoint SharePoint Conference 2012 SPC219

 

Join me Monday, November 12, 2012 @ 11:00 A.M. in Mandalay Bay GIJK as I discuss what’s new for IT Professionals in SharePoint Server 2013. In this fast-paced session we’ll discuss some of the most compelling and important new capabilities and features in SharePoint Server 2013, demonstrate those capabilities and features, and provide references to additional resources where you can learn more about them in depth. If you haven’t done so visit http://www.

SharePoint Conference 2012

 

Events SharePoint Conference SharePoint Conference 2012

 

The 2012 SharePoint Conference is in just over 30 days. This is the SharePoint event you don’t want to miss. For our core IT Professional audience we’ll have over 150 dedicated sessions, 40+ Hands on Labs, deep demonstrations, and more. Whether you’re just learning about SharePoint 2013 or have been working with SharePoint Server 2013 Preview you’ll find a variety of sessions, chalk talks, and labs that provide a blend of overview, deep dive experience, and best practice recommendations.

Setting up a SharePoint 2013 Development Environment 101

 

Administration SharePoint SharePoint Server 2013 Virtualization

 

Step 1 Prepare the Operating Environment Preparation of your development environment is determined by the apps you will develop and the systems you have access to. If you want to distribute apps for SharePoint through an app catalog, such as apps for SharePoint will full control permissions, a local installation of SharePoint 2013 is required; otherwise an Office 365 Development Site can be used. NOTE Apps for SharePoint will full control permissions are not supported on an Office 365 site.

SharePoint and Windows Azure Virtual Machines

 

SharePoint Windows Azure

 

In order to remain competitive in today’s business climate you need to be able to respond to change and challenges quickly. Sometimes that means adjusting your SharePoint infrastructure on a moment’s notice to maintain a competitive advantage. Procuring and managing hardware can be costly and time consuming – and sometimes it may only be needed temporarily. Infrastructure as a Service solves these challenges through a ready-to-use, pay as you go solution which means you can deploy in hours as opposed to days.

Making the most of SharePoint Server 2013 Preview

 

SharePoint SharePoint Server 2013

 

Learn more about SharePoint Server 2013 features and capabilties through immersive training at http://technet.microsoft.com/sharepoint/fp123606. Download and install SharePoint Server 2013 at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/evalcenter/hh973397.aspx?wt.mc_id=TEC_121_1_4. Get help, guidance, and interact with the community at http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sharepointitpropreview/threads. Stay up to date on SharePoint Server 2013 at http://technet.microsoft.com/sharepoint.

Introduction to Upgrade in SharePoint Server 2013

 

Administration SharePoint SharePoint Server 2013 SPC219 Upgrade & Migration

 

Introduction Changing software can be difficult, SharePoint Server 2013 simplifies the upgrade process, empowers the user, and improves resiliency and manageability through new features and capabilities designed to balance the needs of users with those of IT. What’s new in upgrade… Deferred Site Collection Upgrade Site Collection Health Checks Evaluation Site Collections Deprecated Upgrade Approaches Separation of Schema and Site Collection Upgrade Upgrade in SharePoint 2013 separates the aspects of site collection and schema upgrade improving performance and resiliency related to the upgrade process.

What's new in the User Profile Service Application

 

Service Pack 1 SharePoint SharePoint Server 2010

 

The User Profile Service Application stores information about users in a centralized location used by SharePoint’s social computing features to support natural collaboration. The User Profile Service Application is also required when provisioning My Site personal sites, enabling certain social computing features such as newsfeeds, and the creation and distribution of user profiles across server farms or sites. To learn more about the User Profile Service Application see also http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee662538.aspx.

Windows PowerShell Command Builder

 

SharePoint

 

At SPC 11 in Anaheim, CA we announced the new Windows PowerShell Command Builder which enables users to visual construct Windows PowerShell cmdlets through structured Verb – Noun combinations on a simple design surface. To learn more about the Windows PowerShell Command Builder read the Windows PowerShell Command Builder Getting Started Guide. To begin using the Windows PowerShell Command Builder see SharePoint Server 2010 - Windows PowerShell TechNet.

Implementing SQL Server Code Name “Denali” CTP3 AlwaysOn Availability Groups with SharePoint Server 2010

 

Administration AlwaysOn SharePoint SharePoint Foundation 2010 SharePoint Server 2010 SQL Server Code Name "Denali"

 

If you attended my SharePoint Conference Session on SharePoint 2010 on SQL Server Denali you’re probably ready to get started with some of the features and capabilities we discussed and demonstrated today, particularly AlwaysOn Availability Groups which provide a robust, ready to use solution supporting both local redundancy and remote disaster recovery. NOTE SharePoint 2010 is not currently supported on SQL Server Code Name “Denali”. There are several prerequisites to using AlwaysOn which are documented further at http://msdn.

Implementing Claims-Based Authentication with SharePoint Server 2010

 

Administration SharePoint

 

Interesting in learning more about claims-based authentication in SharePoint Server 2010? We’ve just published a comprehensive whitepaper that describes claims-based identity, its relationship with SharePoint Server 2010, implementation specifics, and more. Download the whitepaper at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh487289.aspx.

SharePoint 2010 and Windows Firewall with Advanced Security

 

Administration SharePoint SharePoint Foundation 2010 SharePoint Server 2010 Windows Firewall Windows Firewall with Advanced Security

 

I’ve recently noticed a number of posts on social.msdn.com related to configuring SharePoint 2010 with Windows Firewall with Advanced Security. The following post provides the basic steps necessary to get started with provisioning a SharePoint 2010 server farm in environments where the Windows Firewall is enabled. To access an instance of the SQL Server through a firewall, you must configure the firewall on the computer that is running SQL Server to allow access.

SharePoint Online Learning Materials for IT Professionals

 

SharePoint SharePoint Online

 

Are you an IT Professional looking to learn more about how SharePoint Online can help supplement your on-premise SharePoint 2010 Products deployment? We’ve recently released a comprehensive set of learning materials that illustrate the benefits of SharePoint Online and how you can leverage its capabilities to bring additional value to your on-premise deployment. Video Learning Series Introduction Scenarios Users Support Conclusion Narrated Presentation Exploring SharePoint Online for IT Professionals Whitepaper

Site Recycle Bin (Service Pack 1 and CodePlex) FAQs

 

Recycle Bin Service Pack 1 SharePoint SharePoint Foundation 2010 SharePoint Server 2010

 

Do I need to uninstall the Site Recycle Bin from CodePlex if I plan to use the Site Recycle Bin in Service Pack 1? It depends on what you’re looking for. The Site Recycle Bin available through CodePlex will capture deleted Site Collections and Sites to disk, Site Recycle Bin in Service Pack 1 copies the Site Collections and Sites to an auxiliary SQL table until they are permanently deleted at which point are managed by Gradual Site Deletion.

Service Pack 1 Move-SPSite w/ 'shallow copy'

 

Administration Remote BLOB Storage Service Pack 1 SharePoint SharePoint Foundation 2010 SharePoint Server 2010

 

Service Pack 1 introduces a new method of moving Site Collections between Content Databases where RBS is used known as ‘shallow copy’. Overview What is ‘shallow copy’? ‘Shallow copy’ refers to moving structured content without moving the underlying unstructured content. With SharePoint 2010 Products ‘shallow copy’ moves the structured Site Collection data across Content Databases without moving the unstructured data which is comprised of user created content such as PowerPoint Presentations, Word Documents, etc.

New Governance Resources from Microsoft IT

 

SharePoint

 

Microsoft IT has released several new resources related to the governance of Microsoft’s SharePoint service. Implementing SharePoint 2010 Site Governance and Lifecycle Management (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb687797.aspx#EOC) Webcast: How Microsoft IT Handles SharePoint 2010 Governance and Life Cycle Management (Level 200) (https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?culture=en-US&EventID=1032487219&CountryCode=US)

Now Serving Larger Databases…

 

Administration SharePoint SharePoint Foundation 2010 SharePoint Server 2010

 

Today we are announcing some important and exciting changes to our software boundaries and limits for SharePoint 2010 Products, in summary SharePoint 2010 Products will now support content databases up to 4TB. However, prior to considering multi-terabyte databases you should thoroughly review the following whitepapers: Managing multi-terabyte databases with SharePoint 2010 (http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=26700)) Abstract Managing large content databases with SharePoint 2010 requires careful planning and consideration to include capacity management, performance, and data protection.

SharePoint 2010 Virtualization

 

Administration SharePoint SharePoint Foundation 2010 SharePoint Server 2010 Virtualization

 

Considering virtualizing SharePoint 2010? We’ve created a one-stop shop for guidance and more at http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/en-us/product/Related-Technologies/Pages/virtualize-sharepoint.aspx.

SharePoint 2010 Cumulative Updates and Service Packs

 

Administration SharePoint SharePoint Foundation 2010 SharePoint Server 2010

 

Updated June 29, 2011 SharePoint Server 2010 Cumulative Updates and Service Packs File Version Description Downloads and Documentation 14.0.5114.5003 June 2010 Cumulative Update KB983497 KB2124512 KB2182938 KB2204024 KB2281364 14.0.5123.5000 August 2010 Cumulative Update KB2352342 KB2352355 14.0.5128.5000 October 2010 Cumulative Update KB2394320 14.0.5130.5002 December 2010 Cumulative Update KB2459257 14.0.5136.5002 February 2011 Cumulative Update KB2475878 14.0.5138.5001 April 2011 Cumulative Update KB2512800 14.0.6029.1000 Service Pack 1 KB2460045 14.0.6106.5000 June 2011 Cumulative Update KB2356599

Service Pack 1 - Storage Metrics (StorMan.aspx)

 

Administration Service Pack 1 SharePoint SharePoint Foundation 2010 SharePoint Server 2010

 

In SharePoint 2010 we removed StorMan.aspx (Storage Space Allocation) (see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/982587/EN-US) which in previous versions of SharePoint enabled granular management and insight into storage. For example, the page would show you the top 100 documents or document libraries in terms of size. With that information end users could the page to clean up content from their site(s) by deleting the large content that they no longer needed. In Service Pack 1 we are bringing back an improved StorMan.

Service Pack 1 - Site Recycle Bin

 

Administration Service Pack 1 SharePoint SharePoint Foundation 2010 SharePoint Server 2010

 

Site Recycle Bin Service Pack 1 introduces long awaited Site Recycle Bin functionality that enables self-service recovery of site collections and sites. In the past IT Professionals were tasked with restoring entire databases to recover deleted site collections and sites and would generally require expensive restore environments to support the task. Now in Service Pack 1 administrators can quickly and easily recover site collections and sites accidentally deleted by their owners in a process similar to that of the Recycle Bin we have for Lists, Libraries, and Documents.

Service Pack 1 for SharePoint 2010 Products

 

Service Pack 1 SharePoint SharePoint Foundation 2010 SharePoint Server 2010

 

Service Pack 1 for SharePoint 2010 Products is now available for download. SharePoint Server 2010 Service Pack 1 for Server Language Pack 2010 SharePoint Foundation 2010 Service Pack 1 for SharePoint Foundation 2010 Language Pack To learn more about what’s new in Service Pack read the Service Pack 1 for SharePoint Foundation 2010 and SharePoint Server 2010 whitepaper at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=221773.

Search First Migration Accelerator

 

Add-ons and Utilities Migration & Upgrade Search SharePoint Server 2010 Upgrade & Migration

 

Search has become the primary means in the Enterprise for surfacing and locating information, as a result, it has become a mission critical component of SharePoint deployments. The rise in adoption of SharePoint 2010 in organizations has led to more customers seeking to leverage the benefits of the new search architectures, whether Enterprise Search in SharePoint 2010 or FAST Search Server 2010, as part of their topologies. In either scenario…read more on the SharePoint Team Blog.

Announcing the SharePoint Diagnostic Studio

 

Add-ons and Utilities Administration IT Pro Resources SharePoint SharePoint Foundation 2010 SharePoint Server 2010

 

One of the most challenging aspects of maintaining a SharePoint deployment is understanding why certain events have transpired in the environment, often IT Professionals and Developers only have access to when an event occurred and are tasked with parsing Performance Counters, Event and Diagnostic logs, or executing Transact-SQL statements against the Usage database to put the what and why to the when. These tasks are typically accomplished through an array of tools such as Excel, Log Parser, SQL Server Management Studio…read more on the SharePoint Team Blog.

FILESTREAM with SharePoint 2010

 

Administration Remote BLOB Storage SharePoint SharePoint Foundation 2010 SharePoint Server 2010

 

FILESTREAM is a new feature in SQL Server 2008 that enables the storage of unstructured data on a NTFS file system. FILESTREAM (local or remote) is supported in SharePoint 2010 as one mechanism of reducing capital expenditures through enabling the storage of large binary unstructured data on content addressable or commodity storage. Unstructured Data Unstructured data refers to information…read more on the SharePoint Team Blog.

System Center Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal 2.0 Service Pack 1 Beta

 

Administration SharePoint Virtualization Windows Server 2008

 

System Center Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal 2.0 is a pre-built, role-based, self-service portal for both datacenter managers and business unit IT consumers to simplify the provisioning of infrastructures for their applications and services. The System Center Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal 2.0 provides automated workflows designed to help on-board business unit IT departments and enables partners to expose their unique hardware capabilities through familiar Microsoft scripting technologies. System Center Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal 2.

FILESTREAM and SharePoint 2010

 

Administration FILESTREAM Remote BLOB Storage SharePoint SharePoint Foundation 2010 SharePoint Server 2010

 

FILESTREAM is a new feature in SQL Server 2008 that enables the storage of unstructured data on a NTFS file system. FILESTREAM (local or remote) is supported in SharePoint 2010 as one mechanism of reducing capital expenditures through enabling the storage of large binary unstructured data on content addressable or commodity storage. Unstructured Data Unstructured data refers to information that does not adhere to a defined model or does not fit well into relational tables in SharePoint unstructured data can refer to Microsoft Office document file formats, video, audio, and related file types.

Resources for Virtualizing SharePoint 2010

 

Administration SharePoint SharePoint Server 2010 Virtualization

 

As more organizations seek to reduce operating and capital expenditures, solve the challenges of datacenter density, and provide elasticity to their SharePoint deployments – virtualization becomes the focal point of discussion. SharePoint 2010 provides more flexibility in support of virtualization and similar to other server technologies requires proper planning to ensure those goals are met. SharePoint 2010 Virtualization Support and Licensing [All elements of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 are fully supported when deployed in a Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V technology environment.

Multi-tenancy in SharePoint 2010

 

Administration Hosting SharePoint SharePoint Server 2010

 

The traditional and most accurate definition of multi-tenancy remains as a single instance of software that services multiple organizations or clients virtually partitioning its data and configuration allowing those clients to work within a customized application instance. SharePoint Server 2010 delivers new features and capabilities that contribute to supporting true multitenant architectures that are useful not only to hosting providers, but the Enterprise equally. Multi-tenancy, when carefully planned and applied within the Enterprise, is one of many solutions that contribute to reduced cost, complexity, and overall management.

Announcing the Search First Migration Accelerator

 

Administration Microsoft Search Search SharePoint Upgrade and Migration

 

Understanding search is the primary means in the Enterprise for surfacing and locating information…as a result, it has become a mission critical component of SharePoint deployments. The rise in adoption of SharePoint 2010 in organizations has led to more customers seeking to leverage the benefits of the new search architectures, whether Enterprise Search in SharePoint 2010 or FAST Search Server 2010, as part of their topologies. In either scenario, customers are faced with a decision on how to accomplish upgrade and accommodate their end users.

How to Improve Server Utilization and Reduce Infrastructure Costs with Virtualization

 

Migration & Upgrade SharePoint Virtualization

 

Predicting resource requirements for a new business application, especially one that is customer-facing is a tricky task. It’s hard to know if you have the new Facebook or your hands. You make your best estimates, then spend money on new hardware and hope your estimates were right. Only actual usage tells whether your server infrastructure is running efficiently. What makes this process more painful is the knowledge that your existing environment probably has the capacity to deliver this application if only the servers were used in a more efficient manner.

Categorized Index of SharePoint 2010 Whitepapers

 

IT Pro Resources SharePoint SharePoint Foundation 2010 SharePoint Server 2010 Webcasts and Whitepapers

 

Content Getting Started Planning Upgrade Security Governance Deployment Social Business Intelligence Web Content Management Search Other Technologies Composites Performance and Capacity Planning Additional Resources Getting Started Getting Started with Enterprise Search in SharePoint 2010 Products http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff631149.aspx Planning Evaluation Guide for SharePoint Server 2010 http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262881.aspx SharePoint Server 2010 Usage Best Practices http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=5c562f71-3aa9-46fd-abac-7d381813f2b8 Sharepoint Server 2010 Adoption Best Practices http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=94ee6518-75f7-47be-b4c1-0d6ec1248486 SharePoint Server 2010 Enterprise Search Evaluation Guide http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff631150.aspx Best Practices for using Fine-Grained Permissions

Learning on the go…

 

Events Radio SharePoint SharePoint Server 2010

 

Learning on the go… New TechNet Radio series (SharePoint 2010 for the IT Professional). We’re pleased to announce a new mobile learning experience, SharePoint 2010 for the IT Professional) on TechNet Radio. Each week we’ll be bringing you a new session that dives into a variety of topics, from deployment to management, interviewing industry professionals, MVP’s and MCM’s. To kick it off we’ll spend 20 minutes interviewing SharePoint MCM and Ranger Bryan Porter about business continuity management in SharePoint.

Quick Steps to Diagnose Performance Issues in SharePoint 2010

 

Administration Performance SharePoint SharePoint Foundation 2010 SharePoint Server 2010

 

Make the most of the Developer Dashboard Monitoring Latency and SQL Server Round Trips Among the information provided through the Developer Dashboard is information about page latency and database queries surfaced under Execution Timeout in the user interface in the Web Server section. Using the information provided in this field you can determine whether or not a recently introduced feature or particular page is exceeding acceptable performance thresholds in your environment.

Supporting Geographically Disperse Users

 

Administration Office Web Applications SharePoint SharePoint Foundation 2010 SharePoint Server 2010 Windows Server 2008

 

BranchCache If you manage a centralized, regional, or distributed infrastructure with a distributed or clustered user base, a combination of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 may be the best pairing to mitigate the impact of bandwidth and latency penalties that are commonly incurred under such distributions. Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 introduce a new feature (BranchCache) that can reduce wide area network (WAN) utilization and enhance Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies responsiveness when users access content in a central office from branch office locations.

SharePoint and Project 2010 August Cumulative Updates

 

SharePoint SharePoint Foundation 2010 SharePoint Server 2010

 

August cumulative updates for SharePoint 2010 have been released. Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;2352346 Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;2352342 Project Server 2010 http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;2352345 Be the first to know when new updates are released http://services.social.microsoft.com/feeds/feed/OfficeAndRelatedProductsUpdates.

Governance Resources for SharePoint 2010

 

Governance SharePoint Server 2010

 

Governance relates to decisions that define expectations, manage access, and validate performance and investment performance defined by established processes and procedures. The information here contains references to governance resources as related to SharePoint 2010, for additional information see also Governance Overview (SharePoint Server 2010). Resources Resource Center (Governance in SharePoint Server 2010) The Governance Resource Center provides documentation, references, and solutions to help IT Professionals plan and prepare to govern SharePoint 2010 environments.

Upcoming TechNet Webcasts

 

Events

 

Date: 9/14/10 Time: 1 pm PST Title: Search Your Way to Success: Leveraging SharePoint’s Search Capabilities in Public Web Sites Partner: Ironworks Consulting Abstract: Learning Objectives & Key Takeaways: Objective 1: Understand the key principles of enterprise search. Objective 2: Understand the evolution of search within SharePoint (2007 to 2010). Objective 3: Learn how to optimize search for SharePoint sites. The enterprise search capabilities built in to SharePoint provide an easy win for organizations seeking to achieve a quick return on their SharePoint investment.

The Office Web Applications Cache

 

Office Web Applications SharePoint Server 2010

 

The Office Web Applications cache is used by Word and PowerPoint Web Applications to create a version of a document requested for viewing through the browser improving performance and reducing resource consumption on server machines by making cached versions of a document or presentation available in cases where there are multiple requests for the same document. An important step in information architecture planning should include aligning the appropriate resources for the Office Web Applications cache through understand the frequency of browser requests and dynamics of the data requested.

IT Professional Training for SharePoint 2010

 

SharePoint Foundation 2010 SharePoint Server 2010 Training and Certification

 

If you are new to SharePoint 2010 or are upgrading from 2007, there are a variety of courses and formats to help you gain the skills and knowledge you need to ensure a successful deployment, upgrade, or migration. Exams Exam 70-667 TS: Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Configuring This exam is intended to validate the configuration skills needed to administer a SharePoint 2010 installation. Exam 70-668 TS: Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Administrator This exam validates the skills needed to administer SharePoint 2010.

Url Path Length Restrictions

 

SharePoint Foundation 2010 SharePoint Server 2010

 

How much is too much? We’ve recently published new content on TechNet that details the Url path length restrictions for SharePoint Server 2010 - this article discusses the specific URL path length and character restrictions in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, Internet Explorer 7, and Internet Explorer 8. Read more…

Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition and SharePoint Server 2010 Better Together Whitepaper

 

IT Pro Resources SharePoint Server 2010 Windows Server 2008

 

A recently published whitepaper is now available on TechNet that describes the benefits of deploying Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 on Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition and scenarios in which its features can be applied. Excerpt Microsoft® SharePoint® Server 2010 is the business collaboration platform for the enterprise and the Internet. SharePoint Server 2010 has become a business-critical application and an integral part of business processes. To help IT infrastructures to remain flexible and scalable to help support, manage, and secure expanded functionality, an influx of additional users and locations, and increasingly robust applications such as SharePoint Server 2010, we recommend that you choose the Windows Server® 2008 R2 Enterprise operating system during initial deployment.

SharePoint Site Recycle Bin for SharePoint 2010

 

Code Samples

 

The SharePoint Site Recycle Bin for SharePoint 2010 is available for download at http://governance.codeplex.com. The SharePoint Site Recycle Bin is a SharePoint Foundation 2010 solution package that when deployed to a Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 or Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 server farm enables administrators to create a snapshot of subscriptions, site collections and Webs as they are deleted through the SharePoint user interface, the SharePoint Administration Tool, the SharePoint 2010 Management Shell, SharePoint 2010 Central Administration, or SharePoint Designer.

Gradual Site Delete in SharePoint 2010

 

IT Pro Resources SharePoint Foundation 2010 SharePoint Server 2010

 

Overlooked often in SharePoint 2010 is the new Gradual Site Delete capability which was designed to mitigate unplanned site collection outages that occurred as the result of lock escalation in Windows SharePoint Server 3.0 and Office SharePoint Server 2007 when a large site collection was requested for deletion. Before we describe Gradual Site Delete, we should understand the problem space from previous versions of the product. In Windows SharePoint Services 3.

June 2010 Cumulative Updates for Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010, Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, and Microsoft Project Server 2010

 

SharePoint Foundation 2010 SharePoint Server 2010

 

SharePoint Foundation 2010 - KB2028568 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2028568 Search Server 2010 – KB983319 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/983319 SharePoint Server 2010 – KB983497 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/983497 SharePoint Server 2010 – KB2182938 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2182938 (Chinese, Korean, Japanese Localized) SharePoint Server 2010 – KB2281364 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2281364 SharePoint Server 2010 – KB2124512 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2124512

Voluntary Product Accessibility Templates for SharePoint 2010 Products

 

Accessibility Government SharePoint Standards

 

Voluntary Product Accessibility Templates are designed to help federal agencies address the requirements of Section 508 Standards. Voluntary Product Accessibility Templates are standardized forms to show how a software product meets key regulations of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Microsoft PerformancePoint Services - Dashboard Designer Microsoft Project Server 2010 Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Indexing Connector for Documentum SharePoint 2010 Administrator Toolkit V1

Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Administration Toolkit v1.0 Released

 

Add-ons and Utilities Administration IT Pro Resources People and Profiles SharePoint SharePoint Foundation 2010 SharePoint Server 2010 Windows Powershell

 

We’ve recently released the first administration toolkit for SharePoint Foundation and SharePoint Server 2010. The toolkit includes a new User Profile Replication Engine, a new Security Configuration Manifest, a new Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) Connector, and the Load Testing Kit (LTK). User Profile Replication Engine The User Profile Replication Engine was first introduced as a standalone application in later adminisration toolkits for Office SharePoint Server 2007 to replicate profiles between Shared Services Providers (SSP).

Configuring Kerberos Authentication for Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products

 

Administration IT Pro Resources SharePoint SharePoint Foundation 2010 SharePoint Server 2010

 

We’ve recently published a new whitepaper that describes the core concepts of identity in SharePoint 2010 and Kerberos’ role in authentication and delegation. The whitepaper is divided into nine (9) core scenarios: Scenario 1: Core Configuration Scenario 2: Kerberos Authentication for SQL OLTP Scenario 3: Identity Delegation for SQL Analysis Services Scenario 4: Identity Delegation for SQL Reporting Services Scenario 5: Identity Delegation for Excel Services Scenario 6: Identity Delegation for Power Pivot for SharePoint

Social Computing and Collaboration Resources

 

IT Pro Resources People and Profiles SharePoint Server 2010

 

Today we released a new whitepaper that provides prescriptive guidance about profile synchronization and My Site planning and administrative tasks for SharePoint Server 2010 that combines real world scenarios and step by step instructions with accompanying screenshots to help IT Professionals and Developers successfully understand, deploy, provision, and manage the services, components, and features that support and enable user profiles, synchronization, My Site Web sites, and more. Excerpt When designing a solution for business collaboration and social computing, it is important to think about a ‘social identity’ that represents each user in the organization.

SharePoint 2010 Virtualization Notes

 

SharePoint Foundation 2010 SharePoint Server 2010 Virtualization

 

I just wrapped up a great webcast this morning with Avanade and NetApp discussing the virtualization of SharePoint and was excited to see the audience today is largely planning a virtualization layer for SharePoint 2010, many to support server consolidation in legacy datacenters with limited resources understanding that SharePoint’s adoption and improvements in vertical and horizontal scale will result in larger more scenario concentrated deployments, others looking to reduce OpEx and CapEx, and still others looking at virtualization to afford the ability to support resource throttling - providing resources in times of high demand and scaling resources back in times of low demand making the most efficient use of their hosts.

Troubleshooting Issues Related to Installing KB938444

 

Administration SharePoint SharePoint Foundation 2010 SharePoint Server 2010 Upgrade & Migration

 

If you’ve recently installed KB938444 and have run into post-installation issues, we’ve posted new guidance and potential solutions here http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sharepoint/archive/2010/06/22/installing-kb938444.aspx.

Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Project Server 2007 Virtual Migration Environment Released

 

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Migration & Upgrade SharePoint Server 2010 Upgrade & Migration

 

We just posted a new Virtual Migration Environment for SharePoint Portal Server 2003 or Project Server 2003 customers looking to migrate/upgrade to Office SharePoint Server 2007 or Project Server 2007. Overview The Virtual Migration Environment is a set of two virtual disks that provide Office Project Server 2007 and Office SharePoint Server 2007 environments, sample content, and scripts design to assist customers with upgrade and migration from Office Project Server 2003 and Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 to Project Server 2010 and SharePoint Server 2010.

SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition and SharePoint Server 2010 Better Together Whitepaper

 

IT Pro Resources SharePoint Server 2010

 

A recently published whitepaper is now available on TechNet that describes the benefits of deploying Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 on Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition and scenarios in which its features can be applied. Excerpt The adoption of Microsoft® SharePoint® Server 2010 can grow exponentially across an organization quickly gaining momentum and taking root as a critical part of an organization’s ecosystem. To help protect data, ensure availability, and keep costs down, we recommend that customers choose Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition during initial deployment.

SharePoint Server 2010 Information Worker Demonstration and Evaluation Virtual Machine (RTM)

 

SharePoint Server 2010

 

The SharePoint Server 2010 Information Worker Demonstration and Evaluation Virtual Machine (RTM) has been released. Download the virtual machine set at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=751fa0d1-356c-4002-9c60-d539896c66ce&displaylang=en.

Site Subscriptions in SharePoint 2010

 

SharePoint Foundation 2010 SharePoint Server 2010

 

New multi-tenancy features are an exciting concept in SharePoint 2010, particularly when considering the implications on hosting SharePoint for a variety of tenants, each requiring some method of partitioning, administration, and a method of reporting and control whether within the boundaries of an Enterprise or as a hosting provider. In this post we’ll look at one of the layers of multi-tenancy in SharePoint 2010. Site Subscriptions SharePoint 2010 provides support for a concept known as site subscriptions.

Database Mirroring in SharePoint 2010

 

SharePoint Server 2010

 

Database mirroring provides an additional layer of resiliency, specifically, in highly available architectures, by providing a level of granularity not available to failover clustering. For additional information on database mirroring see also http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms189852.aspx (SQL Server 2008) or http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms189852(SQL.90).aspx (SQL Server 2005). In Office SharePoint Server 2007 database mirroring was a complex to implement, primarily due to the fact that our connection strings were both in managed code and the unmanaged SQL layer which required an administrator deploying database mirroring to leverage SQL Server Client Connection Aliases across front-end Web and application servers - beyond that - database mirroring in Office SharePoint Server 2007 also required databases as principal to maintain node majority, meaning all databases as principal had to reside on the same instance and subsequently failover had to occur moving all databases as a single unit.

Correlation Ids in SharePoint 2010

 

Administration SharePoint SharePoint Server 2010

 

SharePoint 2010 provides the administrator a number of improvements to facilitate rapid problem identification and resolution. Among these is the implementation of Correlation Ids. Correlation Ids are GUIDs assigned to events which transpire during the lifecycle of a resource request. As problems occur, the Correlation Id is commonly surfaced within the context of an error when presented to the person initiating the request or through the Developer Dashboard. User Interface (error.

Site Directory in SharePoint Server 2010 [Updated 5/12/2010]

 

Site Directory SharePoint

 

SharePoint Portal Server 2003 and Office SharePoint Server 2007 provided a Site Directory that was commonly used to “catalog” the collection of sites within a server farm environment, most commonly, organizations used categories to isolate like or related site collections and the built-in provisioning callback to ensure site collections were listed in the Site Directory on creation. In SharePoint Server 2010 the Site Directory has been deprecated, meaning that on new installations of SharePoint Server 2010 you cannot create and have a functional Site Directory; however, the Web Template and configuration options associated with the Site Directory have been retained, though strictly for backwards compatibility support.

Service Connection Points and Governance with SharePoint Server 2010

 

Governance SharePoint Server 2010

 

Keeping the trend going this week we’ll look at Active Directory Markers in SharePoint Server 2010. Governance is one of the key planning processes that should occur when considering the deployment of any technology, and SharePoint Server 2010 provides a number of tools and resources to facilitate the product and technology aspects of governance, one of which is the concept of Active Directory Markers to manage and control the uncontrolled proliferation of SharePoint in the Enterprise.

HTTP Request Monitoring and Throttling

 

SharePoint Foundation 2010 SharePoint Server 2010

 

Last week I covered Managed Accounts in SharePoint Server 2010, this week we’ll cover HTTP Request Monitoring and Throttling - I’ve been following a lot of conversions surrounding Resource Throttling in SharePoint Server 2010, of which most have focused on the core scenario involving managing large lists; however, there have been a few discussions on HTTP Request Monitoring and Throttling and how that ties in an organizations security architecture or how it can be used to augment it, particularly how it relates to Distributed-Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks.

RTM

 

RTM

 

Today marked an important milestone for us today with Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 – RTM! Keeping it short, off to celebrate! P.S. Participate in the virtual lunch launch ;-) on May 12th, 2010 at http://www.the2010event.com/. Bill

Claims-Based Identity in SharePoint 2010 [Updated]

 

Claims Identity

 

Claims-based identity or Claims Mode Authentication in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 has been all the buzz. Developers are looking to do more with augmentation of claims and IT Professionals are looking at new opportunities to delegate identities - whether across machine or trust boundaries, or to provide seamless and secure solutions enabling robust interoperability scenarios with external systems. Understanding claims-based identity is the first step in realizing its potential and to understand it, we need to understand the basic concepts and nomenclature.

Managed Accounts in SharePoint 2010

 

SharePoint Foundation 2010 SharePoint Server 2010

 

Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 provides a number of compelling improvements designed especially for the system administrator, of these, commonly overlooked, are Managed Accounts. A Managed Account is effectively an Active Directory user account whose credentials are managed by and contained within SharePoint. In addition to storing the credentials of the object, Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 can also leverage Active Directory Domain Policies to automatically reset passwords while meeting the requirements established by policy.

Twitter

 

Social

 

…Talked into creating a Twitter account, you can connect with me @williambaer.

New Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 IT Professional Curriculum

 

IT Pro Resources SharePoint Server 2010

 

Looking for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 IT Professional curriculum? Microsoft Learning has recently released a new First Look Clinic and Hands on Lab that provides training explaining both new and improved features in addition to deployment, management, and overall administration guidance for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010. In addition to deployment and operations you will also learn how to integrate Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 with line of business applications using BCS and troubleshoot common platform issues.

SharePoint 2010: Bits from the Edge Virtual Conference

 

Conferences and Events

 

Register to attend the SharePoint 2010: Bits from the Edge Virtual Conference brought to you by SharePoint Connections. Bits from the Edge is free one day online conference for SharePoint Developers February 16th 9:00 A.M. to 4:30 P.M. EST and 18th 9:00 A.M. to 4:30 P.M. GMT, 2010. On both dates I’ll be presenting a 30 minute session from 10:00 A.M. to 11:00 A.M. covering several new features in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 designed specifically for the IT Professional and answering any questions you may have related to IT Professional features or Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 in general.

Bing Maps Streetside Innovations

 

Bing

 

Some things are just better together…

 

SharePoint Server 2010

 

Ham and Cheese Bacon and Eggs Peanut Butter and Jelly Some things are just better together… Two weeks ago the United States Olympic Committee unveiled its virtual pressroom (USOC PressBox) designed to provide an online media outlet for journalists covering the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver as well as providing the best technology and experience to the National Governing Bodies and media covering the United States Olympic & Paralympic Teams, built entirely on SharePoint 2010 and Silverlight, the virtual pressroom provides a wealth of information including real-time Twitter streams.

Upgrading from Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 or SharePoint Portal Server 2003 to Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 or Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010

 

IT Pro Resources Migration & Upgrade SharePoint SharePoint Foundation 2010 SharePoint Server 2010 Upgrade & Migration

 

We’ve published a new post on the SharePoint Team Blog that details the process, procedures, and options for upgrading from Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 and SharePoint Portal Server 2003 to Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 or Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 - read more here…

December 2009 Cumulative Update Packages for SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

 

IT Pro Resources Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

 

December 2009 Cumulative Updates are available for download for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. For additional download information and detailed descriptions of the December 2009 Cumulative Update visit the Updates Resource Center for SharePoint Products and Technologies at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/sharepointserver/bb735839.aspx. Additional Resources Update Center for Microsoft Office, Office Servers, and Related Products

Site Recycle Bin (Microsoft IT Site Delete Capture) for Microsoft SharePoint Foundation and Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Frequently Asked Questions

 

IT Pro Resources SharePoint Foundation 2010 SharePoint Server 2010

 

Question: Will the Microsoft IT Site Delete Capture available at www.codeplex.com/governance work with SharePoint 2010? Answer: Yes. Question: In Microsoft SharePoint Foundation and Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 there is a Timer Job Definition called Gradual Site Delete, will the Microsoft IT Site Delete Capture work when this Timer Job Definition is enabled and what is this Timer Job Definition? Answer: Yes, the Microsoft IT Site Delete Capture will work with the Gradual Site Delete Timer Job Definition.

The Experts Conference 2010

 

Events

 

Session abstracts and keynotes have been announced for the 2010 Experts Conference in Los Angeles, CA. The Experts Conference (TEC) 2010 marks the first ever SharePoint training curriculum for TEC and includes industry recognized speakers and trainers from across the globe providing deep technical sessions to include, but not limited to upgrade and migration, social computing, enterprise and web content management, development, security, and authentication (see also http://tec2010.com/agenda-speakers/sharepoint-training/session-abstracts/ for a sample of session abstracts).

Recommended Upgrade Resources for Microsoft SharePoint Foundation and Server 2010

 

Migration & Upgrade SharePoint SharePoint Server 2010

 

Upgrading is common function with Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies, whether it be product specific such as Service Packs and Cumulative Updates or platform specific such as new versions of products or the core operating system. Prior to upgrading to any version of a product or patching and updating that product you should understand both the process and options and available to you. This post provides recommended upgrade resources related to Microsoft SharePoint Foundation and Server 2010 and the technologies on which depends separated by both Documentation and Tools resources because I hate looking for this stuff myself.

Running the Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products Preparation Tool with Local Paths on Machines without Internet Connectivity

 

IT Pro Resources Migration & Upgrade SharePoint SharePoint Foundation 2010 SharePoint Server 2010

 

One of the questions I’ve received on a few occasions to date is how to run the Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products Preparation Tool on a machine that does not have a connection to the Internet. There are two possible methods to working around this scenario: Manually download on another machine and then install the prerequisite software and configure the Server Roles, Role Services, and Features accordingly. See the following posts that describe the prerequisite software and accompanying download locations in addition to configuring the required Server Roles, Role Services, and Features for Microsoft SharePoint Foundation and Server 2010.

Common Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Installation Issues and Resolutions

 

Migration & Upgrade SharePoint

 

I’ve been following the SharePoint 2010 Forums and have noticed several common installation issues. These issues and possible steps to resolve those issues are included here. ISSUE #1: when running the SharePoint 2010 Products Configuration Wizard you may experience the error: Failed to create the configuration database. An exception of type System.Security.Cryptography.CryptographicException was thrown. Additional exception information: The data is invalid. To resolve the issue you can perform the following steps:

Configuring the Web and Application Server Roles for Microsoft SharePoint Server and Foundation 2010 [UPDATED]

 

IT Pro Resources SharePoint Foundation 2010 SharePoint Server 2010

 

I’ve had a couple of questions on configuring the Web and Application server roles on Windows Server 2008 to support Microsoft SharePoint Server and Foundation 2010. This post will describe the minimal prerequisite configuration to support Microsoft SharePoint Server and Foundation 2010 on Windows Server 2008. NOTE PrerequisiteInstaller.exe can be used to programmatically configure Web and application servers and install the required prerequisite software. See also http://blogs.technet.com/wbaer/archive/2009/11/18/installation-notes-for-microsoft-sharepoint-server-and-microsoft-sharepoint-foundation-2010-beta.aspx. Required Roles Application Server Web Server Role Services

Introduction to the Microsoft SharePoint SharePoint 2010 Database Layer [UPDATED]

 

SharePoint SQL

 

Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 introduces both new databases and databases whose distribution and purpose differs over previous versions of Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies. This post details the changes in the Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 database layer. This section provides information about Shared Service Applications that have a database dependency and is not an exhaustive list of all Shared Service Applications available in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010. At the time of publication this is not 100% complete.

Step-by-Step: Provisioning the Search Service Application

 

IT Pro Resources SharePoint Server 2010

 

Contents Provisioning the Search Service Application Moving Query Components Creating Mirror Query Components Creating Query Components Creating Crawl Components Creating Crawl Databases Creating Property Databases Provisioning the Search Service Application Open SharePoint 2010 Central Administration. Select Managed service applications under Application Management. Select New | Search Service Application on the ribbon user interface. On the Create Search Service Application dialog specify the name for the new Search Service Application or accept the default name, usually Search Service Application 1.

Step-by-Step: Provisioning the Web Analytics Service Application on Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Beta

 

IT Pro Resources SharePoint Server 2010

 

Prerequisites Usage and Health Data Collection and the Session State Service Application have been provisioned on the farm. Provisioning the Web Analytics Service Application Open SharePoint 2010 Central Administration. Select Manage service applications under Application Management. Select New | Web Analytics Service Application on the ribbon user interface. On the Create Web Analytics Service Application dialog specify the name for the new Web Analytics Service Application or accept the default name, usually Web Analytics Service Application 1.

Welcome to the Developer Dashboard

 

Code Samples SharePoint Foundation 2010 SharePoint Server 2010 Windows Powershell

 

About the Developer Dashboard The Developer Dashboard is an instrumentation framework new to Microsoft SharePoint Foundation and Server 2010 that can help diagnose particularly, classes of bugs that are easy to introduce through custom code, but often difficult to isolate by providing information about the request execution time, the number and callstack of each SPRequest allocation, the number, callstack, and query text of WCF calls and more. The Developer Dashboard appears in a frame on the bottom of each page and can exist in one of three (3) possible modes – On, Off, OnDemand.

Installation notice for the SharePoint Server Public Beta on Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 and Microsoft Windows 7

 

IT Pro Resources Migration & Upgrade SharePoint SharePoint Server 2010

 

If you will be installing the SharePoint Server Public Beta on Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 or Microsoft Windows 7 you will need to download and install an update from http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/Downloads/DownloadDetails.aspx?DownloadID=23806 to resolve an issue that occurs in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 when provisioning Service Applications or when accessing pages that make service calls. These operations will result in an error “System.Configuration.ConfigurationErrorsException: Unrecognized attribute ‘allowInsecureTransport’. Note that attribute names are case-sensitive.

New Update Center for Microsoft Office, Office Servers, and Related Products

 

IT Pro Resources

 

We launched a new update center for Microsoft Office, Office Servers, and related products today. The Update Center for Microsoft Office, Office Servers, and Related Products provides information about current and past updates for Office, Forms Server, Groove Server, PerformancePoint Server, Project Portfolio Server, Project Server, Search Server, SharePoint Server, and Windows SharePoint Services. You can additionally subscribe to the RSS feed to receive important news about new and existing updates as they become available.

Upgrade Support for Prerelease Versions to Release Versions of Microsoft SharePoint Server and Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010

 

IT Pro Resources Migration & Upgrade SharePoint SharePoint Foundation 2010 SharePoint Server 2010

 

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.

Installation Notes for Microsoft SharePoint Server and Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 Beta [UPDATED]

 

Migration & Upgrade SharePoint

 

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.

SharePoint Products TechCenter for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010

 

IT Pro Resources SharePoint Foundation 2010 SharePoint Server 2010

 

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 Database Server Connectivity and Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies

 

IT Pro Resources SharePoint Tips

 

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.

sharepoint.microsoft.com Optimization Strategy and Insights on the SharePoint Team Blog

 

Performance

 

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…

Now serving Bing...

 

Off Topic

 

Search this site with Bing… ;-)

Just Published - Configure a Server Farm for Minimal Downtime During Software Updates

 

IT Pro Resources Upgrade & Migration

 

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.

PowerShell and SharePoint Automation Examples Part 3

 

Code Samples Windows Powershell

 

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...

 

Conferences and Events Microsoft Certified Master Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Replication and Availability

 

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.

Developing SharePoint Applications

 

Code Samples SDK

 

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.

Microsoft SharePoint Administration Toolkit

 

Add-ons and Utilities IT Pro Resources

 

The 4th release of the Microsoft SharePoint Administration Toolkit is now available for download and includes improvements in the SharePoint Diagnostics Tool (SPDiag), a new Permissions Reporting Tool, a new bulk Quota processing tool, in addition to the Security Configuration Wizard Manifests. The Microsoft SharePoint Administration Toolkit is an excellent suite of utilites aimed at the system administrator to assist in both isolating issues, understanding the overall environment they support, and making common administrative tasks more efficient and reliable.

Microsoft Case Studies: Coca-Cola Enterprises and Microsoft Online Services

 

Microsoft Online Services

 

Recently posted: A Microsoft Case Study examining Microsoft Online Services and Coca-Cola Enterprises. Read more about this Microsoft Case Study here: Coca-Cola Enterprises Tackles Competition with Microsoft Online Services To read more Microsoft Online Services case studies visit https://partner.microsoft.com/40090617 or to learn more about Microsoft Online Services visit http://www.microsoft.com/online/default.mspx.

Quota Templates and Powershell

 

Code Samples Windows Powershell

 

Continuing the series using Powershell and Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies, this weeks script sample illustrates how Powershell can be leveraged to programmatically provision Quota Templates in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and/or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. Instructions Copy the source below into somefile.ps1. Copy the Xml source in QuotaTemplates.xml. In the Windows Powershell console call ./somefile.ps1 Source #——————————————————————————-

Function: main

Description: Main entry point for the script. Loads the configuration source

Interesting find on Event Id’s 3760 and 5586…

 

SharePoint SQL

 

I was recently asked to look at an issue in which SharePoint would intermittently drop its connection to SQL. Taking the typical course of action, I started looking at the Application Event Logs, Trace (ULS) logs, etc. I noticed in the Application Event Logs event Id 3760 and 5586 occurred every hour on the hour. The initial event Id 3760 indicated authentication issues, the Domain Controllers did not see issue that corresponded to the events reported by SharePoint; Scalable Networking Pack Features, MaxConcurrentAPI, etc.

HA/DR Whitepaper

 

Replication and Availability Webcasts and Whitepapers

 

I missed this one, but better late …. A new whitepaper has been released outlining configuring disaster recovery across SharePoint farms by using SQL Server log shipping – read more…

Windows Rights Management Services, Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies, and Forest Boundaries

 

Cross-Forest Hosting Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

 

I recently was asked about the possibility of implementing Windows Rights Management Services with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 in a resource forest, or otherwise, the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 deployment was in a forest other than that where the users reside (login forest). In this particular scenario, a one-way non-transitive trust was implemented, which provided an isolation boundary between the resource and login forest. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 is generally supportive of the resource forest concept (see posts tagged Cross-Forest Hosting) however, with the Windows Rights Management Services (RMS) cluster in a forest other than that of the resource forest, problems will surface in that SharePoint will need to obtain a RMS user certificate / RAC (from the /_wmcs/certification pipeline) that is trusted by the RMS Licensing pipeline(s) configured in SharePoint 3.

Alternate Access Mappings and Windows Powershell

 

Code Samples Windows Powershell

 

I had a request this week on how to leverage Windows Powershell to add Alternate Access Mappings to the collection for a specific Web application. Surprisingly after some searching I was unable to find anything existing on the topic, so for those curious see the attached script and corresponding source Xml. Instructions Copy the source below into somefile.ps1. Copy the Xml source in AAM.xml. In the Windows Powershell console call .

STSADM -o preparetomove Implications on Search Redundancy

 

Replication and Availability Search

 

I was just reading Todd’s post on preparemove, and he does a good job of covering the changes in profile synchronization and related GUID reset/reassignment introduced by the application of the Infrastructure Update. There is one significant problem this change mitigates, specifically for those looking for a level of search redundancy through a dual-crawl architecture. In most scenarios where a dual-crawl architecture is implemented, an Office SharePoint Server Search instance in the primary datacenters crawls its localized content, and a separate, unique Office SharePoint Server Search instance in the secondary datacenter crawls the content in the primary datacenter.

HTTP to HTTPS Redirection with SharePoint Products and Technologies

 

Code Samples

 

I’ve received several requests in regards to redirecting HTTP to HTTPS. In this post I will briefly cover a select number methods and/or technologies that can be used to accomplish HTTP to HTTPS redirection. ISA 2006 Modify the Web Listener connection properties to enable HTTP to HTTPS redirection (see below). Open Web Listener Properties on the Published Site. Select the Connections Tab. Select Redirect all Traffic from HTTP to HTTPS under HTTP to HTTPS Redirection.

SharePoint Diagnostics Tool 1.0

 

Add-ons and Utilities

 

I completely missed this one; the SharePoint Diagnostics Tool was recently released (included in the Microsoft SharePoint Administration Toolkit v3.0). The SharePoint Diagnostics Tool enables an administrator to simplify troubleshooting by gathering pertinent information about a farm and displaying it in a meaningful way providing a programmatic approach to locating and isolating issues in your environment. Find it and other great tools and utilities under Tools.

Microsoft Certified Master for SharePoint 2007

 

Microsoft Certified Master

 

In early November, Microsoft announced the Microsoft Certified Master for Office SharePoint Server 2007 and the Microsoft Certified Architect for Office SharePoint Server 2007. [See http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2008/11/10/introducing-the-microsoft-certified-master-and-certified-architect-for-sharepoint.aspx] I was fortunate in that I had the opportunity to spend three (3) weeks in this first rotation of the program and was extremely impressed, not only with the depth and breadth of the knowledge that was made available throughout the three (3) weeks, but also the ability to collaborate with the brilliant instructors and students alike.

Developer News, SPDisposeCheck Released and Updated Developer Guidance

 

Code Samples

 

Today we announced the availability of SPDisposeCheck and updated the guidance [Using Disposable Windows SharePoint Services Objects]. The published guidance provides best practices to follow when using Windows SharePoint Services objects to avoid retaining the objects in memory in the Microsoft .NET Framework, SPDisposeCheck facilitates a programmatic method to enable developers to efficiently adhere to that guidance throughout the development lifecycle. Learn more and download SPDisposeCheck

People Picker Port/Protocol Requirements

 

People Picker Ports & Protocols

 

While working on a deployment this week, the OOB People Picker caught my attention and I realized there was not a great deal of documentation available on its requirements and troubleshooting. Driving this thinking was the nature of the deployment on which it was to be configured - a cross forest, secured deployment with Web front-end servers in a firewalled perimeter network. Purpose The People Picker enables an end-user to specify a name or partial name when provisioning a user on a site collection and have the input resolved and validated against a directory source.

Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 Disaster Recovery Notes with SharePoint Products and Technolgies

 

Capacity Planning Windows Server 2008

 

In recent months there has been a great deal of discussion and debate on disaster recovery and high availability with Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies and with the recent releases of both Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 there are open opportunities to leverage components available natively to these technologies and compliment a SharePoint Products and Technologies disaster recovery design. One of the most significant challenges has been overcoming latency penalties applied through distance between the active and passive datacenters, particularly with Microsoft SQL Server Log Shipping since we’re dealing with SMB and a synchronous process.

Best Practice Resource Center is now live...

 

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

 

[To avoid common pitfalls and keep your Office SharePoint Server 2007 environment available and performing well, follow these best practices based on real-world experience from Microsoft Consulting Services and the product team.] http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/sharepointserver/bb736746.aspx

Microsoft SharePoint Administration Toolkit v2.0 Released

 

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

 

The Microsoft SharePoint Administration Toolkit contains functionality to help administer and manage Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services version 3.0. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=263cd480-f6eb-4fa3-9f2e-2d47618505f2&DisplayLang=en

Database Mirroring, Notes and Considerations

 

Capacity Planning

 

The question of Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Database Mirroring (DBM) continues to be a topic of discussion in implementation with Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies, attached is a set of key notes and considerations to take into account when implementing DBM. Before implementing DBM with Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies, you must first understand that many applications are not natively aware of a Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Database Mirroring architecture in most cases.

Plan for Availability Whitepaper Published

 

Webcasts and Whitepapers

 

The Plan for Availability whitepaper has been published and describes at a high level, the varying methods to achieve high-availability, associated costs, and challenges specific to designing a high-availability solution for Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies. Read more…

Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies Infrastructure Update Released!

 

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

 

The Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies Infrastructure Update has been officially released. The update includes both improvements in core functional scenarios such as Office SharePoint Server Search with the introduction of S2 in addition to management enhancements resolving core customer issues such as scalability and performance improvements to support search incremental crawl (WSS), patch and upgrade of WSS server farms where a large number of host header-based site collections are implemented, support for Kerberos authentication to access SSP Web services, and more…

Developing Web Parts, considerations on Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies

 

Code Samples

 

Background Information Web Parts as defined by MSDN are an integrated set of controls for creating Web sites that enable end-users to modify the content, appearance, and behavior of Web pages in a browser. In Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Web Parts ultimately derive from the ASP.WebPart (System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts) base class; however, Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 also has a Web Part base class (Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.WebPart) derived from the ASP.WebPart class. If you are developing Web Parts you can elect to derive from either the Asp.

Master Page Example

 

Code Samples

 

I used the sample master pages at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointdesigner/HA102223711033.aspx in several Feature Stapling/Receiver demonstrations over the past year and was asked if I could provide the solution package I compiled using the Clarity master page (see image) in conjunction with a Feature Receiver to update the master page on both site collections and Webs. I’ve finally gotten around to uploading the .wsp, so for those interested it can be downloaded here.

Microsoft Windows Server 2008 as a Host Operating System for Microsoft Virtual Server 2005

 

Windows Server 2008

 

Suppose you would like to use Windows Server 2008 as your host operating system, but the system does not provide support for Hyper-V. The good news is that Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 will install and run under Windows Server 2008 providing the following conditions are met (including the Virtual Server Administration Web site): see notes http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948515. You need to run Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 You must have KB948515 applied to enable Windows Server 2008 host operating system support (http://www.

SELECT FullUrl [Please Don't] from dbo.Webs

 

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

 

I was just browsing Mike Fitzmaurice’s blog and I’m glad to see he continues to dissuade direct database access with Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies. All too often I’ve seen what was conceptually a good idea, result in performance, scalability, and manageability problems long term. While initially an otherwise simple SELECT statement, yes, even read, may be perceived as non-intrusive, problems later down the road may be compounded by what was offered as a “simple means” to getting a particular task accomplished.

Renaming Content Databases

 

SharePoint Tips

 

I received an inquiry this morning on what procedural steps are required to rename a Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 content database and decided to make the information more broadly available. Step 1 Detach Content Database Detach the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 content database from its associated Web application in either Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 using the steps as outlined below: On a Web front-end computer open a command prompt and change directories to %commonprogramfiles%Microsoft SharedWeb Server Extensions12BIN.

Microsoft IT Site Delete Capture LE Version 1.0 Released

 

Code Samples Governance

 

Microsoft IT Site Delete Capture LE version 1.0 has been released. Microsoft Site Delete Capture LE version 1.0 is an Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 solution package that when deployed to a Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 server farm enables administrators to create a snapshot of site collections and Webs when they are deleted through the SharePoint user interface, the SharePoint Administration Tool, or Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Data Protection and Recovery Whitepaper

 

Webcasts and Whitepapers

 

The Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Data Protection and Recovery Whitepaper has been updated to include guidance for all sizes of enterprises, additional information on recovery environments, and updated guidance on managing the recovery of the Configuration Database. Read more…

Add this to your image...

 

Internet Information Services Windows Server 2003 Windows Server 2008

 

One of the most common configuration inconsistencies I find in SharePoint farms is the Web application path, in most scenarios the Web applications are provisioned under the default root path of C:InetpubwwwrootwssVirtualDirectories. This is usually the result of oversight during the provisioning process. Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 provides a configuration field (see screenshot) that allows administrators to configure the path to the Web application host directory; however, in many cases, this setting is overlooked.

Watch SharePoint Grow!

 

Internet Explorer Off Topic

 

I visited http://www.carbongrove.com on the commute home this evening and planted SharePoint. Watch SharePoint grow at http://www.carbongrove.com/Trees/243029#g=0 or plant your own! In partnership with a world leader in planting trees for environmental restoration, Windows Internet Explorer will sponsor the planting of up to 250,000 real trees in deforested regions around the globe. Users simply need to visit their tree once a week and watch it grow. After six weeks of your carbon reducing efforts, Windows Internet Explorer will sponsor the planting of a real tree.

Planning a 100,000+ My Site personal site deployment? Notes...

 

Capacity Planning People and Profiles Performance

 

This topic has frequented my Inbox over the past months, planning a My Site personal site deployment for 100,000+ users. In this post we’ll examine the issues and potential solutions. First it is important to understand that while a My Site personal site is a site collection in basic form, it’s instantiation via a browser request or managed code results in significantly greater overhead than a traditional collaboration-type site collection. The majority of overhead is presented through the numerous data building operations that occur both on the private and public pages associated with the template, private.

We're Hiring!

 

Jobs

 

Do you want to help shape Microsoft’s Software + Services offerings? If so, here’s your opportunity to jump into the fast growing area of Enterprise Information Worker solutions working on SharePoint Online. As a Program Manager on our team you’ll be: Helping to shape the future of SharePoint Online as a platform that our customers can extend with solutions that focus on improving their employee’s business productivity Driving the successful on-boarding of multiple Partners that understand our service and can build solutions that work well with the offering Responsibilities:

Absence

 

Off Topic

 

Keeping this blog up to date over the previous month and half has been challenging due to commitments and travel; however, I’m back in the office ;-) and will resume posting regularly again. Please keep your comments and questions coming in the interim.

  • Bill

Announcing the SharePoint Administration Toolkit

 

Add-ons and Utilities Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

 

The Microsoft SharePoint Administration Toolkit contains functionality to help administrateer (good catch A Mondale) and manage Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services version 3.0. This toolkit contains two new functions - the ability to perform bulk operations on site collections and a Stsadm operation to update alert emails after a Web application has changed URLs. Download x86 | x64

Tip of the Day, April 25, 2008

 

SharePoint Tips

 

Tip of the day: Deleting orphaned Timer Jobs Open SharePoint Central 3.0 Central Administration and click Operations. Select Timer job definitions under Global Configuration. Select the orphaned Timer Job from the list of Timer Jobs. Locate the Globally Unique Identifier (GUID) for the Timer Job in the browser address bar. Copy the GUID to the clipboard and replace %2D in the GUID with hyphens. For example the entry in the illustration above should appear as fc42d1d3-1e94-4dee-998d-e0086b6f8300.

High-Availability and Disaster Recovery with Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Database Mirroring and Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Log Shipping for Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies

 

Capacity Planning Replication and Availability

 

I’ve discussed on several occasions Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Database Mirroring with Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies as a method by which database mirroring can provide intra-datacenter high-availability; however, am frequently asked how Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Database Mirroring can provide protection from datacenter failure. While possible, you generally do not want to geographically distribute your principal and mirror instances due to potential problems with maintaining synchronicity and bandwidth/latency constraints instead maintaining and intra-datacenter session to provide local fault tolerance; however, you can implement Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Log Shipping in conjunction with Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Database Mirroring to provide a standby copy of your databases in the remote datacenter.

Data Protection Manager 2007 Whitepaper on Backup and Recovery of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Search Components

 

Search Webcasts and Whitepapers

 

A new whitepaper has been published on protecting the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Search components. The whitepaper includes scripts to enable Data Protection Manager 2007 to backup and recover the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Search components and a detailed set of instructions on configuring Data Protection Manager 2007. The sample scripts provide guidance on backing up the search index, Search and Shared Services Provider databases. Read more…

SharePoint Products and Technologies Protocol Documentation

 

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

 

The SharePoint Products and Technologies Protocol Documentation has been recently published to MSND which includes technical specifications for Microsoft proprietary protocols that are implemented in SharePoint Products and Technologies. Read more…

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Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

 

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Ask the Experts - March 2008 Results

 

Ask the Experts

 

The Index server, is it a single point of failure? One of the most common concerns is that of the index server role (Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007) as a single point of failure in a server farm; however, there is a misconception that you are limited to a single index server per server farm, while the index server role is limited within a server farm, the limitation is strictly association with a Shared Services Provider.

Virtual Ask the Experts?

 

Ask the Experts

 

One of my favorite components to any conference is ATE (Ask the Experts), which based on the overall response recently at the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server Conference 2008, is both popular and extremely valuable in providing an opportunity for open discourse and topic-based discussion. With that in mind, I have often considered the concept of a virtual ATE on my blog. While I generally prepare and deliver content based on what the community has most often requested or where I feel there is desire for more information, I’d like to give the concept of a virtual ATE here.

My first SharePoint experience...

 

Conferences and Events Off Topic

 

I’m often asked either when I became involved with Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies or what single event resulted in my evangelism and subsequent work with Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies, so here we go: I was attending a meeting in June of 2000, at the time, just having joined Compaq Computer Corporation’s Enterprise Solutions and Services division when I listened to Michael Capellas, then CEO, envision Compaq as “guided by a single, focused vision: Everything to the Internet”, (I still have my laminated card, fitted for a badge holder, with those words emblazoned).

Notes on SQL Server 2000/2005 Log Shipping with SharePoint Products and Technologies

 

Replication and Availability

 

As Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies becomes more business critical for organizations, data protection and redundancy become primary objectives in any size deployment. Disaster recovery and redundancy can be achieved using any of a collection of available technologies to include SQL Server 2005 Database Mirroring for redundancy and hardware or software-based replication solutions for disaster recovery or geographic replication. One of the most seamless methods available to a SharePoint deployment for geographic replication is SQL Server 2000/2005 Log Shipping.

Migrating User Accounts in Windows SharePoint Services

 

Code Samples People and Profiles Upgrade & Migration

 

While attending Ask the Experts at the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server Conference 2008, I was asked about migrating user accounts in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 to a new login name programmatically, fortunately Windows SharePoint Services addressed user account migrations with the Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 post SP1 hotfix package 896593 which was followed by a number of applications including SPUserUtil Keith Richie corrected me today - SPUserUtil preceeded the MigrateUser API - Thanks Keith!

A Different Perspective on SharePoint Users...

 

Conferences and Events

 

While walking about the various booths and displays this afternoon during the Ask the Experts session at the Microsoft Office SharePoint Conference 2008 I found this rather unusual SharePoint user in the midst. If Master Chief uses SharePoint…. ;-)

Database Mirroring Whitepaper Updated

 

Webcasts and Whitepapers

 

The SQL Server 2005 Database Mirroring with SharePoint Products and Technologies whitepaper has been updated and available for download at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=83725&clcid=0x409. Revisions include information on configuring failover with SharePoint Products and Technologies using SQL Aliasing, content database limitations and more. SQL Server 2005 Database Mirroring posts on this blog: SQL Server 2005 Database Mirroring and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0/Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 - Part 1 (Introduction, Overview, and basics)

Bill's 5-min. SharePoint Performance Recommendations

 

Performance

 

Performance recommendations and guidance is something I receive comment and question on quite frequently, typically in hallway conversation or in passing at conferences - so in the spirit of those occurrences I’ve decided to compile a quick list of SharePoint performance recommendations that can be conveyed verbally in five minutes or less. Governance Do limit the number of site collections/content database, I’m adamantly opposed to the “airline booking model” and much prefer what I like to refer to as the “accounting model” of database management, for example, if you know your maximum allowable site collection quota will be 5GB, and would like to keep your content databases at 100GB, logically you can host no more than 20 site collections per database and while this can result in a large number of content databases, you avoid site collection proliferation…with this model you should also take into account growth and set aside 5-10% to support schema changes, etc.

February '08

 

Conferences and Events

 

Seattle → Amsterdam → The Hague → Seattle (TechReady6) → SharePoint Conference 2008. February has been an amazing month for myself and SharePoint, having the opportunity to promote the platform in Europe and discuss security and data protection with SharePoint in Seattle at TechReady6, a whitepaper published, and a birthday in between ;-). I won’t be presenting at the SharePoint Conference (I always say that and always find myself doing so), but will be present at the conference and represented during the Ask the Experts session on Wednesday, March 5th, 2008 11:00 A.

Just Published - Whitepaper: Database Maintenance for Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies

 

Performance Webcasts and Whitepapers

 

I’m pleased to announce the general availability of my most recent whitepaper, “Database Maintenance for Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies”. This whitepaper describes the recommended maintenance strategies for the databases that host content and configuration settings for SharePoint Products and Technologies. Read more…

Announcing the Beta Release of the SharePoint Asset Inventory Tool

 

Governance

 

In the past several weeks, I’ve traveled along the west coast and overseas discussing governance as it applies to SharePoint Products and Technologies and am delighted to announce the availability of the beta of the SharePoint Asset Inventory Tool. The SharePoint Asset Inventory Tool is single reporting application that can be used to mitigate SharePoint Products and Technologies server proliferation by scanning the network for server machines with Windows SharePoint Services 3.

SharePoint Capacity Planning Tool

 

Capacity Planning

 

The SharePoint Capacity Planning Tool has been made available for download on TechNet. To learn more about the benefits and applications of the SharePoint Capacity Planning Tool see my beta release announcement at Announcing the Beta Release of the SharePoint Capacity Planning Tool or visit the resource links below: Resources Description and more Information Download

HTTP Compression, Internet Information Services 6.0, and SharePoint Products and Technologies

 

Performance

 

A recent discussion on Garbage Collection management on 64-bit Web servers hosting Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 led into a discussion on rendering performance, particularly steps to reduce overall rendering time at the client. While monitoring client rendering can be achieved to some degree through measuring TTLB - purely in ensuring pages are served in a timely manner (see ASP.NET Performance Monitoring, and When to Alert Administrators for monitoring recommendations), there are too many variables that can result in overall performance variations to include browser, hardware, machine state, etc.

Upcoming Posts

 

Off Topic

 

The next three (3) weeks will indeed be busy for me, first traveling to Amsterdam to meet with customers and returning to Redmond the following week to speak at TechReady6 on securing and protecting SharePoint Products and Technologies deployments; however, with that will come some compelling content I hope to publish toward the end of the month and early February. Next week I am focused on performance, particularly, discussions on Garbage Collection (GC) and GC management on 64-bit Web servers.

Microsoft Office Developers Conference 2008

 

Conferences and Events

 

The Microsoft Office Developers Conference 2008 is less than one month away. The Microsoft Office Developers Conference is the premier event for both Microsoft Office and SharePoint Products and Technologies developers. Visit https://microsoft.crgevents.com/ODC2008/Content/default.aspx?p=UC3HYF to learn more or register for the event which runs between February 10th - 13th, 2008 in San Jose, CA at the San Jose Convention Center. The Microsoft Office Developers Conference 2008 will include a set of keynotes by senior Microsoft executives, five (5) technical tracks, 90 break-out sessions and hands-on labs in addition to an Executive Track where analysts, Microsoft and industry executives can learn the how and why of Office applications and their respective competive advantages.

Just Published - January 2008

 

Webcasts and Whitepapers

 

Adding Code-Behind Files to Master Pages and Page Layouts in SharePoint Server 2007 http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb986729.aspx Adding Custom Quick Access Buttons to the Page Editing Toolbar in SharePoint Server 2007 http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb986730.aspx

Dynamic Application of Master Pages in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

 

Governance SDK

 

I’ve spent the past two months in various locations across the West coast speaking on governance in SharePoint Products and Technologies and one of the most common points of discussion is enabling a consistent look and feel across sites and Webs. While most commonly this is achieved through employing a master page, many organizations either limit the distribution of Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007 or do not use Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007 in their organizations, while there are many articles across numerous blogs providing prescriptive guidance on master page development, Feature stapling, and other variations to support the implementation of master pages, I’ve yet to find a complete tutorial on implementing master pages using a combination of Feature stapling and a Feature Receiver.

TechReady6

 

Conferences and Events

 

For those internal readers attending TR6, I’ve confirmed as a speaker/presenter for the following topics (dates and locations TDB) - as dates/times and locations are finalized, I’ll make them available here. OFC322 SharePoint Backup and Restore OFC321 Securing SharePoint OFCIL300 R1 and R2 Upgrading to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 from Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 *Instructor Led Lab co-presenting with Rick Taylor [You’ll enjoy this one!]

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 to Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Site-Level Migration

 

Migration & Upgrade SharePoint Upgrade & Migration

 

I was recently asked a question regarding moving sites between Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Web applications and whether or not there are any prerequisites associated with such a move. While moving sites can be an arduous and on occasion, a complicated task, moving between variations in platform only adds to the complexities associated with site-level moves. Many of the Features available to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 sites are not available to Windows SharePoint Services 3.

Happy "Indexing" Holidays - Microsoft Filter Pack Released

 

Search

 

The Microsoft Filter Pack for search has been released enabling critical search scenarios across a variety of Microsoft Search products including SharePoint Portal Server 2003, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, Search Server 2008, Search Server 2008 Express Edition, Exchange Server 2005, SQL Server 2005/2008, and Windows Desktop Search 3.1/4.0. The Microsoft Filter Pack provides iFilters for the following file type extensions: .docx (Microsoft Office 2007 Word Document) .

Service Pack 1 for SharePoint Products and Technologies

 

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

 

I’ve spent the past several days in Portland, Oregon speaking at a SharePoint Products and Technologies governance event and completely neglected to post any information on the now released Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Service Pack 1. For more information visit: http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2007/12/11/announcing-the-release-of-wss-3-0-sp1-and-office-sharepoint-server-2007-sp1.aspx.

Announcing the Release of the SharePoint Monitoring Toolkit 1.0

 

Performance

 

The SharePoint Monitoring Toolkit enables administrators and IT Pros to manage SharePoint Products and Technologies deployments, both large and small, by introducing two (2) new management packs for System Center Operations Manager 2007. Both the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 management packs replace the existing management packs and have been engineered to leverage the rich features of System Center Operations Manager 2007. Improvements include: Additional rules to include performace rules Improved and new reports and views Backwards compatible dependencies have been removed Increased overall reliability Tuning and event supression reducing redundancy and more… To download the Solution Accelerator visit: http://go.

Announcing the Beta Release of the SharePoint Capacity Planning Tool

 

Capacity Planning

 

After several months of work and very little sleep in between we are pleased to announce general availability of the SharePoint Capacity Planning Tool (Beta). The SharePoint Capacity Planning Tool (Beta) provides a wealth of helpful information when planning a SharePoint Products and Technologies deployment; helping administrators, consultants, and IT Pros determine the potential required hardware investment(s) and topologies to support and meet requirements for availability and performance or even the affect of introducing additonal offices with their own unique bandwidth and latency constraints.

On the Edge

 

Edge

 

Over the past several weeks myself and Rick Taylor, you may know him from various conferences, MCTs, or as a contributing author to the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Administrators Companion, have been engaging the Edge crew to establish a new series - dubbed the R&B Show. Our focus will be an entertaining look into the daily lives of a MSIT technologist and we’ll be covering topics specific to Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies such as FBA, BDC, Search, Shared Services design, architecture and engineering, etc.

Stay at Home Server

 

Off Topic

 

Generally over the years I’ve tried to keep strict focus on Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies within this blog; however, every once in awhile something comes along that definitely deserves mention…not only technology related, but entertaining as well. Enjoy .. .. http://www.stayathomeserver.com/ Read more…

Managing Master Merge in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

 

Performance

 

Master merge compiles all index data comprised of both in-memory and disk-based structures into one disk-based structure to prevent the degradation of the search service. SPS 2001 allowed administrators to manipulate the master merge schedule through HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareMicrosoftSearch1.0CatalogNamesSharePointPortalServerworkspace_nameIndexer:ci:MidNightMasterMergeTimeDelta, but only to a limited degree of the specification of minutes past 12:00 A.M. that master merge should occur. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 does not provide an out of the box mechanism for manipulating the scheduling of the master merge process; however, options are available to script a scheduled master merge operation.

Planning for *Additional* Storage with Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies - Recycle Bin

 

Capacity Planning

 

This will be the first of a series focusing on those areas of storage that are commonly overlooked when planning storage for Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies. In this post we’ll look at the native Recycle Bin in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 to understand its fundamental aspects and impacts on storage. The Recycle Bin enables end-users to easily recover content deleted within a site collection and is configured in two separate and unique stages referred to as the 1st and 2nd stage each with its own configuration properties.

Whitepaper: Upgrading SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Customizations to SharePoint Server 2007

 

Migration & Upgrade SharePoint Webcasts and Whitepapers

 

After several months of work, we’re pleased to announce publication of a new whitepaper: Upgrading SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Customizations to SharePoint Server 2007. To view the whitepaper visit: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb954662.aspx or http://blogs.msdn.com/joelo/archive/2007/11/06/upgrade-customization-articles-posted.aspx for additional details.

Moving site collections between domains...

 

Cross-Forest Hosting Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

 

Moving site collections between domains is not a common operation, but occurs frequently enough to provide some prescriptive guidance. User Accounts SharePoint maintains the security identifiers of user accounts as opposed to just usernames, as a result, when restoring a site collection to a farm in a domain other than that where the original source site collection was located, those usernames are no longer recognized regardless as to whether or not those usernames were recreated in the target domain.

Internet Information Services 7.0, Application Pool Modes and SharePoint Products and Technologies

 

Windows Server 2008

 

Internet Information Services 7.0 Application Pool Modes introduces changes in how application pools are managed and process requests that involve managed resources. In Internet Information Services 6.0 worker process isolation mode and in Internet Information Services 5.0, isolation modes are set at the server level. The result is that both isolation modes cannot be run simultaneously. In Internet Information Services 7.0 modes are set at the application pool level allowing applications to be run simultaneously on the same server in application pools with differing process modes (Integrated and ISAPI (Classic).

Slipstream, not a phenomenon in Physics

 

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

 

Slipstream is a common term used at Microsoft to define the merging of patches or updates into the original installation sources of a program. What are the benefits of slipstreaming…. Creating a slipstream image reduces the operational overhead required to introduce a specific build of software to include Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and/or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 into an environment. For example, if an organization has standardized on a specific set of updates and/or patches that will be applied in a given configuration, these updates and/or patches can be included in the original installation sources and subsequently installed with the source application.

Free PacWest Sales Event - SharePoint Products and Technologies Governance

 

Conferences and Events Events Governance

 

If you are in or plan to be in the Puget Sound area on November 8th, I encourage you to register for the PacWest Sales Event focused on governance in SharePoint Products and Technologies; presenters will include myself, Joel, Jim Adams, and others…for more information on registration, location, date, and details visit Joel’s blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/joelo/archive/2007/10/30/free-pac-west-sales-event-meeting-of-the-minds-governance-and-sharepoint-2007.aspx.

Installing Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 on Windows Server 2008

 

Windows Server 2008 Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

 

On October 29, 2007 we announced that Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 bits will not be included on the Windows Server 2008 media; however, will remain available as a separate download, as a result changing the installation routine. For those who used evaluation and release candidate builds of Windows Server 2008, Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 was included as a server role, adding the role subsequently configured supporting roles and role services - as a clean installation, this configuration must be performed by the server administrator and includes adding the Web Server (IIS)) role and role services.

More KB934525 Troubleshooting...

 

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

 

Problem: web.config is Read-only Isolation: Check upgrade.log at %commonprogramfiles%Microsoft SharedWeb Server Extensions12BINLOGS, looking for the following error: [IisWebSiteSequence] [ERROR] [10/17/2007 11:38:22 AM]: Access to the path ‘C:InetpubwwwrootwssVirtualDirectories5003web.config’ is denied. Cause: Insufficient user rights on the file (ACL); this can happen if the read-only flag is actively set the for the web.config and/or if using a source code management system to maintain web.config. Solution: Ensure that Everyone has write access to web.

Data Protection and Recovery in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

 

Webcasts and Whitepapers

 

Data protection and recovery is a strategic requirement for most organizations considering Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007; until recently most of the information available on item to farm level recovery, both for planning and implementation, were scattered across the Internet, available in pieces on a collection of blogs and sites. Today I’d like to announce the culmination of several weeks of work by many dedicated and bright individuals with the publication of a new whitepaper Data protection and recovery for Office SharePoint Server in small to medium deployments (http://technet2.

The database on serverMicrosoftSSEE is not accessible to missing Windows Internal Database signatures.

 

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

 

A solution is available to administrators of SharePoint Products and Technologies deployments experiencing the following application event after introducing WSS October public update KB934525. Event Type: Error Event Source: Windows SharePoint Services 3 Event Category: Topology Event ID: 6800 Date: 10/17/2007 Time: 8:09:40 PM User: NA Computer: HOME Description: The database WSS_Content on HOMEMicrosoft##SSEE is not accessible to missing Windows Internal Database signatures. 1. Run the following STSADM operations to stop and start the SPWebService:

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Security Updates Version(s) Explained

 

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

 

I was recently asked by one of our Premier Field Engineers in Charlotte, NC about the versioning information displayed in SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration after installing recent Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 security updates and decided it would be beneficial to expand the audience for others seeking an answer to this question. Question: In relation to the October patches for MOSS/WSS – should the database version show up correctly in CA? or is it expected that it would should up like this:

Windows Server 2008 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 - So happy together...

 

Windows Server 2008

 

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks using SharePoint Products and Technologies with Windows Server 2008 (WS08), specifically running Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS) on Windows Server 2008 IIS 7.0 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 SP1 in addition to check-in scenarios such as provisioning WS08 with WSS 3.0, introducing MOSS 2007, and ultimately SP1…I anticipated an improvement in performance, but the new implementation of the TCP/IP protocol suite AKA Next Generation TCP/IP stack exceeded my expectations considering the Web front-ends I used were in our Singapore Data Center - a full 226ms of latency from Redmond.

Hybrid Upgrade Approach added to TechNet

 

Migration & Upgrade SharePoint Upgrade & Migration

 

I was reviewing the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server TechNet article Determine upgrade approach and realized an article I have been working internally over the past few weeks has been published and introduced to the three existing upgrade approaches of in-place, gradual, and database migration. The upgrade approach itself is described/labeled as a hybrid upgrade approach which combines both the gradual and database migration approaches permitting administrators to preview a subset of site collections prior to upgrading the remainder of the environment (for those who have attended my TechReady, etc.

KB934525 Troubleshooting "Cannot start service SPAdmin on computer '.'."

 

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

 

I’ve come across a handful of posts regarding KB934525 for Windows SharePoint Services and failure to start the Windows SharePoint Services Administration service. I’ve attached some basic troubleshooting steps that may provide resolution to issues where psconfig fails with Cannot start service SPAdmin on computer ‘.’. For those who have installed the KB and have experienced issues where the service has failed to start, Option 4 is the recommended solution. UPDATE Oct.

Please don't put that in my GAC...

 

GAC

 

I have had the opportunity over the past two weeks to speak with several customers in regards to SharePoint Products and Technologies as a platform, geographically disperse architectural considerations, but one question stood out that was shared by each of these customers - “How do you [Microsoft] manage customizations in your SharePoint deployments?". Before beginning to answer the question, I immediately realized how both widespread and common customization on this iteration of SharePoint is when compared to its predecessors.

SharePoint Manageability Toolkit Updated

 

IT Pro Resources

 

I received word over the weekend Solution Accelerators have updated the SharePoint Manageability Toolkit. See below for a complete list of updates: Linked Reports are added specific to the MOSS and WSS Management Pack. They consists of performance reports, alerts reports, event analysis reports, Most common alerts and Most common Events reports with respect to the target objects of our Mp such as MOSS computer Group, WSS Computer Group, MOSS computer role/ Moss Server and WSS computer Role/ WSS server.

Daylight Savings Time Change Approaching

 

DST

 

As Daylight Savings Time (DST) approaches it is time again to plan and prepare for impacts on your existing SharePoint Products and Technologies deployments…I intend to keep this post dynamic and updated with the latest information surrounding DST impact and mitigation for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. Planning and Preparation A technical product review/ summary webcast is scheduled for 2:00PM Pacific on Monday, September 24th to help customers and partners prepare for change to Daylight Saving Time and various time zones.

Profiles and Properties - Questions and Answers

 

People and Profiles

 

A e-mail dialogue came up with a colleague surrounding Profiles and Properties in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, with the questions specific to profile cleanup and management of changes in profile properties. How are inactive user profiles managed… How do I manage Active Directory property changes in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007’s profile database… After I sent my reply, I realized this was not the first time the question arrived in my inbox so I’ve decided to include the explanations here:

Deploying ProClarity Viewer 6.3 for SharePoint

 

Add-ons and Utilities Code Samples

 

I was recently asked to deploy the ProClarity Viewer 6.3 for SharePoint Web Part - after downloading the package I realized that it was not offered in a deployable package, but rather a compressed archive of the .dwp, assembly, and resource files. The challenge became offering a user experience similar to the previous ProClarity Viewer version so I decided to package the Web Part into a reusable solution. For those interested or looking to create a deployable Web Part package I’ve documented the steps below:

Tafiti + Halo 3 = Search Goodness

 

Off Topic Search

 

I was just looking at the new Halo 3 skin recently applied to Tafiti and was very impressed. For those who’ve never heard of or much less used Tafiti. Tafiti is an experimental Microsoft search front-end designed primarily for research projects spanning multiple queries and sessions through a variety of visualization, storage, and collaboration/sharing presentation and management layers. Tafiti uses a combination of Live Search and Silverlight to both power and render results.

Just Published - September 2007

 

Webcasts and Whitepapers

 

How to Create a SharePoint Server 2007 Custom Master Page and Page Layouts for a Web Content Management Site http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb727372.aspx How to Optimize a SharePoint Server 2007 Web Content Management Site for Performance http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb727371.aspx

SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration URL on Multiple Web Front-end Servers

 

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

 

A coworker recently came to me asking how to change the SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration URL where two or more Web front-end servers host the Central Administration Web application, for example, where two WFEs are deployed, both will leverage the URL of the first server provisioned with the Central Administration Web application. As many may have noticed, the path cannot be changed via the shortcut properties on the server, the reason is because the URL is Registry-based.

Solution Accelerator SharePoint Manageability Toolkit (Beta) Released

 

Microsoft Operations Manager

 

The Solution Accelerator SharePoint Manageability Toolkit (Beta) includes two new System Center Operations Manager 2007 Management Packs for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server and Windows SharePoint Services providing new features to include new tasks for Internet Information Services, Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Search monitoring, discovery of Single Sign-on server(s), and additional Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 performance data monitoring. Register and download the Solution Accelerator SharePoint Manageability Toolkit (Beta) https://connect.microsoft.com/programdetails.aspx?ProgramDetailsID=1601&wa=wsignin1.0 Learn more about the Solution Accelerator SharePoint Manageability Toolkit (Beta)

Scripting SharePoint with Powershell

 

Windows Powershell

 

C# has long been the developers preference when working with Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies; however, since the release of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007/Windows SharePoint Server 3.0 Powershell has become more widely used to support the automation of common administrative tasks - though C# is and will long be integral in application development, Powershell provides both simplicity and flexibility for the automation of routine tasks. For example, let’s assume an administrator would like to programmatically provision a Web application outside of the SharePoint administration tool and/or the SharePoint 3.

A Quick Note on Blog Images...

 

Off Topic

 

As some of you may have noticed many of the images no longer render within a limited set of posts within my blog; rest assured I am working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. Prior to about June 2007 I used an ISA published Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 server farm running in Active Directory account creation mode offering host header-based site collections - by enabling Anonymous Access on a Document Library within my personal site collection I was able to both host and manage images consumed by this blog.

Cluster or mirror?

 

Capacity Planning

 

Should I cluster or mirror? A few short months ago, the answer to that question would have been easy, now with the increasing popularity of database mirroring to achieve redundancy and geographic replication the answer is split…while each solution provides its own unique benefits, those benefits can be distributed across the answer to what are trying to achieve? Database mirroring replays transaction log records on a standby server and as a result can failover more rapidly in most cases than a traditional SQL cluster with no loss of committed data; however, as a relatively new solution available to SharePoint Products and Technologies database mirroring has the highest operational costs when considering the learning curve required for the server support staff and database administrators.

Ghosts in the Machine?

 

Application Templates Code Samples Performance PRESCAN Upgrade & Migration

 

Ghosted and unghosted pages are references not new to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, but have received increased interest as a result of their impact on upgrading from previous versions and more recently, the ability to manage pages in an unghosted state. Introduction Ghosted is the preferred state of pages in a site collection, ghosted pages refer to site definition files cached in memory on the server at process startup of IIS.

Stress Testing Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007/Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

 

Capacity Planning Performance

 

TechReady5 concluded on Friday and I’m finally returning to work after several customer sessions that immediately followed and one question was shared between the two - what do you recommend or what are you using to monitor performance and how do you determine load and stress when architecting a SharePoint Products and Technologies infrastructure? The answer is, there are a variety of tools to stress test your Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies deployment; let’s cover some them:

SQL Server 2005 Database Mirroring and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0/Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 - Part 3 (Failover)

 

Capacity Planning

 

Database mirroring is increasing in popularity and becoming an integral part of high availability and disaster recovery solutions within the SharePoint Products and Technologies arena. I’ve spent much of the last few months building labs, testing scenarios, impacts on platforms whether it be WSS or MOSS. This post is the third and final on my series [SQL Server 2005 Database Mirroring and Windows SharePoint Services/Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007]. We know with asynchronous mirroring we can automatically manage SQL Server 2005 failover by introducing the witness role in our server farms, the most challenging question to answer is how to manage web front-end failover.

Just Published - August 2007

 

SDK Webcasts and Whitepapers

 

Building Simple Custom Approval Workflows with InfoPath 2007 Forms - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb629921.aspx Creating and Editing Custom Document Information Panels from Office SharePoint Server 2007 - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb684925.aspx Integrating Siebel CRM with Office SharePoint Server 2007 - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb613692.aspx

Stuff I Wouldn't Want to Live Without - Joel Made me do it...

 

Off Topic

 

It appears Joel invited me to participate in a chain-letter of sorts with the context being stuff I wouldn’t want to live without. After thinking about the question for a moment, I found it much easier to compile a list of things I could live without, but to keep with the intent of the invitation - I’ve derived the following list: My wife and son; without their support I likely would not be where I am in life today.

Programmatically Modifying Portal Site Connection Properties

 

Code Samples

 

I recently received a request asking 1) if a site collections portal site connection can be programmatically replaced or modified and 2) can this be accomplished on a schedule without implementing a provisioning intercept or callback based on Site Directory metadata. First let’s examine the first question: Can a site collections portal site connection be programmatically replaced or modified…the simple answer is yes. Using the Sites property of the Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.WebApplication class to return a SPSiteCollection object representing a collection of site collections on a Web application.

Understanding Hierarchy and Basic Concepts of Navigation in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007/Windows SharePoint Services

 

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

 

Web applications are the foundation of a SharePoint Products and Technologies server farm and host the root site collection, root and subordinate webs. SharePoint Portal Server 2003 and Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 used the term Virtual Server to designate a Web application also known as a Web site in Internet Information Services. A root site [collection] is the term commonly applied to the what is the uppermost site collection within a server farm or otherwise referred to as the top-level site collection or alternatively portal site collection.

Requests Per Second Required for SharePoint Products and Technologies

 

Capacity Planning Performance

 

One of the most common questions making its way to my Inbox as of recently is how to determine the required requests per second (RPS) to support a SharePoint Products and Technologies deployment. While many IT Pros opt to use the recommend values associated with RPS and Internet Information Services (IIS) the transactions are considerably different between a light-weight .NET application or common IIS Web site. To establish a general requirement for requests per second for a SharePoint Products and Technologies deployment you will need answers to the following questions:

Nothing SharePoint

 

Off Topic

 

It’s nothing SharePoint related, but a rare treat to catch a glimpse of an unobscured Mt. Rainier - these were taken over on a semi-clear afternoon around 6:00 P.M. from the Puyallup-Graham area about 30 miles south of Seattle. You’re looking south/southeast in these photographs, in the distance beyond the Evergreens is the Puyallup Valley and the town of Orting along the banks of the Carbon River. (more info…) <IMG class=sopretty src=“https://msdnshared.

TechReady5 is fast approaching...

 

Events Webcasts and Whitepapers

 

TechReady5 is fast approaching and I’ve just confirmed my speaking schedule. For those internal readers planning to attend any sessions I am presenting, I’ve included the complete schedule below (rooms are TBD): OFC327 Upgrading SPS 2003 Areas and Portals to Office SharePoint Server 2007 7/25/2007 1:30PM-2:45PM OFC323 SharePoint Disaster Recovery, Failover, & High Availability 7/26/2007 10:15AM-11:30AM **OFCCT301-R1 MSIT: Upgrading Customized Sites, Portals To MOSS 2007 **7/23/2007 1:30PM-2:45PM OFCCT302-R1 DPM and Sharepoint

Feng Shui for my Surface...

 

Off Topic

 

It’s early, but I’m already reorganizing furniture in preparation for Microsoft Surface (Winter 2007). If you’re unfamiliar, I encourage you to visit http://www.microsoft.com/surface/ and learn more. Microsoft Surface among its great potential and possibilities, offers what is known as direct interaction, basically the ability to “touch” something that has always been virtual and just out of our reach such as digital images, music, etc. sans mouse or keyboard. The Microsoft Surface form factor (30" tabletop horizontal) permits a multi-user computing experience through recognizing, simultaneously - many items at once.

GotDotNet Tools Republished to CodePlex

 

Code Samples

 

Working with Joel Oleson we’ve republished many of the tools commonly available through GotDotNet to CodePlex including the SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Recycle Bin, WSS Split, SP Reports, and the SharePoint Portal Server 2003 People Picker. Happy downloading! Read more here http://blogs.msdn.com/joelo/archive/2007/06/27/ms-it-sharepoint-gotdotnet-tools-republished.aspx.

Excel Calculation Services for Cross-Forest Deployments

 

Cross-Forest Hosting Excel Calculation Services

 

While on vacation, yes working ;-), I was asked to look into an issue where Excel Calculation Services was deployed in a cross-forest environment; specifically where Excel Services is deployed on server A residing in Forest 1 and the clients requesting workbooks reside in Forest 2. Forest 2 does not trust Forest 1; however, Forest 1 trusts Forest 2. The Excel Calculation Services topology in this scenario was fairly basic where Excel Web Access, Web Services, and the Calculation Services are distributed across two network load-balanced web front-end servers and Excel Calculation Services and any UDF assemblies are hosted on a separate application server also servicing the Office SharePoint Server Search indexing service.

Productivity on the go...

 

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 SharePoint Tips Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

 

Of the many benefits of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0/Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, often overlooked is the native support of mobile devices through embedded mobile site URLs and mobile views. Mobile views permit both viewing and updating Lists and Document Libraries from a mobile device. When considering leveraging mobile views, you should carefully consider the restrictions on length and size of some parts of a list or library. Limitations Rendering and performance are considered in mobile views, therefore it is important to understand the limitations imposed by these considerations when implementing Lists and/or Document Libraries, for instance many common fields should have a character limitation of no greater than 20 applied, these include List and Document Library titles and names, and List and column name titles.

Site Collection Sizing Considerations

 

Capacity Planning Governance

 

Site collection sizing is an important consideration in an overall capacity planning and governance solution. This article details the considerations when planning for capacity and determining how site collections should be sized. SharePoint Administration Tool (STSADM) The SharePoint administration tool, STSADM is most commonly used by SharePoint Products and Technologies administrators to backup and restore site collections or perform a variety of administrative tasks. Typically as the site collection size grows, the ability to use STSADM to backup and restore the site collection diminishes.

I'm pleased to announce the availability of Microsoft IT Team Site Life Cycle Management Beta 1.0 for SharePoint Products and Technologies.

 

Code Samples Governance

 

I’m pleased to announce the availability of Microsoft IT Team Site Life Cycle Management (MSIT TSLCM) Beta 1.0 for SharePoint Products and Technologies. Microsoft IT Team Site Life Cycle Management is a custom solution that provides lifecycle management for Windows SharePoint Services site collections and webs through write locking, backing up and recovering site collections/webs and is based on the out-of-box Site Usage and Confirmation feature. Microsoft IT Team Site Life Cycle Management Beta 1.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Receives U.S. Department of Defense 5015.2 Certification

 

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

 

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 has received U.S. Department of Defense 5015.2 certification. The 5015.2 standard on which the Department of Defense certification is based serves as the benchmark for government and corporate organizations that manage records and documents and is endorsed by the National Archives and Records Administration. Read the entire article here.

SQL Server 2005 Database Mirroring and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0/Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 - Part 2 (Configuration)

 

Capacity Planning

 

This is the second part of a multi-part series on using SQL Server 2005 Database Mirroring with SharePoint Products and Technologies. This post will cover the basic configuration parameters required to enable the mirroring of content, configuration, and search databases. Part 3 of this series will cover SharePoint Products and Technologies failover automation scripts and considerations. Basic SQL Server 2005 Database Mirroring Implementation for SharePoint Products and Technologies The most common implementation of SQL Server 2005 Database Mirroring includes all databases being installed on a single mirror partnership and the implementation of a witness (polling) server that provides automatic database failover between the principal and mirror servers when necessary.

Understanding PRESCAN.EXE Errors (UPDATED - May 2007)

 

Migration &amp; Upgrade PRESCAN SharePoint Upgrade &amp; Migration

 

I’ve updated my post Understanding PRESCAN.EXE Errors to include new errors and solutions. Read more here: http://blogs.technet.com/wbaer/archive/2006/12/22/prescan-errors-what-they-mean.aspx. Excerpt: ““An outbound zone URL is configured for something other than the default zone on virtual server http://fabrikam/, and no default zone outbound URL is defined. This is not supported, and must be corrected before upgrading.””

Understanding and Handling Microsoft IT Site Delete Capture 1.0 Archives

 

Code Samples

 

Since the initial release of the Microsoft IT Site Delete Capture 1.0 Feature, one of the most commonly reported issues has been the inability to restore a site archive generated by the application. The Microsoft IT Site Delete Capture 1.0 Feature uses basic STSADM principals to both backup and restore site collections and sites; however, generates its archives using one unified file extension (.BAK) for both operations as opposed to manifest files commonly associated with site export operations and single file associated with site collection backups.

Database Management Concepts for Large and Growing Content Databases

 

Capacity Planning

 

With the introduction of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 the desire to reduce the number of content databases supporting a Web application has become a growing requirement to leverage both technologies such as SQL Server 2005 Database Mirroring, log shipping, and reduce the operational requirements to manage a high-volume of content databases. As a general rule, reducing the number of content databases will most often result in overall larger content databases hosting more site collections.

Availability of the Microsoft IT Site Delete Capture 1.0 Feature for SharePoint Products and Technologies

 

Code Samples

 

I’m pleased to announce the availability of the Microsoft IT Site Delete Capture 1.0 feature for SharePoint Products and Technologies. The Microsoft IT Site Delete Capture feature 1.0 is a shared component library (DLL); by registering the Microsoft IT Site Delete Capture feature 1.0 shared component library in the Global assembly cache, SharePoint Products and Technologies administrators can intercept both site/web delete requests and archive the site/web to a resource local to the web front-end computer or UNC path before the site/web is removed the configuration and content databases.

SQL Server 2005 Database Mirroring and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0/Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 - Part 1 (Introduction, Overview, and basics)

 

Capacity Planning

 

This will be the first of a multi-part series covering SQL Server 2005 Database Mirroring and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0/Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. This post will cover an introduction to SQL Server 2005 Database Mirroring, an overview, and the basics to include considerations and integration with SharePoint Products and Technologies. Part 2 will cover implementing SQL Server 2005 Database Mirroring with SharePoint Products and Technologies using NTLM authentication and dedicated (DAS) storage and failover examples.

Code Snippet - How to Locate Host Header-based Site Collections in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

 

Code Samples Upgrade &amp; Migration

 

One of the great features in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 is the ability to co-host both path-based and host header-based site collections within the same server farm and content databases. Now that you’ve introduced host header-based site collections to your server farm, how do you quickly identify those site collections within a server farm or content database that also hosts your path-based site collections? In this scenario the object model is extremely useful in reporting on those site collections, the Web application, and content database where they reside.

Understanding the Microsoft Best Practices Analyzer for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and the 2007 Microsoft Office System Rule File

 

Best Practices Analyzer

 

Since my original post Microsoft Best Practices Analyzer for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and the 2007 Microsoft Office System Available! , I’ve received several comments and requests for information on how to create custom rule definitions that can be used with the Microsoft Best Practices Analyzer for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and the 2007 Microsoft Office System. The article below references the basic steps required to create and use custom rule definitions.

A Blog Related Blog-Post

 

Off Topic

 

One of the most common and discouraging issues related to maintaining a blog or any other system permitting user-driven comments and moderation is the persistent annoyance of spam and related content. Unfortunately measures such as Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart (CAPTCHA’s) have become increasingly susceptible to being bypassed or relegated to a best-available security measure in the prevention of spam partially due to the increasing capability of technology and problem solving investment by hackers more commonly through the addition of a human workforce, often compensated, for solving various CAPTCHA puzzles.

Jingmei Li has put together a great post...

 

Upgrade &amp; Migration

 

Jingmei Li has put together a great post detailing partner solutions supporting SharePoint Portal Server 2003 to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 migrations; these solutions are useful in situations where any of the three supported approaches do not fit within the scope of a business’ plans for migration and upgrade. Read the entire post here http://blogs.msdn.com/jingmeili/archive/2007/03/13/evaluate-partner-solutions-that-support-migration-from-sps-2003-to-moss-2007.aspx.

Upgrading Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 Scalable Hosting Mode Server Farms

 

Migration &amp; Upgrade SharePoint Upgrade &amp; Migration

 

In Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 host header-based Site Collections can coexist with path-based site collections within a Web Application or optionally reside on multiple Web Applications. Gradual, in-place, and database migration upgrade approaches can be applied to Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 server farms in scalable hosting mode. This differs from Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 where a server farm was configured to run in scalable hosting mode preventing the introduction of path-based Site Collections to the server farm.

Understanding PRESCAN.EXE Errors (Updated - March 2007)

 

PRESCAN

 

I’ve updated my post Understanding PRESCAN.EXE Errors to include two new errors and solutions. Read more here: http://blogs.technet.com/wbaer/archive/2006/12/22/prescan-errors-what-they-mean.aspx

Understanding Solution Packages in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007/Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

 

Code Samples

 

Understanding Solution Packages Solution packages are designed to provide the ability to develop and deploy reusable site and feature definitions, web part files, templates, assemblies, and code access security policies across one or more server farms. A solution package is a cabinet file that can contain, site and feature definitions, web part files, templates, assemblies, and code access security policies. A solution package contains a web manifest that that defines the list of features, site definitions, resource files, Web Part files, and assemblies to process when the solution is deployed.

Understanding webtemp*.xml

 

Code Samples

 

In Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007/Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 webtemp*.xml contains a set of <Template> elements within a <Template> element that contain a set of site definitions available in the Template Selection user interface and define how to instantiate a Web site. elements where the <Configuration> element does not contain a <ProvisionAssembly> (Example 3) attribute indicate the <Template> element applies to a single site definition and not a portal site definition.

Backup - Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Search

 

Capacity Planning Search

 

One of the most critical components of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 to many businesses is search and often is a key component of business processes. To ensure consistent and recoverable content is available to end-users, it becomes necessary to periodically backup the search components in the event of a catastrophic failure or issues requiring the rebuilding of the search component. Since re-crawling all content sources may not be practical or efficient in many cases, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 has streamlined the search component backup and restore process.

Application Templates for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

 

Application Templates

 

In November 2006 I posted on the availability of Application Templates for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0; currently all 40 of the “Fastastic 40” Application Templates are available for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 in English including 20 English Site Admin templates and 20 Server Admin templates which are also available in multiple languages to include French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese (BR), Japanese, Korean, Hebrew, Chinese (simplified), and Chinese (traditional). Application Template Resource Center

Configuring SharePoint Products and Technologies for Cross-Forest Deployments

 

Cross-Forest Hosting

 

People Picker works both cross-domain and cross-forest in one and two way trust environments. People Picker will issue queries to all two-way trusted domains and two-way trusted forests to search People & Groups out-of-the-box. *People Picker uses the Windows SharePoint Services Web Application logon identity to access the target domain/forest. If the Web Application pool does not have access to the target domain/forest, People Picker will need to be configured to use an account with access to the target domain/forest using the following STSADM operations:

Co-hosting Collaboration and Personal Site Collections within an Individual Web Application

 

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Upgrade &amp; Migration Windows SharePoint Services 2.0

 

One of the most common questions I receive is how to co-host traditional “team” and personal Site Collections (My Sites) within an individual Web Application in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. While possible, there are several important steps that you should be aware of. The public profile page is a document specific to the SPSMSITEHOST site template (My Site Host); unless a My Site Host is defined in the server farm, public profile pages will not be available to users.

Microsoft Best Practices Analyzer for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and the 2007 Microsoft Office System Available!

 

Best Practices Analyzer

 

The Microsoft Best Practices Analyzer for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and the 2007 Microsoft Office System is now available from the Microsoft Download Center! The Microsoft Best Practices Analyzer programmatically collects settings and values from data repositories including Microsoft SQL Server, Registry, and Performance Monitor. The data when collected is processed and a set of comprehensive best practice rules are applied to the topology. Server farm administrators benefit from a detailed report listing of recommendations that can be applied to the environment resulting in performance and scalability improvements in additon to optimizing uptime.

Configuring Trusted File Locations for Excel Services

 

Excel Calculation Services

 

The following information is a reference guide to configuring Trusted File Locations for Excel Calculation Services in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. Your configuration may vary due to performance and hardware considerations; you should test configuration parameters for performance and scale before application to a production environment. Open your Shared Services Administration site and select Trusted file locations under Excel Services Settings. Click Add Trusted File Location to add a new Excel workbook file location considered trustworthy.

New Excel Services Articles and Code Samples

 

Code Samples Excel Calculation Services

 

Two (2) new articles have been published centered on Excel Services programmability with accompanying sample solutions available in the Microsoft Download Center. The first article demonstrates how to extend List and query tables on Excel Services and includes content detailing external workbook references, SQL write-back and user-defined functions. The second article provides a more in-depth approach to developing UDF’s for Excel Services. Article: Extending the Excel Services Programmability Framework Accompanying Solution:

Securing SharePoint Products and Technologies for the Extranet

 

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 SharePoint Engineering Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

 

When preparing to deploy an Internet accessible Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 web farm security is the forefront of discussion and planning. To provide a brief insight into securing SharePoint Products and Technologies, I’ve decided to finally consolidate, compile and make available some of my notes. Hopefully this will be of benefit in helping others understand the method by which SharePoint Products and Technologies communicate and a high-level security overview. Internet Information Services (IIS) is the obvious first candidate for preparation and discussion –we’ve concluded IIS will be configured to use both basic and Integrated Windows authentication methods, basic allows credentials to be transmitted unencrypted and secured by SSL.

Estimated Release Timelines for SharePoint Designer and Server 2007 Language Packs Published

 

Add-ons and Utilities

 

Estimated release timelines for both Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 language packs has been posted the SharePoint Team Blog.

Upgrading a Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 farm to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, supported?

 

Upgrade &amp; Migration

 

I’ve recently been asked whether Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 can be upgraded to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007; while this is possible, there are several important constraints that should be taken into consideration. Foremost, you should not upgrade Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 bypassing the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 upgrade - by attempting to upgrading Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 you are combining two upgrade methodologies; version to version (WSS 2.

From Desktop to SharePoint - Document Scanning Integration

 

Add-ons and Utilities

 

I was browsing for SharePoint add-ons and integration features this evening and came across this one from Dark Blue Duck; Scanning Enabler. The reason I decided to post on this particular add-on is that I could see the immediate value from the capacity to take desktop scanning to SharePoint Products and Technologies, seamlessly and transparently. The product specifications include key features, to include, integration will Doc and PicLibs, enabled at the Web Application level providing the functionality to all Site Collections and workspaces, supports custom metadata capture and workflow, and supports localization.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 MP for MOM 2005 Released

 

Microsoft Operations Manager

 

The Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Management Packs for Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 have been released and are available for download from Microsoft in 8 localizations, including English, French, Chinese (Traditional), Chinese (Simplified), German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish. The Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Management Packs for Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 help to provide assistance resonding to critical events generated by Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and common configuration problems related to SSP provisioning problems, Site Directory scan job failures, Search and service failures such as Office Document Conversions Launcher and Office Document Conversions Load Balancer services.

WSS UserInfo versus MOSS Profile Q & A (The Basics)

 

People and Profiles

 

What happens when manually adding a user to a Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Site Collection, who previously did not have a Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 profile? Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 userinfo and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 profile are not hard-linked; what this means is when a new user is created in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 it does not get created in the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 profile store; the opposite of this is true as well - Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 -> Windows SharePoint Services 3.

Release SharePoint Software Development Kits are available from the Microsoft Download Center

 

Code Samples SDK

 

Release versions of the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SharePoint Software Development Kits are available from the Microsoft Download Center! Download the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and ECM Starter Kit for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Enterprise Content Management development; this download is intended for MOSS developers, if you are interested in developing on Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, keep reading… Contents: SharePoint Server 2007 SDK Documentation

TechReady4

 

Events Webcasts and Whitepapers

 

I just learned I’ll be co-presenting with Joel Oleson at TechReady4 in the IW306 SharePoint Products and Technologies 2007: Administrative Architecture and Planning for Deployment - Part 1 (breakout session), scheduled for February 7, 2007 13:30 - 14:45. If your planning on being in the Seattle area attending this years’ TechReady - this will be an invaluable architecture and planning session! Session Abstract: This session describes the new Deployment and Administration Architecture for Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) version 3 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.

Blogging Activity...

 

Off Topic

 

After having spent the last two weeks in the Colorado Rockies, I’ve unfortunately have had very little time to blog; albeit, most of the time was spent digging out from the numerous blizzards which seem determined to keep me indoors during my vacation :-) I’ll be spending the next few days organizing and consolidating posts and cleaning up some older posts, but have some great upcoming material beneficial to those both deploying and developing on Windows SharePoint Services 3.

PRESCAN Support and Resources for Windows SharePoint Services and Office SharePoint Server

 

Migration &amp; Upgrade PRESCAN SharePoint Upgrade &amp; Migration

 

MSDN Windows SharePoint Services Run the pre-upgrade scan tool (Windows SharePoint Services) http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver/WSS/en/library/035a3024-bd27-4d63-9499-0f15ac00c6e61033.mspx Issues that are reported by the pre-upgrade scan tool http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/en-us/library/035a3024-bd27-4d63-9499-0f15ac00c6e61033.mspx#section1 Install and run the pre-upgrade scan tool http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/en-us/library/035a3024-bd27-4d63-9499-0f15ac00c6e61033.mspx#section2 Error message when you try to upgrade Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 to Windows SharePoint Services 3.0: “Upgrade has encountered one or more lists that were not updated by Prescan.exe and must exit” http://support.microsoft.com/kb/923904 Office SharePoint Server Run the pre-upgrade scan tool (Office SharePoint Server)

Understanding PRESCAN.EXE Errors (UPDATED - January 2007)

 

Migration &amp; Upgrade PRESCAN SharePoint Upgrade &amp; Migration

 

I’ve made several updates and revisions to my previous post “Understanding PRESCAN.EXE Errors”, I hope this information will be useful in diagnosing and remediating errors generated by PRESCAN.EXE.

Understanding PRESCAN.EXE Errors

 

Migration &amp; Upgrade PRESCAN SharePoint Upgrade &amp; Migration

 

*UPDATED 5/22/2007 I put together this post as a follow-up to my initial PRESCAN topic “Understanding PRESCAN.EXE in MOSS 2007”; hopefully, this will provide insight into the most common PRESCAN errors administrators may encounter and remediation steps where available. These solutions may not fit every environment due to the natural differences in topologies, hosting models, versioning, and infrastructure. Error: There is no Web named “//”. The Content Database contains one or more orphaned Webs.

Microsoft GroupBoard Workspace 2007!

 

Application Templates

 

The first available Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 application templates has been released. the Microsoft GroupBoard Workspace 2007. This is the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 implementation of the most widely used Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 template in the Asia Pacific region with a host of improvements supporting the technologies and features available in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. Overview The Microsoft GroupBoard Workspace template creates a space for a group or team to connect and share information in a collaborative environment, improving team efficiency and productivity.

MOSS 2007 & WSS 3.0 RTM Software Development Kits

 

Code Samples SDK

 

The Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 RTM Software Development Kit have been released to MSDN; for those looking for the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Software Development Kit click here, each includes documentation, as well as code examples within the topics and contains the highest-priority documentation for developing on each platform. I’d be interested to hear what others are developing and how the information contained in the SDK’s contributed to that project.

Simple Query to Audit Site Collection/Web Access Levels

 

Code Samples

 

USE SELECT DISTINCT t1.siteID,t2.webID, t2.title [accessLevel],t3.tp_login,CONVERT(DECIMAL(6,2),((CONVERT(DECIMAL,t4.diskUsed)/1024)/1024)) [diskUsed MB], t6.fullUrlFROM DBO.RoleAssignment t1 JOIN DBO.roles t2 ON t2.siteID = t1.siteID AND t2.roleID = t1.roleID AND t2.roleID = 1073741829 JOIN DBO.userInfo t3 ON t3.tp_siteID = t1.siteID AND t3.tp_id = t1.principalID JOIN DBO.sites t4 ON t4.[id] = t1.siteID JOIN DBO.perms t5 ON t5.siteID = t1.siteID AND t5.scopeID = t1.scopeID JOIN webs t6 ON t6.[id] = t5.webID

Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 vs. 3.0 Incremental Crawl

 

Search

 

In a recent conversation with a colleague I was asked the differences between Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 and 3.0 incremental crawls and the availability of results and thought I would share and explain briefly the differences here: In Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 when an incremental crawl is run, SharePoint determines whether or not a document has changed and should therefore be included in the incremental crawl results. It does it by performing a hash of the document, if the hash is different between crawls, then so is the document and the document is readily; though, perhaps not immediately available to search results, but are available prior to any complete crawl being run successfully.

SharePoint WebCasts for December

 

Webcasts and Whitepapers

 

Discover application templates for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

 

Application Templates

 

40 Application Templates are current under development for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and the interest has substantially increased following the product release, particularly to microsoft.com. Many of the templates will be familiar from previous versions of Windows SharePoint Services to include Help Desk, Project Site, Knowledge Base, etc.; however, will incorporate features in the latest version of Windows SharePoint Services, I.e. workflow, mail enabled lists, etc. The new templates as released will be available with 20 productivity templates for installation (UI) by site administrators, available only in English and 20 server administration templates for installation by server administers available in English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Korean, and Hebrew.

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Available for Download!

 

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

 

A short, but exciting post - Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 is now available to users of Windows Server 2003! For information and download availability visit http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsserver/sharepoint/download.mspx. Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services is a versatile technology that organizations and business units of all sizes can use to increase the efficiency of business processes and improve team productivity. With tools for collaboration that help people stay connected across organizational and geographic boundaries, Windows SharePoint Services gives people access to information they need.

IT Pro Resources for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

 

IT Pro Resources Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

 

Technical Library Product Overview Discover what’s new in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and locate product information. Help & How-to Get help and answers to frequently asked questions and common scenarios. Planning & Architecture Get planning and architecture information for implementing Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 in your own environment. Development Find SDK’s, screencasts, and blogs. Deployment & Upgrade Guides Find installation and configuration resources to include recommended topologies and scenarios. Operations

Can Profile Import be configured to import from multiple OU's from the same domain?

 

People and Profiles

 

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 does not allow more than one connection to a domain; if you’d like to configure a custom import, such as a specific user filter (&(objectCategory=Person)(objectClass=User)), you can create a single connection with the common search base (DC=foo,DC=bar) and add a more restricted user filter to limit the users imported.

IT Pro Resources for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

 

IT Pro Resources Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

 

Technical Library Product Overview Discover what’s new in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and locate product information. Help & How-to Get help and answers to frequently asked questions and common scenarios. Resource Kit Resource kit for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Supplemental Documentation Download supplementation documentation for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. Planning & Architecture Get planning and architecture information for implementing Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 in your own environment.

SQL Scripting for Manageability

 

Code Samples

 

The attached SQL scripts are intended as sample scripts and may require some modification to suit your individual environments; however, serve as a foundation and guidance in SQL scripting under Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. Retrieve active Content Databases from a WSS 3.0 Configuration Database Returns a list of all active Content Databases in the Windows SharePoint Services Configuration Database. USE <WSS_3.0_Configuration_Database> SELECT DISTINCT SiteMap.DatabaseId, Objects.Name FROM SiteMap INNER JOIN Objects

Site Collection and subsite Backup, Restore, and Migration

 

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

 

I received an inquiry this week asking how to migrate an existing Site Collection as a subsite of a new parent Site Collection without having the availability of SMIGRATE in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007/Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. The answer are new STSADM parameters, import and export, which has been made available in STSADM. The import/export feature is based on the new Content Migration APIs; Recycle Bin state and alerts are not included in STSADM -o export - the requirement that the new Site Collection or subsite exists, remains as with previous versions of STSADM when using the restore parameters.

Whitepaper: Understanding Workflow in Windows SharePoint Services and the 2007 Microsoft Office System

 

Webcasts and Whitepapers

 

Of the many new features available in both Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0; the questions I most commonly field surround workflow; deployment, implementing, best practices, etc… The attached whitepaper serves as an excellent resource to answer many of these questions. Understanding Workflow in Windows SharePoint Services and the 2007 Microsoft Office System

SharePoint Community Search by Lawrence Liu

 

Code Samples Off Topic

 

Lawrence Liu recently posted his Live Search macro enabling a consolidated search against the SharePoint Community; to add to that capacity I’ve put together a small bookmarklet that will enable you to run this search from your browser without having to navigate away from your current page. **Download **https://wbaer.officeisp.net/Shared%20Documents/SharePoint_Community_Search_Bookmarklet.zip

Best Practices: Are your DIPs alive? Alternate Access Mapping may be the answer...

 

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

 

Historically alternate access settings provided a mechanism to identify the different ways in which users access portal sites; in MSIT we’ve taken that practice one step further and leverage alternate access mappings (AAM) as a means to identify problem web front-ends in a NLB cluster. As an example an NLB (network load balancing) cluster may be bound to a VIP (virtual IP address) with a mapping of foo, where the hosts are foo1 and foo2, by leveraging alternate access mappings we can DIP test foo1 and foo2 both independently and through the Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) Web Sites and Services Management Pack.

Recycle Bin for SharePoint Products and Technologies 2003 (WSS/SPS 2003) 1.2 (Build 29) Released!

 

Code Samples Recycle Bin

 

Recycle Bin 1.2 (Build 29) has been released; this release addresses several issues reported in build 26, released in July. Currently this build is offered as independent libraries and will soon have an accompanying Windows Insaller Package. To install this build, stop the World Wide Web Publishing Service (NET STOP W3SVC), replace ReycleBinISAPI.dll and RecycleBinISAPIFilter.dll with build 29 and start the World Wide Web Publishing Service (NET START W3SVC). Download Recycle Bin 1.

Internet Explorer 7 Released

 

Off Topic

 

Internet Explorer 7 has been released, download it today and experience a new interface that maximizes real estate putting more content in the browser and grouping functions to ease viewing. Other new features include tabbed browsing, enhanced print finishing, RSS feed management, the ability to designate search providers, and enhanced security and phising filters. Get it today.

Recycle Bin for SharePoint Products and Technologies 2003 (WSS/SPS 2003) 1.2 (Build 26) Released!

 

Code Samples Recycle Bin

 

I’ve published Recycle Bin 1.2 (Build 26) to SharePoint Tools GotDotNet Workspace, this build addresses two long-standing bugs: Fixes Explorer View bug: Unable to delete An error occurred accessing your FrontPage web files. Please contact the server administrator. Fixes Empty Library archiving: Document and Picture Libraries that do not contain content will be archived in effort to mirror the directory structure of a Document/Picture Library and its’ subfolders if they exist.

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Upgrade Path Defined

 

Migration &amp; Upgrade SharePoint Upgrade &amp; Migration

 

A recent change has been communicated for all current Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 B2 (Beta 2) customers. The change will require customers who wish to upgrade their B2 environments to first apply B2 Technical Refresh prior to upgrading to RTM, Windows SharePoint Services will not support B2 to RTM direct upgrades. Previously announced upgrade paths will remain unchanged at this time: B2 Technical Refresh remains planned as a release patch, upgrading to RTM will require the modification of a Registry key, uninstalling B2 Technical Refresh, and then installing RTM.

Understanding PRESCAN.EXE in MOSS 2007

 

Administration PRESCAN SharePoint Upgrade &amp; Migration

 

Prior to upgrading to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007/Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 one of the prerequisites some of you may have already noticed is running PRESCAN.EXE from the installation directory. This post will hopefully provide some insight into PRESCAN.EXE as well as best practices on when it should be run. PRESCAN.EXE has two primary purposes: It parses and saves List definitions with the associated Lists. SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Service Pack 2 already incorporates this feature whenever a list is modified; however, this process should be completed for all Lists, so prescan calls the SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Service Pack 2 method to persist that data.

Document Encryption in SharePoint Portal Server

 

SharePoint Portal Server 2003

 

Does SharePoint Portal Server support document encryption? SharePoint Portal Server 2003/Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 can be configured to leverage Rights Managenent Service (RMS) which allows for the encryption of documents through RMS policy each time a document is requested from a Document Library, the RMS policy will be applied to documents whether they are requested through the Office client, WebDav or FrontPage - RPC.

  • While SQL Server 2005 supports certificate-based encryption within the store, encryption will have to be manually implemented through stored procedures using the new SQL Server 2005 TSQL support and technologies for certificate management and encryption.

Improve the Overall Full-Text Search Queries for Large Database Tables

 

Performance Search

 

This post is a continuation on previous SharePoint Portal Server 2003 performace recommendations and details basic steps to improve the overall full-text search queries for large database tables. The steps detailed are most applicable to enterprise deployments and/or large databases with a large number of unique full-text index words. The steps detailed below should be applied to each back-end SQL server(s). This problem occurs frequently if the total size of all the catalog files exceeds 256 megabytes (MB).

SPS Gathering Manager Recommendations

 

Performance Search

 

I recently came across an issue with a customer that uses large files in WSS, notably, .CAD files; as a result these files were either - one, not indexed or two, indexing did not gather the required information from the file to provide useful search criteria. To remidy the issue MaxDownloadSize was increased to 64MB while leaving the MaxGrowFactor at 4, this will essentially permit the index filter to produce up to 256MB (64 x 4) of text from a given file, the default setting in SPS is 16MB MaxDownloadSize and 4 MaxGrowFactor, limiting the index filter to 64MB max.

Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 Preview

 

Off Topic

 

Try IE7 - http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ie7/default.mspx - dynamic security protection, tabbed browsing, streamlined user interface, printing advances, instant RSS feeds, toolbar search box and more…

Recommendations to Improve Crawl Performance Post SPS Service Pack 2

 

Performance Search

 

SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Service Pack 2, by default, will disable some features previously distributed in service pack 1; this article will key in on feaures specific to search and indexing recommendations to improve crawl performance post-service pack 2 and correct features disabled in service pack 2. Prevent the indexer from enumerating local groups on WSS crawled content.

  1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
  2. Locate and then click the following registry subkey:

What happens when a users profile is deleted in SPS.

 

Administration People and Profiles SharePoint

 

Typically there is no real impact in the event a user profile is removed from the SharePoint profiles database; the profile will be restored during a full or incremental import. Though the statement is true for the most part when only considering Windows SharePoint Services sites, the behavior varies considerable when including My Site sites in the scenario. Since Windows SharePoint Services content is stored as a table in the sites database, the content can be easily recovered and archived; however, though My Site/Personal site content is similar in this respect many of the end-user facing customization exists as a shared service within SharePoint Portal Server.

Web Services, XSL and Windows SharePoint Services Content Management *UPDATED

 

Code Samples

 

I recently posted an article detailing how the Content Editor Web Part can be leveraged to display a menu based on the SELECT element, using hypertext markup and javascript to render hyperlinks in a manner that maximizes Windows SharePoint Services real-estate and promotes a positive user experience. Several requests and questions I received as a result of this post were whether or not the hyperlinks in the Content Editor Web Part could be harvested from a List.

Renaming a Resource Forest on SharePoint Servers

 

Cross-Forest Hosting

 

  • I haven’t revisted this post in awhile and thought I would include some additional information on the topic; in response to dkbobe’s questions surrounding updating the user information; you can use the SPUserUtility to update the tp_Login column to reflect the new domain - more information on this tool can be found at Keith Richie’s blog @ http://blogs.msdn.com/krichie. I was pleased to see my mention in Joel Oleson’s SharePoint Blog on the Impacts of Renaming a Resource Forest on SharePoint Servers; I’m hoping to elaborate more here as there is little documentation on this topic; at least from the perspective of impacts to SharePoint services.
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