Drew's Tech Blog

How to restart SharePoint Central Administration service after stopping it via Central Admin GUI

2010-03-08T23:02:00.000-05:00

If you've stopped the Central Administration service within the GUI, here's how you get it started again:

From the command prompt type (assumming STSADM path is defined in environment variables)

stsadm -o provisionservice -action start -servicename WSS_Administration -servicetype Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPWebService

Once this command successfully completes, run an IISREST t

How to force a SQL database log file to shrink via SQL Manager UI

2010-03-08T21:28:00.001-05:00

I’ve sometimes found that when trying to shrink a SharePoint SQL via the SQL Management interface, the database refuses to shrink, and in some cases even grows!

A colleague showed me an easy fix today which requires a simple (temporary) change to the database options.

Simply follow these steps (but bear in mind that you are following this advice at your own risk)

Ensure you have a FULL backup of the database because you will be essentially "breaking" the full transaction log by carrying out this procedure.
Right click the database and choose PROPERTIES, then click on Options
Change the Recovery Model to ‘Simple
Click OK
Right click the DB, select Tasks > Shrink > Files
Select ‘Log’ under file type
Under shrink action, select ‘Reorganize pages…” and then set the new size to shrink the log down to
Click OK and your database log file will be resized.
Be sure to change the Recovery Model back to ‘FULL’ when completed’

SharePoint menu fly outs down multiple levels

2010-01-05T20:01:00.000-05:00

Just stumbled across a (yet another) great post by Heather Solomon entitled How to Activate the Drop Down Menu in MOSS Sites

I don't want to rehash it, but bascially you can have your SharePoint global navigation dyanamically display multi layers of subsites/pages simply by making a change to the masterpage.

Determine size of SharePoint 2007 Site Collection

2010-01-05T19:09:00.004-05:00

One way of quickly determining the physical size of a SharePoint 2007 Site collection is to go to Central Admin > Application Management > Site Collection Quotas and Locks and select the site collection you want to check the size of.

At the bottom of the page, just above the OK and Cancel buttons you will see the 'Current Storage Used' value.

No mapping between account names and security ids was done

2009-05-19T02:35:00.001-04:00

I came across this error message today when building a virtualised SharePoint/MOSS farm on Windows 2008 with SQL 2008.

When trying to install SQL 2008 and specifying a domain account for the SQL service account, the installer kept telling me that the credentials were invalid.

I (temporarily) adding the service account to the local admin group on the SQL server, but the account name did not display. I tried adding the service account again, only to have windows tell me that the user was already a member of the group!

I proceeded to spend a couple of hours fiddling with the firewall settings and Kerberos only to have it dawn on me that I had forgotten to SYSPREP the machine before I'd cloned it...

I then went back to the template VM only to find that Sysprep no longer works on Windows 2008. Apparently, it's been replaced with a new tool which generates the inf via XML. I downloaded it in haste, discovering that it's designed for Windows images (I'm using Vmware).

Fortunately I remembered that there was another way to "de-identify" the virtual machine....NewSid ! Fortunately it still works on Windows 2008.

After running it I removed the computer from the Domain and deleted the computer account. I then rejoined the domain and the SQL installation went smoothly.

Where is Network Places in Vista? I want to create a shortcut to a SharePoint library!

2009-05-13T20:58:00.001-04:00

My Network Places has been removed in Vista, but you can still create shortcuts to SharePoint libraries and/or document libraries...

Open Windows Explorer (Windows Key + E)
Right click on any blank space in the right pane (the side which shows you drive(s))
Select Add a Network Location

\\SERVER\Share is not accessible. you might not have permission to use this network resource. not enough server storage is available to process....

2009-05-10T02:49:00.001-04:00

I've had this nagging problem for a week now on our domain. The shared folder is actually an external USB drive.

Have tried per Microsoft's instructions to increase the IRPStackSize to no avail.
Also tried removing computer from domain and re-adding - no luck.

I then thought back to what I had done to the computer in the past week.

I'd remotely deployed Acronis True Image server and Symantec Corporate Anti-virus.

Out of curiousity, I tired removing the Acronis True Image server and rebooting.

Guess what? The problem went away! Go figure!

Thoughts on backing up ESXi Server

2009-05-01T23:20:00.004-04:00

I recently built an ESXi server which hosts a MOSS farm (consisting of SQL, WFE, Indexing Server), a domain controller and various other client and development machines. I've also configured a WinSCP connection into the ESXi server from another Windows Backup server.

The ESXi server is running on a RAID array with one warm disk.

At present, all I've done is taken backups of the VM files, but I want to protect my data in the following ways:

Site disaster (eg: fire, theft etc where the physical server and drives are destroyed or stolen)
System failure of the ESXi server
Corruption or failure of a single ESXi host
A MOSS or SQL server becomes corrupt

Here are my thoughts for setting up the necessary backups.

ESXi server image backup

To protect against scenarios 1 and 2, I think the most efficient option is take an entire disk image of the ESXi server. Given that the RAID array is 500GB in size, I'm going to need a 1TB drive. I'll also need to make sure that the backups are PASSWORD ENCRYPTED. I can do this manually, although I should explore how I might install the Acronis agent and Enterprise Backup server for Linux to see if this can be done from a client workstation, rather than at the phyiscal ESXi box.

To protect against scenario 1, I'm actually going to require a second external drive which can be rotated with the first drive OFFSITE. Realistically, the rotation will occur one or twice every month.

To protect against scenario 3, I'll need to periodically take weekly copies of the VMs to the BACKUP server storage drive. Ideally, I need to find a way to automate this with a script. It probably going to be best if I do this via Putty or Winscp. Post question on EE for assistance..

To protect against scenario 4, I need to automate daily backups of all SQL databases to the BACKUP server. I also think it would be very useful to get a copy of System Manager to do snapshot backups...I need to play with this technology anyway.

Finally, I also think it is wise to script weekly site collection backups to the BACKUP server.

Integrating SharePoint 2007 with Commerce Server

2009-04-28T22:12:00.004-04:00

In the past 12 months I've had at least two clients who essentially wanted to customise SharePoint with a 'Shopping Cart' functionality. Today I stumbled across Microsoft Commerce Server, which is an e-commerce solution which integrates with SharePoint 2007 and uses similar technologies (eg: web parts etc). I'm yet to try these two out together, but am keep to get my hands on a demo as soon as I can. I will post the results online to share with you once I do.

Download Commerce Server ISO
And here's some instructions from Microsoft on how to integrate SharePoint and Commerce Server
Instructions on how to download the 9GB virtual machine with Commerce Server and SharePoint pre-integrated.

My next step is to convert the vhd to vmware...then I'll be able to comment.

A colleague commented that Microsoft's CRM offering 'Dynamics' also has a built in shopping cart feature - I would like to compare the two products side-by-side

Increasing a VMWARE virtual hard disk

2008-04-30T08:37:00.000-04:00

vmware-vdiskmanager.exe -x

Here's an example, in which running this command increases the size of the virtual disk file "H:\VMs\W2K3\IDE00.vmdk" to 6 GB:

vmware-vdiskmanager.exe -x 6GB "H:\VMs\W2K3\IDE00.vmdk"

If you have not added the full path to vmware-vdiskmanager.exe to your Environmental Variables, you'll need to use the full path each time you runt the command.

For example:

"C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Workstation\vmware-vdiskmanager.exe" -x 6GB "H:\VMs\W2K3\IDE00.vmdk"

After you've expanded the virtual disk size, you'll also need to expand the partition.

The easiest way to do this is with Acronis Disk Director.

Just set the .iso boot disk as the virtual CD Rom on your VM and use the utility to resize. It will take you less than 1 minute.

How to determine which service pack is installed with SQL 2005

2008-04-28T14:15:00.002-04:00

Open SQL Server Management Studio
Click on 'New Query'
Paste in SELECT SERVERPROPERTY('productversion'), SERVERPROPERTY ('productlevel'), SERVERPROPERTY ('edition')
Click on Execute
The installed SP will display on the results tab

VMWARE: How to access the boot menu on startup

2008-04-14T15:53:00.003-04:00

Open up the .vmx file in notepad
Paste in the following line

bios.bootDelay = "5000"

Save and restart the virtual machine.

This will give you 5 seconds(which is more than enough to hit the ESC key and access the boot menu.

SharePoint and MOSS 2007: Microsoft Word/Office 2007 - Unable to paste from body of document into "Document Properties" / "Document Information Panel"

2008-04-03T09:41:00.000-04:00

SharePoint and MOSS 2007: Microsoft Word/Office 2007 - Unable to paste from body of document into "Document Properties" / "Document Information Panel" Fields

Microsoft Word/Office 2007 - Unable to paste from body of document into "Document Properties" / "Document Information Panel" Fields

2008-04-01T17:43:00.002-04:00

We're implementing Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and are in the process of upgrading clients to Office 2007. I've noticed something very strange during testing though....Word won't let users copy text from the document body and paste into any of the fields on the Document Information Panel.

The problem seems to be intermittent and we can't work out what's causing it.

Interestingly, you can copy and paste text from the word document body into a notepad file and then copy the same text from the notepad file directly into word....any ideas on whether this a bug or how to configure word to get around this rather glaring limitation?

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On further investigation, I think it might have something to do with the fact that the SharePoint metadata fields we're trying to paste into in the Document Information Panel are "Enhanced Rich Text".... I'm lead to believe this because we've encountered issues when trying to enter information into this field in the "Datasheet View"....

After downgrading the column type at the Site Collection level to "Rich Text" - the problem appears to have gone away *and* we can type into this field in a Datasheet view without getting the pesky error message "This cell is read only".

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I'll need a few additional days to confirm if my suspicions are correct...I really hope they are though, because users are going to freak-out if they have to manually type in a document summary and title for every document we migrate to SharePoint.

Microsoft Word/Office 2007 - Unable to paste from body of document into "Document Properties" / "Document Information Panel" Fields

2008-03-31T21:27:00.000-04:00

We've deployed Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and upgraded our clients to Office 2007. We've noticed something very strange and very concerning though...Word won't let users copy text from the document body and paste into any of the fields on the Document Information Panel. Interestingly, you can copy and paste text from the word document body into a notepad file and then copy the same text from the notepad file directly into word....any ideas on whether this a bug or how to configure word to get around this rather glaring limitation?

.doc to .pdf converter for SharePoint/MOSS/WSS - Scrapped prior to RTM

2008-03-26T16:35:00.005-04:00

Frustrated that I've been unable to find out more about my previous post, I decided to ramp up my research...

Spoke to Bill English personally today (thank you very much for your time) and he tells me that this functionality was actually removed from the product between one of the early pre-release versions and the final (RTM) version. Such a shame...am going to get in touch with Microsoft to see if I can find out why and if there is any other alternative.

Basically what I'm looking for is a way for users to be able to convert documents which live in a SharePoint library to PDF, on-the-fly while retaining the existing content type and populated metadata....

Have scoured high and low to no real avail and I'm now seriously considering buying Bamboo Solutions's Office to PDF Conversion Solution Accelerator - Release 1.2

It convert Office Documents to PDF on a pre-determined schedule.

I will report back more when I learn more

.doc to .pdf converter for SharePoint/MOSS/WSS

2008-03-21T16:35:00.003-04:00

In Bill English's book "Microsoft Office SharePoint Server - Administrator's Companion" he says on pg 14, paragraph 4 that "Windows SharePoint Services includes a new transformation feature. Assume you need the ability to automatically save documents in PDF format. Now all you need to do is install the .doc to .pdf transformer, and that transformer will show up on all the menus for documents in Windows SharePoint Services so that it can be leveraged across the enterprise. This feature is installed and managed centrally, but it's consumed (potentially) across the sites in the enterprise."

My searches to locate such a converter or instructions for installing a converter have failed (or maybe I've just been staring at this screen for too long). In any case, I'm putting it out there in the hope you might know. Please leave your comments if you do, I would be most grateful!!

drew

Install Adobe PDF Icon and IFilter for SharePoint/WSS/MOSS 2007

2008-03-12T16:24:00.003-04:00

Download and install Adobe Acrobat Reader 8 on the server (the reader now includes the iFilter by default, previously you had to install the iFilter separately)
Add the PDF file type to your search index (note that this has to be completed for each index, i.e. each Shared Service)

Open your Search Settings - SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration - SharedServices1 - Search Settings
Select File Types
Click Add File Type
Enter pdf in the text box (labelled File extension) and click OK

Download the PDF icon (select 'small 17 x 17') from http://www.adobe.com/misc/linking.html
1. Give the icon a name (I use pdficon.gif)
2. Save the icon in c:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\IMAGES
Edit the Docicon.xml file to include the PDF icon

Navigate to c:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\XML
Open the DOCICON.XML file in Notepad (or an XML editor). You should see that the file has two main tags - ByProgID and ByExtension
Within the ByExtension tag, add an entry for the PDF icon 'Mapping Key="pdf" Value="pdficon.gif" /' (replace the single quotes with angle brackets)
Save and close the file

Perform a full crawl of your content sources

Upload Multiple Documents to SharePoint and Apply Metadata

2008-01-27T15:08:00.000-05:00

This is actually my first blog ever, so forgive me if I don't observe any of the traditional blogging protocols!

I have just been doing some research on whether there is any fast and easy way to apply metadata to multiple documents when you're uploading them into a SharePoint library using the "Upload Multiple Documents' feature.

I found Dustin Millers blog; Document Libraries and Subfolders: Why it's a bad idea most useful, in which one of his respondants reccommends upload ing multiple documents and then manually apply the metadata for each record via a document library datasheet view.

This method is fine when you're working with a small number of documents, but if you're migrating a large number, this method obviously becomes very time consuming and tedious, particularly if you have multiple mandatory fields which won't allow you to use the 'Fill Down' feature of the datasheet view.

I figure one way around this is to make all metadata fields non-mandatory initially and then once the metadata is applied, apply mandatory rules later. But this method is still very slow considering that you will only be able to sort documents by file name or type etc. It makes far more sense to the able to classify documents first and then upload them with metadata.

After residing myself to the fact that there wasn't any simple way to accomplish this, I re-jigged my search terms and came across what looks like a very nifty utility. It's called the Document Import Kit for SharePoint 2007 (DocKIT) 1.1 and it claims that it can import documents with a separate CSV file which applies metadata when uploading multiple files. It costs $799 and there's also a free trial. I personally haven't tried it yet, but plan to once I get my dodgy MOSS development box fixed (I installed MOSS 2007 alongside WSS 2.0 on Windows SBS Small Business Server 2003 which seemed to work initially, though now I'm finding several problems I figure I'll only overcome by building my environment correctly!!).

Would appreciate any feedback from other SharePoint aficionados on how well this product works if you get to it before me.