Harold van de Kamp's Blog

Install Visual Studio 2008 Team Foundation Server with custom settings

Harold van de Kamp — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 19:48:15 GMT

The installation of Visual Studio 2008 Team Foundation Server (TFS) uses an ini-file located on the installation DVD to determine the TFS related settings, e.g. SQL Server port and TFS Web Service port. When you need custom settings, you need a modified ini-file and reference that file when starting the installation of TFS 2008. It’s not needed to copy the whole installation DVD to an other location.

To install TFS 2008 with custom settings, use the following procedure:

Copy the msiproperty.ini file located on the TFS DVD’s \AT\ folder and copy it to a temporary location.
Modify the msipropery.ini, change the contents to your specific settings.
Start a command prompt, navigate to the TFS DVDs \AT\ folder and run the command:

setup.exe /INIFILE=C:\temporary_folder\msiproperty.ini

Statistics about Browsers, JavaScript, Operating Systems, Rich Internet Application plug-ins and top sites

Harold van de Kamp — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 15:48:03 GMT

Here you have a list of statistics related to web sites or web applications:

Browser usage statistics, e.g. Internet Explorer, Mozilla FireFox, Google Chrome, Apple Safari and Opera: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp
JavaScript statistics: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp
Browser display statistics, e.g. display resolution and color depth: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_display.asp
Operating System statistics, e.g. Windows, Linux and Mac: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp
Rich Internet Application (RIA) plug-in deployment statistics, e.g. Adobe Flash/Flex Player, Microsoft Silverlight Player and Sun Java: http://riastats.com
Shockwave Player Adoption statistics: http://www.adobe.com/products/player_census/shockwaveplayer/
Alexa’s top 500 sites on the web: http://www.alexa.com/topsites

SharePoint Workspace 2010: The Groove makeover

Harold van de Kamp — Sat, 16 May 2009 15:25:13 GMT

The next version of Groove will be named SharePoint Workspace 2010. As the name already suggest it is related to SharePoint, it will provide you access to SharePoint content.

With SharePoint Workspace 2010 it’s possibility to make SharePoint data offline available including its metadata. I’ve heard customers in the past asking for such functionality.

More information according to the Groove Development Team Blog:

Heads up – Groove is getting a new name as of the coming release of Office 2010. Please welcome SharePoint Workspace 2010!

The name makeover is in concert with the direction the product is going. SharePoint Workspace will provide easy access to SharePoint content (or content from any server that implements the publicly documented protocols) in an effort to provide a seamless online/offline experience.

SharePoint Workspace 2010 will be easier to deploy and easier to manage, and it supports a new set of scenarios to help Office and SharePoint users be more productive. It will also make it easier for IT folks to implement a consistent information strategy based on SharePoint technology throughout the organization.

There will be changes in the way the product is delivered, as well – e.g. SharePoint Workspace (and OneNote, for that matter) will be added to the Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 release. Keep an eye peeled for further announcements from Microsoft on new product plans for Office.

Using virtual machines on Windows 7 RC with Windows Virtual PC beta

Harold van de Kamp — Sat, 02 May 2009 12:43:55 GMT

Since last week I am using Windows 7 as my primary operating system, specifically it is Windows 7 RC 64-bit edition build 7100. Yesterday I installed Windows Virtual PC beta so I can continue to use virtual machines. I use virtual machines for different usage scenario’s, mostly for SharePoint and Microsoft .NET development and testing purposes. This post sums up things you need to know when you want to use the new Windows Virtual PC beta.

Windows Virtual PC beta

Windows Virtual PC beta is the successor of Microsoft Virtual PC and comes with new features. The most important feature is Windows XP Mode which allows you to run Windows XP applications in a seamless mode. Applications incompatible with Windows 7 can still be run on Windows 7 by using the Windows XP Virtual Machine. The applications available inside the virtual machine can be run from the Windows 7 start menu, see the screenshot. For more information see Microsoft’s Virtual PC home page.

Screen sizing and full screen support

It allows you to maximize your screen. It has build-in functionality to display your virtual environment in full screen. Technically it works the same as the full screen method I described as a workaround for Microsoft Virtual PC some time ago, Windows Virtual PC has it just implemented out-of-the-box and makes it more user friendly.

Program availability and supported guest operation systems

The Windows Virtual PC program is available as an 32-bit and 64-bit version, although only 32-bit guest machines can be used. I don’t understand why Microsoft hasn’t added support for 64-bit guest machines, other products like VMware's already support this. With Exchange 2010 beta being released as 64-bit-only, SharePoint 2010 announced as 64-bit-only, I see more products following and feel the need of having 64-bit guest machine support.

Virtual PC Integration Components

The current Virtual PC Integration Components version 14.0.7084.0, previously known as Virtual Machine Additions, has support for Windows XP SP3, Windows Vista SP1 and Windows 7 guest machines only. I’m using Windows Server 2008 as my guest PC and have installed the Virtual PC Integration Components, but some features are not working. E.g. drag&drop of files between your host and guest environment is not possible and sharing a local drive. After the installation I had to reactivate my Windows Server 2008 environment.

Virtual Machine Configuration file

The Virtual Machine Configuration file has an extension of .vmcx, previously it had a file extension of .vmc. Both are XML files, but the XML file structure don’t look the same. I have created a new Virtual Machine myself targeting an old Virtual Machine hard disk (.vhd) file. Windows Virtual PC wasn’t able to open the .vhd stored on an external USB hard disk drive. Copying the Virtual Machine hard disk file to my local hard disk drive and attaching it to the Virtual Machine did the trick. It looks to me like a bug, but more testing with other virtual hard disks located on external USB drives is required.

I have not tried to rename an Virtual Machine Configuration file extension from .vmc to .vmcx. If you have tried this, share your knowledge.

Drive and folder sharing

You cannot share a specific folder at the moment. Maybe this is because Windows Server 2008 is not supported by the integration components yet, but I really feel to need to share files between the host and guest environment. As a workaround I use an USB storage device, attach it with guest operating system and transfer files using that storage device.

BizTalk Server 2009 available on MSDN

Harold van de Kamp — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 09:56:45 GMT

BizTalk Server 2009, previously named BizTalk Server 2006 R3, has been RTM released and is now available for download on the MSDN Subscriber Downloads.

New features

Major new features of BizTalk Server 2009:

Platform support:

Support for .Net Framework 3.5 SP1
Support for Visual Studio 2008 SP1
Support for Windows Server 2008
Support for SQL Server 2008

B2B Integration:

Connectivity with intelligent RFID devices
Enhanced support for EDI and AS2
Enhanced support for SWIFT

Other features:

Enhanced developer and team productivity through Team Foundation System (TFS), Visual Studio and other features
Enhanced support for Business Activity Monitoring (BAM)
New and enhanced line of business (LOB) adapters

See also Microsoft’s Q&A: What’s Next for BizTalk Server and BizTalk Server Roadmap.

Available downloads

The following downloads are available:

BizTalk Server 2009 Enterprise Edition - DVD (English)
BizTalk Server 2009 Standard Edition - DVD (English)
BizTalk Server 2009 Developer Edition - DVD (English)
BizTalk Server 2009 Branch Edition - DVD (English)
BizTalk Server RFID 2009 - CD (English)
BizTalk Server 2009 Line of Business Adapters - CD (English)
BizTalk Server 2009 Accelerators Enterprise Edition - CD (English)
BizTalk Server 2009 Accelerators Standard Edition - CD (English)
BizTalk Server 2009 Line of Business Adapters - CD (English)
BizTalk Server 2009 Adapters for Host Systems 2.0 Enterprise Edition - CD (English)
BizTalk Server 2009 Adapters for Host Systems 2.0 Developer Edition - CD (English)
Host Integration Server 2009 - CD (English)

StyleCop for ReSharper: The power of ReSharper 4.5 and StyleCop combined

Harold van de Kamp — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 13:48:48 GMT

Since yesterday it’s possible to use ReSharper 4.5 beta in combination with StyleCop by using StyleCop for ReSharper. This post gives you some information on all the three tools that I use to write source code in Visual Studio 2008 for business solutions faster and deliver better maintainable source code.

ReSharper 4.5

ReSharper is a productivity tool for Visual Studio. It provides solution-wide error highlighting on the fly, advanced code completion, superior unit testing tools, over 30 advanced code refactorings, multiple handy navigation and search utilities, single-click code formatting and cleanup, automatic code generation and templates, and a lot more productivity features for C#, VB.NET, ASP.NET, XML, and XAML. ReSharper fully integrates with Visual Studio to intelligently and powerfully extend the functionality that is native to Visual Studio. See also the complete ReSharper feature list.

ReShareper 4.5 is currently under development and available as a beta version. The biggest improvement is the performance improvement. The following picture illustrated the performance improvements, according to the ReSharper website:

Download ReSharper 4.5 beta from jetbrains.com.

Microsoft StyleCop

Microsoft StyleCop analyzes C# source code to enforce a set of style and consistency rules. It can be run from inside of Visual Studio or integrated into an MSBuild project
For more information about Microsoft StyleCop see the StyleCop blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/sourceanalysis.

Download StyleCop from the MSDN Code Gallery StyleCop website.

StyleCop for ReSharper

StyleCop combines the power of ReSharper and StyleCop. It is a ReSharper plug-in that allows Microsoft StyleCop to be run as you type, generating real-time syntax highlighting of violations and automatic fixing of StyleCop issues during ReSharper Code CleanUp (silent mode):

StyleCop for ReSharper also contains a collection of Quick-Fixes:

and Code Clean-Up Modules to help you easily fix StyleCop code styling violations:

Download StyleCop 1.5 for ReSharper 4.5 beta from the CodePlex website.

Visual Studio 2008 extensions for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, v1.3 - Mar 2009 CTP released

Harold van de Kamp — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 12:36:37 GMT

A new CTP version of the SharePoint project and item templates for Visual Studio 2008 are available. Remember that an CTP version is still in development, so Microsoft Support doesn’t officially support them.

Download VSeWSS v1.3 March 2009 CTP from the Microsoft Download Center.

Error logging

The descriptive error’s, which I blogged about in “Getting the Visual Studio 2008 extensions for SharePoint v1.3 CTP to work on Windows Server 2008”, are better documented now. VSeWSS creates a log file with debug information, e.g. why the deployment of a web part has failed. Some example errors that VSeWSS shows you are:

The feature name WebPart1 already exists in SharePoint. You need to rename the feature before solution deployment can succeed.
The solution can not be deployed. The feature '7c05e196-d953-4b90-a910-0f6802648e7d' uses the directory "MyList instance" in the solution. However, it is currently installed in the farm to the directory "List Definition1 instance". Uninstall the existing feature before you install a new version of the solution.
No SharePoint Site exists at the specified URL.

VSeWSS 1.3 Overview

For those who are new to SharePoint development with VSeWSS, here is Microsoft’s overview.

This is the SharePoint developer tools for Visual Studio 2008. These tools are suitable for use with Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. It includes project and item templates for common SharePoint artifacts, it includes build, packaging and deployment for SharePoint solutions and it includes the SharePoint Solution Generator which creates a new Visual Studio 2008 project from a SharePoint site.
The tools provide item templates for List Definition, List Definition from Content Type, Content Type, Field Control, Web Part, Module, Root File, Template, Event Receiver, and List Instance. It provides project templates for Team Site Definition, Blank Site Definition, List Definition, Web Part and Empty. It works with Visual Basic .NET and C# languages and a comprehensive user guide is included. It does not include the SharePoint Workflow templates as they are built in with Visual Studio 2008.
New features in version 1.3 include:

Can be installed on x64 Server OS machines running SharePoint x64. Previously only x86 Server OS could be used
Separate build commands for package, deploy and retract are added as Visual Studio menu items
WSP View improvements for consistency of deleting feature elements, merging features and adding event receivers to features
Command line build, package and retract commands are included enabling continuous integration and build servers. Previously command line build of SharePoint projects was very difficult
Refactoring support for renaming of Web Parts. Previously renaming a web part required changes in several files in the project
Solution Generator can now generate solutions from publishing sites. Previously only regular sites could be generated
Allowing partial trust BIN deployments of web parts
New project item template for SharePoint RootFiles items
Deployment will now optionally remove conflicting existing features on the development server prior to redeployment. Previously any feature name conflicts would result in an error
Ancillary assemblies such as for business logic can now be added to the SharePoint Solution WSP
Hidden features related to Site Definition projects are now shown in WSP View. They are no longer hidden
For advanced users a fast deploy is included to update only the compiled assembly on the SharePoint development installation
Deployment step logging is included
The List Definition from Content Type template now allows for the creation of a List Definition Event Receiver
The User Guide is now installed with the extensions instead of being a separate download

Microsoft Commerce Server 2009 available on MSDN

Harold van de Kamp — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 10:50:00 GMT

Commerce Server 2009 (formerly known as Commerce Server 2007 code name “Mojave”) delivers the ability to increase your business reach by making it possible to sell via multiple channels using an out-of-the-box shopping site, SharePoint Commerce Services, and the Multi-Channel Commerce Foundation. The new out-of-the-box shopping site leverages SharePoint Commerce Services, which provides a gallery of ASP.NET 3.5 Web Parts, a comprehensive e-commerce shopping feature-set, and technology integration between Commerce Server and SharePoint technologies. The Multi-Channel Commerce Foundation provides a new unified, extensible run-time programming model for Commerce Server, including new run-time e-commerce capabilities.

Download CS2009 from the MSDN Subscriptions website.

See Microsoft’s Commerce Server 2009 product website for more information on this product or visit the e-commerce blog. For questions and discussions go to the Commerce Server 2009 MSDN Forums.

Commerce Server 2009 Software Installation Restrictions

The following items address important considerations for the computer on which you install Commerce Server 2009. Before you install Commerce Server 2009, review the following information:

You must have Commerce Server 2007 installed before you can install Commerce Server 2009.
You must have administrator permissions on the computer where you install Commerce Server 2009and the Business Management applications. Log on to the operating system under a user account that has local administrator permissions.
Do not install Commerce Server 2009 on a domain controller. Commerce Server 2009 does not support installation on a domain controller.
You can install Commerce Server 2009 and BizTalk Server 2006 on the same computer. However, you must run the Configuration Wizard for each product before you install and configure the next product. For example, first install and configure Commerce Server 2009 before you install and configure BizTalk Server 2006. Alternatively, install and configure BizTalk Server 2006 before you install and configure Commerce Server 2009.
If you install Commerce Server 2009 and BizTalk Server 2006 on the same computer, do not reference the same SQL Server database instance for both products. You should run separate database instances for each product.
The supported configuration for Commerce Server 2009 includes Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server installations of the same languages. Commerce Server 2009 supports Unicode, and you can customize regional settings for your specific implementation.
If you install Commerce Server 2009 on a computer where either Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS) is installed, you must configure SharePoint Services security settings so that they do not interfere with the execution of the Commerce Server application. The correct configuration will prevent SharePoint Services from intercepting incoming requests to IIS where the Commerce Server Site is run. For more information, see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=68629.
Do not install Commerce Server 2009 on a computer where Commerce Server 2000 or Commerce Server 2002 is installed. In such situations, you must prepare for the upgrade by backing up important data; then you uninstall the earlier version of Commerce Server, and install Commerce Server 2009.
If you have Commerce Server 2007 RTM, SP1 or SP2 installed, you can upgrade to Commerce Server 2009. See the topic "Upgrading from Commerce Server 2007" in the Commerce Server 2009 Installation and Configuration Guide.
To upgrade your Commerce Server edition, such as from Standard to Enterprise, you must first uninstall the existing Commerce Server installation, and then install the edition of Commerce Server 2009 that you want.

SharePoint data connected to Outlook is not pushed to mobile devices

Harold van de Kamp — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 21:32:16 GMT

On a SharePoint website you can make lists to store information based on a list type. Some lists can be connected to Outlook, including contact lists, by using the Connect to Outlook action. The contact lists can be connected to Microsoft Outlook 2003 or 2007. If you connect to Outlook 2007, you can make changes to the contacts in Outlook and SharePoint. Outlook 2003 connected lists can be viewed in Outlook, but must be changed in SharePoint.

If you want more information how to connect SharePoint data with Outlook, see “How do I synchronize Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Contacts, Tasks or Calendar with Outlook 2007”.

Contacts are not send to your mobile

Contacts stored in your Outlook Address Book can be synchronized with your mobile device. Contact stored in an Microsoft Exchange Global Address List are also searchable on a mobile device. Although I expected a SharePoint list of contacts connected to Outlook 2007 to be synchronized with my mobile, that’s not working. I’ve searched through the configuration options, but found no option to sync the SharePoint contacts with my Windows Mobile 6 device. So keep in mind that SharePoint contact lists connected to Outlook are not synchronized with mobile devices out-of-the-box.

If someone made a solution for this, e.g. with Visual Studio Tools for Office, feel free to reply.

Getting the Visual Studio 2008 extensions for SharePoint v1.3 CTP to work on Windows Server 2008

Harold van de Kamp — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 16:21:00 GMT

January 2009 the Microsoft SharePoint Product Group announced the Community Technology Preview of Visual Studio 2008 extensions for SharePoint v1.3 (VSeWSS). Previous VSeWSS versions were not out-of-the box installable on x64 machines, therefore I blogged about Installing Visual Studio Extensions for Windows SharePoint Services on 64-bit machines. It’s great to see that x64 support has been added to version 1.3. The complete list of new features are:

Can be installed on x64 Server OS machines running SharePoint x64. Previously only x86 Server OS could be used.
Separate build commands for package, deploy and retract are added
Command line build, package and retract commands are included enabling continuous integration and build servers. Previously command line build of SharePoint projects was very difficult
Refactoring support for renaming of Web Parts. Previously renaming a web part required changes in several files in the project
WSP View improvements for consistency of deleting feature elements, merging features and adding event receivers to features
Solution Generator can now generate solutions from publishing sites. Previously only regular sites could be generated
Allowing partial trust BIN deployments of web parts. CAS configuration must still be provided by the developer.
New project item template for SharePoint RootFiles items
Deployment will now optionally remove conflicting existing features on the development server prior to redeployment. Previously any feature name conflicts would result in an error
Ancillary assemblies such as for business logic can now be added to the SharePoint Solution WSP
Hidden features related to Site Definition projects are now shown in WSP View. They are no longer hidden
For advanced users a fast deploy is included to update only the compiled assembly on the SharePoint development installation
The User Guide is now installed with the extensions instead of being a separate download

The final release of VSeWSS 1.3 is planned for the North American Spring of 2009. The CTP version is available on the Microsoft Connect VSeWSS website where you are welcome to post your feedback.

What I did to get the VSeWSS 1.3 CTP working on my Windows Server 2008 development machine

The new VSeWSS version makes use of a Web Service to connect to local SharePoint sites and WCF is used to connect to that Web Service. Because the current VSeWSS version is a CTP version, it’s not marked as stable and contains bugs. Error messages can contain very little information about the problem and how to fix it, so here are my tips to get you started.

Read the “Release Notes”

The Release Notes document contains a lot information how to get this VSeWSS version working and needs to be your starting point.

Getting around the error “The communication object, System.ServiceModel.Channels.ServiceChannel, cannot be used for communication because it is in the Faulted state.”

The deployment of my SharePoint solutions failed with the error “The communication object, System.ServiceModel.Channels.ServiceChannel, cannot be used for communication because it is in the Faulted state”. On my x86 environment I re-registered WCF using the command:

%Windir%\Microsoft.Net\Framework\v3.0\Windows Communication Foundation\ServiceModelReg.exe -r

x64 users can re-register WCF using the command:

%Windir%\Microsoft.Net\Framework64\v3.0\Windows Communication Foundation\ServiceModelReg.exe -r

More information on the MSDN Forums thread “VSeWSS 1.3 Deploy fails with Faulted state”.

Getting around the error “Error: Assembly {0} not found.”

After I fixed the previous error, the deployment of SharePoint solutions failed with the cryptic error “Error: Assembly {0} not found.”. The VSeWSS Web Service account needs to be in the local administrator group and have SharePoint Farm Administrator rights. My Windows Server 2008 machine is enrolled into it’s own domain, so I did the following:

Started IIS7
Created a new application pool with the administrator account as its identity
Put the VSeWSS Web Service into the new application pool
Added the administrator account to the WSS_RESTRICTED_WPG user group.

Maybe not the most security friendly way, but for me it is acceptable at the moment for my development environment. More information on the MSDN Forums thread “Problems with use of VSeWSS 1.3 in Visual Studio 2008”.

After all this work I’m able to make use of the new VSeWSS version, hope this helps you.

Deploying reusable Data Form Web Parts for SharePoint

Harold van de Kamp — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 10:51:00 GMT

An introduction into Data Form Web Parts

The Data Form Web Part is a Web Part component that is available out-of-the-box with WSS 3.0. It allows you to display information from different data source types, with the possibility to change or insert new data. You can display a single item or a collection of items, use grouping, sorting, conditional formatting, share information between Web Parts and much more. Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007 supports the Data Form Web Part which gives you a WYSIWYG way of setting up your Web Part.

For more information on the Data Form Web Part see e.g. the Data Form Web Part presentation in Dutch of Maarten van den Dungen and the MSDN documentation. The "Getting to Know the Data Form Web Part" series of SharePoint Beagle give you also a good overview:

Deployment of Data Form Web Parts

Now you know where to find introductions how to work with Data Form Web Parts, you can quickly create data views and forms. To deploy and reuse your Data Form Web Parts on multiple (sub)sites and environments keep the following tips in mind.

Reference SharePoint lists based on the list name instead of the list ID

By default a data form web part that has a SharePoint list as its data source, gets the data from that specific list. The list is referenced by using the list's GUID identifier, which means that theoretically only one list in the world is referenced. When lists are deployed using a CAML List Definition, a list is created and automatically gets a new GUID identifier. The Data Form Web Part I have used for the original list cannot be used to reference the new list instance without changing the ListID reference.

The trick is to reference a SharePoint list based on it’s name instead of it’s ID. To change the DataFormWebPart’s ListID attribute to ListName, use the following steps:

Replace all ListName="{GUID}" to ListName="LIST_NAME"
Replace
<WebPartPages:DataFormParameter Name="ListID" ParameterKey="ListID" PropertyName="ParameterValues" DefaultValue="{GUID}"/>
to
<WebPartPages:DataFormParameter Name="ListName" ParameterKey="ListName" PropertyName="ParameterValues" DefaultValue="LIST_NAME"/>
Replace
<ParameterBinding Name="ListID" Location="None" DefaultValue="{GUID}"/>
to
<ParameterBinding Name="ListName" Location="None" DefaultValue="LIST_NAME"/>
Save your Web Part

Thanks to Sandeep Rohilla.

Reference a Lookup field based on the lookup value ID instead of the text value

Displaying data from multiple lists or using web part connections can easily be done. When you want to filter items based on a Lookup field but don’t want to reference items based on the string value, use the ID of the item. Use an ID e.g. if you want to filter information based on an ID in the query string.

The Data Form Web Part uses a CAML query to fetch data, which means you can use the LookupId attribute to refer a field based on it’s ID. The CAML attribute is:

LookupId='True'

The Data Form Web Part’s .webpart file contains HTML encoded values, so the LookupId attribute has to be encoded to get things done. In SharePoint designer open the code view of the Data Form Web Part and follow these steps:

Find <property name="DataSourcesString" type="string">.
Inside the DataSourceString property, replace:
&lt;FieldRef LookupId=&quot;TRUE&quot; Name=&quot;NAME_OF_THE_LOOKUP_FIELD&quot;/&gt;&lt;Value Type=&quot;Text&quot;&gt;LOOKUP_VALUE&lt;/Value&gt;&
with:
&lt;FieldRef LookupId=&quot;TRUE&quot; Name=&quot;NAME_OF_THE_LOOKUP_FIELD&quot;/&gt;&lt;Value Type=&quot;Text&quot;&gt;LOOKUP_ID&lt;/Value&gt;&
Save your Web Part

Specify on which (sub)site your list is located

By default the Web Part that has a SharePoint list as its source, expects the list to be at the same site level as the Web Part. When you want a list to be at a different site level, specify the WebURL parameter. The WebURL parameter is also located inside the <property name="DataSourcesString" type="string">.

You can use different values, e.g. a fixed location /MyWebsite/MySubsite or a special location {sitecollectionroot}

Podcasts all about SharePoint: SharePoint Pod Show

Harold van de Kamp — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 16:03:35 GMT

When travelling by car I have my radio on or listen to podcasts. A few times a month a group of SharePoint enthusiasts make podcasts on SharePoint related topics and post them on the SharePoint Pod Show website. It’s an easy way to learn more about SharePoint technology, real world SharePoint implementations and non-standard SharePoint things to know.

Take a look at the SharePoint Pod Show website and subscribe to the show. All SharePoint Pod Shows thus far:

Podcasting Kit for SharePoint

If you would like to setup your own podcasting environment using SharePoint, take a look at the Podcasting Kit for SharePoint. It gives people the opportunity to share their audio or video on a SharePoint website.

Windows Installer doesn’t finish determining disk space requirements

Harold van de Kamp — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 22:29:00 GMT

On my Windows Server 2008 VPC several programs could not be installed by running the .msi file. Before starting the actual installation process, the Windows Installer checks how much disk space is available, but it doesn’t finish this process. It pops up with the message “please wait while the installer finishes determining your disk space requirements”, and after a few hours it still told me to wait. I’ve seen several posts on the internet about users with the same message, but nobody shows the reason why the Microsoft Installer can’t finish determining the disk space requirements.

By executing the msi via the command-line msiexec command, I can get passed that message on my VPC with enough disk space. Use the following command as a workaround:

msiexec /i filename.msi

See the comments for other suggested workarounds. I found a blog post that says that temporarily removing your VirtualPC Virtual Machine additions does the trick, see Donn Felker's "Cannot install programs on Virtual PC" blog post. It didn't work for me, but maybe it helps you.

Deleting a broken SharePoint list using Stsadm

Harold van de Kamp — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 18:57:39 GMT

If you receive error Exception from HRESULT 0x81070215 when you open a list or access the SharePoint site manager, a list has not properly been deleted and is in a corrupted state. You can change the corresponding custom list definition after you have deleted the list to fix the problem. Because the SharePoint pages don’t allow you to delete the list, you have to use the STSADM program’s forcedeletelist operation.

Although the help message displays information about using the forcedeleteweb operation, you have to use forcedeletelist instead. The syntax is:

stsadm.exe -o forcedeletelist -url <url>

Snipped Designer for Visual Studio 2008

Harold van de Kamp — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 18:55:42 GMT

Finally there is a great snippet designer add-in for Visual Studio. The Snipped Designer for Visual Studio 2008 is available for free on CodePlex. I have used version 1.1 some time and it works great.

The Snippet Designer features:

A Snippet editor integrated inside of the IDE.
- Access it by opening any .snippet file or going to File -> New -> File -> Code Snippet File
- It uses the native Visual Studio code editor so that you can write the snippets in the same environment you write your code.
- It lets you easily mark replacements by a convenient right click menu.
- It displays properties of the snippet inside the Visual Studio properties window.

A Snippet Explorer tool window to search snippets on your computer.
- It is located under View -> Other Windows -> Snippet Explorer
- This tool window contains a code preview window which lets to peek inside the snippet to see what it is without opening the file.
- Maintains an index of snippets on your computer for quick searching.
- Provides a quick way to find a code snippet to use, edit or delete

A right Click "Export as Snippet" menu option added to C#, VB and XML code editor to send highlighted code directly to the Snippet Editor

More information can be found at http://www.codeplex.com/SnippetDesigner or download directly from the Releases page.