Res Cogitans - a SharePoint and NET blog by Edin Kapic

How to Set Printer Default Paper Bin in .NET

noreply@blogger.com (Edin) — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 07:55:00 +0000

Yesterday I was challenged with a task that seemed trivial but it was a real pain to solve.

The customer had a VB.NET application that spawns Adobe Reader via command line options to force a specific PDF file to be printed on a specified printer (using the “semi-clandestine” /t switch). The problem that they were facing was that the VB.NET Compatibility Power Pack’s Printer object (used to simulate the equivalent object in VB6) didn’t change the default paper bin (or tray) for the printer. The change just sticks to the application’s session lifetime.

I turned to Win32 API for the solution. Indeed, there is a winspool.drv library that has the necessary functions to change several printer parameters. I used many blogs and forum posts for a source, which I list here:

Finally, the solution involved coaxing the Win32 API structures into the .NET world using marshalling (using System.Marshal namespace and its methods). I had no success until I set the CharSet attribute to Auto encoding for the API structures. It seems that by default it uses Ansi encoding and the data is messed up.

The final code for the tray change routine is here (it’s in VB.NET but easily translated into C#). It has four main methods:

SetTray (sets the default printer tray to a tray number. In VB.NET it’s the Printer.PaperBin or RawKind property)
GetPrinterName (gets the default printer name)
SavePrinterSettings (copies the printer settings into memory)
RestorePrinterSettings (replaces the printer settings with previously saved ones)

Code Snippet
 Imports System.Drawing.Printing
Imports System.Runtime.InteropServices
 
 
Public Class PrinterNative
 
 
    Private Declare Auto Function DocumentProperties Lib "winspool.drv" _
     (ByVal hWnd As IntPtr, ByVal hPrinter As IntPtr, ByVal pDeviceName As String, _
      ByVal pDevModeOutput As IntPtr, ByVal pDevModeInput As IntPtr, ByVal fMode As Int32) As Integer
 
    Public Declare Function GetPrinter Lib "winspool.drv" Alias "GetPrinterW" _
     (ByVal hPrinter As IntPtr, ByVal Level As Integer, ByVal pPrinter As IntPtr, _
      ByVal cbBuf As Integer, ByRef pcbNeeded As Integer) As Integer
 
    Private Declare Function SetPrinter Lib "winspool.drv" Alias "SetPrinterA" _
     (ByVal hPrinter As IntPtr, ByVal level As Integer, ByVal pPrinterInfoIn As IntPtr, _
      ByVal command As Int32) As Boolean
 
    <DllImport("winspool.drv", EntryPoint:="OpenPrinterA", ExactSpelling:=True, _
       SetLastError:=True, CallingConvention:=CallingConvention.StdCall, _
       CharSet:=CharSet.Ansi)> _
    Private Shared Function OpenPrinter(ByVal pPrinterName As String, _
  ByRef hPrinter As IntPtr, ByRef pDefault As PRINTER_DEFAULTS) As Boolean
    End Function
 
    <DllImport("winspool.drv", EntryPoint:="ClosePrinter", SetLastError:=True, ExactSpelling:=True, _
     CallingConvention:=CallingConvention.StdCall)> _
    Private Shared Function ClosePrinter(ByVal hPrinter As Int32) As Boolean
    End Function
 
    Declare Function GetDefaultPrinter Lib "winspool.drv" Alias "GetDefaultPrinterA" _
     (ByVal pszBuffer As System.Text.StringBuilder, ByRef pcchBuffer As Int32) As Boolean
 
    Declare Function SetDefaultPrinter Lib "winspool.drv" Alias "SetDefaultPrinterA" _
     (ByVal pszPrinter As String) As Boolean
 
    Public Declare Sub CopyMemory Lib "kernel32" Alias "RtlMoveMemory" _
     (ByVal hpvDest As IntPtr, ByVal hpvSource As IntPtr, ByVal cbCopy As Long)
 
 
    Private Structure PRINTER_DEFAULTS
        Dim pDatatype As String
        Dim pDevMode As Long
        Dim pDesiredAccess As Long
    End Structure
 
    Private Const STANDARD_RIGHTS_REQUIRED = &HF0000
    Private Const PRINTER_ACCESS_ADMINISTER = &H4
    Private Const PRINTER_ACCESS_USE = &H8
    Private Const PRINTER_ALL_ACCESS = (STANDARD_RIGHTS_REQUIRED Or PRINTER_ACCESS_ADMINISTER Or PRINTER_ACCESS_USE)
 
    Private Const DM_IN_BUFFER As Integer = 8
    Private Const DM_IN_PROMPT As Integer = 4
    Private Const DM_OUT_BUFFER As Integer = 2
 
    Private Structure PRINTER_INFO_9
        Dim pDevMode As IntPtr
    End Structure
 
 
 
    <StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)> _
    Private Structure PRINTER_INFO_2
        <MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPTStr)> Public pServerName As String
        <MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPTStr)> Public pPrinterName As String
        <MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPTStr)> Public pShareName As String
        <MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPTStr)> Public pPortName As String
        <MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPTStr)> Public pDriverName As String
        <MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPTStr)> Public pComment As String
        <MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPTStr)> Public pLocation As String
 
        Public pDevMode As IntPtr
 
        <MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPTStr)> Public pSepFile As String
        <MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPTStr)> Public pPrintProcessor As String
        <MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPTStr)> Public pDatatype As String
        <MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPTStr)> Public pParameters As String
 
        Public pSecurityDescriptor As IntPtr
        Public Attributes As Integer
        Public Priority As Integer
        Public DefaultPriority As Integer
        Public StartTime As Integer
        Public UntilTime As Integer
        Public Status As Integer
        Public cJobs As Integer
        Public AveragePPM As Integer
    End Structure
 
 
    <StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential, CharSet:=CharSet.Auto)> _
    Public Structure DEVMODE
        <MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.ByValTStr, Sizeconst:=32)> Public pDeviceName As String
        Public dmSpecVersion As Short
        Public dmDriverVersion As Short
        Public dmSize As Short
        Public dmDriverExtra As Short
        Public dmFields As Integer
        Public dmOrientation As Short
        Public dmPaperSize As Short
        Public dmPaperLength As Short
        Public dmPaperWidth As Short
        Public dmScale As Short
        Public dmCopies As Short
        Public dmDefaultSource As Short
        Public dmPrintQuality As Short
        Public dmColor As Short
        Public dmDuplex As Short
        Public dmYResolution As Short
        Public dmTTOption As Short
        Public dmCollate As Short
        <MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.ByValTStr, Sizeconst:=32)> Public dmFormName As String
        Public dmUnusedPadding As Short
        Public dmBitsPerPel As Integer
        Public dmPelsWidth As Integer
        Public dmPelsHeight As Integer
        Public dmNup As Integer
        Public dmDisplayFrequency As Integer
        Public dmICMMethod As Integer
        Public dmICMIntent As Integer
        Public dmMediaType As Integer
        Public dmDitherType As Integer
        Public dmReserved1 As Integer
        Public dmReserved2 As Integer
        Public dmPanningWidth As Integer
        Public dmPanningHeight As Integer
 
    End Structure
 
 
 
    Private pOriginalDEVMODE As IntPtr
 
 
    Public Sub SavePrinterSettings(ByVal printerName As String)
        Dim Needed As Integer
        Dim hPrinter As IntPtr
        If printerName = "" Then Exit Sub
 
        Try
            If OpenPrinter(printerName, hPrinter, Nothing) = False Then Exit Sub
            'Save original printer settings data (DEVMODE structure)
            Needed = DocumentProperties(Form1.Handle, hPrinter, printerName, Nothing, Nothing, 0)
            Dim pFullDevMode As IntPtr = Marshal.AllocHGlobal(Needed) 'buffer for DEVMODE structure
            DocumentProperties(Form1.Handle, hPrinter, printerName, pFullDevMode, Nothing, DM_OUT_BUFFER)
            pOriginalDEVMODE = Marshal.AllocHGlobal(Needed)
            CopyMemory(pOriginalDEVMODE, pFullDevMode, Needed)
        Catch ex As Exception
            MsgBox(ex.Message)
        End Try
    End Sub
 
    Public Sub RestorePrinterSettings(ByVal printerName As String)
        Dim hPrinter As IntPtr
        If printerName = "" Then Exit Sub
 
        Try
            If OpenPrinter(printerName, hPrinter, Nothing) = False Then Exit Sub
            Dim PI9 As New PRINTER_INFO_9
            PI9.pDevMode = pOriginalDEVMODE
            Dim pPI9 As IntPtr = Marshal.AllocHGlobal(Marshal.SizeOf(PI9))
            Marshal.StructureToPtr(PI9, pPI9, True)
            SetPrinter(hPrinter, 9, pPI9, 0&)
            Marshal.FreeHGlobal(pPI9) 'pOriginalDEVMODE will be free too
            ClosePrinter(hPrinter)
 
 
        Catch ex As Exception
            MsgBox(ex.Message)
        End Try
 
 
    End Sub
 
    Function GetPrinterName() As String
        Dim buffer As New System.Text.StringBuilder(256)
        Dim PrinterName As String = String.Empty
        'Get default printer's name
        GetDefaultPrinter(buffer, 256)
        PrinterName = buffer.ToString
        If PrinterName = "" Then
            MsgBox("Can't find default printer.")
        End If
        Return PrinterName
    End Function
 
    Sub SetTray(ByVal printerName As String, ByVal trayNumber As Integer)
        Dim hPrinter As IntPtr
        Dim Needed As Integer
 
        OpenPrinter(printerName, hPrinter, Nothing)
 
        'Get original printer settings data (DEVMODE structure)
        Needed = DocumentProperties(IntPtr.Zero, hPrinter, printerName, Nothing, Nothing, 0)
        Dim pFullDevMode As IntPtr = Marshal.AllocHGlobal(Needed) 'buffer for DEVMODE structure
        DocumentProperties(IntPtr.Zero, hPrinter, printerName, pFullDevMode, Nothing, DM_OUT_BUFFER)
 
        Dim pDevMode9 As DEVMODE = Marshal.PtrToStructure(pFullDevMode, GetType(DEVMODE))
 
        ' Tray change
        pDevMode9.dmDefaultSource = trayNumber
 
        Marshal.StructureToPtr(pDevMode9, pFullDevMode, True)
 
        Dim PI9 As New PRINTER_INFO_9
        PI9.pDevMode = pFullDevMode
 
        Dim pPI9 As IntPtr = Marshal.AllocHGlobal(Marshal.SizeOf(PI9))
        Marshal.StructureToPtr(PI9, pPI9, True)
        SetPrinter(hPrinter, 9, pPI9, 0&)
        Marshal.FreeHGlobal(pPI9) 'pFullDevMode will be free too
 
        ClosePrinter(hPrinter)
    End Sub
 
End Class
 

I hope it can be useful to somebody and spare him or her a day or two looking for an answer.

Reconfigure A Rogue SharePoint 2010 Search Service

noreply@blogger.com (Edin) — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 10:47:00 +0000

Hello again to all the readers of my blog. I haven’t been around lately, but I have a good excuse for that: I was getting married. Now, as the feasts are over, I’ll be back in business as usual.

Today I’ve stumped across a puzzling problem with an existing SharePoint 2010 installation. The problem was that the Search Service Application was misbehaving, giving weird errors of not being able to connect to itself.

After some extensive googling, this forum post led to a clue: remove the service application altogether and rebuild it again from scratch. The command to remove the service application is done in the old reliable STSADM:

stsadm.exe –o deleteconfigurationobject –id <GUID_of_the_service_application>

That did the trick! After that, make a new search service application in Central Administration and you are good to go.

Note: the same forum post mentioned another post, which has a script to remove the service applications, for the PowerShell-savvy among you.

SharePoint Configuration Database IP Address Blues

noreply@blogger.com (Edin) — Fri, 14 May 2010 08:51:00 +0000

A really weird situation happened yesterday at work.

The Symptoms

We wanted to move the Virtual Machine that serves as a SQL Server for our development SharePoint environment, from one host computer to another host computer. No renaming, no changes…it should have been really transparent to SharePoint.

Well, it wasn’t.

Once we moved and restarted the server, the SharePoint refused to work. We were starting to dig within the log files and we found out that the front-end was trying to contact a fixed IP address as a SQL Server. This was the old IP address of the database server virtual machine before it was moved. We scanned the Registry for references to this IP address but none was found.

We even made a brand-new virtual machine with SharePoint 2007 and tried to connect it to the SQL Server. It did, but the dreaded error connecting the old IP address persisted. So, we deduced that the culprit IP was stored somewhere in SharePoint databases.

The Workaround

The solution to this problem was simple, once we found out what it was. The network card on the database server was set to multicast IP with the old IP address as a “second identity” for the card. In this way, SharePoint could connect itself to the databases using the bad IP address.

Once we got into Central Administration, we removed the server that showed as bad IP address in Server Topology page. Furthermore, we did a STSADM –o renameserver to change the references from the old IP-address name to fully-qualified domain name of the server. Bravely, we removed the alternate IP from the database server NIC card settings and did an IISRESET on the SharePoint side.

Worked as a charm. Two days lost fixing this, though :-(

The Learning

In this case, cut the right hand of the SharePoint administrator who first added the reference to the database server by IP address alone. (Just kidding, of course).

Balsamiq Mockups: A Review

noreply@blogger.com (Edin) — Wed, 12 May 2010 07:59:00 +0000

As you can probably remember, my frequency of blog posts here has been reduced in the last months. The reason is simple: I’ve been engaged in a enterpreneur startup course, organized by Tetuan Valley in Barcelona. I had an idea for some time already to make a browser business management game, but with a funny touch. The result of all this activity is White Collar Game, still in development. You can check the project blog for more details.

I had to look for a suitable application for making mock-up screens quickly (and I mean really quickly!). Microsoft Visio was too “polished” to be really useful for quick mocking up and drawing by hand had the inconvenience of scanning and the costly retouching and modification.

I stumbled upon balsamiq studio’s Mockups, an Adobe AIR application available as both web and desktop application. The mockups are extremely easy to make: just drag a widget from the toolbar, double-click, write the text and that’s it. The application is updated really fast (almost every week) and there’s a huge repository of pre-made elements available at MockupsToGo. The look-and-feel of the mockups is just right: they aren’t hand-drawn but they look like that. It gives you this funny feeling of freedom to criticise and rearrange things, which is not easy to do with a more “polished” mockup that looks like it’s the real thing.

The fact I like the most, besides being almost perfect tool for doing mockups, is the fact that the company is also a startup, created by Peldi Guilizzoni as a side project when he was working at Adobe. Now he has established the company in Italy and keeps a really interesting blog about the company, including yearly figures and publicly disclosing the company insights in it.

For more information about the balsamiq Mockups tool, check this short video on YouTube.

Thumbs up for Balsamiq!

IE8 Developer Tools Not Working?

noreply@blogger.com (Edin) — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 16:40:00 +0000

I’ve been pulling my (scarce) hair when suddenly the Developer Tools in IE8 didn’t appear as expected, on one day. The taskbar in Windows showed the tools’ window but there were none to be seen.

Luckily, a quick Google search unshoveled this StackOverflow question. The reason was that the tools were off-screen.

It was just a matter of right-clicking the taskbar tools’ window, choosing “Maximize” and pin the tools back to the main IE8 screen.

Hunt For BSOD in Windows 7 x64

noreply@blogger.com (Edin) — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 12:06:00 +0000

I have a shiny new Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit edition installed on my Dell laptop but in the last month I’ve been suffering intermittent BSOD errors (the infamous Windows’ Blue Screens of Death). They just seem to happen randomly every few days.

First I tried the Windows online solution check included in Windows 7, but found nothing.

Then I downloaded a free tool called WhoCrashed. It showed me that the error was inside the standard Windows NTOSKRNL.EXE module.

I was not satisfied with the answer. I downloaded the WinDBG tool (necessary to run WhoCrashed), I downloaded the Debug Symbols from Microsoft (by setting up the tool correctly, as explained in this page from Microsoft).

I opened a crash dump file generated by Windows in Minidump folder.

I run a deep analysis with !analyze –v option

And I found the culprit: the ShrewSoft VPN Client I had installed a month ago! It seems that the last stable version has issues with Windows 7 x64 and sometimes causes BSOD. I’ve downloaded the latest beta of the client and the problem seems gone.

I installed the ShrewSoft VPN client because it’s free and it works (well, mainly) with Windows 7 in 64-bit mode, unlike Cisco VPN client that does not. There is an alternative client from NCP, but it costs about 120 EUR.

Things I Have Been Reading Lately

noreply@blogger.com (Edin) — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 21:47:00 +0000

http://spg.codeplex.com/
A new drop of the official SharePoint Guidance. It now covers SharePoint 2010 and further expands on the SharePoint solution architectural decisions and implementation guidelines.

http://webclientguidance.codeplex.com/
After some time using Web Client Software Factory (WCSF) guidance from Microsoft p&p team, they are now coming with a new version of web client guidance, oriented to ASP.NET with jQuery, AJAX and even ASP.NET MVC. Excellent read, even in the present rough form.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff423674.aspx
http://claimsid.codeplex.com/
A guide to Claims-based Identity and Access Control, with a downloadable book in PDF format. It’s invaluable in understanding the new Windows Identity Framework (former Geneva Framework) and SharePoint 2010 claims-based authentication.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc949034.aspx
http://www.codeplex.com/WCFSecurityGuide
Web Service Security Guidance for WCF, available as an online book and as a PDF file. I admit that WCF is a huge step forward in distributed applications but the security implications are too important to be left unattended. After reading this guide I had clearer image of all those pesky web.config WCF tags and their effect. Priceless when you are debugging cross-domain WCF calls :-)

STP2WSP File Converter, Part 1: The Anatomy of A .STP

noreply@blogger.com (Edin) — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 21:16:00 +0000

Recently, together with my colleague Martin Schmidt, I gave a session on MOSS 2007 to SharePoint 2010 migration. Among other things I mentioned that the site template .STP files are no longer supported in SharePoint 2010. STP files are still supported for list templates, though.

From my professional experience I know that there are many people who have a lot of site templates in .STP format and they don’t want to lose their work. Microsoft suggests that the right way is to create a site with each template, upgrade to SP2010 and then save as WSP template in the new version. It’s an overkill, if you ask me.

My goal is to create a converter written in .NET that would crack open an STP site template and write a shiny new WSP file with the same structure. You will follow my journey in the following days.

An .STP Site Template

Let’s create a normal site, with blank site template. I will add a document library and a webpart to expose the library on the default site page.

Now, save it as a STP file by going to Site Settings / Save Site as Template option.

The template is now safe in the Site Template Gallery in the root of the site collection.

Prying the Lid Off

Let’s download the STP file and extract its contents with the Microsoft Cabinet SDK Tools.

In this case it’s only a single manifest.xml file. A quick inspection reveals that it has the site template header and a site definition metadata.

Opening SharePoint Manager 2007 to inspect the source web raw properties, we see that there is a clear mapping between the <MetaKey> tags and the site property bag:

Furthermore, the manifest.xml file keeps reference to the original site definition (in this case, “Blank site”) from which the original site is created.

STP Manifest.xml	12\TEMPLATE\1033\XML\WEBTEMP.XML

Note the TemplateID and Configuration attributes	Note the ID attribute of the Template tag and the ID attribute of the Configuration

I’ll keep investigating. The rest of the story, in Part 2, soon.

My New Blog in Spanish: SPEdinKapic.Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Edin) — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 23:36:00 +0000

I’ve decided to write a new blog, in parallel with this one, with the Spanish-speaking SharePoint audience in mind. As I work in Barcelona (Spain), there are many readers of this blog that come from there and I believe that a localised content for them is a good thing. What I don’t know is which blog is going to be my “primary” blog. Only time will show it.

The URL of my “other” blog is http://spblogedin.blogspot.com

¡Bienvenidos!

My SPC 2009 Coverage Article at DotNetMania November Issue

noreply@blogger.com (Edin) — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 15:26:00 +0000

I wrote a short article in Spanish .NET magazine called DotNetManía about the SharePoint Conference 2009 in Las Vegas. I’ve just found out that the PDF file of the article is available online at their site:

http://www.dotnetmania.com/articulos/dnm064/pdf/dnm06402.pdf

(of course, it’s in Spanish only) ;-)

SharePoint 2010 Hyper-V Virtual Machines Available

noreply@blogger.com (Edin) — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 19:28:00 +0000

Microsoft has announced that pre-configured machines with Office 2010 Beta and SharePoint 2010 Beta 2 are now available for download.

There are two machines:

SharePoint 2010/SQL Server 2008/Visual Studio 2010/Office 2010 VM
Exchange 2010 VM

joined in the same “contoso.com” domain.

8 GB of RAM are recommended for running the machines.

The download page for the virtual machines is available at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=0c51819b-3d40-435c-a103-a5481fe0a0d2&displaylang=en

Visual Studio 2010 Quick Reference Cards on CodePlex

noreply@blogger.com (Edin) — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 16:50:00 +0000

The good people at Visual Studio Rangers have provided quick reference cards for many VS2010 features. Their aim is to use them as a quick 5-min guide for the new users of VS2010.

The reference cards are available on CodePlex and are in XPS format only.

SharePoint 2010 Certifications Announced

noreply@blogger.com (Edin) — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 16:45:00 +0000

Certification Path for Developers

70-573 TS: Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Application Development
Microsoft Official Curriculum: Five-day instructor-led course designed for developers with six months or more of .NET development experience. Course covers what you need to know to be an effective member of a SharePoint development team using Visual Studio 2010.
70-576 PRO: Designing and Developing Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Applications
Microsoft Official Curriculum: Five-day instructor-led training course designed for development team leads who have already passed the Developing on SharePoint 2010 technical specialist exam. The course covers choosing technologies for and scoping a SharePoint project, best practices for SharePoint development, configuring a SharePoint development environment, advanced use of SharePoint developer features, and debugging of code in a SharePoint project.

Certification Path for IT professionals

70-667 TS: Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Configuring
Microsoft Official Curriculum: Will cover configuration of SharePoint 2010 including deployment, upgrade, management, and operation on a server farm.
70-668 PRO: SharePoint 2010, Administrator
Microsoft Official Curriculum: Will cover advanced SharePoint 2010 topics including capacity planning, topology designing, and performance tuning.

Source: Microsoft Partners web site (https://partner.microsoft.com/global/40121316)

How Did The Prediction End on SP2010?

noreply@blogger.com (Edin) — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 09:11:00 +0000

More than a year ago, I wrote a summary post about the rumours and buzz around the next version of SharePoint (SP2010). My post has seen a lot of translations and links to it from different blogs. Now I’d like to revisit it and check what has been correctly predicted and what has not.

Let’s see how do I stand as a crystal-ball reader.

Feature	Outcome
The SharePoint v14 / 2009 will be shipped only as x64 installation	Included in SP2010
Silverlight 2.0 webparts or UI will be present.	Included in SP2010
SQL tables-like behaviour for SharePoint lists	Included in SP2010 as External Content Types
If the user has Groove client installed, more options will be displayed for data synchronization, in more seamless way.	Included in SP2010 as SharePoint Workspace
Master data source for keeping only one version of the truth.	Included in SP2010 as centralized metadata management
SharePoint UI will produce clean XHTML-compliant output.	Not included in SP2010. The output is WCAG-compliant (no tables) but not strict XHTML.
FAST-based enterprise search as a Search replacement. Webparts that show FAST search results.	Included in Enterprise license of SP2010
Custom filters won’t be necessary to index and extract metadata from ODF and PDF files.	Not included in SP2010. Third-party IFilters are still necessary
Content Management Interoperability Services will allow SharePoint to communicate with other ECMs via web services.	Included in SP2010
Claims-based Authentication mechanism	Included in SP2010

8 out of 10 predictions turned true. Maybe I’ve been in the wrong industry all this time :-)

Setting Up Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 in Workgroup

noreply@blogger.com (Edin) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:33:00 +0000

I’ve been able to set up a Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 in a spare server box at work. I wanted to set up remote management from my Windows 7, also a workgroup laptop, but it was not a trivial task.

First, I had to set up the Hyper-V box correctly, as per Microsoft instructions in the readme file. Then I installed the Windows 7 Hyper-V Management extensions on my laptop. I enabled them in Windows Features but I kept getting this error message:

You do not have the required permission to complete this task. Contact the administrator of the authorization policy for the computer ‘COMPUTERNAME’

I found out the excellent posts by John Howard that explained the process of setting up the server and the client machine correctly.

I had to disable the password complexity requirements on Hyper-V server, as my current password in Windows 7 is not complex enough. It’s described in Medo64’s blog.

After all the setup, I still got this error message in Hyper-V Management snap-in:

Cannot connect to the RPC service, make sure your RPC service is running

The culprit was the hosts file, as the DNS service didn’t resolve correctly the hyper-v server name. I had to add a manual entry in HOSTS file and then it worked:

My First SharePoint 2010 Beta Machine

noreply@blogger.com (Edin) — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 09:52:00 +0000

I run it on a VMWare Workstation 6.5 inside Windows 7 32-bits. The virtual machine is 64-bits, of course. My first impression is that SP2010 is so memory-hungry!!! Much more than the MOSS 2007.

The Day Has Arrived: SharePoint 2010 Public Beta Is Here!

noreply@blogger.com (Edin) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 07:37:00 +0000

For the MSDN Subscribers only, for the moment.

[SPC09] Upgrading SharePoint 2007 Code to SharePoint 2010

noreply@blogger.com (Edin) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 23:47:00 +0000

This was my last session at the SharePoint Conference 2009 in Las Vegas. Tomorrow I fly back to the real world :-( At least, I splashed up a little at the Mandalay Bay Beach Wave Pool.

This session was very instructive, too. It versed about how to migrate existing SharePoint 2007 code and projects into SharePoint 2010 world. The presenter was a New Zealand guy called Chris JT Auld, from Intergen Limited. Here are my notes on that:

Upgrading existing VSeWSS projects

VS2010 template (a .VSIX file) allow import VSEWSS 1.1 and after into VS2010. It recreates the project structure only. You should do some refactoring around the solution structure, as VSEWSS had a 1:1 feature-artifact relation. New Feature Designer is more flexible that the VSEWSS, it now allows you to have more artifacts in a single feature.

There are several issues that may arise:

STP files are not supported anymore. You will have to vreate V3 site, upgrade to V4, fix issues and then save as template into WSP
UI Changes: the backwards-compatible UI (no ribbon, no in-place wiki edits, no interactive calendars). There are now "versioned controls" that are aware of the version-specific content. The UIVersionControl has an UIVersion attribute, and the version-specific content will honor the correct version and be shown. It allows to supress the rendering of a version-specific markup.
CSS has changed completely. Any customizations on CSS or master pages will have to be redone. The new UI is fully XHTML and WCAG 2.0 AA level compliant.
No more toolbars in the new UI. All the custom toolbar actions go to "Custom commands" on the Ribbon
Actions with codebehind code are not migrated automatically, they will have to be redone.
Queries that return large number of results may fail. You might have to adjust the thresholds through the Central Application and catch the exception in the code and treat it. The limit applies only to the non-admin users, so tests should be done with a non-admin user. An index on the queries columns should be made to ensure that all items should not be scanned when executing the query. The query limit override can be done by code but it has to be allowed by the administrator.

Upgrading custom code for SharePoint

Any code that runs in IIS should need no recompilation. The code that runs in the Timer Service must be recompiled. The code outside SharePoint will have to be recompiled or redirected using bindingAssembly declarations.

Many APIs have been deprecated. In most cases it will give you a warning during the recompilation but it should work. Examples: SPFarm.Create now uses SPFarm.Create(passphrase), SPVirtualServer is deprecated by SPWebApplication. A Reflector add-in will be made by Chris to scan an assembly for deprecated code.

Any hard-coded path to "12" hive must now point to the new "14" hive.

There have been numerous improvements in the WSP solution upgrade process:

BindingRedirects are now supported in the manifest file
Features can be upgraded declaratively and programmatically
You can query the farm (QueryFeatures method) to see what features are there and which version are they, so they can be upgraded by code (SPFeature.Upgrade method). The version range element in Feature.xml allows for upgrading from multiple versions.
STSADM command for solution upgrade (upgradesolution) is also available. For more granular upgrade, object model will have to be used.
In the object model, there's a FeatureUpgrading event where to add the upgrade code. Be careful to check for the right version-dependant upgrade action to be called.
To upgrade the feature for new instances, ,use STSADM -upgradesolution. For upgrading the instances already created , psconfig cmd upgrade -inplace -b2b command should be run.
Sandboxed solutions can be upgraded by uploading a new versions and choosing "Upgrade" from the UI.

A complete whitepaper was released on Monday, called "Redeploying Customizations and Solutions in SharePoint Foundation 2010 and SharePoint Server 2010". It's avaliable on http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee662217%28office.14%29.aspx

[SPC09] Driving End User Adoption

noreply@blogger.com (Edin) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 18:29:00 +0000

This session was dear to my heart, as the end-user adoption is really a tough thing to achieve. The session was presented by Scott Jamison of Jornata.

Here are my notes on the session:

Users don't "have" to use SharePoint to get their job done
Cultural changes (such as a SharePoint solution) take 18-36 months to stick

It's essential to have an adoption plan

That increase perceived value for the users
That increase users' skills and confidence
Should have progression from clueless to skeptic to productive to advocate

Take the "What's in it for me?" factor into account

Connect SharePoint to business goals
Elegant solution: don't make them go through five screens

Must-have elements in the adoption strategy

Communication Plan
- Leverage power users and champions
- Send CEO/HR/VP Memos
- Prepare "Town Hall" meetings
- Put Break Room posters
  - On WC backdoors ;-)
- Prepare Scavenger Hunt (the pieces to find are on SharePoint: a concrete document, a user's favorite color) with small rewards (20-50 $)
- Put "birth" announcements cards of a new portal on the desk
- Keep continuous communication

Training Plan
- Not only for developers or IT staff
- But also Power users, visitors, members, content contributors, workflow approvers
- "just in time" and "just enough" training

Content Conversion Plan
- Three approaches
  - Clean and migrate everything
  - Migrate nothing, index old content, new content in new system
  - Clean and migrate recent content only
- Don't migrate without cleaning!!

User Support Plan
- Contact person for every page (with pictures and contact info). There's no global webmaster.
- Form internal site owner user groups to help each other
- IT Help Desk should prepare for more questions
- Capture end-user feedback: with metrics or anecdotes (find a user that likes the solution and show him to the others)
- Have some end-user resources ready (guides, help...)

Incentives and Reward Plan
- Answer "What's in it for me" factor showing the usefulness of something with real data
- Make it fun (posters, scavenger hunt...)
- Provide recognitions for the content contribution users
- Invest in information architecture to ensure fantastic user experience

Must Have Resources (free)

SharePoint Buzz Kit from Microsoft (will be updated for SharePoint 2010)
http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/rampup/sharepoint/Pages/buzzkit.aspx

SharePoint Training Kit (will be updated for SharePoint 2010)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=7BB3A2A3-6A9F-49F4-84E8-FF3FB71046DF&displaylang=en

Productivity Hub
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=277fefca-d62f-41bc-943d-79002254cfee&displaylang=en

Get the Point Blog
http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/blogs/GetThePoint/default.aspx

Summary

Adoption won't happen by chance
Have a plan (better, have many plans)
Use the resources, lot of them are free

SharePoint Server 2010 Overview Available for Download

noreply@blogger.com (Edin) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 05:59:00 +0000

On Microsoft TechNet:
http://download.microsoft.com/download/8/C/6/8C65AC6A-C09A-4E47-B2AD-0719EAA062F9/EvaluateSharePointServer2010-IT%20Pro_v4.docx

It’s very comprehensive and outlines all the features that SharePoint Server 2010 includes.

[SPC09] Document Management Improvements

noreply@blogger.com (Edin) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 05:45:00 +0000

On this second day of SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas, I attended two sessions that were specific on document management improvements in SharePoint 2010:

“Growing SharePoint From Small Libraries to Large Scale Repositories and Archives” by Adam Harmetz (Microsoft)
“Document Management Deep Dive” by Ryan Duguid (Microsoft)

The main takeaways from these two session are these:

There are new SharePoint features that make it easier to manage and apply metadata to the content:
- Unique Document Numbering
- Metadata Service for centralized management of content types and metadata
- Tagging and Rating
- Taxonomy navigation based on the current metadata
There are also improvements on the file record / archive features, too:
- Multiple “Send To” locations
- Automatic routing of the documents, based on the metadata
- Automatic document obsoletization and archiving

There are 4 main approaches on how to use these settings in Document Management, depending on the scale of the document repository that we need:

Document management approach	Number of documents stored	How SharePoint 2010 helps
Ad Hoc Team Library	Up to 200 documents	Focus on easy and lightweight features, while the metadata are centralized. Content types are now centralized into Metadata Service, across the site collection boundary. Taxonomy can be used in columns and is hierarchical and multi-lingual. Default values for columns at document library level can be set. This allows document library to automatically populate the values of the content type that’s shared across the organization. Managed Keywords are suggested as you are typing. The tags are now surfaced in the “Save document” shell window. The tags appear in tag cloud for the site. The tags can be further drilled down, subscribed to and filtered. Tag security: only private and public tags are covered.
Managed Library	Hundreds to thousands	More structured than the ad hoc library. (Document Center). The system should help the user to use and create metadata. Unique document IDs for the enterprise can be generated. You can get the document by the ID using a “Get Document by ID” web part. Metadata navigation can be used as a "virtual" folder structure. You can still use the static folders. Key Filters can be used to further slice the navigation result set. These settings are defined on the document library settings. The taxonomy is defined by each user, but the structure is centralized. Metadata can be centrally managed or user-managed (“folksonomy”). Document archiving can now be done directly in the library.
Repository / Archive	Millions to tens of millions	There should be a best-practice team that manages the metadata for the repository. The users submit documents (finished ones) for broad consumption. The end users don't even know what are they looking for. For instance, a Knowledge Management Repository. Content type and metadata classification is essential. Additional filters are now indexed in the background, as compound indexes in SQL Server). The metadata navigation results are now shown in batches (and announced to the user), so not to hamper the performance when navigating huge archives. Furthermore, the navigation results are cached across users. Search can be contextual to the navigation results. (very cool feature) Content Organizer settings: content can be sent to the archive manually, by the workflow, uploaded etc. The document can be routed to the corresponding folder by Content Organizer component. Folders can be used to set permissions on a larger basis. The retention policy is also bound to the folder. Content Query Web Part (CQWP) is now suited for document library results. The demo shows "Suzie recommends" and "Newest added biographies" CQWP results.
Massive, Distributed Archive	Hundreds of millions of documents	The documents are added automatically. High-volume back-end systems are involved instead of the end user. Logical organization and hierarchy are a key. Content Organizer can route content to correct site collection in the archive. Content Type Syndication enables central management of distributed archive. FAST search is used to retrieve content.

There are several back-end optimizations that make these scale-out scenarios easier: database reorganization, compound indexing, remote BLOB storage in SQL Server 2008, per-item throughput maximization.

Office 2010 can interrogate SharePoint Metadata Service in background, which allows the user to create new document based on the latest content type document templates.

Word Automation Services are also available to automatize Office document conversion (into PDF, XPS and so on), printing and document composition.

SharePoint 2010: The New Pie Chart

noreply@blogger.com (Edin) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 05:32:00 +0000

[SPC09] SharePoint 2010 Administration Improvements

noreply@blogger.com (Edin) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 06:53:00 +0000

This afternoon, the sessions I attended were about SharePoint Administration improvements. The sessions (Part 1 and Part 2) were delivered by the comic duo made by Shane Young and Todd Klindt. They demonstrated the new shiny tools and features that will ease the life of a SharePoint Administrator.

New hierarchy containment objects:

Services (in a way of a modularized SSP: metadata service, search, profiles…)
Service applications
Service application databases (a LOT of them will be created by default)
Services can be linked to specific site collections ("multi-tenancy")

Requirements

Windows Server 2008 SP2 or later or Windows Server 2008 R2
SQL Server 2005 SP2 / SQL Server 2008 SP1 CU2 or later
“Geneva” Framework
Sync Framework
There's a prerequisite installer that will install the missing pieces

Install Process

Farm Passphrase, the master password to recreate the security key. It removes the dependency on the install account
GPO policies can restrict where can SharePoint be installed

Configuration Wizard (like SharePoint 2007 Setup has)
- "14" hive instead of “12”

Farm Configuration
- New wizard In Central Administration
- It performs the common Farm configuration
- Pops up on first Central Administration run
- Gotcha: the browser must have Central Administration set to trusted zone

4 GB limit in Basic Install (no more unlimited internal database :-( )

Managed Accounts

Manage password changes according to your AD policies
Automatic password changes performed by SharePoint

Other stuff

SharePoint 2010 is mirror-aware and failover-aware, you have to specify the failover SQL server
Claims Providers (Geneva Framework) now allow more than one authentication provider per web application

PowerShell

Default tool for administration
SharePoint Management Shell link or SharePoint Snap-in
Faster than STSADM (it doesn't unload from memory)

Backup and Restore

Farm backups are the same format as before, but they can make configuration-only backup and use multiple threads
Granular Backup is now supported for Site collections, webs and lists
Recover data from and unattached content database (the URL dropdown is broken but works)

Throttling

The performance is monitored and the users are kept from "shooting themselves in the foot"
- No more 2000 items limit, now it’s 50 million items
- The output is throttled in order not to overload the server
- Can be overriden by Object Model, but the Admins can disable the override
- “Happy Hour” Settings (Daily Time Windows for Large Queries): you can program when the result limit trimming is disabled
- Admins and Users have different settings for throttling
- HTTP Requests are monitored and 503 errors (Server busy) are launched for GET requests and timer jobs (PUT requests are still allowed)
  - Launched by 3 indicator peaks over limit

Developer Dashboard
- It can be used to monitor page load and performance
- It can be activated on demand

Logging

ULS logs now accept correlation ID for a specific request (shown at Developer Dashboard) and can trace a whole request from the beginning to the end
Event Log flood protection: it removes the duplicated error messages in Event Log (triggered by default when it’s repeated times in a row)
“Set to default” option for ULS logging settings. The new UI shows the non-default settings in bold.
Logging can be exported to SQL Logging database (the schema will publicly be announced by MS)
Log Space can be restricted so not to overrun the disk space

Best Practices Analyzer

Health Rules that run periodically, integrated into SharePoint Central Administration
These rules are extensible
These rules can automatically repair some rule violations

Timer Jobs

Server Affinity: you can specify which server will run which timer job
“Run on demand” command
Progress bar for timer jobs
Report for the jobs that executed (with error messages and run details)

Patching and Upgrade

You can now have servers and database at different patch level
Database can be at lower version than the binaries that you have installed
Lowers the downtime of the farm

[SPC09] Overview of the SharePoint 2010 Development Platform

noreply@blogger.com (Edin) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 04:19:00 +0000

This session was delivered by Paul Andrews, Microsoft Technical Product Manager for SharePoint. It was really “techie” stuff, but summarized enough to squeeze into 75 minutes.

Here are my notes from the session:

Developer Productivity Improvements

SharePoint 2010 now runs on Windows 7 or Windows Vista SP1 (in 64 bits, standalone install only)
Visual Studio 2010 (Beta 2 now available for download) enhances development on SharePoint 2010
- WSP packages import and export
- Server Explorer now shows SharePoint artifacts
- Full TFS Integration
- Web Part, Business Data Connectivity entities and Workflow designer
- Extensible, you can add your custom artifacts
- Visual Web Part designer creates ASCX control that's loaded into the web part
- LINQ-to-Sharepoint is now supported
SharePoint Designer 2010 (still free)

Tool to create BDC entities, list schemas, custom actions, task and approval forms
Improved page editor and workflow designer
“Save Site as Template” action now saves into a WSP that you can import into VS2010

Developer Dashboard
- Quick debug or page performance monitor
- Has to be enabled with STSADM tool
- Shows the detailed ASP.NET and back-end operations (event the SQL queries in full)
Web parts can be inserted into page content (it uses a hidden WebPartZone controls)

Platform Services Improvements

Business Connectivity Services (the new BDC)
- Read/Write access to the LOB data
- Available in SharePoint Foundation (new WSS name), too
- BDC Entity Designer in VS2010
- The data are surfaced as External Content Type in SharePoint list templates
- Monitored by Service Applications option in Central Admin
List Improvements

Cascaded and Block Relationships in SharePoint lists (really good news)
Validation and uniqueness check on the list edit form
Lookup to multiple columns
Large lists are now possible (but you must limit the view elements)
CAML in views is now replaced by XSLT (CAML is still used for queries)

Data Retrieval
- REST APIs
  - Built on ADO.NET Data Services
  - Visual Studio Data Source wizard now supports SharePoint as a data source
- Client Object Model
  - ExecuteQuery() method must be called explicitly
  - Batched for performance reasons
  - Available from for NET, Silverlight and JavaScript CLR
- LINQ with list joins and field projections without schema changes
Events
- There are now event templates in VS2010
- After-synchronous events (like the –ing events in SharePoint 2007 but for the –ed events)
- New events such as workflow events or list creation events
- Custom error pages for event validation errors
Workflows
- There are now “Reusable declarative workflows” available (no code)
- Site workflows (not bound to a list, they show in the Site Actions menu)
- High privilege workflows (as opposed to normal user permission-limited workflows)
- Pluggable WF services (can be triggered by external events)
- VS2010 can make workflow form UI with code-behind
Service Applications
- Improvement upon SSPs
- Built on WCF
- Sits on the Application Server machines
UI Ribbon and Dialog Framework
- Status bar beneath the ribbon
- Notification Area (balloon, like the GMail “Loading” notification)
- Dialog box (in AJAX and JavaScript)

Deployment Improvements

Sandboxed Solutions
- Balance between agility and stability
- Limited API access, separated process and monitored resources
- Uploaded into site Solution Gallery (in Site Settings)
- SPUCWorkerProcess.exe executes the code, in proxy fashion
- If too many resources have been consumed, the solution is shut down
- There's a job that monitors the resource usage and shows it in the gallery
- It will be used in SharePoint 2010 Online

Upgrade
- Assembly Redirects for 2007 DLLs, so they will be running without recompilation
- Upgrade mappings (not really clear on this one)
- Feature upgrades with code
- Visual Upgrade for SharePoint 2007 sites, on demand

I can’t wait to try these new improvements on my own!!! However, we will still have to wait until November to get our hands on the Beta version binaries.

List Throttling for large lists

MOSS 2007 in SP2010, without running Visual Upgrade

[SPC09] Day One: Keynote

noreply@blogger.com (Edin) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 03:54:00 +0000

Today the HUGE information stream began flowing, starting with a keynote by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and SharePoint directors Jeff Teper and Tom Rizzo.

I’ll summarize the main points of the keynote.

SharePoint 2010 Public Beta will be launched in November 2009. The RTM version is to follow in the first half of 2010 together with Office 2010
SharePoint can now be installed on Windows Vista or Windows 7 for development
Visual Studio 2010 (beta available) fully supports SharePoint 2010 development
Windows SharePoint Services 4.0 will now be called SharePoint 2010 Foundation and will include more features (Business Data Connectivity, for instance)
Office 2010 adds Web Edit capabilities for Office files stored in SharePoint, without opening them in the client applications
SharePoint Workspace will let you work offline and sync the changes (even the external data)
SharePoint document management now include document sets and farm-wide taxonomy (Managed Metadata Service)
Metadata-driven navigation and tagging
Large lists are now throttled and millions of items can be stored in them
Business Intelligence is now enhanced with SQL Server PowerPivots (that now allow Excel and Excel Services to manage millions of rows seamlessly) and PerformancePoint Services
Visio Services and Access Services are added
Silverlight Organization Chart Navigator and Media Player web part are available
External content types now surface external data into the SharePoint lists with read and write access
Pervasive AJAX: Dialogs, Ribbon, Notification Area, Status Bar
REST-ful API for Lists and Excel Services
SharePoint Online now use Sandboxed WSP solutions to run user code securely
You can now stream multimedia content stored in SharePoint
Multi-browser compatibility
Multi-lingual interface
Seamless on-premise, mixed and cloud deployment with the same administration
PowerShell administration with 300+ cmdlets
Logging data can now be surfaced in a database that you can extend (yes, the only database that MS will let us touch)
Mobile access to SharePoint and Office data
Revamped search with optional FAST integration

Entering the Keynote Room

Tom Rizzo introduces the keynote

Steve Ballmer during the keynote

SharePoint 2010 Search Licensing unveiled

FAST Search for SharePoint 2010 with rich and dynamic user interface

SharePoint 2010 Licensing, both on-premise and on-cloud

Steve Ballmer and Tom Rizzo answering the questions (Steve actually said “The right answer is YES, now what’s the REAL answer?”. Kind of a funny quote…)

SQL Server PowerPivot is presented

SharePoint 2010 Mobile Access in a mobile browser

SharePoint PowerShell cmdlets

There were funny moments during the keynote speech, I liked the joke about the “fruit company” (Apple, of course) when referring to multibrowser capabilities of SP2010.