Dennis Alzoubi Blog

Problem with Risks and Issues in PWA for Project Server 2010 after upgrading from 2007

2012-01-03T14:49:00.001-06:00

This is an issue I came across after upgrading our SharePoint and Project Server 2007 environment into SharePoint and Project Server 2010.

Issue

Any updates made to the Risks or Issues lists in the Project Workspace (PWS) were not being carried over from PWS to the Project Web Application (PWA)

PWS Risks List:

PWA Issues and Risks Page:

You will notice that the Active, Postponed, and closed count is not correct. If you go to SharePoint Logs, you will find a critical error complaining about references to the old Project Server assembly, viola!

Error

01/03/2012 14:11:14.59 w3wp.exe (0x246C) 0x1860 SharePoint Foundation General 6644 Critical Event manager error: Could not load file or assembly 'Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.PWA, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.

Solution

I noticed that all the event receivers linked to those two lists are still referencing Version=12 assembly and not the new Version=14.

To resolve this issue, update all the event receivers to reference Assembly: Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.PWA,Version=14.0.0.0,Culture=neutral,PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c

You are welcome!

Error When Deploying a Custom Solution in SharePoint 2010

2011-12-20T09:45:00.001-06:00

This is an error I received when trying to deploy a SharePoint 2010 with a custom site definition in my development environment

Error

"PMS_FG" and "PMS_FG" contain a file that deploys to the same Package location: PMS\PMS_FG\documents.aspx D:\Users\dalzoubi\Solutions\PMIS\Spectra.PMS2010\Package\Package.package

Looking at the folder PMS_FG\, there is only one document.aspx file!!!

So that did not make sense at first site, so I decided to open the Visual Studio Project Item Data file that represents the site definition to see what is going wrong in there.

Solution

1. In Solution Explorer, right click the Site Definitions and click Open Folder in Windows Explorer

2. In explorer view, double click SharePointProjectItem.spdata, select Select a program from a list of installed programs, click OK

3. Select Notepad, uncheck Always use the selected program to open this kind of file.

4. Click OK

5. Notepad opens and right there you will notice one element that is different than the other elements:

6. Remove that element, Save and close your file.

7. Go back to Visual Studio, you will be asked to reload that file, click Yes to All

8. Now try to deploy your solution, you should no longer have that error.

Happy coding!

Console application with SharePoint client object model crashes when run remotely

2011-09-28T16:44:00.001-05:00

So I started experimenting with the new client object model that comes with SharePoint 2010. I created a console application that references Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.dll and Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Runtime.dll to use the capabilities of this object model.
I created an application that simply looks at one of the lists on my root site and prints out the list name, COOL app huh!

using System;
using System.Net;
using Microsoft.SharePoint.Client;
 
namespace SharePointTest
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            try
            {
                var credential = new NetworkCredential("user", "pass", "domain");
                var clientContext = new ClientContext("http://sp2010") {Credentials = credential};
                Web web = clientContext.Web;
 
                List projects = web.Lists.GetByTitle("Projects");
                clientContext.Load(projects);
                clientContext.ExecuteQuery();
                Console.WriteLine("List name: {0}.", projects.Title);
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(ex.Message);
            }
            Console.ReadLine();
        }
    }
}

Worked like a charm on my virtual development box that has SP2010 installed on it. So I decided to move it to my Win7 environment to see if it does what it claims to do (which is run remotely!). To come to a surprise that application crashes! even when wrapping my code with Try Catch blocks.

Issue

Console application with SharePoint client object model crashes when run remotely.

Solution

Register Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.dll and Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Runtime.dll in GAC on the remote computer where you like to run your application that references the above assemblies.

One Issue with Web.Fields.Add in SharePoint 2010

2011-09-18T21:39:00.002-05:00

I was trying to add a field, and for the heck of it, I decided to start with a field name that has spaces in it:

string benefitsLongDesc = web.Fields.Add("Benefits Long Description", SPFieldType.Note, false);
web.Update();

SPField benefitsLongDescField = web.Fields[benefitsLongDesc];
benefitsLongDescField.Title = "Long Description";
benefitsLongDescField.Group = "Human Resources";
benefitsLongDescField.Update();

I was surprised that code line 4 failed to resolve field, even when I’m returning the internal field name from code line 1.

To resolve this, you have a couple of options:

Don’t use spaces in the Display Name in code line 1, which is preferred as you don’t want your field internal name to contain spaces that get converted to _x0020_ and make your life miserable trying to remember to add those characters every time you want to call the field.
In code line 3, instead of getting the field from web.Fields directly, use the following:

SPField benefitsLongDescField = web.Fields.GetFieldByInternalName(benefitsLongDesc);

Happy coding!

When not to use SPContext.Current.Web

2011-05-19T09:58:00.001-05:00

This morning I was trying to change a title of a webpart that I have in my SharePoint site, when I noticed that its not working and throwing the following error

Cannot save the property settings for this Web Part. Exception occurred. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80020009 (DISP_E_EXCEPTION))

I was surprised since nothing much has changed in that page since the last time we created it!

So I started looking for an answer, and as usual the first spot was the SharePoint logs and that proved useless as it only showed the error message that the webpart was displaying, duh!

Next step was to run Visual Studio in debug mode to see if I can catch any exceptions on the page that our custom webparts may have caused, and that didn’t work either.

the final step was to remove the webparts of the page one by one to see which one was causing the issue and viola! When removing the webpart, the error disappeared for all the other webparts. So I decided to open up Visual Studio again and inspect the code for that webpart.

This webpart was doing a lot of things, but one thing I have noticed was the use of SPContext.Current.Web in one of the methods and while I was searching the web for an answer, some people mentioned that this call causes issues, so I replaced that call with using (SPWeb web = SPContext.Current.Site.OpenWeb()) and that worked! Unbelievable.

Lessons learned: do not use SPContext.Current.Web or even SPControl.GetContextWeb(Context) in your webparts as that causes issues with the webpart page.

Get the date for a specific day of the week

2011-02-02T10:17:00.001-06:00

Ever needed a way to get the date for a specific day of the week (i.e. The date for last Thursday, date next Friday, get date for the next Friday after 2/2/2011, etc.)

I have created an extension method that will help you accomplish that:

/// <summary>/// Gets the day of week./// </summary>/// <param name="date">Baseline Date .</param>/// <param name="day">The day you want to find.</param>/// <param name="inFuture">if set to true, then looks into the future, else it looks in the past</param>/// <param name="includeToday">if set to <c>true</c> it includes the date's day when searching.</param>/// <returns></returns>public static DateTime GetDayOfWeek(this DateTime date, DayOfWeek day, bool inFuture, bool includeToday){    DateTime currentDate = date;     bool sameDay = true;    while (true)    {        if (currentDate.DayOfWeek == day && (includeToday || !sameDay))        {            return new DateTime(currentDate.Year, currentDate.Month, currentDate.Day, 0, 0, 0);        }         if (currentDate > DateTime.MaxValue.AddDays(-1) ||            currentDate < DateTime.MinValue.AddDays(1))        {            throw new ArgumentOutOfRangeException(currentDate + " is out of range");        }         currentDate = currentDate.AddDays(inFuture ? 1 : -1);        sameDay = false;    }}

Hope this helps you!

Ways to Get SPList Object In Your C# Code

2011-01-04T14:45:00.001-06:00

I was looking at a code that I wrote for m=one of my projects earlier today and here is the code snippet that I was got my attention and made me think if there is a better way to retrieve the SP list in my methods:

//web is an SPWeb object created somewhere earlier in my codeSPList list = web.Lists["Tasks"];

Right away I can see two issues:

If that list doesn’t exist, then my code will blow up.

What if the list exists but one of the power users renames it? then again, my code will blow up

Problem: code blowing up if list title does not exist in the SPListCollection object under SPWeb.Lists!

Solution 1: Wrap your code with a try catch block

SPList list = null;try{    //web is an SPWeb object created somewhere earlier in my code    list = web.Lists["Tasks"];}catch{    //Log this or do whatever you feel like doing to report the issue}

This will stop your code from firing an exception, but now there is a big chance of getting this exception especially in an environment where users keep changing stuff around the site. so no love for this solution (in my opinion) as it does solve issue #1 but not #2.

Solution 2: Create a method that will enumerate through the SPListCollection and find that title or return null

public static SPList GetListByTitle(SPWeb web, string listTitle){    foreach (SPList list in web.Lists)    {        if (list.Title.Equals(listTitle, StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase))        {            return list;        }    }    return null;}

This method will now fire any exceptions and return null back to the caller if the list was not found.

This was the solution I implemented for the project I worked on. BUT I knew there is a better way to doing that as this still does not solve my issue #1 but not #2

Solution 3: get list by URI instead of Title (Optimal)

public static SPList GetListByUrl(SPWeb web, string listUrl){    return web.GetList(web.Url + listUrl);}

Now this is a solution that I like, as the list URI will never change, even if the user changes the list title. I wonder why I haven’t thought of this one before!

Happy Coding!

C# Extension Methods to Serialize and Deserialize any object

2010-10-11T16:50:00.001-05:00

I don’t know if that has lots of usages where you come from, but felt like it was a nice thing to have and thought of sharing it with you

I needed a method that can serialize and object that I can create and deserialize any string that represents any type, so ended up with the following extension methods:

/// <summary>/// Serializes the specified obj./// </summary>/// <param name="obj">The obj.</param>/// <returns>A string representing serialized data</returns>public static string Serialize(this object obj){    //Check is object is serializable before trying to serialize    if (obj.GetType().IsSerializable)    {        using (var stream = new MemoryStream())        {            var serializer = new XmlSerializer(obj.GetType());            serializer.Serialize(stream, obj);            var bytes = new byte[stream.Length];            stream.Position = 0;            stream.Read(bytes, 0, bytes.Length);             return Encoding.UTF8.GetString(bytes);        }    }    throw new NotSupportedException(string.Format("{0} is not serializable.", obj.GetType()));} /// <summary>/// Deserializes the specified serialized data./// </summary>/// <param name="serializedData">The serialized data.</param>/// <returns></returns>public static T Deserialize<T>(this string serializedData){    var serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof (T));    var reader = new XmlTextReader(new StringReader(serializedData));     return (T) serializer.Deserialize(reader);}

Happy Coding!

Extension Method to Send HTML Emails in SharePoint

2010-10-11T11:07:00.004-05:00

You can use this method to extend SPWeb to send HTML email and lets you specifies the From, To, CC, Bcc, subject and body of the email and uses the out of the box SPUtility.SendEmail to send the email (without the need to specify all details of the mail server)

/// <summary>/// Sends an email to the selected users/// </summary>/// <param name="web">The web.</param>/// <param name="from">From.</param>/// <param name="to">To.</param>/// <param name="cc">The cc.</param>/// <param name="bcc">The BCC.</param>/// <param name="subject">The subject.</param>/// <param name="body">The body.</param>/// <param name="isHtml">if set to <c>true</c> [is HTML].</param>public static void SendEmail(this SPWeb web, string from, string to,string cc, string bcc, string subject, string body,bool isHtml){// <pex>if (web == null)throw new ArgumentNullException("web");// </pex> if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(to)){var headers = new StringDictionary{{"to", to},{"subject", subject},{"content-type", isHtml ? "text/html" : "text/plain"}}; headers.AddNewItem("from", from);headers.AddNewItem("cc", cc);headers.AddNewItem("bcc", bcc);  SPUtility.SendEmail(web, headers, body);}} private static void AddNewItem(this StringDictionary stringDictionary,  string key, string value){if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(value) && !stringDictionary.ContainsKey(key)){stringDictionary.Add(key, value);}}

Developing Custom SharePoint 2007 Workflows in a 64-bit Development Environment

2010-10-05T17:26:00.001-05:00

I got a new requirement last week to build a state machine workflow for my client, and having the experience in building workflow, I went ahead and put in the time estimate needed to complete this task.

So I went into VS2010, File –> New –> Project, Under Installed Templates, drill down to Visual C# –> SharePoint –> 2007 and select SharePoint 2007 State Machine Workflow, type in a name for your project and hit OK. and BOOM! I get an error!!!

Issue

Error message: A 32-bit version of Windows SharePoint Services is required by this project but is not installed on the system. Please install Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, available either from the Microsoft Download Center or as part of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.

Solution

After researching this issue, I realized it is not possible to build workflows using the VS template to build workflows on a 64bit machine, what a bummer right!

Some sites recommended using WSPBuilder’s workflow template to create a state machine workflow that would work on a 64bit machine, so I went back, deleted the broken solution folder that just got created and started fresh in VS2010.

So I went into VS2010, File –> New –> Project, Under Installed Templates, drill down to Visual C# –> WSPBuilder and select WSPBuilder Project with Workflow, type in a name for your project and hit OK.

This created the shell for developing my workflow, didn’t seem to blow up which is a good sign so far.

Next step was to add the actual workflow feature that will deploy my workflow to my environment.

So I went to Project–> Add New Item, Under Installed Templates, drill down to Visual C# –> WSPBuilder and select State Machine Workflow, type in a name and hit OK. Next its going to show you the feature wizard, set it up as you please and hit OK.

After that step, your solution explorer should look similar to this:

Now, if you open the workflow designer by double clicking on the StateWorkflowFeature1.cs, you should see the workflow designer that allows you to create your actual workflow. DONE? not so fast!!! if you look at your toolbox, you will notice that SharePoint Workflow Actions are missing! and what good will that do me if I cannot get those to work with…

Issue

SharePoint Workflow Toolbox Tab is missing and cannot get it to show up in my project

Solution

Looking at my <Projectname>.csproj file in notepad made me realize that my project has the following ProjectTypeGuids:

After looking at this blog post, I found out that they represent the following project types:

Workflow (C#) {14822709-B5A1-4724-98CA-57A101D1B079}
Windows (C#) {FAE04EC0-301F-11D3-BF4B-00C04F79EFBC}

Hmm, where is the SharePoint workflow reference?! so I picked the SharePoint Workflow reference and added it to the ProjectTypesGUIDS so that they look like the following:

<ProjectTypeGuids>{F8810EC1-6754-47FC-A15F-DFABD2E3FA90};{14822709-B5A1-4724-98CA-57A101D1B079};{FAE04EC0-301F-11D3-BF4B-00C04F79EFBC}</ProjectTypeGuids>

Reloaded my project and viola! my Workflow designer is now showing the SharePoint Workflow toolbox items.

What to do if you unintentionally delete your SharePoint 2007 site AppPool or website from IIS?

2010-08-13T13:57:00.001-05:00

I was playing with SharePoint and trying to break it in any way possible (which is easy btw, just think outside the box!)

So I went to IIS, and firstly deleted my SharePoint – 8090 Website and guess what? I can no longer access my site. Imagine if that was a production site!!!

Problem: I deleted my Website for my Site in IIS (now this can happen for other reasons than just deleting it manually) and need to restore it without loosing my data stored in content database.

Solution: you are screwed! no I’m just kidding… the beauty of SharePoint 2007 is that they have thought of that and already have a solution for it.

Note: I would strongly recommend creating a full backup of your environment before trying this approach as its not a guarantee that you will get your sites back and running and may affect other running applications/processes that may have used that website for other reasons.

Start Internet Explorer and navigate to Central Administration site
Click Application Management tab and then click Content Databases under SharePoint Web Application Management section.
Make sure that your web application affected is selected and write down the content DB name (in my case its WSS_Content_8090)
Click Application Management tab and then click Delete Web Application under SharePoint Web Application Management section.
Make sure that Delete content databases is set to No. , click Delete
Once operation is completed. click Create or Extend Web Application under SharePoint Web Application Management section, then click Create new Web Application.
Configure the web application to use port 8090 (or any other port if you want to use a different port this time)
The key thing now is to choose the same content database now as the one that was attached to the affected site (in my case it was WSS_Content_8090)
Once done, click Ok and wait for the process to complete.
That’s it! Try to navigate to your site and you should be able to see the contents.

Getting a List’s Base View Programmatically

2010-08-13T13:23:00.003-05:00

This is something that took me a little while to figure out but then realized how easy it was :-)
To get the base view from a list, you need to get the view that has an empty string for the name, weird right!!
So this is how you do it:

SPView view = list.Views[string.Empty];

Update: this will only work if the list is a custom list (meaning: you created the list definition and specified a baseview with ID 0).

Update
This only applies to custom list created using custom list definition where you have specified a view with BaseID 0

Custom List Definitions: Customization of List Instances

2010-05-27T09:46:00.001-05:00

Assume you are creating a custom list definition (without going into details on this part, click here if you want more information) and it gets deployed to the site and you start creating instances of the list all over the place.

John Dickhead, is one of the users of the site, and he really has a thing for change! goes into the site and modifies the list (creates new fields from the interface, adds new views and modifies the current views).

A week after that, your manager comes back to you and asks you to add a new field to the list definition so that it gets applied to all the instances of your list. So you think "Oh, that’s a piece of cake, I just go to my list definition and add the field, reset IIS and everything will get updated auto-magically” right? well, unfortunately that is not completely right and here is the reason:

When MR. Dickhead decided to go and update his list from the interface, he actually disassociated that list instance from the definition and from that point on; any change to the list definition does not get applies to that list.

That being said, you will need to update the list definition, and then create an upgrade methods (I used and STSADM command in my case to update the things that did not get updated).

Happy Coding!

Starting a SharePoint out of the box Approval Workflow Programmatically

2008-04-23T09:49:00.000-05:00

This was something I needed to do for the client, where I had to start the out of the box approval workflow to make use of all the facilities provided by doing so (ability to edit task within outlook, ability to reassign tasks and change task ownership).

Prerequisites: you need to associate the default approval workflow with a list, call it "Approval".

Then in your visual studio workflow add a code activity and include the following code snippet:

SPWorkflowAssociationCollection associationCol = WorkflowProperties.List.WorkflowAssociations;foreach (SPWorkflowAssociation association in associationCol){    if (association.Name.Equals("Approval"))    {        StringBuilder allApprovers = new StringBuilder();        foreach (string approver in Approvers)        {            allApprovers.Append("<my:Person>");            allApprovers.Append(string.Format("<my:DisplayName>{0}</my:DisplayName>", approver));            allApprovers.Append(string.Format("<my:AccountId>{0}</my:AccountId>", approver));            allApprovers.Append("<my:AccountType>User</my:AccountType>");            allApprovers.Append("</my:Person>");        }         string associationData =        "<my:myFields xmlns:xsi=\"http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance\" xmlns:my=\"http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/infopath/2003/myXSD\" xml:lang=\"en-us\">" +        "<my:Reviewers>" +        allApprovers +        "</my:Reviewers>" +        "<my:CC></my:CC>" +        "<my:DueDate xsi:nil=\"true\"></my:DueDate>" +        "<my:Description></my:Description>" +        "<my:Title></my:Title>" +        "<my:DefaultTaskType>1</my:DefaultTaskType>" +        "<my:CreateTasksInSerial>true</my:CreateTasksInSerial>" +        "<my:AllowDelegation>true</my:AllowDelegation>" +        "<my:AllowChangeRequests>true</my:AllowChangeRequests>" +        "<my:StopOnAnyReject xsi:nil=\"true\"></my:StopOnAnyReject>" +        "<my:WantedTasks xsi:nil=\"true\"></my:WantedTasks>" +        "<my:SetMetadataOnSuccess>false</my:SetMetadataOnSuccess>" +        "<my:MetadataSuccessField></my:MetadataSuccessField>" +        "<my:MetadataSuccessValue></my:MetadataSuccessValue>" +        "<my:ApproveWhenComplete>false</my:ApproveWhenComplete>" +        "<my:TimePerTaskVal xsi:nil=\"true\"></my:TimePerTaskVal>" +        "<my:TimePerTaskType xsi:nil=\"true\"></my:TimePerTaskType>" +        "<my:Voting>false</my:Voting>" +        "<my:MetadataTriggerField></my:MetadataTriggerField>" +        "<my:MetadataTriggerValue></my:MetadataTriggerValue>" +        "<my:InitLock>false</my:InitLock>" +        "<my:MetadataStop>false</my:MetadataStop>" +        "<my:ItemChangeStop>false</my:ItemChangeStop>" +        "<my:GroupTasks>false</my:GroupTasks>" +        "</my:myFields>";        association.SetHistoryList(WorkflowProperties.HistoryList);        association.SetTaskList(WorkflowProperties.TaskList);        SPWorkflow approvalWorkflow = wfManager.StartWorkflow(WorkflowProperties.Item, association, associationData, true);        break;    }}

Showing Quick Launch Bar on Web Part pages in WSS 3.0

2008-04-18T14:55:00.000-05:00

Open your page in SharePoint Designer and delete these placeholders:
<asp:Content ContentPlaceHolderId="PlaceHolderPageImage" runat="server"></asp:Content>
<asp:Content ContentPlaceHolderId="PlaceHolderLeftNavBar" runat="server"></asp:Content>
<asp:Content ContentPlaceHolderId="PlaceHolderNavSpacer" runat="server"></asp:Content>
A simple way to don't have to do this manipulation on all your futurs pages is to modify the default page template at (I don't recommend this approach):
.\12\TEMPLATE\1036\STS\DOCTEMP\SMARTPGS\spstdX.aspx
Your changes to the default SharePoint pages may get overwritten in case of service pack installs or upgrades.

Compact VHD (Virtual Hard Disk) of your Virtual PC

2008-04-18T12:50:00.000-05:00

Install dirms-s (http://www.dirms.com/home/download/dirms_service.asp) and run the "Compact" Command (get rid of the empty spaces between your data on HDD) alternative disk defragmenting software can also be used.
Backup any critical data in the guest OS.
Download Eraser, (http://www.tolvanen.com/eraser/) and install it in the guest OS. Alternative disk 'zeroing' software can also be used.
Defragment the guest OS hard drive.
Run Eraser in the virtual machine.
Click Edit, then Preferences, then Erasing
Select Unused Disk Space
Select New
Enter the description Blank
Click Add
Create a 3-byte pattern of zeros
Click Save
Select Blank under Unused disk space
Click OK.
Click File, then New Task
Select Unused space on drive
Select Local Hard Drives
Click OK
Select Task, then Run on the previously created task
Wait for completion
Close the report
Exit Eraser.
From your Virtual PC window, click CD -> Capture ISO Image.
In the "Select CD Image to Capture" dialog, navigate to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Virtual PC\Virtual Machine Additions and select "Virtual Disk Precompactor.iso".
A popup window will show up asking you if you would you like to prepare the virtual hard disk(s) for compaction, select yes and let it finish. Note: if you don't see any popups, go to "My Computer" and double click your CD Drive.
Wait for it to finish then Shut down your virtual machine.
Open "Virtual PC Console (the one you use to manage all your virtual PCs).
Click File-> Virtual Disk Wizard.
In wizard, Click Next -> Edit an existing virtual disk -> select the VHD we just compacted and click Next -> Compact It -> Save the File As (just in case the compaction fails) and select a location for your VHD.
Click Finish and it will compact your VHD.
After process is done, make sure your settings file is pointing to the new VHD.

Restart/ Shutdown Command Prompt Shortcuts for Windows XP

2008-04-18T12:40:00.000-05:00

For a shortcut to RESTART Windows XP:
SHUTDOWN -r -t 01
For a shortcut to SHUT DOWN Windows XP:
SHUTDOWN -s -t 01
Where the 01 is the number of seconds to wait before doing the action.
You can use those commands by typing them in the "run" or creating a shortcut for them.

Return to same web page location in ASP.NET

2008-04-18T09:20:00.000-05:00

It is really annoying when you have a page that contains a lot of data and every time the page refreshes it goes back to the top of the page, to overcome that issue of the web page forgetting its previous location.
If it was an ASP.NET page, you can enable what is called Smart Navigation; where the page remembers the last place it was at before refreshing, to do that, place the following snippet in the page directive on the page you want to enable smart navigation on.
SmartNavigation="True"

How to show a detailed error instead of SharePoint’s default error page

2008-04-17T21:30:00.000-05:00

I may be the only one annoyed by generic error pages that give no meaning to what the error was, so I thought I should post this in my blog.
Basically if you go into your Web.Config within the WWWroot folder (or wherever your application's Web.Config file is) and near the top where you see:

<SafeMode MaxControls="200" CallStack="false"…

change it to…

<SafeMode MaxControls="200" CallStack="true"…

You will also need to set custom errors to 'Off' .

<customErrors mode="Off"/>

Restarting an Application Pool instead of restarting IIS

2008-04-17T21:25:00.000-05:00

This is something that I read in a SharePoint book, where you can only restart the application pool that you have made changes to instead of restarting IIS. It will save you a couple of seconds every time.
This technique is faster than doing an IISRESET command. Please Change "DefaultAppPool" to your application pool name.
In the command prompt, type the following:
cscript.exe c:\wondows\system32\issapp.vbs /a "DefaultAppPool"

What is not upgraded from WSS 2.0 to WSS 3.0

2008-04-15T21:30:00.000-05:00

the following items cannot be upgraded:

Non-English language deployments of Windows SharePoint Services V3. You can only upgrade from English language deployments.
Single-server deployments that use SQL Server 2000 Microsoft Data Engine Windows Edition (WMSDE) for data storage. You must be using SQL Server 2000, SP3 or later, to upgrade.
Search configuration settings. You must reconfigure any search settings after upgrade is complete.
Installations of Windows SharePoint Services V2 SP2 that have other applications, such as SharePoint Portal Server 2003, installed on them. Consult the manufacturer of the additional application for appropriate upgrade instructions.
Sites created from custom site definitions. These sites will be skipped during the upgrade process.
Search is not supported on Web applications that were upgraded from Windows SharePoint Services V2 SP2.

Please Note: Upgrade will require two to three times the size of your largest Windows SharePoint Services V2 SP2 database in free hard-drive space (for example, if you have a single 100 GB database, you should have 300 GB in free hard-disk space on the SQL Server in your target farm).

Allowing Code Blocks in SharePoint pages (Applies to MOSS 2007 / WSS 3.0)

2008-04-09T21:28:00.000-05:00

By default, code blocks are not allowed to execute on SharePoint pages (that is not including application pages).
In order for your user to be able to add code blocks that can run on either the server or the client, you need to make a change to the Web.Config file:
Under ParserPaths, add the following Code:
<ParserPath VirtualPath="/*" IncludeSubFolders="true" CompilationMode="Always" AllowServerSideScript="true" />
Note: make sure you trust the path that you are enabling code blocks on