Dirk Van den Berghe SharePoint Blog

STSADM has survived in SharePoint 2010

Dirk — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:03:00 GMT

I am going through some of the SharePoint Conference 2009 Videos I recently got from a colleague of mine that was lucky enough to be there, and I am pleased to have learned that STSADM will not be gone in SharePoint 2010. Simon Skaria confirmed this in his IT Pro Overview session.

Great. Now I don't need to look for a new subtitle for my blog.

But I Simon Skaria also encourages everyone to move on to Powershell because of its auto-complete capabilities.

SharePoint 2010 Evolution Conference - London

Dirk — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 09:16:00 GMT

Yes, finally, I have found the time and means to attend a conference again. This time I did not have much difficulty convincing my boss, being selfemployed and all.... I just had to check with my COO that I married today, eight years ago. Congratulations to you too my dear

So if you haven't heard, you can register for the SharePoint 2010 Evolution Conference in London starting April 19th for a 3-day conference.

Find out all about it at http://www.sharepointevolutionconference.com/

My registration is complete and confirmed, so if you guys are out there as well, then print a large copy of my picture, carry it with you at all time and say "Hi" if you bump into me. I'll buy you a free drink at the conference

Saving Document to SharePoint using Office 2003 resets choice metadata fields to default values

Dirk — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:58:00 GMT

I was recently facing an issue as described in http://stackoverflow.com/questions/809179/saving-a-document-to-sharepoint-brings-up-web-file-properties-dialog-with-incor

Recap from original post:

Situation:

A custom "Master Document" content type inherits from Document
The "Master Document" content type has five additional choice fields
There are five custom "Document Template" content types that inherit from the "Master Document" content type
Each of the "Document Template" content types uses a different Word document template (.dot) file
Each of the "Document Template" content types have been added to a document library

Problem:

I click on a document in the library
Document opens up in Word 2003 for me to edit
I make some changes and save
A box pops up called "Web File Properties". The window contains all of my custom metadata properties and the ContentType field. The ContentType field is set correctly to the current content type. The other fields are reset to their default values. This same window can apparently be opened by going to File -> Properties

This window by itself would be fine except for two reasons:

It includes the ContentType column
All of my custom metadata properties are visible but are reset to their default values instead of whatever values were previously selected. This means, every time the user wants to save the document, they have to remember what properties were tagged and set them back.

Question:

Can I disable this Web File Properties box?
If no... can I get the fields that show up to be populated to their correct values?
If no... is there a way to disable my fields from displaying in this window?
If no... is this a SharePoint page that I can modify?

***Edit with some more information***

It looks like this only happens in Office 2003 and looks like it affects Choice fields. If I create the same column as a Lookup field, it seems to work.

Edit again

Looks like if the lookup field is a multi-select field then it will not show up in the Web File Properties box at all (single select lookups still work).

edit 10/14/2009

Link to the KB Article mentioned below by Brenda: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/971500/

My Solution:

Of Course the suggested hotfix, which in fact is the June Cumulative Update for WSS did not fix my issue, but I did find a solution at the end.

What really happens when you call the Web File Properties box is that your client will download 3 javascript files from the server: bform.js, core.js and init.js. You can check this by by opening up the document library causing the issue and clearing your temporary internet files at that time. When you now call the Web File Properties in Word 2003 through File --> Properties, you will notice these 3 script files being downloadin in your temprary internet files folder.

On the SharePoint front-end servers, you can find these files in the 12-hive\Template\Layouts\<LCID> folders, where you have to replace <LCID> with your language codes installed (1033, English; 1043, Dutch; .... you get the picture, right?)

So the problem is most likely caused by one of those javascript files. Now we have had the issue since we had installed SP2 and the June Cumulative Update. So I decided to restore these 3 script files and play aroun with these files for a while.

As it happens, my problem went away by replacing the bform.js file with a pre-SP2 version and clearing my

So if your issue does not get resolved by the suggested method of Microsoft, which is installing the latest Cumulative Update, then try restoring a previous version of this file and remember that you will need to clear this file from your client's Temporary Internet Folder to force a download of the latest version from the server.

New SharePoint Server 2010 Site available

Dirk — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 09:22:00 GMT

I'm on a roll ...

I just discovered the new SharePoint Server 2010 site of Microsoft. Lots and lots of information to catch up on....

http://sharepoint2010.microsoft.com/

For me the most valuable information is the ability to preregister for the beta version, scheduled to be available in November.

SharePoint Foundation 2010 = WSS 4.0

Dirk — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 09:17:00 GMT

The new name for the next version of Windows SharePoint Services has been set to SharePoint Foundation 2010.

Microsoft has published all you need to know about it on:

http://sharepoint2010.microsoft.com/product/related-technologies/Pages/SharePoint-Foundation-2010.aspx

and for thos of you still wondering, I read the next lines on MSDN here

"The Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 technology helps teams stay connected and productive by providing easy access to the people, documents, and information that can help in decision making and getting work done. (Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 will be available as a free download in November 2009.) "

Wow, I am discovering

Released SharePoint Server 2010 documents

Dirk — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 07:34:00 GMT

to continue on my previous post, I curiously searched the MS download site for all SharePoint Server 2010 related items and found the following list:

Title

Released

Upgrade planning poster

Describes requirements and considerations for planning to upgrade to SharePoint Server 2010

10/18/2009

Upgrade approaches poster

This model describes the three basic approaches to upgrading to SharePoint Server 2010: in-place, database attach, or a hybrid of the two.

10/18/2009

Upgrading services poster

You need to give special consideration to the issues involved when you upgrade services from the previous version of SharePoint Server.

10/18/2009

Upgrade testing poster

To help ensure a smooth transition to SharePoint Server 2010, perform a trial upgrade to find issues likely to surface during the actual process.

10/18/2009

Microsoft Forefront Server Security 2010 Privacy Statement

This document describes the privacy policy for Microsoft Forefront Security 2010 for Exchange and Microsoft Forefront Security 2010 for SharePoint.

8/17/2009

Design Search for SharePoint Server 2010

This model describes the steps to determine a basic design for a SharePoint Server 2010 search architecture.

10/19/2009

SharePoint 2010: SharePoint Developer Platform Wall Poster

The SharePoint 2010 Developer Platform wall poster (PDF format) shows a view of the SharePoint 2010 developer tools, community ecosystem, execution environment, Sharepoint Server 2010 workloads, and target application types. The poster is intended to be printed at 24 inches x 36 inches (61 centimeters x 91 centimeters).

10/19/2009

Enterprise Search Planning for SharePoint Server 2010

This model describes primary architecture design decisions for search environments.

10/19/2009

Topologies for SharePoint Server 2010

Describes common ways to build and scale farm topologies, including planning which servers to start services on.

10/19/2009

SharePoint Enterprise Search

Compares and contrasts search technologies in SharePoint 2010 Products

10/19/2009

Getting started with BI in SharePoint Server 2010

Discusses the business intelligence tools available in SharePoint Server 2010

10/19/2009

SharePoint Server 2010 Search Architecture

This model describes the physical and logical architecture components of the search system.

10/19/2009

SharePoint Server 2010 Evaluation Guide

Introduction and overview of SharePoint Server 2010 for IT pros.

10/19/2009

Happy Reading

Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Evaluation Guide

Dirk — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 20:06:00 GMT

the following weeks you will be hearing or reading a lot of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, because of the MS SharePoint Conference 2009 in Las Vegas this week. I am not so fortunate to be there, but I am scavenging the blogs of those who are to try to get the latest information.

I came across a posting about a newly released document by Microsoft: Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Evaluation Guide on October 19th

I have downloaded the document and already managed to go through it rapidly and I am very surprised by the new features that have been added into the new product.

My favorite new features already that I really want to be getting my hands on are:

high availability automatic failover
granular content recovery
SharePoint Server 2010 preview mode for upgraded sites
update management user interface
FAST Search for SharePoint
the new Usage database

If you also cannot wait to start playing with the new SharePoint 2010 server, then you can already start reading up on the new features and be up to speed when the public beta comes out in a week or two.

Update a SharePoint farm with minimal site downtime

Dirk — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:20:00 GMT

It was the time of the year again to do an upgrade of several SharePoint farms for my customer. This upgrade was for installing SP2 and the June cumulative update on an entire farm and the requirement was to avoid too many downtime by the installation. This post will cover the process that I used to upgrade the entire farm.

Farm setup:
- 1 hardware load balancer
- 2 Web Front End servers (I will call the WFE1 and WFE2)
- 1 index server
- 1 SQL cluster

What I needed for upgrading the farm smoothly was a way to put a maintenance page for all web applications to appear when the content is really down. I used the simple ASP .Net trick by creating a - in my case custom - App_Offline.htm file which mentions that the site is down for maintenance. Copying this file into the root location of each IIS website used by SharePoint Web Applications will show this message instead of the SharePoint content.

Another thing I wanted to do is to detach the databases before running the Configuration Wizard. Why? To avoid the upgarde to fail on a single content database and shorten the upgrade time. Once the config wizard completes, I reattach the content databases one by one, causing them to be upgraded at that moment.

preparation tasks:
- create a custom App_Offline.htm file for showing a maintenance page
- create a batch file that conveniently copies the App_Offline.htm file to all Web Applications (make sure not to copy it to the Central Admin WebApp)
- create a batch file that conveniently deletes the App_Offline.htm file from all Web Applications
- create a batch file that detaches all content databases for all Web applications with the exception of the Central Admin and SSP Web Apps ( add stsadm -o preparetomove command before detach database)
- create a batch file that attaches the content databases

Upgrade process:

1. Make sure that the hardware load balancers stops the services for WFE1 and only uses WFE2 to service user requests. We have an internal procedure that allows for manipulation of the load balancer. Actually we simply need to stop a custom IIS web site on the WFE server which will cause the load balancer to failover to the second WFE automatically.
Availability Result: Users are still able to access SharePoint content through WFE2.
Timing result: this operation took 2 minutes

2. Install the binaries for your SharePoint upgrade on WFE1. In my case WSS SP2 + MOSS SP2 + all SP2 versions of the WSS and SharePoint Language Packs and finally installing the June Cumulative Update for WSS and MOSS. When installation completes, reboot the server.
Availability Result: Users are still able to access SharePoint content through WFE2.
Timing result: this operation took 50 minutes

3. Simultaneously install the same binaries on the index server. When installation completes, reboot the server.
Availability Result: Users are still able to access SharePoint content through WFE2.
Timing result: this operation took 40 minutes

OK So far so good. So basically, at this point, I have installed the binaries on 2 servers and I still have 1 to go, which is WFE2 that is still serving the SharePoint sites. I have two possibilities to continue:
- option1: install the binaries on WFE2 and reboot
- option2: run the configuration wizard on the upgraded WFE1 or the index server.

Option 1 will take all the sites down, because the installation of new binaries will stop IIS = Downtime and 404 errors. I cannot redirect my users to the upgraded WFE1, because the configuration Wizard has not run yet. So I am working with option 2

4. on WFE2 I launch my script that sets all my sites in maintenance mode (copies the App_Offline.htm file, that is)
Availability Result: Users are not able to access SharePoint content, but they receive a nice page stating that their site is down for maintenance through WFE2.
Timing result: this operation took 1 minute

5. on WFE2 I launch my script for detaching all content databases
   - this script launches a stsadm -o preparetomove command for each content database (except Central Admin and SSP databases)
   - this script launches a stsadm -o deletecontentdb command for each content database (except Central Admin and SSP databases)
   Availability Result: Users are still not able to access SharePoint content, but they receive a nice page stating that their site is down for maintenance through WFE2.
   Timing result: this operation took 5 minutes ( I had 5 content databases)

6. on WFE1, run the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard.
If the upgrade process fails, investigate the log specified by the wizard, but also check 12-Hive\LOGS\Upgrade.log and the default SharePoint ULS logs. I have already seen that the SharePoint logs are written to the 12-Hive\LOGS folder instead of the location you specified in Central Admin during this upgrade process. After the upgrade your specified Logging location is used again.
Availability Result: Users are still not able to access SharePoint content, but they receive a nice page stating that their site is down for maintenance
Timing result: this operation took 15 minutes

7. Now that the farm configuration databases have been upgraded, your WFE1 is ready to start serving users again as soon as the content databases have been reattached. So, on WFE1 I launch my script to reattach the content databases. If one the operations generate an error, you can find the specific error in the 12-Hive\LOGS\Upgrade.log file.
Availability Result: Users are still not able to access SharePoint content, but they receive a nice page stating that their site is down for maintenance
Timing result: this operation took 10 minutes.

8. Make sure that the hardware load balancers starts the services for WFE1 and stops the services for WFE2 to service user requests.
Availability Result: Users are again able to access SharePoint content through WFE1.
Timing result: this operation took 2 minutes

My upgrade status is now complete with regards to the SharePoint content. My farm is servicing users again through a single Web Frontend Server for the moment, but it is servicing which is my main concern at this point. I no longer have downtime towards my users. If you add up all the minutes, then I have had a downtime towards my users of 33 minutes, which can be considered a small downtime. Now I continue with the rest of the upgrade process.

9. WFE2 is free now to do with whatever I want since it is no longer included in the load balancer pool.
- first, I launch my script to deactivate the site maintenance which simply deletes all App_Offline.htm files
- Next, I Install the binaries for the SharePoint upgrade on WFE2 + Reboot the server
Availability Result: Users are able to access SharePoint content through WFE1.
Timing result: this operation took 50 minutes

10. While WFE2 is installing the new binaries, I can run the SharePoint Products and Configuration Wizard on the index server.
Availability Result: Users are able to access SharePoint content through WFE1.
Timing result: this operation took 6 minutes

11. Run SharePoint Products and Configuration Wizard on WFE2
Availability Result: Users are able to access SharePoint content through WFE1.
Timing result: this operation took 8 minutes

12. Final step: Add WFE2 back into the load balancer pool

Conclusion:
Although the entire operation took about 4 hours, there was a downtime of only 33 minutes for our users and furthermore our users did not hit any 404 pages, but received a nice site maintenance page telling them exactly what is going on. Needless to say, that my customer was satisifed with the result for the downtime

Hopefully this process is of any use to you guys.

Sample of my script files as requested by KbNk:

The maintenance mode script and the de-reattach scripts are simple batch files (*.bat).

Here is a sample for the scripts:

example data:

-> 1 Web Application with url http://webapp1.contoso.local
-> SQL server name: sqlserver01
-> content database name for the webapp: wss_content_webapp1
-> IIS Site directory location on file system: E:\IIS\mywebapp

- maintenance mode on script = simple copy command, no rocket science
copy e:\App_Offline.htm E:\IIS\mywebapp\

- maintenance mode off script
del e:\IIS\mywebapp\App_Offline.htm

- detach database batch file sample:
stsadm -o preparetomove -contentdb sqlserver01:wss_content_webapp1 -Site http://webapp1.contoso.local
stsadm -o deletecontentdb -url http://webapp1.contoso.local -databaseserver sqlserver01 -databasename wss_content_webapp1

- attach database bacth file sample:
stsadm -o addcontentdb -url http://webapp1.contoso.local -databaseserver sqlserver01 -databasename wss_content_webapp1

MOSS Auto-Install at Codeplex

Dirk — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 00:52:00 GMT

I was once again installing a test machine from scratch with MOSS and while I was waiting for the setrup to complete, I wondered if anyone had come up yest with a fully automated install and configuration script. Well actually there is a set of scripts that can be found on Codeplex.

MOSS 2007 Automated Installation scripts

Project Description
This project is a set of CMD/BAT and PowerShell scripts which together provide a quick and near-unattended installation and initial config (SSP, MySites) of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.
Works on Windows 2003/2008, both x86 and x64 platforms.

This set of batch scripts is based on (but significantly extends) the scripts originally found in the Office SharePoint Server 2007 farm automated setup Codeplex project.

No more hunting around for your 'latest' MOSS installation doc/guidelines, squinting over screen captures, or worrying about whether so-and-so remembered to select that option while entering that username on that particular screen - all now merely relics of The Dark Age of MOSS Installations.

The scripts will:

Check whether the target server is running Windows 2003 or 2008, and whether the platform is x86 or x64
Prompt you to start at a specific point in the process, or simply run the entire script. Useful for 2nd, 3rd etc. servers in the farm, or subsequent attempts
Prompt you to enter all service account passwords (should you choose not to specify them in the script, for security reasons)
Automatically install platform-specific pre-requisites (e.g. IIS, .Net Framework)
Disable some unnecessary Windows services (configurable by editing DisableUnneededServices.ps1)
Install the MOSS build binaries with no user input
Run the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuation Wizard (psconfig.exe) in order to create the Farm (Config/Central Admin content databases, Central Admin site, help collections, etc.) - no user input
Configure and start SharePoint services (WSS Search, MOSS Search, Excel Services) - no user input
Create/configure your SSP and My Sites web apps, and create the SSP - again, no user input
Create the main Portal - you guessed it, no user input
Restart IIS, and launch IE to view the results of your hard work (just in time for your return from lunch)
Log all of this to %TEMP% and pop open the log file for review, when finished.

WSS and MOSS Language Pack Slipstreaming by Joe Rodgers

Dirk — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 22:46:00 GMT

This question was wondering around in my head last week after having seen a slipstreamed distribution at one of my customers. Previously having been told it was not possible to slipstream language packs, I had my doubts and went hunting for some information.

I found the answer on Joe Rodger's blog

He wrote:

In case you didn’t know, you can slipstream server pack 1 (or the latest SP) of a language pack into the RTM service pack installation point, creating a single install point for each language pack include includes SP1. You may think, big deal, I’m saving one installation. That’s true, but if you have a a medium or large farm, it cuts the number of items you need to install by half, which can add up over time, especially if you have a dev and QA/staging environment you keep in sync. Unfortunately, you can only do this per language, so you still need to do one install per language, but every little bit helps.

For WSS Language Packs (example here is for the Spanish language pack):

Download the WSS Language Pack RTM and SP1 packages for the languages you are installing to C:/WSS_LPs/Spanish.
Extract the RTM package to a folder using the following command:

C:\WSS_LPs\Spanish>SharePointLanguagePack.exe /extract:C:\WSS_LPs\Spanish\
Extract the SP1 package to the UPDATES folder inside your language folder, using the following command:
C:\WSS_LPs\Spanish>wssv3lpsp1-kb936988-x86-fullfile-es-es.exe /extract:C:\WSS_LPs\Spanish\Updates
Install the language pack with SP1 by executing C:\WSS_LPs\Spanish\setup.exe

For MOSS Language Packs (example is for the Spanish language pack):

Download the MOSS Language Pack RTM and SP1 packages for the languages you are installing to C:\MOSS_LPs/Spanish.
Mount the ServerLanguagePack.img file using a virtual CD drive application
Copy all the contents from the mounted volume to C:\MOSS_LPs\Spanish\
Extract the SP1 package to the UPDATES folder inside of your language folder, using the following command:

C:\MOSSLanguagePacks\Spanish>officeserverlp2007sp1-kb936984-x64-fullfile-es-es.exe /extract:C:\MOSS_LPs\Spanish\Updates
Install the language pack with SP1 by executing C:\MOSS_LPs\Spanish\setup.exe

List All Groups and All users of site collection on a single page

Dirk — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 02:09:00 GMT

Yes, you have been asked this question before haven't you?

"Dear Admin, can you send me a complete list of all the users in the Visitors group of my site collection, because there are so many in them and I am not able to export to Excel......"

Well, I finally got sick of either copy/pasting the info from the People and Groups page or exporting all users using a powershell script, that I took the time to create my own aspx page that will display that directly.

the code for this page looks like this:

<%@ Assembly Name="Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c"%>
<%@ Page Language="C#" MasterPageFile="~/_layouts/application.master" Inherits="Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.LayoutsPageBase" %>
<%@ Import Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint" %>

<script runat="server">
   protected override void OnLoad(EventArgs e) {
     SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges(delegate()
     {
        using (SPWeb thisWeb = this.Web)
        {
           string output = "";
           output +="<table style=\"width=100%\">";
           foreach (SPGroup group in thisWeb.Groups)
           {
               output += "<tr><td colspan=\"3\"><strong>" + group.Name + "</strong><td></tr>";
               int i = 0;
               if (group.Users.Count > 0)
               {
                    foreach (SPUser user in group.Users)
                    {
                          i++;
                          output += "<tr>";
                          output += "<td>" + user.Name + "</td>";
                          output += "<td>" + user.Email + "</td>";
                          output += "<td>" + user.LoginName + "</td>";
                          output += "</tr>";
                    }
              }
              else
                   output += "<tr><td colspan=\"3\">Group is empty<td></tr>";
              output += "<tr><td colspan=\"3\"> <td></tr>";
         }
         output += "</table>";
         lblUsers.Text = output;
      }
   }
);
}
</script>
<asp:Content ID="Main" runat="server" contentplaceholderid="PlaceHolderMain" >
<p>Site Groups and Users</p>
<asp:Label ID="lblUsers" runat="server" />
</asp:Content>
<asp:Content ID="PageTitle" runat="server" contentplaceholderid="PlaceHolderPageTitle" >
Site Groups and Users
</asp:Content>
<asp:Content ID="PageTitleInTitleArea" runat="server" contentplaceholderid="PlaceHolderPageTitleInTitleArea" >
Site Groups and Users
</asp:Content>

Now save this code into an aspx page and then copy that page to the 12-hive\TEMPLATE\Layouts folder. In my case I named the file Allusers.aspx, so now I f I am in a specific site collection, I can simply call upon the page using _layouts/allusers.aspx and have my listing of all the groups with all the users in a single page.

It is so simple, but never really had the time or desire to create such a page....

Stay tuned on my blog, as I am almost ready with my tool for generating a complete report of a SharePoint farm in a nice html document....

Prevent indexing of lists with MOSS

Dirk — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 23:00:00 GMT

If you ever need to prevent indexing your lists in your MOSS farm by your SSP indexer, then you can achieve this by defining a crawl rule in the SSP > Search Settings > Crawl rules.

Use the following URL for your crawl rule to exclude lists: *://*/lists/*

Evidently you can change it to have a specific list excluded too

How To Recover Your SharePoint 2007 Product ID by Bert Johnson

Dirk — Thu, 28 May 2009 20:27:00 GMT

On my post about the SP2 bug, I had a comment by Bert Johnson about a post of his explaining how to recover the SharePoint 2007 Product ID from your system. This is indeed very handy if you do not happen to have it or find it anymore and do not want to bother your customer for it loosing face (again )

Bert wrote a vbs script that decodes the Product ID from the registry key blob data where it resides.

Thanks Bert for sharing this information, which will probably help a lot of us out there.

Subscribe to Bert's blog with this Feed: http://blogs.pointbridge.com/Blogs/johnson_bert/_layouts/listfeed.aspx?List={071A5AE9-9B1F-44E7-8AF7-C0BC07CF531D}

The original post can be found at http://blogs.pointbridge.com/Blogs/johnson_bert/Pages/Post.aspx?_ID=10 .

Here is the script :

' Extract MOSS 2007 Product ID
' Written by Bert Johnson (PointBridge)
' http://blogs.pointbridge.com/Blogs/johnson_bert/Pages/Post.aspx?_ID=10

Const HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE = &H80000002
Set reg=GetObject("winmgmts:{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\.\root\default:StdRegProv")

wscript.echo GetKey("SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Registration\{90120000-110D-0000-0000-0000000FF1CE}", "DigitalProductId")

Public Function GetKey(path, key)
    Dim chars(24), prodid
    Dim productkey(14)

    reg.GetBinaryValue HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, path, key, prodid
    
    For ib = 52 To 66
        productkey(ib - 52) = prodid(ib)
    Next

    'Possible characters in the Product ID:
    chars(0) = Asc("B")
    chars(1) = Asc("C")
    chars(2) = Asc("D")
    chars(3) = Asc("F")
    chars(4) = Asc("G")
    chars(5) = Asc("H")
    chars(6) = Asc("J")
    chars(7) = Asc("K")
    chars(8) = Asc("M")
    chars(9) = Asc("P")
    chars(10) = Asc("Q")
    chars(11) = Asc("R")
    chars(12) = Asc("T")
    chars(13) = Asc("V")
    chars(14) = Asc("W")
    chars(15) = Asc("X")
    chars(16) = Asc("Y")
    chars(17) = Asc("2")
    chars(18) = Asc("3")
    chars(19) = Asc("4")
    chars(20) = Asc("6")
    chars(21) = Asc("7")
    chars(22) = Asc("8")
    chars(23) = Asc("9")

    For ib = 24 To 0 Step -1
        n = 0

        For ikb = 14 To 0 Step -1
            n = n * 256 Xor productkey(ikb)
            productkey(ikb) = Int(n / 24)
            n = n Mod 24
        Next

        sCDKey = Chr(chars(n)) & sCDKey
        If ib Mod 5 = 0 And ib <> 0 Then sCDKey = "-" & sCDKey
    Next

    GetKey = sCDKey
End Function

Simply save that to a file named "ExtractMOSS2007ProductID.vbs" and run it to recover your key. Once recovered, re-apply your Product ID through Central Admin, as outlined in KB971620.

How to upgrade to SharePoint 2007 SP2 - Step by Step by Chris Givens

Dirk — Thu, 28 May 2009 20:13:00 GMT

I was reading trhough my blogroll today and noticed a very complete blog post for deploying SP2 in a large MOSS environment. It describes optimized steps for installing SP2 with lesser downtime as you would have by just installing it. Chris Givens is a SharePoint trainer. His Advanced SharePoint 2007 Operations course looks very interesting. Just a pitty that you have to go all the way to Seattle for it.... For us European trash guys, it is hard to defend that to our manager, right?

So please, read through this post as it may help you with your upgrade of your farm if you have large databases.

This is the original content of Chris's Post that can be found at

http://blogs.architectingconnectedsystems.com/blogs/cjg/archive/2009/05/10/How-to-upgrade-to-SharePoint-2007-SP2-_2D00_-Step-by-Step.aspx

built this lab for the latest update to my Advanced SharePoint Operations course. But I felt like it would benefit the entire community...so here you go! Good luck!

Module #25: Updating The Farm Lab #01

Course: SharePoint 2007 Operations

Estimated Time to Complete: 45 minutes

Objectives:

· Upgrade to SP2

Operating Notes:

· You will need sharepoint2007 and svr-sp2 images

· Assumes that you are using SQL Server 2000/2005/2008 for your database server (Not Internal DB engine)

Deliverables:

· None

Overview: Learn the steps of preparing your farm for upgrade and then performing the upgrade.

Exercise 1 – Prep the Farm

Purpose: There are a series of recommend steps that will speed up the upgrade of your SharePoint Farm. Following these somewhat simple suggestions will get you through the process much faster! Rebuilding indexes will ensure that the upgrade process will modify the database schemas and records as quick as possible. Truncating the log files will ensure that your backup and restores will run quickly. Detaching

Result: A farm ready for upgrade

Task 1 – Clean up the databases (rebuild indexes)

Open SQL Server Management Studio
Connect to your sharepoint database server
Click “New Query”
Run (press Atl-X) the following command on each SharePoint database (set the dropdown for each):
- WSS_Content*
- SharePoint_Config*

SELECT object_id, index_id, avg_fragmentation_in_percent, page_count FROM sys.dm_db_index_physical_stats(DB_ID(), NULL, NULL, NULL , NULL) order by avg_fragmentation_in_percent desc

SET NOCOUNT ON DECLARE @objectid int DECLARE @indexid int DECLARE @command varchar(8000) DECLARE @baseCommand varchar(8000) DECLARE @schemaname sysname DECLARE @objectname sysname DECLARE @indexname sysname DECLARE @currentDdbId int

SELECT @currentDdbId = DB_ID()

PRINT CONVERT(nvarchar, GETDATE(), 126) + ': Starting'

DECLARE indexesToDefrag CURSOR FOR

SELECT i.object_id, i.index_id, i.name FROM sys.indexes AS i INNER JOIN sys.objects AS o ON i.object_id = o.object_id WHERE i.index_id > 0 AND o.type = 'U'

OPEN indexesToDefrag -- Loop through the partitions.

FETCH NEXT FROM indexesToDefrag INTO @objectid, @indexid, @indexname WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0 BEGIN -- Lookup the name of the index SELECT @schemaname = s.name FROM sys.objects AS o JOIN sys.schemas AS s ON s.schema_id = o.schema_id WHERE o.object_id = @objectid

PRINT CONVERT(nvarchar, GETDATE(), 126) + ': ' + @schemaname + '.' + @indexname + ' is now being rebuilt.'

-- Fragmentation is bad enough that it will be more efficient to rebuild the index

SELECT @baseCommand = ' ALTER INDEX ' + @indexname + ' ON ' + @schemaname + '.' + object_name(@objectid) + ' REBUILD WITH (FILLFACTOR = 80, ONLINE = '

-- Use dynamic sql so this compiles in SQL 2000 SELECT @command = ' BEGIN TRY ' + @baseCommand + 'ON) ' + ' END TRY ' + ' BEGIN CATCH ' + -- Indices with image-like columns can't be rebuild online, so go offline

@baseCommand + 'OFF) ' + ' END CATCH '

PRINT CONVERT(nvarchar, GETDATE(), 126) + ': Rebuilding' EXEC (@command) PRINT CONVERT(nvarchar, GETDATE(), 126) + ': Done'

FETCH NEXT FROM indexesToDefrag INTO @objectid, @indexid, @indexname END

CLOSE indexesToDefrag DEALLOCATE indexesToDefrag SELECT object_id, index_id, avg_fragmentation_in_percent, page_count FROM sys.dm_db_index_physical_stats(DB_ID(), NULL, NULL, NULL , NULL) order by avg_fragmentation_in_percent desc

GO

Task 2 – Check disk space on web and database servers

On each web front end, open Explorer to “My Computer”, record your disk space. Make sure you have at least 300MB free for install of files
On each database server, open Explorer to “My Computer”, record your disk space. Make sure that you have enough space to make a copy of your largest content database.
- Example: if you have three databases of size 10GB, 20GB and 30 GB. Make sure you have at least 30GB of free space on your DB server.

Task 3 – Backup the databases (truncate and backup)

Create a folder called “D:\Backups”, ensure that you have enough disk space to save all your backups to this location (add the size of each database to determine how much you will need)
Run the following commands TWICE for each database (this will shrink, backup and truncate your database and log files):
- WSS_Content*
- WSS_Search*
- SharePoint_Config
- SharedServices*

use WSS_Content

dbcc shrinkfile ('WSS_Content') dbcc shrinkfile ('WSS_Content_log') go

backup database WSS_Content to disk = 'D:\backups\wss_content.bak' go backup log WSS_Content to disk = 'D:\backups\wss_content.bak' go

dbcc shrinkfile ('WSS_Content') dbcc shrinkfile ('WSS_Content_log') go

Task 3 – Evaluate Database Size

If you designed your farm wrong, it is possible that you have a single web application with a single content database that contains all your content. This type of setup normally means you have a database that is going to get large very quickly and backup and restore operations, as well as future upgrades could take a considerable amount of time. It is suggested that you create more content databases and partition your site collections across multiple databases.
You have two options to do this:
- Create another content database in the web application
- Create another web application with a new content database
Create a new site collection in your port 100 site
- Open “Central Administration”
- Click “Application management”
- Click “Create Site collection”, ensure that you are on port 100 web application
- For Title, type “SC2”
- For URL, select “/sites/”, and type “SC2”
- For owner, type “administrator”
- Click “Ok”
You will now have two site collections in your content database, you can use the following commands to backup a site collection, delete it and restore to a different web application (and hence a new content database):

stsadm -o backup -url http://sharepoint2007:100/sites/Sc2 -filename c:\backup.dat –overwrite

stsadm –o deletesite -url http://sharepoint2007:100/sites/Sc2

stsadm -o restore -url http://sharepoint2007:777/sites/sc2 -filename c:\backup.dat

You can continue this process to load balance your site collections across multiple content databases and in essence distribute your database sizes so that upgrading will not be so painful.
- NOTE: you can only use a url once in a web application

Task 4 – Detach the content databases

Open the “Central Administration” site
Click “Application Management”
For each web application in your web application list (EXCEPT central administration), do the following steps. NOTE: Click “Web Application List” to see them all:

- Click “Content Databases”

- You will see a list of content databases for the web application
- Click the database name

- Click the “Remove content database” check box
- Click “Ok”
- Click “Ok”

- Click “Ok”
- You should now see that the web application has no content databases:

Again, do this for every web application EXCEPT the Central administration web application!
- NOTE: you may have several content databases…this may be a tedious task so you should likely follow step 5
You can also create a command line utility to do this:
- Open Visual Studio
- Click “File->New Project”
- Select “Console Application”
- For name, type “ContentDetachAttachScript”
- Copy the following into the program.cs file:

using System; using System.IO; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Text;

using Microsoft.SharePoint; using Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration;

namespace ConsoleApplication1 { class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { TextWriter tw = File.CreateText("C:/detachall.bat"); TextWriter tw2 = File.CreateText("C:/attachall.bat");

SPFarm farm = SPFarm.Local; SPAlternateUrlCollectionManager mgr = farm.AlternateUrlCollections;

foreach (SPAlternateUrlCollection altColl in mgr ) { foreach (SPAlternateUrl url in altColl) { if (url.UrlZone == SPUrlZone.Default) { try { SPSite site = new SPSite(url.IncomingUrl);

SPWeb root = site.RootWeb; if (root.WebTemplate != "CENTRALADMIN") { //get the web application for the site collection SPWebApplication webApp = site.WebApplication;

foreach (SPContentDatabase cd in webApp.ContentDatabases) { tw.WriteLine("stsadm -o deletecontentdb -url " + url.IncomingUrl + " -databasename " + cd.Name + " -databaseserver " + cd.Server);

tw2.WriteLine("stsadm -o addcontentdb -url " + url.IncomingUrl + " -databasename " + cd.Name + " -databaseserver " + cd.Server);

//Console.WriteLine("Content Database [" + cd.Name + "] was detached");

//cd.Delete();

} } } catch (Exception ex) { Console.WriteLine(ex.Message); } } } }

tw.Close(); tw2.Close();

Console.WriteLine("Press enter to close"); Console.ReadLine();

} } }

- Compile the program, press F6
- Copy the executable to your SharePoint Farm
- Run the executable
- Open the C:\detachall.bat file , this file will contain all the stsadm commands that will detach all your content databases
- Open the C:\attachall.bat file, this contains all the stsadm commands to reattach your databases (NOTE: you should attach one at a time in the later steps).

Task 5 – Backup important files

If running in a virtual environment, backup your front end webservers main image file. After doing this, you may skip the rest of these steps and head straight for upgrade!!!
Web.config files for all web applications (located in WSS directory of wwwroot)
Core Site definitions that were modified ( located in 12 hive template/sitetemplates directory)
Any customizations including:
- Changes made to core.css
- Changes made to javascript files
- Pretty much anything you changed in the 12 hive…

Task 6 – Upgrade the servers (WSS)

Stop IIS
- Open a command prompt, run “iisreset /stop”
Run “d:\lab files\25_Lab01\ wssv3sp2-kb953338-x86-fullfile-en-us.exe”
Click “Click here to accept…” check box
Click “Continue”
The service pack should start…:

When the WSS update finishes, the Configuration Wizard will start:

Click “Next”

Click “Yes”

Click “Next”

Click “Ok” at the information popup, the farm will start to configure itself. This includes:
- Updating DLLs (gac)
- Creating/Updating registry keys
- Creating/Updating 12 hive information
- Updating web.config files
- Installing new features
The install should finish:

Repeat the above steps for the svr-sp2 image

Task 7 – Upgrade the servers (MOSS)

Stop IIS
- Open a command prompt, run “iisreset /stop”
Run “d:\lab files\25_Lab01\ officeserver2007sp2-kb953334-x86-fullfile-en-us.exe”

Click “Click here to accept…” check box
Click “Continue”
The service pack should start…:

When the MOSS update finishes, the Configuration Wizard will start:

Click “Next”

Click “Yes”

Click “Next”

Click “Ok” at the information popup, the farm will start to configure itself. This includes:
- Updating DLLs (gac)
- Creating/Updating registry keys
- Creating/Updating 12 hive information
- Updating web.config files
- Installing new features
The install should finish:

Repeat the above steps for the svr-sp2 image

Task 8 – Reattach the content databases

Open the C:\attachall.bat file, run the attach command for each content database that you detached
SharePoint will upgrade the database as it attaches it.

Task 9 – Verify Install

1. Open the upgrade.log file (in 12 hive LOGS directory)

o Look for “Finished upgrading SPFarm Name=<Name of Configuration Database>”

o Look for “In-place upgrade session finishes. Root object = SPFarm=<Name of Configuration Database>, recursive = True. 0 errors and 0 warnings encountered.”

2. If the above entries DO NOT exist, look for all instances of

o “fail”

o “error”

3. Check version number on:

o Owssvr.dll (in 12 hive isapi directory) should be “12.0.6421.1000”

o Registry “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0”

o Central administration

4. Check version of the sharepoint databases:

o Run the following sql command on each database:

select * from versions order by timestamp desc

o You should get “12.0.0.6421”

5. On Central Administration, click “Operations”

o Click “Servers In Farm”

o The version for the farm and servers should be “12.0.0.6421”

Task 10 – Check for SharePoint 2010 readiness

1. Run the following command:

stsadm –o preupgradecheck

2. Review the PreUpgradeCheck-*.htm file in the 12 hive logs directory (it should open in a browser window

3. You should watch out for the following items:

o The above command should be run on all Web Front end servers to ensure they are identical

o You should review the Site Definition information for any non “Internal” site definitions, these will need to have an upgrade definition file. Your developers will need to build this file for SP 2010

o If you have language packs installed, you will need to install the latest version when SP 2010 comes out

o Look for any referenced and missing features. Either install them or delete the references to them

o Depending on the type of upgrade to SP 2010 you do, you many need to plan for URL changes in your sites

o Review the Lists that have more than the recommends number of items. These could slow the migration process to SP 2010. Consider removing the list or deleting items to shrink the list size

o Review any Custom Field types that have been added to your Farm. CAML is not used in SP2010 and each of them will need to be re-developed with XSLT in mind.

o If you are running on 32 bit OS and Server 2003, you will need to start planning for migration to a 64bit server 2008 environment to run SP 2010

Bug in SP2 - product expiration date is improperly activated.

Dirk — Mon, 25 May 2009 01:58:00 GMT

I saw this note on a linkedin post this morning and I immediately checked my calendar to see if it was April 1st today. Guess what, it isn't....This bug will make SharePoint expire as though it was a trial installation 180 days after SP2 is deployed. Please check the original post on the msdn blogs here

To work around this issue you will need to re-enter their Product ID numbers (PID) on the Convert License Type page in Central Administration. Please see this KB article for detailed steps.