Headlines for sharepointpedia

Deploy software updates for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 01:30:00 GMT

This article has been updated with information about the August Cumulative Update.

Restore: Stsadm operation (Windows SharePoint Services)

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 01:30:00 GMT

This article has been rewritten based on community feedback.

Osearch: Stsadm operation (Office SharePoint Server)

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 01:25:00 GMT

This article has been updated to include three new parameters that affect index performance and maintenance: reprovisionindex, cleansearchdatabase, and ssp.

Restore: Stsadm operation (Office SharePoint Server)

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 01:25:00 GMT

This article has been rewritten based on community feedback.

Deploy software updates for Office SharePoint Server 2007

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 01:25:00 GMT

This article has been updated with information about the August Cumulative Update.

Cool Content Friday - Real World Branding with SharePoint Server 2007 Publishing Sites

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 06:55:22 GMT

Abstract:

If you work with SharePoint Publishing sites, you might be interested in the "Real World Branding with SharePoint Server 2007 Publishing Sites" series written by Randy Drisgill and Andrew Connell.

Category: Cool Content;Design;Branding

Published: 9/25/2009 11:56 PM

# Comments: 0

Fast Tip: Add the Checked Out To column to your SharePoint library

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 00:49:29 GMT

Abstract:

This 30-second video shows a tip to more easily see when documents are checked out by adding the Checked Out To column to your SharePoint library.

Category: Collaboration;Lists and Libraries;Team Sites

Published: 9/23/2009 10:21 PM

# Comments: 0

Cool Content Friday - SharePoint Case Studies

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 06:45:37 GMT

Abstract:

Check out the Microsoft Case Studies site ant to see how people are using Sharepoint in a specific industry or to address a specific problem.

Category: Business Processes;Cool Content

Published: 9/18/2009 11:30 PM

# Comments: 1

Patching a mirrored farm with minimal downtime

Margo Crandall — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 20:06:00 GMT

(Cross-posted from the Microsoft SharePoint Team Blog)

For administrators of large SharePoint server farms, a newly-published article describes how to update server farms that use database mirroring, while incurring minimal perceived downtime for users. This solution is for enterprise customers who have high-availability needs and infrastructure. This article describes a step-by-step process for Office SharePoint Server farms that incorporate SQL Server mirroring. You can achieve similar results on Office SharePoint Server farms that are set up in a clustered server environment.

In brief, the solution requires that you:

Disable mirroring and set the mirror databases to read-only.
Route network and database traffic to the read-only databases
Apply software updates to the offline servers.
Route network and database traffic to the updated servers.
Apply software updates to the secondary farm.
Re-enable mirroring and set the mirrored databases to read/write.

To read the full solution, see Configure a server farm for minimal downtime during software updates.

Excel Web App Coming to Windows Live

Joseph Chirilov — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 07:19:00 GMT

A while back I blogged about the announcement at PDC of the Excel Web App. Today I am excited to share with you that we are making the Excel Web App, as well as the Word and PowerPoint Web Apps, available to a select group of Windows Live users. To quote the Office Web Apps blog:

This early peek at the Office Web Apps will include high-fidelity viewing of Word, Excel and PowerPoint files in the browser. Invitees will also be able to edit Excel and PowerPoint files. Over time we’ll add OneNote Web App and the ability to edit Word files as well. Stay tuned to this blog to hear more about the upcoming features.

We will be rolling the technical preview out to users gradually. In the meantime, if you want to get notifications about Office 2010 and Office Web Apps beta, sign up here.

I look forward to hearing about your experiences with the Excel Web App. In the near future, I’ll have a series of blog posts with more details on the Excel Web App features.

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Technical Library in Compiled Help

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 23:15:00 GMT

The entire library for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 is now available as a downloadable .chm file. This download includes all content in the library as of September 17, 2009.

Configure a server farm for minimal downtime during software updates (Office SharePoint Server 2007)

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 23:10:00 GMT

This article describes how to update Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 farms with minimal downtime. By following the procedures in this article, you can update servers to add the latest service pack or cumulative update without incurring significant downtime for users.

SharePoint intranet portal governance (white paper)

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 23:05:00 GMT

This sample governance plan helps users outline the administration, maintenance, and support of an Office SharePoint Server 2007 deployment in an enterprise. The plan is based on a fictitious company that is implementing collaboration, Web content management, and an intranet portal that includes departmental portals.

Office SharePoint Server 2007 Technical Library in Compiled Help format

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 23:05:00 GMT

An updated downloadable .chm file for the entire of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 library is now available. This download includes all content in the library as of September 17, 2009.

Using SharePoint Themes to Customize your SharePoint Site

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 18:09:14 GMT

Abstract:

As part of the site redesign effort we investigated which approach for for implementing the “Look and Feel” in the most efficient way possible while also avoiding disrupting our existing WSS sites and users.

Category: Branding;Building Solutions;Design;Team Sites;Site Admin;User Experience

Published: 9/15/2009 5:01 PM

# Comments: 1

mergecontentdbs gotcha

David Little — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 10:23:35 GMT

Body:

Back in SharePoint 2007 Service Pack 1, a new command “stsadm –o mergecontentdbs” was released to help administrators move a site collection from one content database to another. (Despite its name it doesn’t actually merge content databases, just moves the data from one content database to another.) This was fine as long as the size of the site collection being moved was not too big.

It might take several hours to perform the whole move for a large site collection. Plus if for any reason the job crashed out during its run you could be left with orphans in either of your content databases or neither of them in working state. See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/969242/ for more information.

Recently I helped a customer upgrade their SharePoint system to SP2 with the June 09 Cumulative Update and once this was done, to move a 20Gb site collection to a new content database.

The move worked correctly and the “stsadm –o mergecontentdbs” command returned without error. Looking in the new content database I could see the data and an entry in the “sites” table which showed that this contentdb did in fact contain the moved site collection. Looking in the old contentdb at its “sites” table indeed showed that the site collection was gone.

So what was the problem?

It became clear that once the move was over, we were unable to shrink the size of the old content database. It still contained over 20Gb of data and I had no idea why it was still there.

Running a “stsadm –o databaserepair” command against the old content database showed 1000’s of orphans and upon closer inspection these where all individual sites (SPWeb objects) which had been part of the moved site collection. Running “stsadm –o databaserepair” this time again with the “-deletecorruption” switch did the job of removing the orphans after which we could shrink the old content database.

Therefore it would seem that the way the “stsadm –o mergecontentdbs” command works between SP1 and SP2 + June 09 CU seems to have changed. Indeed it seems to deliberately create orphans as part of the move.

After speaking to some of the guys on my team (hat tip to Andy D) the following blog posting came to light from the team at Microsoft who maintains the documentation you see on TechNet.

http://blogs.technet.com/tothesharepoint/archive/2009/05/21/3244169.aspx

It makes mention of the way the mergecontentdbs command was changed in the April 09 Cumulative Update and that it is now the default behaviour to leave the data in the old content database and rely on a new timer job to delete the data automatically in the background. The role of this job is to simply clean up orphans of a particular type which are generated as part of the call to mergecontentdbs.

In summary: Systems which have at least Service Pack 2 and the April 09 Cumulative Update will by default rely on a timer job to remove data from old content databases when the “stsadm –o mergecontentdbs” command is used to move a site collection from one database to another.

Category: Administration;Configuration;General;SP2;SP1;stsadm;Troubleshooting

Published: 9/11/2009 3:20 AM

Records management resources for government organizations

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 00:30:55 GMT

Abstract:

If you work with SharePoint records management solutions for a government organization, you might

be interested in the records management resources on the Microsoft Solutions Center for Government.

Category: Compliance;Site Admin

Published: 9/10/2009 5:39 PM

# Comments: 0

Create Managed Properties - The Easy Way

Sergey Zelenov - MSFT — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 11:22:13 GMT

Body:

OK, so I got to publish another script to the SharePoint Management PowerShell scripts project - this one is called Set-ManagedProperty. Does exactly what the name suggests - allows you to automate creation of managed properties in Search configuration and mapping them onto crawled properties.

You may find this especially useful if you are planning to install Podcasting Kit for SharePoint (or have to re-build it regularly). One of the most tedious steps in the installation and configuration of PKS has always been having to create over a dozen of managed properties - now all you have to do is download and run this script, as it even defaults to properties required by PKS if given no other input!

Category: Configuration;PowerShell;Search

Published: 9/9/2009 4:16 AM

Sample governance plan for an Internet presence deployment

Judy Cowan — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 19:06:00 GMT

We recently published another sample governance plan (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=162416) for a SharePoint Internet presence deployment based on Office SharePoint 2007. The plan, written by Joel Oleson and Nicola Young, can help you identify key considerations for planning an Internet presence scenario.

The following list shows several elements that should be part of your governance plan.

· Lines of ownership for business and technical teams.

· Service delivery requirements for business and IT.

· Search configuration.

· Customization policy.

· Levels of support.

· Education and training plan.

The sample plan provides more detailed descriptions of these and other elements you should consider.

To find more governance articles and tools, visit our Governance Resource Center.

If you have ideas for governance topics, or want to comment on our existing content, please let me know.

Thank you,

Judy Cowan

Writer, SharePoint Enterprise Solutions UA

Monitor and troubleshoot storage performance

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 17:25:00 GMT

This article lists the performance counters that we recommend that you use to monitor the performance of the SQL Server databases that are running in your Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 environment. Also listed are approximate healthy values for each counter.

Physical storage recommendations (Office SharePoint Server)

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 17:25:00 GMT

This article has been updated to include the recommendation that before a new farm is deployed, the I/O subsystem be benchmarked by using the SQLIO disk subsystem tool.

Support end-user productivity with the Productivity Hub

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 19:45:36 GMT

Abstract:

If you’re looking to reduce training and support costs or drive end-user technology adoption in your organization, you might be interested in checking out the Productivity Hub.

Category: Productivity;Training

Published: 9/1/2009 1:22 PM

# Comments: 0

SharePoint Administration Toolkit (Windows SharePoint Services)

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 20:30:00 GMT

Version 4.0 of the Administration Toolkit includes the following: "Updates to the SharePoint Diagnostics Tool (SPDiag)," "UnlockFGPReport: Stsadm operation (Windows SharePoint Services)," "Updatequota: Stsadm operation (Windows SharePoint Services)," and "Security Configuration Wizard Manifest for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0."

SharePoint Internet presence governance plan (white paper)

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 20:25:00 GMT

This sample governance plan is designed to help illustrate how to use the functionality of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for a public Internet site. The fictitious company in this paper plans to use the functionality to ensure that site content is consistent, updated in a timely manner, branded in line with corporate standards, and tightly controlled.

SharePoint Administration Toolkit (Office SharePoint Server)

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 20:25:00 GMT

Version 4.0 of the Administration Toolkit includes the following: "Updates to the SharePoint Diagnostics Tool (SPDiag)," "UnlockFGPReport: Stsadm operation (Office SharePoint Server)," "Updatequota: Stsadm operation (Office SharePoint Server)," and "Security Configuration Wizard Manifest for Office SharePoint Server 2007."