THE OFFICIAL BLOG OF THE SBS DIVA : Sharepoint

Looking for SharePoint 2013 beta resources?

bradley — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 07:02:00 GMT

So if you happen to be looking for some step by steps to see what SharePoint 2013 is like I spotted some here:

http://www.srinisistla.com/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=227

I think manual psconfig-ing is still required on SharePoint 2013. I don't think it will automatically update the databases.

Event 2138 - Drives are at risk of running out of free space.

bradley — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 06:45:00 GMT

Drives are running out of free space (SharePoint Foundation 2010)

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff805057.aspx

Log Name: Application

Source: Microsoft-SharePoint Products-SharePoint Foundation

Date: 4/14/2011 12:00:02 PM

Event ID: 2138

Task Category: Health

Level: Warning

Keywords:

User: DOMAIN\spfarm

Computer: SERVER.DOMAIN.local

Description:

The SharePoint Health Analyzer detected a condition requiring your attention. Drives are at risk of running out of free space.

Available drive space is less than five times the value of physical memory. This is dangerous because it does not provide enough room for a full memory dump with continued operation. It also could cause problems with the Virtual Memory swap file: SBS 2011 (SERVER - C:\).

Examine the failing servers and delete old logs or free space on the drives. For more information about this rule, see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=142688.

Resolution for SBSers:

The issue is you have a server with lots of physical ram. SharePoint calculates this multiplys by 5 and expects that amount of free space on your C drive even though SharePoint is probably not on your C drive.

Go into the SharePont configuration.

Go into monitoring

Go into review rule definitions

Scroll down into the drives are running out of free space

Pull it up and edit it

Unclick the enabled box and save.

But Susan, don't we need to know when drives will run out of space? There's already an alert that alerts you when your drives are less than 10% free. You don't need another one. And you certainly don't need one looking for five TIMES your RAM on your C drive where the SharePoint isn't even on.

But Susan, why can't this be fixed? I bugged it, the SBS sustaining engineering team sees this as a 'by design' by the SharePoint team, and as such is not addressable in SBS's code and thus won't fix it.

SharePoint team considers everyone that runs SharePoint as admins that shouldn't be molly coddled by GUIs or something and deems that Admins should fix it themselves. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee663479.aspx

Bottom line, if you have lots of RAM, uncheck that box.

I'm still of the opinion that psconfig is still not well documented

bradley — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 06:55:00 GMT

Here's what I posted to the bottom of this blog:

Service Pack 1 for SharePoint 2010 Products is Now Available for Download:
http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/blog/Pages/BlogPost.aspx?pID=984

"Can you post clearly in technet how to do a patch deployment on a single standalone server? It's not clear to me that psconfig needs to be manually done after patching.

Secondly for these standalone deployments, can you change the wording of the KB that shows up in Microsoft Update and WSUS that a psconfig command is needed to properly deploy this update?"

I think the documentation for how SharePoint needs to manually run psconfig is not well documented. Certainly not for standalone SharePoint servers. And should be exposed in MU or WSUS in the KB details that it needs to be run.

Bingle juice for others:

If you hit here because of any of these error messages and you just installed SharePoint sp1, make sure you run a manual psconfig command. See this blog for more details: http://blogs.technet.com/b/sbs/archive/2011/07/06/potential-issues-after-installing-sharepoint-foundation-2010-sp1.aspx

A Volume Shadow Copy Service operation failed.Unknown error (0x800423f0)

Volume Shadow Copy Service error: Failed resolving account spsearch with status 1376. Check connection to domain controller and VssAccessControl registry key

Information Store (2264) Shadow copy instance 2 aborted

The Execute method of job definition Microsoft.SharePoint.Search.Administration.SPSearchJobDefinition

spsearch4 vss writer inconsistent shadow copy

Robert Crane's guide to SharePoint 2010 Sp1

bradley — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 06:22:00 GMT

Computer Information Agency:
http://supportweb.ciaops.net.au/blog/archive/2011/07/05/installing-sharepoint-2010-service-pack-1-on-sbs-2011.aspx
Computer Information Agency:
http://supportweb.ciaops.net.au/blog/archive/2011/07/02/sharepoint-2010-service-pack-1-installation-walk-through.aspx

So how do you install your SharePoint updates?

bradley — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 05:01:00 GMT

After SharePoint security update MS10-039 Central Admin and web pages not working - Steve Chen [MSFT] about SharePoint mysteries and related - Site Home - TechNet Blogs:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/steve_chen/archive/2010/06/22/after-sharepoint-security-update-ms10-039-central-admin-and-web-pages-not-working.aspx#_Symptom_#3

Either I'm totally confused or totally spazzing out on SharePoint patches tonight.

That blog says:

"Remember, applying a patch, cumulative update or service pack to SharePoint is a two-step process:

1. Install the binaries

2. Run psconfig (or SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard) to update the databases"

That's not been my experience with SharePoint updates. When I install the patch on the real babies, I do it manually via MU. I don't manually download it, I don't use WSUS. I run them all by themselves using Microsoft update. When I do that it installs the update in "quiet' mode and does the psconfig command automatically. The log files the psconfig does is then laid down here:

PSCDiagnostics_Datecode.log
By default, this file is located in the "Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web server extensions\12\LOGS" folder.
Upgrade.log
By default, this file is located in the "Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web server extensions\12\LOGS" folder.

Knock on wood I've had no runs, no drips no errors with my SharePoint updating manually installing them via Microsoft update.

Open up that folder and look in that log file location

If you see "failed to initialize SharePoint upgrade" then fire up a c prompt (run as admin) get to the c:\ Program files\Common files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\bin and run a manual command of pccoinfg -cmd upgrade -inplace b2b -wait -force

The patch hasn't broken anything, it just didn't finish what it was supposed to. When it says it cannot connect to the database, the database isn't gone, it's just not finished the patching sequence.

A series of posts documenting the Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 upgrade process on SBS 2008

bradley — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 05:36:00 GMT

A series of posts documenting the Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 upgrade process on SBS 2008

http://supportweb.ciaops.net.au/blog/archive/2010/09/20/migration-by-the-numbers-–-step-1.aspx

http://supportweb.ciaops.net.au/blog/archive/2010/09/20/migration-by-the-numbers-–-step-2.aspx

http://supportweb.ciaops.net.au/blog/archive/2010/09/22/migration-by-the-numbers-–-step-3.aspx

http://supportweb.ciaops.net.au/blog/archive/2010/09/27/migration-by-the-numbers-–-step-4.aspx

http://supportweb.ciaops.net.au/blog/archive/2010/09/27/migration-by-the-numbers-–-step-5.aspx

http://supportweb.ciaops.net.au/blog/archive/2010/09/30/migration-by-the-numbers-–-step-6.aspx

http://supportweb.ciaops.net.au/blog/archive/2010/11/07/migration-by-the-numbers-–-step-7.aspx

http://supportweb.ciaops.net.au/blog/archive/2010/11/07/migration-by-the-numbers-–-step-8.aspx

Steps to install SharePoint Foundation 2010 on your SBS 2008

bradley — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 03:18:00 GMT

Computer Information Agency:
http://supportweb.ciaops.net.au/blog/archive/2010/09/20/migration-by-the-numbers-–-step-1.aspx
Computer Information Agency:
http://supportweb.ciaops.net.au/blog/archive/2010/09/20/migration-by-the-numbers-–-step-2.aspx
Computer Information Agency:
http://supportweb.ciaops.net.au/blog/archive/2010/09/22/migration-by-the-numbers-–-step-3.aspx

Keep watching Robert's blog for more

If you want SharePoint 2010 Foundation on your SBS 2008 Read Robert's Blog!!

bradley — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 07:39:00 GMT

If you want SharePoint 2010 Foundation on your SBS 2008 Read Robert's Blog!!

While the whitepaper has been updated...there's some key points:

Computer Information Agency:
http://supportweb.ciaops.net.au/blog/archive/2010/09/03/sharepoint-2010-migration-on-sbs-2008-released-from-microsoft.aspx

2. After the migration process is complete and you bring up the new SharePoint site it will look almost identical to WSS v3. That’s because SharePoint Foundation 2010 has a visual upgrade feature that you have to select to upgrade the look and feel of the site. I believe that a major reason why people would want to go to all the trouble of installing SharePoint Foundation 2010 on SBS 2008 is so they can benefit from the new interface.

So after you do the upgrade go into the site settings for the site and select the visual upgrade option to change the look and feel of your site to new SharePoint interface

Always do this on a test box first, never on a production one and put down crib notes for yourself.

SharePoint 2010 - the installation of this package failed

bradley — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 07:15:00 GMT

Elemental SQL: Stupid SharePoint 2010 Error:The Installation of this Package Failed:
http://elementalsql.blogspot.com/2010/06/stupid-sharepoint-2010-error-this.html

Just a fyi .. in addition to making sure you have the right step 10 - http://supportweb.ciaops.net.au/blog/archive/2010/09/08/sharepoint-foundation-2010-on-sbs-2008-%e2%80%93-step-10.aspx

Make sure your SharePoint foundation download really is a full download.

If it isn't a full 169MB... you don't gots the full download..

Download it again or go to another computer and download it there.

SharePoint 2010 migration on SBS 2008 released from Microsoft

bradley — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 16:05:00 GMT

Check out Robert Crane's info and advice on the newly released document for installing SharePoint 2010 on SBS 2008

SharePoint 2010 migration on SBS 2008 released from Microsoft
http://supportweb.ciaops.net.au/blog/archive/2010/09/03/sharepoint-2010-migration-on-sbs-2008-released-from-microsoft.aspx

Kerberos in Kompanyweb

bradley — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 07:04:00 GMT

From the SBS partner forums.. I spotted a post about the issue where SharePoint is now flipped to Kerberos and how one can manually check to ensure that Kerberos setting is as it should be.....

http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/partnerwinserversbs/thread/930bce40-6234-4f2c-a0fa-2890dd12da41

The typical symptom of the issue addressed by update rollup 2 is that you will be prompted for authentication 3 times and eventually receive a blank page or 401.1 error. IIS logs will show your request failing with 401.1 Unauthorized.

(The IIS log for Companyweb is located in C:\inetput\logs\LogFiles\W3SVC442802965 folder. )

To determine if update rollup 2 is installed, please check:

1. Check Control Panel -> Program and Features -> View Installed Updates to see if ‘Update Rollup 2 for Windows Small Business Server 2008 (KB960911)’ is listed.

2. After installing rollup 2, the authentication mode of the http://companyweb Web site should be changed from NTLM authentication to Kerberos authentication, which is to address the issue with accessing companyweb.

Please check the followings:

Enable Negotiate (Kerberos) option for Sharepoint 3.0. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, click Administrative Tools, click SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration, and then click Continue in the User Access Control dialog box.
2. In the Authentication Providers page, click Application Management, and then click the "Authentication providers" on the Application Security tab.
3. Check the Web Application, make sure the port is 987; otherwise change Web application to the URL which has the port 987.
4. Click the "Default" zone, you will go to the Edit Authentication page.
5. Check the Negotiate(Kerberos) option on the Integrated Windows Authentication tab.
6. Click OK in the dialog which gives a warning that "You have chosed to use Kerberos with Integrated Windows authentication. Manual configuration steps by a domain administrator will be required if the application pool's security account is not the Network Service" and then click Save.

Then access http://companyweb from the SBS2008 server itself and see if it works.

In addition, Windows 2008 SP2 and Vista SP2 has been released. Windows 2008 SP2 should be installed on SBS 2008. You can download the X64 version of SP2 here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=656c9d4a-55ec-4972-a0d7-b1a6fedf51a7 You should be sure to take a good backup prior to installing. SP2 will require a reboot so plan accordingly.

So you are wanting to know if SharePoint sp3 installed?

bradley — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 06:28:00 GMT

So you are trying to get SharePoint Service pack 3 installed and it's a no go right?

Well look in the log file.

Okay.

Uh, yeah right... where EXACTLY is that?

I had to dig out where it was myself.

To verify that the service pack is installed successfully, view the Ohotfix(Number).log file that is located in the %Temp%\Ohotfix folder on the hard disk.

(Yes if I had my way ALL log files would be in the same place on servers and never in bin files, temp files, or other seeminly random locations or oddball locations)

That's where the log file is.

Need to get on the ball when it comes to SharePoint?

bradley — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 05:22:00 GMT

Computer Information Agency:
http://supportweb.ciaops.net.au/blog/archive/2008/10/30/utilizing-sharepoint-to-improve-your-business.aspx

If you missed out on Robert Crane's presentation on SMBNation he blogged (and I forgot to bring it up on here) that he has provided a link to his SMBnation presentation. Check it out!

THAT's why I never saw issues with Sharepoint and Vista

bradley — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 07:47:00 GMT

You are prompted to enter your credentials when you access an FQDN site by using a Windows Vista-based client computer that has no proxy configured:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/943280

People kept talking about they had issues with Vista and Sharepoint and Office 2007, especially v3 and I couldn't figure out exactly what they were talking about. I think this KB explains it. I am using proxy settings, thus I don't see this issue.

If you want to deploy it to all of the workstations.. here's how:

According to my experience, we can use the Group Policy to run the script
as a Startup Script which is under the context of the System account for
all the Vista computers to accomplish this. Note: The startup script can be
enabled in "Computer Configuration\Windows Settings\Scripts
(Startup/Shutdown)\Startup" of an appropriate GPO.

To deploy this startup group policy, I have also included the detail steps
for you below:

1. Create and Test the Startup Script:
========
NOTE: Using Registry Editor incorrectly can cause serious problems that may
require you to reinstall Windows. Microsoft cannot guarantee that problems
resulting from the incorrect use of Registry Editor can be solved. Use
Registry Editor at your own risk.
256986 Description of the Microsoft Windows Registry
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=256986

1). Log on one of the Windows Vista machine as local admin, right-click the
Desktop->New->Text Document.
2). Copy the following commands and then paste them into the opened Notepad
window.

-------------------------------------------------------------- (don't
include this line)
@echo off
Reg add
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\WebClient\Parameters
/v AuthForwardServerList /t REG_MULTI_SZ /d
"https://*.Contoso.com\0http://*.dns.live.com\0*.microsoft.com\0https://172.
169.4.6"
-------------------------------------------------------------- (don't
include this line)

NOTE: Please change the value
"https://*.Contoso.com\0http://*.dns.live.com\0*.microsoft.com\0https://172.
169.4.6" in above script to the URL of the server that hosts the Web share
on your network. If you would like to enter the multi-sites, please use
"\0" (means "Enter") to separate them, just like the format in above script.

3). After you paste the above commands, please close the Notepad window.
Choose Yes when you are prompted to save the file with name "Webdev"
without quotation.
4). Double-Click My Computer, press Alt key, choose Tools option->folder
options->view-> make sure "Hide extensions for known file types" unmarked.
Click ok.
5). Rename the file Webdev.txt to Webdev.bat, Choose Yes when you are
prompted to save the file.
6). Right click on the "Webdev.bat" -> Run as Administrator -> Click
Continue if it prompts.
7). Click Start, type: REGEDIT in the Start Search bar and then press
Enter. Click Continue.
8). Navigate to the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\WebClient\Parameters

9). Please verify if the "AuthForwardServerList" key and its value has been
created as expected. If so, the script has been created successfully.

2. Deploy the Startup Script via Group Policy:
========
1). Please log on the Domain Administrator on this Windows Vista machine.
2). Click GPMC.MSC in the Start search box and then press Enter. NOTE:
GPMC.MSC will not be available if the Vista SP1 has been applied.
3). Edit the appropriate existing group policy
4). Navigate to the following path:

[Computer Configuration]\[Windows Settings]\[Script (Startup/Shutdown)]

5). Highlight the entry [Script (Startup/Shutdown)], double click "startup"
policy in the right panel and then click Add.
6). In the "Add a Script" window, select the file Webdev.bat which we just
created and then click Open.
7). Click OK and then click OK again.

After deploying the startup script, the workstations will run this script
when the machine startup. Please check if the registry keys can be added on
all the Vista workstations on the network.

Hope above information is helpful.

Follow up on Extranet

bradley — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 07:36:00 GMT

https://connect.microsoft.com/Downloads/DownloadDetails.aspx?SiteID=14&DownloadID=10263

I'm downloading the Extranet doc but has Chris notes in the comments... http://msmvps.com/blogs/bradley/archive/2008/01/03/extranet-collaboration-toolkit-for-sharepoint.aspx#1437156 it looks tricky.

Ugh.

Extranet Collaboration Toolkit for SharePoint

bradley — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 04:56:00 GMT

I have no idea how well this works on a SBS box so check it out carefully...

http://blogs.technet.com/billcan/archive/2008/01/03/please-download-the-beta-for-the-extranet-collaboration-toolkit-for-sharepoint.aspx

I am happy to announce the beta release for the Extranet Collaboration Toolkit for SharePoint. We are making this beta release available in order to get feedback from our customers and partners. With your help, we can ensure that the Extranet Collaboration Toolkit for SharePoint (ECTS) meets your needs.

What is the Extranet Collaboration Toolkit for SharePoint?

The Extranet Collaboration Toolkit for SharePoint provides guidance and tools to deploy a pre-built, customizable SharePoint solution that teams can use to collaborate with those outside the firewall. At the same time, the toolkit helps ensure that sensitive data on these systems is protected.

Using this free toolkit, administrators can set up a secure, SharePoint-based extranet collaboration site in a short time. End users can then use this site to easily create new site collections, posting sharable documents that are centrally located inside the firewall. The toolkit also enables users to invite internal and external partners to collaborate on documents. And the toolkit makes it simple for team leads to assign or revoke access rights for any team member.

Once the ECTS is installed, your users can be up and running with a secure, SharePoint-based team site in minutes. They can easily invite and enable external users to collaborate with them, sharing documents that are centrally located on a SharePoint site inside the firewall. Administrators can require administrative approval for all new sites and users, or can allow precisely control the information outsiders can access, or they can delegate this control to end users and free up time for other tasks.

Where do I access the Beta?

To get started with the beta, please visit https://connect.microsoft.com/site/sitehome.aspx?SiteID=14, then click the Downloads link. Note that you may have to register to get access to the Connect site. On the list of downloads, click the Extranet Collaboration Toolkit for SharePoint. >From this page, download all the beta files. I recommend that you read the Release Notes first to learn about any late breaking information related to the ECTS.

The Microsoft Filter Pack for WSS 3.0

bradley — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 02:03:00 GMT

The 2007 Office documents are not found when you try to search for the
documents in the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 site collection:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=944433

When I first read that it was like ...okay..but the good news is this has a better resolution now:

Bill Baer : Happy "Indexing" Holidays - Microsoft Filter Pack Released:
http://blogs.technet.com/wbaer/archive/2007/12/18/happy-indexing-holidays-microsoft-filter-pack-released.aspx

The Microsoft Filter Pack for search has been released enabling critical search scenarios across a variety of Microsoft Search products including SharePoint Portal Server 2003, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, Search Server 2008, Search Server 2008 Express Edition, Exchange Server 2005, SQL Server 2005/2008, and Windows Desktop Search 3.1/4.0.

The Microsoft Filter Pack provides iFilters for the following file type extensions:

.docx (Microsoft Office 2007 Word Document)
.docm (Microsoft Office Word Macro-Enabled Document)
.pptx (Microsoft Office 2007 PowerPoint Presentation)
.xlsx (Microsoft Office 2007 Excel Worksheet)
.xlsm (Microsoft Office Excel Macro-Enabled Worksheet)
.xlsb (Microsoft Office Excel Binary Worksheet)
.zip (WinZip File)
.one (Microsoft Office OneNote Section)
.vdx (Microsoft Office Visio Drawing)
.vsd (Microsoft Office Visio Drawing)
.vss (Microsoft Office Visio Stencil)
.vst (Microsoft Office Visio Template)
.vsx (Microsoft Office Visio Stencil)
.vtx (Microsoft Office Visio Template)

Sharepoint upgrades on SBS

bradley — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 20:12:00 GMT

Susan,

Can I also point people towards a recent article I wrote about installing Sharepoint on SBS 2003: http://www.saturnalliance.com.au/assets/68/files/installwss3.pdf and also my Supportweb website : supportweb.ciaops.net.au which has lots of Sharepoint & SBS2003 info. I also have similiar videos on installing Sharepoint at www.youtube.com/saturnalliance

There are some interesting points to note when you install Sharepoint, as the method in which the data is stored and limitations that may be incurred are very dependent on how you do the initial installation. There are also some other "options" rather than the "standard" Microsoft way in my opinion.

Thanks

Robert Crane

Saturn Alliance

Copying this here.. someone asked why doesn't Microsoft come out with a supported inplace upgrade to Sharepoint 2. They are. It's called Cougar the next version of SBS. Remember that SBS is an integrated platform and it's not trivial in terms of coding, support, testing to take out the v2 and insert in it's place the v3. Add to that the (let's be realistic folks) the business needs of not putting a huge amount of dev time/team time on a platform that is now 4 years old with the new platform right around the corner and it just doesn't make technical sense nor economic sense to be putting that many resources onto a 4 year old platform. The resources are needed for Cougar.

(keep track of the posts about Cougar here -- http://www.technorati.com/search/sbs+cougar?authority=a4&language=en )

Sharepoint toolkit to download

bradley — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 20:13:00 GMT

Mark blogs about the Sharepoint toolkit that's finally been released!

For those that went to the World Wide Partner conference, this is the download version of the Sharepoint CDrom that was handed out.

SBSC & MSP Buzz » Blog Archive » Windows Sharepoint Services 3.0 Starter Kit:
http://sbsc.techcareteam.com/archives/125

The 2007 Office documents are not found when you try to search for the documents in the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 site collection

bradley — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 02:36:00 GMT

The 2007 Office documents are not found when you try to search for the documents in the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 site collection:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=944433

On your side by side Sharepoint installs ...fyi
(p.s..... the "install office on your server isn't exactly the greatest workaround.. )