Connect.Collaborate.SharePoint
May
26

Although I'm very busy as a SharePoint consultant, I try and answer others questions even if they are developer specific (I'm not a developer). Today's question was...

"Hi Ian, 
We've had a bit of a discussion about logging in xxx - basically what we want is somewhere to log any exceptions, warnings or debug information. 
yyy was keen on logging into a SharePoint List, I was keener to log straight to the Database for better performance.  We don't want to log to the file system as we would then need to aggregate the logs from each of the application servers.
Have you had any thoughts about how we should implement logging?  Are there any constraints that you know of that would prevent us from logging to the database?"

Remember I'm not a developer but 2 things came immediately to mind.

  1. Patterns and Practices - Logging Application block
  2. SharePoint Unified Logging Service (ULS)

Put the 2 together (using live.com search) and someone else has already thought of the answer (Not invented here :-(
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/sharepoint/SPLogging.aspx

Then add one of the codeplex projects to view the logs http://codeplex.com/Project/ProjectDirectory.aspx?ProjectSearchText=sharepoint%20uls

Talking about quick thinking, one of my passions, apart from SharePoint, is Motor racing. I did take 10 minutes out to watch highlights of the Indy 500 which was just won Buy Scott Dickson, a Kiwi, who dreamed of this when he was just 13 years old. $3.5M well earned. One of my reoccurring dreams is driving an open wheel race car around a track but after watching the Top-Gear episode where Richard Hamond tried to drive a formula-1 car around a race track for 3 laps, I'm under no illusion as to how fast you would have to think and react...

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May
24

I still have a small list of things to get working on wssdemo.com since migrating to the W2K8 Hyper-v platform. Today I managed to tick one off the list.

The SilverlightPart web part would give a 403 error whenever I tried to edit the web part properties. The Sysinternal Process Monitor is a great tool to find out what the w3wp was trying to access under what credentials. Because I have been trying to stick with Installing SharePoint Server 2007 by using the least privilege method (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc298465.aspx ) there is a bit more work in getting some things to work, especially 3rd party solutions.

In this case it was the NTFS security on the ClientBin directory which the web part property panel was trying to 'List folder contents'.

You can see the demo page here http://www.wssdemo.com/pages/silverlight2.aspx

It must be about time for the S+S Blueprint source code to be released (Paul)...


 
May
19

I often find that I have lots of documents open and can't always remember if I opened them from an email attachment, My Documents or a SharePoint site. I would often use the "File Save-As" menu just to see where the file was opened from. It turns out that you can add this information to the Quick Access Tool Bar by following these steps...

http://office.microsoft.com/training/training.aspx?AssetID=RP102338321033&CTT=6&Origin=RP102338311033

You can also copy the document url from here for use in other documents or emails.

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May
18

Don't be disappointed, register now...

I've been to the last 8 Tech-ED's in NZ and they just keep getting bigger, better and sell-out sooner every year. See you there...

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May
11

There are many pieces in the SharePoint jigsaw puzzle and they should all rely on Active Directory accounts.

Every SharePoint Farm should follow these guidelines for the use of AD accounts http://www.wssdemo.com/redir.aspx?ID=1456

Unfortunately this is not always the case and, although everything appears to work when a single account is used for everything, there comes a time when corrective action is required to fix problems like:

  • Search Results return unpublished pages
  • Products like the SharePoint End-user Training kit can't be installed because the training site application pool is dbo of the content db.
  • Regulatory compliance requires enforcement and auditing of content separation at the database level

If you are an old hand at managing Windows you might be tempted to jump right into the Services and IIS admin UI's and start changing accounts. Stop right where you are! There are a number of reasons why you should not do this.

For SQL Server you should always use SQL Server tools such as SQL Server Configuration Manager to change the account used by the SQL Server or SQL Server Agent services, or to change the password for the account. In addition to changing the account name, SQL Server Configuration Manager performs additional configuration such as setting permissions in the Windows Registry so that the new account can read the SQL Server settings. Other tools such as the Windows Services Control Manager can change the account name but do not change associated settings. If the service cannot access the SQL Server portion of the registry the service may not start properly.
Follow these steps to change the SQL account passwords http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263226.aspx

For SharePoint there are a number of Windows Services and IIS Application Pools. If you have multiple servers in your farm, these have to be in sync so you should use the STSADM commands or Central Admin UI. When you use these tools, they ensure that the appropriate registry, file system and data base permissions are also maintained across all servers in the farm. Everything may appear to work if you do make a manual change to a service or application pool but after a full farm restart you will find strange behaviours and errors all over the place (often with search or failure to create new sites). Always follow this procedure http://support.microsoft.com/kb/934838for the Farm, Search and SSP settings. Use Central Administration/Operations/Service Accounts menu to change the Application Pool accounts for other sites.

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May
10

The purpose of this article is to help IT desktop support professionals understand the different ways a user can interact with files stored in a SharePoint document library and the implications of each method.

  1. Clicking on the document name results in Read-only copy

    This is the option that causes the most problems. In this case, the following events happen:
    1. IE downloads the document to the client's Temporary Internet Files location
    2. Client OS uses MIME association to launch the registered application (Word)
    3. Client application opens document from local disk Temporary Internet Files location
    4. Document is Read Only!
    5. Server Document Properties can't be displayed (See 2. Below)
    6. Save location is a rather random file name/location under Temporary Internet Files)
    7. If user tries to 'Save-as', Word has no idea that the document came from SharePoint so what can the user do?

    It gets even worse than this. If the user saves the document locally and then uploads it into the SharePoint library or saves directly back to SharePoint, closes Word and then re-clicks on the document link. IE , depending on its cache settings, may not download the updated document but instead serve up the cached copy to word which will not contain the users' updated document. This is a common cause for the "SharePoint is losing all my document updates" help desk call.

    Office 2007 improves this situation by detecting that the document has come from a SharePoint site and allowing the user to switch into Edit mode

    Office 2007 also pre-empts the http download with this dialog box
     Office Read or Edit document from SharePoint Document Library

  2. Using the drop-down menu (preferred method for editing documents)

    This cause the following chain of events:
    1. The Edit menu item calls a javascript function that creates an ActiveX object http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms454230.aspx
    2. The ActiveX control launches Word and then automates word to open the document using the Web-DAV protocol http://www.webdav.org
    3. Because Web-DAV was used to open the document, Word knows where to save it back to
    4. After word closes or the browser gets focus, the web page is refreshed to tow the updated document properties

    Because this function is performed by an ActiveX control, IE security settings must allow it. Overzealous locking down of IE security or the SharePoint site being detected as from the Internet Zone will result in this failing or the user being bugged with lots of security warnings. Best bet is to place your SharePoint sites into the Trusted Sites zone.

    There are several versions of this ActiveX control depending on which version of Office is installed. This can cause problems if you have a mixture of versions (e.g. Office 2003 and Outlook 2007 or Office 2003 and SharePoint Designer 2007) which can result in one of the following:

  • an error informing the user that they don't have a compatible version of Office installed
  • IE shuts down (especially when clicking on the New menu item or a content type from the new drop down)

If you are in this situation then the fix can be found here http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929360

Office 2007 (Office Ultimate, Professional Plus or Office Enterprise) understands content types and uses the property panel to link the SharePoint library metadata to document properties

Because the property panel is the InfoPath ActiveX control, it makes a separate SOAP call to the SharePoint server. This is why you will get two login prompts on an Extranet site using NTLM (one for Word to open the file for editing and one for the property panel form).

  1. Documents can also be edited from the Explorer view

    This also uses the Web-DAV protocol. The url is handled by the Windows XP or Vista Web-DAV Redirector in Windows Explorer which translates the url into a Universal Naming Convention (UNC) of \\server\DavWWWRoot\Site\Library.
    If you have any problems with Explorer View, see http://www.wssdemo.com/redir.aspx?ID=909
    Problems with this method:
    1. Site Administrators and Designers can place files outside of document libraries (still in the sites content database by other users will not be able to browse for them)
    2. No metadata displayed
    3. Documents remain checked out if uploaded or changed
  2. Users can map a drive letter to the library using explorer view.

    Users can cut and paste the document library URL into the path to map to but this will often fail because spaces are converted into %20 and when these are translated into the UNC format they are no longer valid.
    This also has the same disadvantages as #3.
  3. FrontPage RPC's. Not really an end user option but for a developer or ISV who wants to automate creating/updating documents with full functionality. See http://www.codeplex.com/sharepad for a sample application that uses this method.
  4. Record Center Web Service. Again, not an end user thing and only works with Record Center document libraries. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms442541.aspx
    Or install a web service like http://www.codeplex.com/wsuploadservice
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May
10

I've been out of town every week except 2 so far this year so the blogging has taken a back seat while my spare time is taken up with migrating the site onto a new Server 2008 Hyper-v environment. Apart from building the new DC, SQL Server, MOSS App server and WFE, I can also run up a few other virtual machines to try out Performance Point, Data Protection Manager and System Center.

I created 2 new web applications on the WFE (this VM has 8Gb dedicated and 2 cores) and installed the Fantastic 40 templates and the End User Training on each.

There are a few possible approaches for moving the main site content. I chose to just move the site collection content database by using SQL backup/restore and create a new web application using this restored content db. Because this is a new AD I had to change the dbo to the application pool of the web application and reset the site collection administration account. Then it was a matter of finding all the 3rd party solutions I had installed and correcting all those absolute URL's I had placed in the content. I plan on the new site using forms based authentication so I'm using another url for the NTLM zone.

I have cut over the DNS for www.wssdemo.com (The SilverLight demo isn't working on the new server yet). That will have to wait until next week as I'm off to Auckland again this week. It is only an hour flight but I have already managed to read 5 novels on the plane this year. I'm trying to get through all the Lee Child books this year and number 6 will be Killing Floor.

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May
10

I've been out of town every week except 2 so far this year so the blogging has taken a back seat while my spare time is taken up with migrating the site onto a new Server 2008 Hyper-v environment. Apart from building the new DC, SQL Server, MOSS App server and WFE, I can also run up a few other virtual machines to try out Performance Point, Data Protection Manager.

I created 2 new web applications on the WFE (this VM has 8Gb dedicated and 2 cores) and installed the Fantastic 40 templates and the End User Training on each.

There are a few possible approaches for moving the main site content. I chose to just move the site collection content database by using SQL backup/restore and create a new web application using this restored content db. Because this is a new AD I had to change the dbo to the application pool of the web application and reset the site collection administration account. Then it was a matter of finding all the 3rd party solutions I had installed and correcting all those absolute URL's I had placed in the content. I plan on the new site using forms based authentication so I'm using another url for the NTLM zone.

I have cut over the DNS for www.wssdemo.com (The SilverLight demo isn't working on the new server yet). That will have to wait until next week as I'm off to Auckland again this week. It is only an hour flight but I have already managed to read 5 novels on the plane this year. I'm trying to get through all the Lee Child books this year and number 6 will be Killing Floor.

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