SharePoint Redemption: 2008

Thursday, September 25, 2008

VMware and SharePoint

So it looks like Microsoft is finally providing support for virtualization products. I have included some links specific to VMware since I had to perform some research for a client.

This link from Microsoft: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/909840 states that "In addition to the Microsoft hardware virtualization software products, support for third-party hypervisor technology is supported for hypervisor technologies that are certified by Microsoft through the Server Virtualization Validation Program (SVVP)".

This link from VMware: http://www.vmware.com/solutions/whitepapers/new_msoft_policies.html states that VMware is SVVP certified as of August 2008.

This link from Microsoft: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957006 states that "Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Service Pack 1 and later versions are supported" in virtualized environments.

This link from Microsoft: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/944987/ states that Microsoft and VMware have established a joint support relationship (although they do not guarantee performance).

And one more for good measure: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/aug08/08-19EasyPathPR.mspx

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Updated: Antivirus Solutions for MOSS

I have rewritten this post now that there are more solutions available on the market. See links below:

Microsoft ForeFront for SharePoint (with SP1)
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/eval/fssp/default.mspx

TrendMicro PortalProtect
http://us.trendmicro.com/us/products/enterprise/portalprotect/

Symantec Protection 5.1 for SharePoint Servers
http://www.symantec.com/business/products/overview.jsp?pcid=2241&pvid=829_1

McAfee PortalShield for Microsoft SharePoint
It does not list SharePoint 2007 under the system requirements on their site but it does in the datasheet PDF so who knows...
http://mcafee.com/us/enterprise/products/email_web_security/portalshield_microsoft_sharepoint.html

Jeff

Friday, April 25, 2008

Exception occurred. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80020009 (DISP_E_EXCEPTION))

I started running into this error when attempting to create a site collection in a different language. I would browse to Central Administration and choose a different language and immediately receive "there was an error in the callback". If I continued on and ignored the error I would receive "Exception occurred. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80020009 (DISP_E_EXCEPTION))" after clicking Create. After lots of time wasted scouring the net I found a random post that said they ran into this error when they had a badly formatted webtempXXX.xml file.

http://paulgalvin.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!1CC1EDB3DAA9B8AA!126.entry

I had missed a closing quote around my hidden parameter (looked like this: HIDDEN="TRUE). I fixed it, did an iisreset, and it fixed the problem.

Jeff

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Redirect SharePoint Site to New Location

I recently had a request to move a SharePoint subsite to a new location under a different site collection. The site was moved over after performing the standard import/export stsadm commands. However, the customer also wanted the old location to perform an automatic redirect for anyone still pointing to the old location. I wanted to be able to do this without having hack up pages using designer (or other tool) or having to allow for code blocks within the default.aspx by opening my web.config up to vulnerabilities. I found the easiest way to do this was with Javascript and a Content Editor Web Part.

Add a Content Editor Web Part to the Main Page of the site.
Modify the Web Part and click on Source Editor.
Paste in the following code while changing the URLs to match your target.

<HTML>
<HEAD>
<SCRIPT language="JavaScript">

</SCRIPT>
</HEAD>

<body>
Redirecting you to the new location. If you are not redirected, click <a href="http://sharepoint">HERE.</a>
</body>
</html>

I set the redirect time to 0, but you can set it higher if you like. 1 sec = 1000, 2 sec = 2000, etc.
Save the code changes.

The fun part of this solution is the fact that the code tries to load no matter what view you are in (i.e. Standard view, Edit Page, etc). So, if you have to make changes to the code you have to let the page load but then time a press of the ESC key to keep the Javascript from loading each time.

Jeff

Friday, March 14, 2008

WSU Windows Mobile Theme - Go Cougs!!

In the spirit of my alma mater, Washington State University, and the great basketball season they are having I am posting the Windows Mobile theme I created. It has the Cougar logo on the vertical today screen and a shot of Pullman with Bryan Tower on the horizontal today screen.

Download: http://cid-65b4663a2e1f48a3.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Public/WSU%20Theme.tsk

Go Cougs!!

Jeff

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Patch to Fix Presence in SharePoint and Outlook 2007

I ran into presence not appearing in SharePoint or Outlook 2007 after my upgrade to Communicator 2007.

Microsoft recently released a patch to fix this issue.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=1ad57f8f-78f7-45f6-a8c0-805936f46645&displaylang=en

Thought I would pass it along...

Jeff

Friday, March 7, 2008

Crawling a Content Source Requiring Basic Authentication

As much as I fight basic authentication, there are still people out there who want to use it. SharePoint Enterprise Search can crawl a site requiring basic authentication through the use of Crawl Rules.

Browse to the Shared Services Provider page within Central Administration.

Click on Search Settings -> Content sources and crawl schedules.

I recommend adding the source as a new content source.

Once you have created the new content source return to the Search Settings screen.

Click on Crawl Rules -> New Crawl Rule.

Enter the path this rule will affect. Using wildcards is the easiest way to make sure the enter server is being crawled with the account specified.

Change the crawl configuration to 'Include all items in this path'. Specify other settings if necessary.

Change the authentication to 'Specify a different content access account'.

DO NOT CHECK 'Do not allow Basic Authentication'.

Click OK to save the settings and your new crawl rule will appear in the list.

Kick off a full crawl of the content source for the rule to take effect.

Simple I know. But I was hit up for this multiple times so I figured I would write a post on it.

Jeff

Who Doesn't Love Free Online Disk Space?

So I was just playing around with Windows Live Writer to test it out for posting to my blog and discovered Windows Live SkyDrive. Free 5 GB worth of disk space and you can store personal files, share with your Live Messenger friends, or share out to the general population.

The interface is very easy to use.

Windows Live SkyDrive Site: http://skydrive.live.com/

SkyDrive Team Blog: http://skydriveteam.spaces.live.com/

SkyDrive Viewer from ScottIsAFool on CodePlex: http://www.codeplex.com/SkyDriveViewer

Jeff

Monday, January 14, 2008

Hide Edit Page in Site Actions Menu

I had a request from a client to hide the Edit Page option under the Site Actions menu for all users without Full Control permissions. I performed the following steps to remove the edit page option for user's without the managesubwebs right.

Open the master page for the site.

Find the following lines of code:

       <SharePoint:MenuItemTemplate runat="server" id="MenuItem_EditPage"
        Text="<%$Resources:wss,siteactions_editpage%>"
        Description="<%$Resources:wss,siteactions_editpagedescription%>"
        ImageUrl="/_layouts/images/ActionsEditPage.gif"
        MenuGroupId="100"
        Sequence="200"
        ClientOnClickNavigateUrl="BLOCKED SCRIPTMSOLayout_ChangeLayoutMode(false);"
        />

Add to the following lines to the code:
PermissionsString="ManageSubwebs"
PermissionMode="Any"

The code should now look like:
       <SharePoint:MenuItemTemplate runat="server" id="MenuItem_EditPage"
        Text="<%$Resources:wss,siteactions_editpage%>"
        Description="<%$Resources:wss,siteactions_editpagedescription%>"
        ImageUrl="/_layouts/images/ActionsEditPage.gif"
        MenuGroupId="100"
        Sequence="200"
        ClientOnClickNavigateUrl="BLOCKED SCRIPTMSOLayout_ChangeLayoutMode(false);"
        PermissionsString="ManageSubwebs"
        PermissionMode="Any"
        />

Save the master page and login with an account that does not have Full Control, but is not read only either... The Site Actions drop down should now resemble: