stsadm -o createsiteinnewdb

Ever used the createsiteinnewdb and passed in a database name only for MOSS to use one of it's PIA Guid ones? Well check that if the command had failed before that the MDF and LDF files had not been created. Have a look in Data and delete if it exists.

MOSS 2007 SP2 Expiration Issue

MOSS SP2 Expiration Issue there is an issue where the expiration date on an SP2 updated server will as they say “During the installation of SP2, a product expiration date is improperly activated. This means SharePoint will expire as though it was a trial installation 180 days after SP2 is deployed. The activation of the expiration date will not affect the normal function of SharePoint up until the expiration date passes. Furthermore, product expiration 180 days after SP2 installation will not affect customer’s data, configuration or application code but will render SharePoint inaccessible for end-users.”

How’s that for an issue!!!

401.1 Unauthorized access

Our Infrastructure 'guru' has advised that, the IE7 update be removed and the registry entry be deleted while he investigates it further.

401.1 Unauthorized access

IE7 Security Update KB963027

After installing this update IE7 stopped authorizing access to sites on our MOSS 2007 SP2 box. Unistall this update and it allows access.

If you leave the update in place (recommended) I found method 2 worked http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;896861

MOSS 2007 & WSS 3.0 SP2

MOSS 2007 & WSS 3.0 SP2 released

Adding Metadata to a MOSS 2007 Publishing Portal

I found a way of adding MetaData to each page within a public facing website. There are still discussions on whether it is of any value, as some search engines don't always read it, to change the description and keywords.

In the Content Type(s) that the pages use add three fields - one for page title that will appear in the browser and will not affect the title used for the .aspx and in menus, one for the description as for some reason the description added when the page is created is not used (though I don't know it is crawled and returned in search results) and keywords.

I didn't add these fields to the page layout as there are lots of pages for our Marketing department, who own the content, to redo.

I'll post up the rest of the code tomorrow as I don't have the code at home.

Create custom 404 in MOSS 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941329/en-us

We had an issue where our new site had the same Url as the old one and Google search results were returning the old one which was no longer visible (Url pointing to new IP address) the above link is to the Microsoft Knowledge Base article for a solution. It worked for us.

Content Deployment Manifest Reader

I found this tool from Maxime Bombardier about troubleshooting content deployment issues along with a link to an excellent tool for debugging the manifest file to see where the content deployment is failing.

http://blogs.msdn.com/maximeb/archive/2008/05/16/sharepoint-content-deployment-manifest-reader.aspx

Remote debugging

I was looking at a way to get remote debugging working for debugging MOSS custom webparts from an VS2008/XP PC to the Win2003 server running MOSS.

The section “The Remote Debugging Monitor is the one accepting your debug calls and the talking back to Visual Studio on your client, so to get these things to work you have to start the client as the user running Visual Studio (or have administrative permissions on the client). You can either log in to the remote host using that user or, as I prefer, right-click on the msvsmon.exe and choose Run As... Make sure that the user you are using to run the monitor with is member of the local Administrators group.” was a ‘gotcha’ that I missed first time round.

http://www.wictorwilen.se/Post/How-to-get-Remote-Debugging-work-properly.aspx

Do remember that when you attach to the w3p process during debugging it will prevent other users on MOSS from performing any actions.

Ted Patterson Free Webcast

Introduction to SharePoint 2007 Development Using Features and Solution Packages Instructor: Ted Pattison Date: January 20, 2009 Time: 1 - 2 PM EST Price: FREE!

In this one hour seminar, Ted Pattison will give you a jumpstart into the world of SharePoint development and explain how Features make it possible to design and implement reusable business solutions. Ted will also show you how to develop Features using a Visual Studio 2008 project as well as how to build a solution package which will enable you to deploy and to update your Features in a production environment using best practice techniques. Register today at http://cts.vresp.com/c/?TedPattisonGroup/a4a92fb4b0/a244052983/c1faaf5642

Announcing: Community Technology Preview of Visual Studio 2008 extensions for SharePoint v1.3

Announcing: Community Technology Preview of Visual Studio 2008 extensions for SharePoint v1.3

There is a CTP for VS2008 extensions for Sharepoint released.

The final release of VSeWSS 1.3 is planned for the North American Spring of 2009.

Removing Webparts

I had an instance where I needed to remove webparts from a page but MOSS would allow it in the usual manner directly from the page. To get around this append ?contents=1 to the url and you can check off which parts to remove – the page needs to be in edit mode for this to work.

MSDN: Prescriptive Guidance for MOSS 2007 WCM Sites

I found this on Andrew Connell’s excellent site

http://andrewconnell.com/blog/archive/2008/10/09/NOW-AVAILABLE-MSDN-Prescriptive-Guidance-for-MOSS-2007-WCM-Sites.aspx

Still around

One final requirement that our end users had was that there should be a vertical menu system that would hide previously selected items and expend the current selection. The OOTB ASP.Net menu system did some of this but when displaying a deep hierarchy it didn't quite do what we wanted it to do. Dipping back into an OOTB publishing site and creating the predicted hierarchy to see how MOSS dealt with showed that after 3 levels the vertical menu gets truncated and a horizontal breadcrumb is created. The breadcrumb was the problem as none of our templates had a breadcrumb in. To resolve the issue we ended up buying the Telerik RAD Controls suite and using the Treeview for the navigation. The styling of the Treeview was done by adding the relevant CSS information into our site CSS.

With the deployment to our production environment, which so far has gone well, focus has moved to Phase 2. In the first part of this phase all the building blocks have been, or will be created, which include all the lists that will be used within the site.

Part of this phase will be using filtered lists - which seem like fun - where the user will select a value in one list and this will be used to populate another.

UDC Creator

Whilst we are in the final stages of our phase 1 development we're already scoping phase 2 (just for fun ;) ). Part of that exercise is to assess the best way forward for some use of forms within MOSS, more specifically, whether InfoPath would be a help or hinderance.

Whilst browsing around I found the following which is link to a UDC Creator http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb431899.aspx guess most people will have already found it but I thought it might be useful for someone.

Cannot compare two elements within an array

I had this error message appear whilst moving between our development and staging environments. I had created a backup of the site I wanted to move and copied it over to the staging environment. Created the sites, there were four host headed sites to be created on staging to replicate our production environment. On three of the sites the stsadm -o restore command worked fine and on the fourth it would not. So after much scratching around comparing features, using utilities such as WssAnalyzeFeatures and FaultyFeatures, there was nothing obvious or indeed showing up as an error.

So to resolve the issue I used the stsadm -o export, to get a cab file and used the stsadm -o import -versions 2 and everything was fine.

Deployment of Reusable Content pt2

It has been confirmed that the issue with versioning of automatically updateable reusable content within content deployment is a 'known issue' and will be addressed as either a hotfix or within the next service pack.

Deployment of Reusable Content

I came across this issue the other day, which has been raised with MS who initially said they could reproduce it but now say they can't but are looking at it.

In the first instance where there is an approved version (v1.0) of the reusable content, it is added to the page and the page is deployed and the correct information is displayed.
When the reusable content is changed, so that we have a pending version (i.e. v1.1), and the deployment process is run it removes all previous versions, so that only the pending version exists, on the destination server. So if you have v2.1 pending and run the process, the destination server will have v2.1 from the source server but shows v0.1

The view on the source server is fine and so is a predeployment view (which is the site extended to Internet Zone)

Steps to reproduce the issue:

• add some reusable content, with automatic updating, and approve it
• add to a page (standard article page will do) approve the page so that it deploys
• deploy to the destination server and it works as expected
• edit the reusable content and leave it in a pending state, on the source server, this now shows as v1.0 published and v2.0 pending.
• run the deployment
• the content disappears from the destination server page that contained the original v1.0 – unexpected
• on the destination server the reusable content shows v1.0 pending with the content from v2.0 pending from the source server and no previous versions.

Both servers have WSS3.0 SP1 and MOSS 2007 SP1 installed, Windows 2003 OS

Visual Studio extensions for Visual Studio 2008

Got this from the SharePoint blogs:

Announcing the VSeWSS version 1.2!

Hi everyone, Chris Johnson from the WSS PM team here.  We are really excited and pleased to announce that Version 1.2 of the Visual Studio extensions for WSS is now available for download!

This version adds Visual Studio 2008 support to the extensions.  This is something many of you have been asking for.

Download VSeWSS 1.2 right here.

Today we are releasing the English edition of the Version 1.2 extensions.  We will be releasing the German, French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Chinese Traditional, Chinese Simplified, and Korean language versions shortly.

We know many of you have been eagerly awaiting VS2008 support, so we hope this release will help you build fantastic SharePoint solutions with the latest Visual Studio toolset.

Note:  Version 1.2 is only for Visual Studio 2008.  If you use Visual Studio 2005, you should still use Version 1.1 (download).

Also, I'm very excited to introduce: http://www.MSSharePointDeveloper.com! If you want to learn about SharePoint development, we designed this website to be the best place for you to get started. It has links to whitepapers, virtual labs, webcasts, screencasts, quickstarts, and other useful resources.  You can also download a virtual machine that has been optimized for SharePoint development and includes all the tools you need to get started. So, go to http://www.MSSharePointDeveloper.com now! It's an easy URL to remember, so pass it along to your friends!

VSeWSS User Guide

In case you have not seen our User Guide for VSeWSS, you can download it here.  It is a great resource that explains how you can use VSeWSS in many common SharePoint development scenarios.

What's in VSeWSS?

Version 1.2 of the Visual Studio 2008 Extensions for Windows SharePoint Services contains the following tools to aid developers in building SharePoint applications:

Visual Studio 2008 Project Templates

• Web Part
• Team Site Definition
• Blank Site Definition
• List Definition
• Empty SharePoint Project

Visual Studio 2008 Item Templates (items that can be added into an existing project)

• Web Part
• Custom Field
• List Definition (with optional Event Receiver)
• Content Type (with optional Event Receiver
• Module
• List Instance
• List Event Handler
• Template

SharePoint Solution Generator

This stand-alone program generates a Site Definition project from an existing SharePoint site. The program enables developers to use the browser and Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer to customize the content of their sites before creating code by using Visual Studio.

Frequently Asked Questions and Answers

• Q: Does VSeWSS 1.2 support Visual Studio 2008?
  A: Yes.

• Q: Does VSeWSS 1.2 support Visual Stuido 2005?
  A: No,  you must use Version 1.1 with Visual Studio 2005.

• Q: What additional features are in Version 1.2?
  A: For Version 1.2 we focussed on Visual Studio 2008 support only.

• Q: Does VSeWSS support Microsoft Office SharePoint Server
  A: Yes, VSeWSS supports both Windows SharePoint Services and Office SharePoint Server.

• Q: Does VSeWSS support Windows XP or "remote debugging"?
  A: No, VSeWSS only works against local SharePoint installations.

Thanks!

Chris Johnson
Program Manager – SharePoint

Publication End Date displayed

I've just had a request from our tester that the PublishingConsole.ascx control display the publication end date. Looking at the code, I thought no problem, as the publication start date, version and status are displayed, the end date must be exposed as well! Quick trip into MSDN to see the properties of the Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.WebControls to see the name guessing that it would be something similar the the PagePublishDateIndicator or the PublishingPageVersionIndicator and, you've guessed it, the end date is not exposed as an indicator.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.sharepoint.publishing.webcontrols.aspx