Ashkan's SharePoint Land

SharePoint Solution Generator is dead (for good) - Part 1

2010-10-08T02:27:00.001+01:00

SharePoint Solution Generator, part of Visual Studio 2008 extensions for Windows SharePoint Services has been a fantastic tool in SharePoint 2007 development when I needed to create a list definition and list instance quickly.

All you had to do was to create your content types,site columns, and list using SharePoint UI and apply the content types and site columns to your list, then customise your list and create views then finally point solution generator to your list and create your solution package.

Combination of the new features of SharePoint 2010 and Visual studio 2010 means no more messing around with add-ons….

SharePoint 2010 allows you to save your site as a wsp package and Visual studio allows you to import the wsp package and select the required elements to include in your solution package! sounds easy? it is :)

…so first you need to create your list as before with all required components and customisations:

1) Create your Site Content Type

2) Create your Site Columns

3) Assign your site columns to your content type

4) Create your list/library and assign your content type to your list

To be able to do this you need to ensure you have selected “allow management of content types” from the list advanced settings

5) Save your site as WSP package

Site Action –> Site Settings –> “Save site as template”

provide a file name and a template name for your template

Download the WSP file and save locally

6) Import the WSP package into Visual Studio 2010

Create a Visual Studio SharePoint project and select “Import SharePoint Solution Package”

Import the WSP file

Specify the project elements required in this case the list template

The easiest way to do this is to highlight all items (Ctrl + A) and deselect one item. this will uncheck all boxes

Then select the “List instance” and “Content type” and click finish (You do not need to include the columns)

Say No to include all dependent items

Now you have all required components for your solution

There are a number of considerations which I will try to cover in the next posts such as including Lookup and Managed Metadata filed types in your solution.

Automated SharePoint 2010 AD service accounts creation using PowerShell

2010-10-08T01:10:00.002+01:00

As I don’t really enjoy repetitive tasks, I decided to put a quick PowerShell script together to create the AD service accounts required for SharePoint 2010.
The required accounts are:

svc_spFarm (Server farm account or database access account)
svc_spAdmin (Setup user account Install Account)
svc_caAppPool (Application Pool Identity for Central Administration web application)
svc_portalAppPool (Application Pool Identity for Portal web application)
svc_myAppPool (Application pool Identity for my sites host web application)
svc_spUPS (User Profile Synchronisation with AD)
svc_spUPAPool (User Profile Services Application Pool account)
svc_spSearch (This is the Windows Service account for the SharePoint Server Search Service. This setting affects all Search Service Applications in the farm)
svc_spCrawl (Content Access account)
svc_spSearchAP (Enterprise Search Application Pool Identity)
svc_spSearchAdmAP (Enterprise Search Admin component Application Pool Identity)
svc_fsSearch (Foundation server search account)
svc_fsCrawl (Foundation server crawl account)
svc_spSandbox (Sandbox service service account)
svc_WebAnalytics (SharePoint Web Analytics service account)
svc_SecureStore (Secure Store Application Pool service account)
svc_spSTSAcct (Security Token Service Application)
svc_spMetadata (Managed Metadata Service Account)

(Other accounts may be required depending on services running on the farm such as InfoPath services, Visio, etc…)
Please note The following additional domain , local and SQL permissions / roles are required:
svc_spAdmin:
Member of the Local Administrators group.
SQL Server login on the computer that runs SQL Server.
Member of the following SQL Server security roles:
    · securityadmin fixed server role
    · dbcreator fixed server role
    · sysAdmin fixed server role (during installation using PowerShell only)
svc_spFarm:
Member of the Local Administrators group during the user profile services configuration only.
svc_spUPS:
AD Delegate rights for Replication Directory Changes permissions
The PowerShell command takes a csv file containing the following headings:

samAccountName
userPrincipalName
cn
givenName
Password
description

Copy and paste the following into a csv file called acc.csv (ideally this needs to be an XML):
samAccountName,userPrincipalName,cn,Password,description
svc_spAdmin,svc_spAdmin@domainName.FQDN,svc_spAdmin,accountPassword,The Setup user account is used to Setup SharePoint Products Configuration
svc_spFarm, svc_spFarm@domainName.FQDN,svc_spFarm,accountPassword,The server farm account is used to Run the Microsoft SharePoint Foundation and workflow Timer ServiceWizard
svc_caAppPool,svc_caAppPool@domainName.FQDN,svc_caAppPool,accountPassword,Application Pool Identity for Central Administration web application
svc_portalAppPool,svc_portalAppPool@domainName.FQDN,svc_portalAppPool,accountPassword,Application Pool Identity for Portal web application
svc_myAppPool, svc_spAppPool@domainName.FQDN,svc_myAppPool,accountPassword,Application pool Identity for my sites host web application
svc_spUPS,svc_myAppPool@domainName.FQDN,svc_spUPS,accountPassword,User Profile Synchronisation with AD
svc_spUPAPool,svc_spUPAPool@domainName.FQDN,svc_spUPAPool,accountPassword,User Profile Services Application Pool account
svc_spSearch, svc_spSearch@domainName.FQDN,svc_spSearch,accountPassword,This is the Windows Service account for the SharePoint Server Search Service. This setting affects all Search Service Applications in the farm
svc_spCrawl, svc_spCrawl@domainName.FQDN,svc_spCrawl,accountPassword,Content Access account
svc_spSearchAP,svc_spSearchAP@domainName.FQDN,svc_spSearchAP,accountPassword,Enterprise Search Application Pool Identity
svc_spSearchAdmAP,svc_spSearchAdmAP@domainName.FQDN,svc_spSearchAdmAP,accountPassword,Enterprise Search Admin component Application Pool Identity
svc_fsSearch,svc_fsSearch@domainName.FQDN,svc_fsSearch,accountPassword,Foundation server search account
svc_fsCrawl,svc_fsCrawl@domainName.FQDN,svc_fsCrawl,accountPassword,Foundation server crawl account
svc_spSandbox,svc_spSandbox@domainName.FQDN,svc_spSandbox,accountPassword,Sandbox service application service account
svc_WebAnalytics,svc_WebAnalytics@domainName.FQDN,svc_WebAnalytics,accountPassword,SharePoint Web Analytics service account
svc_SecureStore,svc_SecureStore@domainName.FQDN,svc_SecureStore,accountPassword,Secure Store Application Pool service account
svc_spSTSAcct,svc_spSTSAcct@domainName.FQDN,svc_spSTSAcct,accountPassword,Security Token Service Application
svc_spMetadata,svc_spMetadata@domainName.FQDN,svc_spMetadata,accountPassword,Managed Metadata Service Account
…and now the magical one-line PowerShell command, this needs to run using the Active Directory module for Windows PowerShell.

The Active Directory module for Windows PowerShell in Windows Server® 2008 R2 is a Windows PowerShell module (named ActiveDirectory) that consolidates a group of cmdlets. You can use these cmdlets to manage your Active Directory® domains, Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS) configuration sets, and Active Directory Database Mounting Tool instances in a single, self-contained package.
You can install the Active Directory module by using any of the following methods:

By default, on a Windows Server 2008 R2 server when you install the AD DS or AD LDS server roles
By default, when you make a Windows Server 2008 R2 server a domain controller by running Dcpromo.exe
As part of the Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT) feature on a Windows Server 2008 R2 server
As part of the RSAT feature on a Windows 7 computer

Start Active Directory module for Windows PowerShell and type the following:
Import-Csv acc.csv | ForEach-Object { New-ADuser -Path 'OU=Service Accounts,DC=dev,DC=local' -Name $_.samAccountName -samAccountName $_.samAccountName -userPrincipalName $_.userPrincipalName -GivenName $_.cn -description $_.description -PasswordNeverExpires $True -CannotChangePassword $True -Enabled $true -AccountPassword (ConvertTo-SecureString $_.Password -AsPlainText -force)}
in the above script I have an OU called “Service Accounts” and my domain name is “dev.local”

Security Advisory 2416728 (Vulnerability in ASP.NET) and SharePoint

2010-09-23T11:40:00.001+01:00

** Updated 24/09/2010 4:30PM ** – Updated with additional defensive workaround published by the ASP.NET team valid for ALL affected versions of SharePoint listed below.

Microsoft has recently blogged that the vulnerability in ASP.Net affects SharePoint and the workaround should be applied ASAP on every single SharePoint WFE server http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sharepoint/archive/2010/09/21/security-advisory-2416728-vulnerability-in-asp-net-and-sharepoint.aspx

Microsoft has recently released a Microsoft Security Advisory for a vulnerability affecting ASP.NET. This post documents recommended workarounds for the following SharePoint products:

SharePoint 2010
SharePoint Foundation 2010
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
Windows SharePoint Services 2.0

ISA 2006, Forms, SharePoint 2007 Extranet and Client Integration

2009-12-13T23:36:00.001Z

Anyone who has worked on SharePoint 2007 extranet project with ISA 2006 used as reverse proxy and to publish SharePoint Farm, knows about Client integration challenges…

When users try to edit a document, they are challenged and required to authenticate and even after a successful authentication, it is not possible to check the document back in to SharePoint.

This is because despite the existing session, office client initiate another session and ISA treats this as a new session.

The short answer to this problem is to configure a Persistent cookie on ISA web listener (Under Forms –> Advance)

BUT there are several security issues that are highlighted by MS and need to be considered:

A malicious attacker who obtains a persistent cookie may be able to perform a brute force attack to obtain user credentials from the cookie.
On a public computer, if the user does not log off, the session cookie can be used by the next user to access published sites. This threat can be mitigated by not enabling persistent cookies for public computers.
Spyware may be able to access the cookie.

The important point to consider here is that the client needs to be making the decision between Security and User experience / functionality

In a recent project I spent some times to identify few factors that the client needed to take into consideration when making this decision:

	This is a public or shared computer	This is a private computer
Persistent cookie file on logout	Deleted	Not Deleted but user is required to authenticate (Domain name and user name are saved)
Persistent cookie file when user closes the browser	Not Deleted - Session is available before cookie timeout	Not Deleted - Session is available before cookie timeout
Temporary Internet Files	Enabling persistent cookie has no effect	Enabling persistent cookie has no effect
Temporary Draft Files	Enabling persistent cookie has no effect	Enabling persistent cookie has no effect
Ability to open documents on SharePoint within session time (browser closed)	Yes	Yes

FAQ:
Q) Is the cookie hashed e.g. using Hashed MACs (HMACs)?
A) Yes

Q) Are server tokens erased after session end?
A) Yes

Q) Is the cookie transmitted via SSL?
A) It is highly recommended

Q) Are Temporary Internet files deleted when session ends?
A) No, But this is not caused by the persistent cookie

Q) Are copy of the draft documents deleted if the user fail to check in / overwrite checkout?
A) No, But this is not caused by the persistent cookie

Q) are there any extra consideration when accessing the site though Kiosk Stations when using persistent cookies?
A) Yes the followings should be considered:

Do not select “This is a private computer”.
Perform logoff on published applications.

Additional consideration when accessing the site though Kiosk Stations (regardless of the usage of the persistent cookies):

Delete cookies after you finish using published applications.
Delete temporary Internet files.
Delete temporary files that Office created when working with Microsoft Office SharePoint® Portal Server.
Delete any files that were manually downloaded to the kiosk.
Close all browser windows.
Log off from Windows, if possible.

Windows 7: Boot from VHD

2009-12-13T22:42:00.004Z

Recently I have been forced to look into available options to best utilise the amount of memory available on my laptop to be able to run SharePoint 2010 VMs. There are number of options available to do this, but I have tried to simplify this as much as possible to speed up the VHD file creation and imaging process.
1) Create a partition to store the VHD; optional (I had to do this since my primary partition is BitLocker encrypted)
2) Download the VHD tool box from http://cid-1dc3b1edb30aea44.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/VHDToolBox.zip
This tool box includes:

WIM2VHD.wsf – WIM to VHD Converter
ImageX.exe 64-bit (32-bit available from http://depositfiles.com/files/4563922)
Bcdedit.exe- Command-line tool for managing BCD stores
intlcfg.exe - The International Settings and Configuration tool (Intlcfg.exe) is used to configure the language and locale settings in a Windows image

3) Copy the Install.Wim from the OS media to the VHDToolBox folder
4) Now you are ready to create your VHD. Start command prompt and navigate to the VHDToolBox folder and run the script:
There are a number of switches you will need to know:
/wim: specifies the path to the WIM file
/sku: OS version (ServerStandard, Ultimate etc…)
/vhd: specifies the path and the name of the VHD to be created
/size: specifies the size of the VHD in MB
/disktype: specifies the type of disk, Dynamic or Fixed
For example to create a Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise VHD on a 40GB Fixed disk we would use the following command:
cscript wim2vhd.wsf /wim: C:\VHDToolBox\install.wim /sku:SERVERENTERPRISE /vhd:F:\2K8_R2_SP2010_01.vhd /size:40960 /disktype:Dynamic/Fixed
Note: to find the sku you could run the following imagex command on your install.wim file:
Imagex /info “<install.wim location>”
5) Next you need to use bcdedit.exe to add an entry to the boot menu:

bcdedit /copy {current} /d "My New VHD Description" (This will Return the GUID of the Loader Object that you will use to replace <guid> below)
bcdedit /set <guid> device vhd=[driveletter:]\<directory>\<vhd filename>
bcdedit /set <guid> osdevice vhd=[driverletter:]\<directory>\<vhd filename>
bcdedit /set <guid> detecthal on

That’s it, enjoy

Get Ready for Microsoft SharePoint 2010

2009-11-24T23:25:00.001Z

Certification Path for IT professionals

70-667 TS: Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Configuring
Microsoft Official Curriculum: Will cover configuration of SharePoint 2010 including deployment, upgrade, management and operation on a server farm.
70-668 PRO: SharePoint 2010, Administrator
Microsoft Official Curriculum: Will cover advanced SharePoint 2010 topics including capacity planning, topology designing and performance tuning.

Certification Path for Developers

70-573 TS: Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Application Development
Microsoft Official Curriculum: Five-day instructor-led course designed for developers with six months or more of.NET development experience. Course covers what you need to know to be an effective member of a SharePoint development team using Visual Studio 2010.
70-576 PRO: Designing and Developing Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Applications
Microsoft Official Curriculum: Five-day instructor-led training course designed for development team leads who have already passed the Developing on SharePoint 2010 technical specialist exam. The course covers choosing technologies for and scoping a SharePoint project, best practices for SharePoint development, configuring a SharePoint development environment, advanced use of SharePoint developer features and debugging of code in a SharePoint project.

https://partner.microsoft.com/40121316?msp_id=sharepoint2010ready

SharePoint 2010: Getting Started with Development on SharePoint 2010 Hands-on Labs in C# and Visual Basic

2009-10-29T11:12:00.001Z

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=C010FC68-B47F-4DB6-B8A8-AD4BA33A35C5&displaylang=en#filelist

SharePoint 2010 for Project Management Success

2009-10-29T11:10:00.001Z

SharePoint 2010 for Project Management Success from Dux Raymond Sy on Vimeo.

Determine hardware and software requirements (SharePoint Server 2010)

2009-10-29T11:07:00.001Z

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262485(office.14).aspx

Install SharePoint Server 2007 on Windows Server 2008 R2

2009-10-04T15:09:00.001+01:00

From: Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies Team Blog

Starting from Service Pack 2, Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and SharePoint Server 2007 support Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2008 SP2. When you try to install SharePoint bits on Windows Server 2008 R2 directly, you may see the following dialogue:

This is because Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and SharePoint Server 2007 bits without SP2 slipstreamed are not supported on Windows Server 2008 R2. The KB article 962935 is not live on the web site yet.

To install on Windows Server 2008 R2, for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 you can download the slipstream builds here:

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 with SP2 (x86)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=EF93E453-75F1-45DF-8C6F-4565E8549C2A&displaylang=en

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 with SP2 (x64)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=9FB41E51-CB03-4B47-B89A-396786492CBA&displaylang=en

For SharePoint Server 2007, you can follow Create an installation source that includes software updates (Office SharePoint Server 2007) to create one. Or you can also read on, we will go through the complete steps to create a new slipstream build for SharePoint Server 2007.

Installation Steps

1. Copy the content of SharePoint Server 2007 setup files from the installation media to a folder on your hard drive.

2. Delete everything inside Updates folder.

3. Download Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SP2 and Office SharePoint Server 2007 SP2 to a folder.

Make sure your Office SharePoint Server 2007 SP2 is downloaded after July 29^th.

4. Open a command prompt, change directory to the folder you put the downloaded patches, and run the following two commands:

wssv3sp2-kb953338-x64-fullfile-en-us.exe /extract:[Path to installation bits]\Updates /quiet

officeserver2007sp2-kb953334-x64-fullfile-en-us.exe /extract: [Path to installation bits]\Updates /quiet

Change [Path to installation bits] to where you put the bits. These will extract all the content from the two packages to Updates folder. SharePoint installation program will automatically read this folder to apply the patches.

5. Delete wsssetup.dll. This is a very important step so please don’t miss it.

6. If you also need the Cumulative Updates to be applied when install SharePoint, download the latest Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and SharePoint Server 2007 Cumulative Update packages and extract them into Updates folder like step 4.

7. Your slipstream build of SharePoint Server 2007 is done!

8. Go and install it on your Windows Server 2008 R2 box, after the installation, the site version will show 12.0.0.6421 or possibly a higher version if you added additional cumulative update files.

Web Application, Site Collection and Sub-Site

2009-08-20T10:57:00.001+01:00

SharePoint Terminologies and Hierarchy

Following diagram illustrates the SharePoint hierarchy:

Web Application, Site Collection and Sub-Site

The following points are to be considered when deciding on an extranet site structure and usage of SharePoint Components.

· Administration Overhead

· Scalability

· Upgrade Scope

· Backup/Restore

· Security

· Search Settings

· Audit/IRM Settings

· Feature Scope

· Recycle Bin

· Usage Reporting

· Branding

· Navigation

· Content Rollup and Aggregation

· Content Type / Site Column Scope

Backup and Restore

· Full fidelity backups are only possible at the site collection level

· If a sub-site needs to be restored then the entire site collection must be restored

· 3rd party solutions offer full fidelity recovery at more granular levels

Security

· Site Collections allow security groups and permissions to be isolated from other site collections

· Management is more complex with site collections

· Difficult to see what access a user has across site collections

· No OOTB way to synchronize settings across site collections

· Usage of Site collections can reduce the need to break security inheritance

· Site Collections can be used to overcome SharePoint group limitations (Cannot go over 2000 users or AD groups in a single ACL)

Feature Scope

· Features can be scoped to a Site Collection or Web (or Farm or Web Application)

· You can prevent access to certain functionality by using site collections

o Some Features must be scoped to a site collection

o You might have to activate a Feature thereby (potentially) making functionality available to all users/contributors/designers of a site

Search

· Search Scopes are defined at the site collection level (You can create shared scopes via the SSP but they must be “activated” at each site collection)

· Best bets and keywords are site collection scoped (Use a single search centre)

· Settings must be manually (or programmatically) synchronized across site collections

Scalability

The single most critical reason for using multiple site collections is scalability

· Limit content databases to 100GB (50GB recommended, 100GB maximum)

· If you must go over 100GB then use only 1 site collection in the content database

· You will encounter performance issues and possibly deadlock conditions (if over 100GB)

· Split content approaching 100GB in a site collection into a new site collection in a separate content database (STSADM)

· Site collections cannot live across content databases

· Web applications can have multiple content databases attached to them

Reporting

· Usage reports are scoped at the site collection

· There is no out of the box mechanism to get cross site collection usage reports

o SSP administrators can get search query reports which span site collections

· Many 3rd party products produce much more useful/sophisticated reports for cross site collection reporting

Branding

· Master pages and CSS can be used to enforce a consistent branding experience

· Use Themes for as much as possible so that the application/system pages will be branded

· Use Feature Stapling to automatically apply the branding. This provides a seamless experience for the end-user

Content Types / Site Columns

Features could be used to deploy to consistent Content Type and Site Columns across multiple Site Collections
It is important that the Content Type ID remains the same – creation via the browser does not allow setting the ID across site collections

Cross Site Configuration

Solution Accelerator from MSFT (http://www.codeplex.com/SPConfigurator)
The tool automates the process of deploying site settings in all or selected sites in a server farm:
- Applying Master Pages across a SharePoint server farm
- Setting up Web Titles for all or selected site collections across the farm
- Applying audit control settings to all or selected sites
- Adding advanced settings such as “Allow content type management” to all types of lists
- Adding a new Expiration Policy at the site collection level
- Adding a new Expiration Policy to content types, lists, and documents

Useful TechNet links for Planning, Designing; Securing an Extranet (SharePoint Server 2007)

2009-06-18T17:00:00.001+01:00

Plan authentication methods (Office SharePoint Server)

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262350.aspx

Design extranet farm topology (Office SharePoint Server)

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263513.aspx

Downloadable book: Planning an Extranet Environment for Office SharePoint Server

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262400.aspx

Planning, Designing; Securing an Extranet and Internet Facing WSSv3 and SharePoint Server 2007 Environments

http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2006/08/08/planning-designing-amp-securing-an-extranet-and-internet-facing-wssv3-and-sharepoint-server-2007-environments.aspx

External Collaboration Toolkit for SharePoint

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc268155.aspx

Useful Sharepoint Links

2009-06-16T16:57:00.000+01:00

A fantastic blog from pareshj

Useful Links

· MOSS Video Demos (Total 14 Modules)
· Before You Begin with SharePoint Server 2007
· MOSS Tools for performance and capacity planning
· Downloadable book: Planning and architecture for Office SharePoint Server 2007
· MOSS 2007 - Planning and Architecture for Office SharePoint Server 2007
· MOSS 2007 - Administrator Guide
· Complete reference of all STSADM operations
· Using the 2007 Microsoft Office system for disaster planning and response
· Planning and Designing SharePoint Products and Technology Solutions for Geographically Dispersed Sites
· Complete reference of all STSADM operations
· Complete reference of all PSCONFIG operations

Best Practices

· Before You Begin with SharePoint Server 2007
· Best Practices Analyzer for WSS 3.0 and MOSS2007
· Writing SQL Syntax Queries for Relevant Results in MOSS2007
· Backing Up and Restoring Web Sites with Stsadm
· Downloadable book: Planning and architecture for Office SharePoint Server 2007
· MOSS Hardware and Software Requirements
· SharePoint 2007 products comparison download
· Which SharePoint technology is right for you?
· White Paper: Working with large lists in Office SharePoint Server 2007
· MOSS Tools for performance and capacity planning

How to Deploy updates for SharePoint 2007

· Deploy software updates for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
· Deploy software updates for Office SharePoint Server 2007
· How to troubleshoot common errors that occur when you run the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard

How to configure Alternate Access Mappings (AAM) successfully
· http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/blogs/fromthefield/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=8

What every SharePoint administrator needs to know about Alternate Access Mappings

· http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2007/03/06/what-every-sharepoint-administrator-needs-to-know-about-alternate-access-mappings-part-1.aspx
· http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2007/03/19/what-every-sharepoint-administrator-needs-to-know-about-alternate-access-mappings-part-2-of-3.aspx
· http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2007/04/18/what-every-sharepoint-administrator-needs-to-know-about-alternate-access-mappings-part-3-of-3.aspx

STSADM COMMANDS

· Jose Barreto's Blog Complete reference of all STSADM operations (with parameters) in MOSS 2007 SP1
· Jose Barreto's Blog Complete reference of all STSADM operations (with parameters) in MOSS 2007

SharePoint Administration Toolkit
· SharePoint Administration Toolkit (Office SharePoint Server)

TCP Chimney should be disabled

· http://support.microsoft.com/kb/942861
· The Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Scalable Networking Pack release

SharePoint Accessibility Resources

2009-01-29T13:43:00.000Z

It has been a while since I have posted anything; this is mainly because I have been extremely busy and lack of personal time...
I found the following resource on SharePoint Accessibility extremely useful. This is taken from Sanjay Narang's blog....

"I've been working on implementing accessibility requirements for a public facing site on MOSS. Though keywords such as "SharePoint accessibility" provide a number of results on Live Search or any other engine, I had difficult time in searching the appropriate resources. Thought it would be worthwhile sharing the resources that I found and providing a context around them. Here are these resources:

Microsoft's Statements/Papers on SharePoint Accessibility
We have couple of white papers and articles on this topic, however, search engines are yet to rank them better to come towards the top. Here are these:

Article: Accessibility features (as provided by Office Online)
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointserver/CH100948721033.aspx

Blog: Improvements in accessibility – Blog entry on SharePoint Team blog by Lawrence Liu. Though it's pretty old entry (April 2006) and was written for pre RTM version, but you can find a good summary of new and improved accessibility features. Most of this holds for RTM also. The blog groups the improvement areas in categories such as Headings, Navigation, Keyboard, Graphics, High Contrast – Low Vision, HTML Controls and also relates them to specific checkpoints from WCAG 1.0
http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2006/04/24/improvements-in-accessibility.aspx

Whitepaper: Deliver accessible solutions by using Office SharePoint Server - This downloadable white paper provides information and guidelines about the issues that organizations face when delivering Web solutions, including those built by using Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 that are accessible to people with disabilities. It's a pretty good paper to read when you are starting your journey on accessibility. It describes the available out-of-the-box (OOB) accessibility features in MOSS 2007 and also provides a very good summary on Accessibility Kit for SharePoint (AKS). If you want to know all about AKS in 4 pages, this is the article to read. However, if you are looking for best practices or implementation approaches – you need to look for a different paper. Have a look at the next one
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc668367.aspx

Whitepaper: Best practices for developing accessible Web sites - This downloadable white paper provides information about designing and developing accessible Web sites in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. If you are looking for implementation best practices that you couldn't find in the white paper listed above, this is a very useful resource. In this paper, Waldek Mastykarz, provides tips and techniques that are categorized in different areas such as General (HTML, javascript), .Net, MOSS, and IIS. You'll find tips such as appropriate MIME type, things to ensure while writing custom controls e.g. use Render method RenderControl
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc716527.aspx

Other Resources
Blog: SharePoint Accessibility - Is MOSS 2007 accessible? – Provides a quick comparison of SPS 2003 and MOSS 2007 with Priority 1 requirements
http://www.21apps.com/sharepoint/sharepoint-accessibility-is-moss-2007-accessible/

Article: Building ASP.NET 2.0 Web Sites Using Web Standards - Though, this article provides the best practices for ASP.net in general, it is very useful from SharePoint perspective for developing custom web parts, field controls, web controls and user controls. The article provides the basic knowledge of mechanisms available within the ASP.NET 2.0 platform which support developing accessible web sites. This contains a lot of examples that would be useful for people who are new to accessibility. The techniques provided here would be mostly used while writing the "Render" or "CreateChildControls" methods. For example, you'll find this tip from this paper: "Provide an AssociatedControlId property when declaring an ASP.NET Label controls, so that the control renders a tag."
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa479043.aspx

Blog: CSS Friendly Control Adapters in SharePoint 2007 (A Walk-Through) – Provides step-by-step walkthrough of how to use CSS Friendly Adapters, which are very helpful in creating CSS only, standards compliant controls (like the menu and treeView) for easy styling. These would be useful in areas where you'd like to use OOB navigation control in a publishing site.
http://www.sharepointblogs.com/mossman/archive/2007/03/08/css-friendly-control-adapters-in-sharepoint-2007-a-walk-through.aspx

Blog: Web part zone adapter – if you are using web part zone, it is difficult to be compliant as web part zones use HTML tables for layout purposes. This adapter does a nice job on converting those table tags to div tags.
http://blogs.msdn.com/eigilm/archive/2008/10/07/web-part-zone-adapter.aspx

Blog: Another day, another accessible MOSS website - Provides a step-by-step walkthrough on how to go about developing an accessible site
http://blog.thekid.me.uk/archive/2007/05/01/another-day-another-accessible-moss-website.aspx

Toolkits
Accessibility Kit for SharePoint (AKS) – this kit is used by HiSoftware in collaboration with Microsoft and free for use. One thing you'd like to know that, the kit provides maximum use when you use SharePoint OOB UI and controls. If you are building a publishing site, where most of the controls and UI are custom developed, AKS can be used for references purpose mostly.
http://aks.hisoftware.com

Presentation: Accessibility Kit for SharePoint - Building Accessible Websites on MOSS 2007 – slide deck from session at SPC2008; provides some screenshots on how AKS kit works, which is sometimes difficult to understand through the documentation that comes with the installer
http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2008/03/19/slidedeck-for-accessibility-kit-for-sharepoint-building-accessible-websites-on-moss-2007-session-at-spc2008-now-available.aspx

ARF – Definition as provided at its web site - ARF is a FREE (open source) development framework for SharePoint, both MOSS and WSS. It provides a consistent solution to common problems found in SharePoint publishing development.
http://www.spworks.co.uk/arf/what.aspx

SharePoint Compliancy Toolkit - has been designed to help you achieve the accessibility level as described in Webrichtlijnen (Dutch government accessibility guidelines comparable to WCAG 1.0 Priority 2+)
http://www.sharepointblogs.com/tmt/archive/2007/10/20/Accessible-Web-Content-Management-Solutions-based-on-Microsoft-Office-SharePoint-Server-2007.aspx

Accessibility in General
E-Book: Understanding Accessibility - A Guide to Achieving Compliance on Web Sites and Intranets will assist you in achieving compliance with U.S. federal standards and W3C Guidelines for Web content. From the book home page – "This book is for Web Authors, Project Managers and basically any individual or team that is faced with the challenge of creating an accessible Web site or retrofitting a Web site to make it accessible. If you are new to accessibility we suggest you start at the beginning and read the entire book. If you are tasked with repairing sites that are not accessible, this book will serve as a reference and guide. If you review sites for accessibility this book will help you to select tools and understand accessibility requirements."
http://www.hisoftware.com/uaccess/Index.html

W3C Resources:
Official W3C Recommendation for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 - http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/
Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) – Provides all resources from W3C such as Introductions, Techniques and Guidelines on Managing and Evaluating Accessibility
http://www.w3.org/WAI/

Filed under: SharePoint, Accessibility, Resources, MOSS, WSS
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Downgrading from MOSS Enterprise to Standard

2007-06-26T11:26:00.000+01:00

Prepare and Backup

1. Backup all SQL databases

2. Make a List of Web applications and related IIS site, Application Pool and Content Database.

3. Disable enterprise feature at Farm Level, for each web application and for all sites

4. Note which server is hosting SharePoint Central Administration and confirm that there are no pending or failed backup/restore or upgrade timer jobs.

5. Make a list of every server that host SharePoint Central Administration.Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0\WSS\ServerRole and record the value. Repeat these steps for each server with MOSS installed

6. Backup the 12.0 hive from the registry (Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0 Right Click on 12.0 and click Export)

7. Now edit the registry key by renaming the dsn key. Navigate to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0\Secure\ConfigDB\dsn] Right click on dsn and click rename

8. Purge the old configuration wizard logs. From command prompt type "cd "%programfiles%\common files\microsoft shared\web server extensions\12\logs" Then type del psc*.log

9. Check to see if you have installed any language packs and uninstall them.

Uninstall Enterprise Edition

10. Now uninstall MOSS Enterprise from Add/Remove Programs. This will uninstall MOSS completely from your machine but will not delete any of your data.

11. Reboot your server

Install Standard Edition

If you have more than one MOSS server repeat these steps for all servers in the farm.
Now that all servers have had MOSS uninstalled from them and have been rebooted you need to install MOSS 2007 Std. You will perform the following steps on one server at a time. Start with the web front end server that previously hosted Central Admin and then you may do all additional servers in any order. Perform only on one server at a time. If any server fails resolve the issue before continuing to the next server.

1. De-Select the box for running the Configuration Wizard and click Close.

2. Now install any necessary language packs on the server. Instructions found here.

3. Once all servers have been installed return to your original web front end server which will host SharePoint Central Administration.

4. Click Start > All Programs > Microsoft Office Server > SharePoint Configuration and Technologies Configuration Wizard.

5. Click Next at the Welcome screen.

6. At the warning message click Yes.

7. At the Completing SharePoint screen you should see your database and database server listed. Click Next.

8. You will see a warning message reminding you to install MOSS on all servers in your farm before proceeding. Ignore this warning message and click Ok

Post Configuration

Now find out what your servers search topology is.

1. Go to SharePoint Central Administration and click the Operations tab

2. From Topologies and Services click Services on Server

3. If the Office SharePoint Server Search is started from the command line on this server you need to run the command stsadm -o osearch -action start

4. Recreate Web application Using the Existing IIS site and Application Pool and attach the content databases to them