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SharePoint Server & Office 2010 RTM April, on shelves May 12th!

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen) — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 12:54:00 +0000

Yes, SharePoint Server & Office 2010 RTM April, on shelves May 12th! Which is earlier than I expected, good job guys! Full details of launch event here: http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/businessproductivity/proof/pages/2010-launch-events.aspx#fbid=K5ZL4HL0icI

Why is it such a pain to give someone access to the SSP?

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen) — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 11:33:00 +0000

Thankfully, Shane's done a checklist of things to look for when granting access to the Shared Services Provider: http://msmvps.com/blogs/shane/archive/2007/08/06/give-a-user-access-to-the-ssp.aspx but, you know, I mean, sheesh!

SharePoint Evolution in London in April will be brilliant!

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 13:37:00 +0000

Well, SharePoint Evolution in London in April will of course be brilliant, because I am speaking at it but just look at the speaker list, http://sharepointevolutionconference.com/Event_Speakers.html how else would you get to be the same room as all these people at once? An event like this is always a bit more free and open than a Microsoft run event, so you will hear and learn a lot, and not just about SharePoint 2010, I am presenting on migrating from 2003 to 2007 because lot of companies are doing that now in advance of moving to 2010 in the future. Not convinced yet? I'm bringing my ukulele...

MOSS 2007 from 2003 Upgrade.

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 10:07:00 +0000

Maybe last one of those I do, but found a few interesting bits. I used the DB attach method, but 2 things went wrong, sites in the DB were not crawled, and one 10GB site was broken. The solution was to move the good Site Collections to another content DB, they were then crawled. Here are some links on the subject:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262923.aspx

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/969242

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc508854.aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms189035.aspx

Thanks to Todd Klindt for his help on this.

Setting up SharePoint 2010 - Including what hardware to get.

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 17:48:00 +0000

The public beta for SharePoint 2010 is out in 2-3 weeks, so if you don't have the hardware ready already, here's what I did. Although this is not what you'd do in production it is nice and simple.

I bought a Dell Precision 390 on eBay for about �300.

It had no monitor I connected my main monitor to it temporarily when installing everything, then remote desktoped to it after that.

I put 8GB of RAM in it. I bought that on www.memoryc.com (about another �120). Putting RAM in a machine is easy. Just get the right type, see how many slots are in the server, then put it in and reboot. Note if like me you had XP 32bit to start with, you'll not see the 8GB of RAM until you go to 64bit, which we'll do in two steps.

I then put it on my network here at home. To do that, I just stuck the network cable in the back. Make sure you have internet access, you will need it for updates and prereqs.

Installed Win2008 64bit. To do that, I downloaded the ISO, burned on to a DVD, then put the DVD in the new server, restarted and pressed F8 to boot from DVD. I then installed any updates.

Then I did the SharePoint 2010 basic install, it installed the prereqs for me too.

All was done in an hour or two, very quick and easy, much simpler than MOSS 2007 was.

So even if you don't have the beta yet, get your server ready!

Live from SPC09

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 21:09:00 +0000

I will be posting updates from the SharePoint Conference via my twitter page, go have a look!:

http://twitter.com/stephencummins

Capacity Planning.

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:04:00 +0000

Definitive article on MOSS 2007 capacity planning, well worth another look since it has been updated: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262787.aspx

SharePoint so simple your mum could understand it.

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen) — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 13:40:00 +0000

SharePoint is frustratingly hard to simplify into one sentence. "It is a collaboration tool" sounds too basic, but this little movie explains it neatly in just over three minutes: http://www.youtube.com/v/s12Jb5Z2xaE&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x2b405b&color2=0x6b8ab6&border=1

I've got the beta of SharePoint 2010 and I love it!

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen) — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 13:26:00 +0000

Can't give away anything at all, since this is a very closed beta, but this is one very nice slick UI and blasts SharePoint into the future. Woo hoo! I'll be going to the SharePoint conference in Vegas in October: http://www.mssharepointconference.com/Pages/default.aspx not because I plan on having any fun as well, oh no :-) but just to learn what I can and be involved in the launch. Very glad I got out of website design in 2001, this is way more interesting!

Requirements for SharePoint 2010

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen) — Wed, 13 May 2009 10:16:00 +0000

Better to know the requirements for sharePoint 2010 now guys!

SharePoint Server 2010 will be 64-bit only.
SharePoint Server 2010 will require 64-bit Windows Server 2008 or 64-bit Windows Server 2008 R2.
SharePoint Server 2010 will require 64-bit SQL Server 2008 or 64-bit SQL Server 2005.

Browsers:

Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8 and Firefox 3.x. running on Windows Operating Systems.�
In addition we�re planning on an increased level of compatibility with Firefox 3.x and Safari 3.x on non-Windows Operating Systems.
Due to this focus Internet Explorer 6 will not be a supported browser for SharePoint Server 2010.

http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2009/05/07/announcing-sharepoint-server-2010-preliminary-system-requirements.aspx

The question is, how will people build their dev/test environments? These are high specs for those!

Office SP2 including SharePoint Service Pack out 28th April

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen) — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 15:10:00 +0000

Details of the Office Service Pack 2 are here:

http://blogs.technet.com/office_sustained_engineering/archive/2009/04/16/service-pack-2-for-the-2007-microsoft-office-system-due-to-ship-april-28th.aspx

Download links:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=b7816d90-5fc6-4347-89b0-a80deb27a082

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=79bada82-c13f-44c1-bdc1-d0447337051b

Here's the SharePoint related bits:

"Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SP2 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server SP2 include fixes and enhancements designed to improve performance, availability, and stability in your server farms. SP2 provides the groundwork for future major releases of SharePoint Products and Technologies.

An STSADM command line that scans your server farm to establish whether it is ready for upgrade to the next version of SharePoint and provides feedback and best practice recommendations on your current environment.
SP2 offers support for a broader range of Web browsers."

More here:

http://gcn.com/articles/2009/04/21/service-pack-office-2007.aspx

Note the mention of the next version of SharePoint 2010, a scan to see if you will be compatable with the next version. Not long now folks, 2009 is going fast!

Welcome Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010.

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen) — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 17:47:00 +0000

The new name for the next version of SharePoint is oficially Microsoft SharePoint 2010, details here http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2009/Apr09/04-15Office2010.mspx

SharePoint Designer 2007 now Free!

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen) — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 07:14:00 +0000

SharePoint Designer 2007 is now free, here is the download link:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=baa3ad86-bfc1-4bd4-9812-d9e710d44f42

On one hand this is great, since is shows MS wants to invest more in giving users more power on the SharePoint platform. But this putting more power in the hands of users takes it away from us specialists and developers. But that is something we will have to accept.

SharePoint is a success because it gives users so much more freedom to share and create their own structures and content via the web, now they will have the freedom to extend and develop their sites. If they mess things up, there is still the wonderful "reset to site definition" button :-) And you still need admin rights to install it, so not everyone in your organisation will be able to download it and start hacking away at your lovely "Out of the Box" SharePoint Farm.

10 New SharePoint Themes.

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen) — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 02:08:00 +0000

You can get the ten new SharePoint themes here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=0a87658f-20b8-4dcc-ad7a-09ad22641f3a

Keep your SharePoint up to date!

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen) — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 17:49:00 +0000

There are a ton of new updates here for SharePoint:

http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2009/03/09/uber-packages-of-february-cumulative-update-are-ready.aspx

I am a Twit(erer)

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen) — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 14:16:00 +0000

I resisted as long as I could, but now I see the charm of Twitter, so quick and easy! http://twitter.com/stephencummins The only thing I worry about is I am already tracking so many people (about 50) that I barely get to read about 10 a day. But this may kill off my blogging after 8 years. Time will tell I guess.

SharePoint Online and jQuery

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen) — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 07:39:00 +0000

SharePoint going online is, I think a great idea. There are cost savings of course, and it makes capacity planning easier, and working out licencing, but there is also the fact that more companies need to access their SharePoint from all over the world, and distributed architectures can be complex and costly. Latency can mess up the user experience and make updating the search index slow. But with a web-based model, those issues shrink because everything is on the internet.

The problem with SharePoint Online is what do you do if you want more than the plain vanilla SharePoint? If someone else owns the hardware and software, they do not want to give you permission to install your own code on their machines. So what is the middle ground? I think the potential of client-side scripting is the answer. jQuery is a javascript platform that allows for a range of cool things to be done that are easy to add, update, version control, test and deploy. Here is some more detail: http://www.sharepointjoel.com/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=178

So in the future, SharePoint will be out-of-the-box, but companies will be able to change the look and functionality completely without ever making a change on the server, and this will make a world where all our software is "in the cloud" one step closer.

You can have it all!

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen) — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 12:59:00 +0000

OK, you can't really have it all, but you can have SharePoint as your front end and 3rd party repositores as the back end like Documentum and Interwoven, in other words, the content in the other systems, but all the benefits of SharePoint too like workflows, task lists, and extensible metadata.

The details are here:�http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd440954.aspx

There is also a Code Gallery project on how to do it:�http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/spextcontent

Adjusting the maximum file upload size in MOSS

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen) — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 09:36:00 +0000

The default maximum file upload size for MOSS is 50MB, with 2GB being the limit imposed by SQL Server. In some cases, like with AutoCAD because of the fact that files are associated with each other, or with large graphic files, I would say stick to a file share, it will be faster and cheaper, but if you do need to store everything in MOSS, here are the settings you need to change:
Changing the maximum file upload size seem simply a matter of changing the following setting in central admin: Central Administration > Application Management > Web Application General Settings

However, this only applied to files uploaded to Libraries, not to attachments to List items, this has to be edited in the web.config

Details of why here:
http://www.synergyonline.com/blog/blog-moss/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=8
Via STSADM, you can also change the value:
stsadm -o setproperty -propertyname max-file-post-size -propertyvalue 2000 -url http://your_moss_server/
Finally, there is the issue for search crawling larger files, this is adjusted via Central Admin and the registry, (I assume) on the indexing server:
http://admincompanion.mindsharp.com/SharePoint%20Server%202007%20Administrators%20Companion%20Wi/Crawling%20Details.aspx

Then, IIS may need adjustment:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;925083

In the end, I would say test and test again, but this information should help.

A great free tool for modeling your SharePoint environment.

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen) — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 15:34:00 +0000

This free tool from Microsoft is for modeling your SharePoint hardware architecture, it is really useful as it gives you some ideas as what to look for when designing this, I'm even running it on Vista, so there is no need to have SharePoint installed somewhere to use it:

http://www.chandima.net/Blog/archive/2008/02/12/capacity-planning-tool-for-sharepoint-and-platform-hygiene.aspx

Central Admin on mre than one server in your farm.

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen) — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 09:12:00 +0000

There is a great post on Spence Harbar's blog on how to deal with the problem that the SharePoint Central Administration Site only exists on one server, so if that server goes down, you have no way to administer your MOSS farm. The solution is to have it on more than one, and this post explains how, thanks Spence! http://www.harbar.net/articles/spca.aspx

64bit ifilter for PDFs from Adobe released.

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 19:34:00 +0000

Here is the link to the 64bit ifilter for PDFs from Adobe. I've heard of others who have tested it and it works, and it is free so many will choose it over the foxit option even if Adobe's is slower.

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=4025

Keeping up with the SharePoint world

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen) — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 10:20:00 +0000

There is so much new information out there, it is hard to keep up and keep focused on what is important, but podcasts offer a new way to get information when you're driving, on the bus or whatever. So take a look at http://sharepointpodshow.com/ They are on itunes too, so you can subscribe that way if you so choose.

SharePoint: Know the limits.

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen) — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 09:40:00 +0000

Here are a few limits you should know about when planning your SharePoint deployment:

The 2,000 rule: because stored procedure calls to SQL Server slow down as you reach 2,000 items, have less than that in a view on a List. Less than 200 ideally to have optimum performance.

Have less than 2000 AD users or groups in a SharePoint Group for the same reason. An AD group in a SharePoint group counts as one item, but the first time a user edits content in a site collection, they are added to the user list for that site collection. The best way to avoid this problem is to have lots of site collections so the users and groups are more spread out.

Indexing an item with about 1,000 entries on it's ACL (access control list) will fail. The limit is 64k for the ACL of any item being crawled, on the file system or in SharePoint. Avoid this by assigning access via AD groups rather than directly.

Any user can only be in 1024 AD groups. To avoid this, you could put the users in SharePoint groups if you think this limit might be reached.

The bottom line is you can have as many readers as you like on SharePoint site collections as you like, but if you get to between 1,500 and 2,000 contributors (to reach that 64k limit) you will get errors. Note these are Windows limits that SharePoint is dependent on since it is built on Windows. SQL adds the performance limits for views on lists.

These points are examined in more detail here as well as linking to details of the issues in MS KB articles: http://weblogs.asp.net/erobillard/archive/2008/09/11/sharepoint-security-hard-limits-and-recommended-practices.aspx thanks Eli!