MOSS UK

Powershell Command to add Poweshell ISE

2011-03-18T01:15:00.000-07:00

To use Powershell ISE (Integrated Script Env, I guess) on Win 2008 R2, the Powershell-ISE feature needed to be added

This can be done using powershell as bellow

Import-Module Servermanager;
Add-WindowsFeature "PowerShell-ISE"

SharePoint 2010 Install on Vista

2010-06-29T14:11:00.000-07:00

I had installed beta on the vista using the extraction and adding to the config

setting id="AllowWindowsClientInstall" value="True"

But when I tried to do it using my msdn subscription download this week, I couldn't figure out how to extract and get hold of config file.

Well there is no need to extract (although you will need copy all files locally if using iso), in the \Files\Setup you will find the config file and ccan add the entry there and get rid of the 'this product needs windows 2008 sp 2' error on vista.

Ingore the extrct step on http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee554869.aspx and anyway its got lot of typos. I have installed all the vista pdates hitherto hence did not bother about rest of steps either.
-Yogesh

VS 2010 - 32 bit

2009-12-06T20:38:00.000-08:00

I cannot believe VS 2010 is 32 bit.

2010 Install

2009-12-03T10:23:00.000-08:00

Yes, finally started playing with 2010.

virtualisation is not an option if hardware virtualisation is not supported by your hardware ( it might be the case that its disabled and if so you will need to enable it in bios).

My laptop although dual core did not support virtualisation hence was left with only option of host install.

first I installed vista business 64 bit edition on the laptop.

Its good idea to make it sp2 after that.

The drivers with vista 64 bit don't really work for network card like realtek or wireless, luckily still had the manufcturer CD which solved it.

Then follow the instructions carefully given at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee554869(office.14).aspx and it should work. I had missed the wcf http activation feature and setup failed but completed gracefully later.

Happy 2010 (fingers crossed!!).

Win 2008 and AppPool reset

2009-11-11T16:02:00.000-08:00

While packaging the solution over last week I realised the AppPool reset vb script is no more available on 2008 server.

Here is how only those needed can be reset rather than IISRESET

C:\windows\system32[ 64 bit also has this which is odd but legacy]\inetsrv\appcmd.exe recycle apppool "name of app pool"

appcmd is much much more than this but this one saved from that annoying wholesale reset.
appcmd list wp will list process ids
Happy packaging

Remote Desktop multiple monitors and mstsc /console

2009-06-20T16:58:00.000-07:00

MSTSC (MicroSoft Terminal Services Client - better way of remebering the command) had /console option for win 2003 for various reasons like using high previlege 0 session , reclaiming a session, connecting without using CAL etc which is not there for windows 2008 as session 0 is only for services and not for applications. There is /admin option which is used for reasons like elevated mode and can connect even when TS is in drain mode as described here
http://windowsitpro.com/article/articleid/97716/what-is-the-admin-switch-in-microsoft-terminal-services-client-mstsc-for-windows-2008-and-vista.html

Also intresting /span option can be used to grab multiple monitors.

Add KnowledgeBase Template from Application Templates

2009-06-05T05:43:00.000-07:00

Application Templates can provide good starting point.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsserver/sharepoint/bb407286.aspx

We will use the KnowledgeBase to get a working base and build on top it in future.

We will get a Keyword list, Articles with recently added, relevant articles, action to add a article page and tag and as per documentation - The template enables team members to upload existing documents or create new ones using Web-based content creation tools. Items are tagged with relevant identifying information so that others can more easily find the documents and learn from the collective knowledge in their organization. The template can be utilized in a 'top down' approach, where a centralized knowledge department 'pushes down' relevant content to the rest of the business or a 'bottom up' approach, where knowledge is captured and shared by all users as a normal part of doing business.

Overall good starting point.

Later on as we refine the functionality it will be stapeled to this site definition.

Remember to install ApplicationTemplateCore solution.

I am currently looking at the further customisation of this template particularly *** solution shall post back soon on that.

Defining the Knowledge Management solution on SharePoint/MOSS

2009-06-04T14:38:00.000-07:00

The earlier post focussed on use and key role of Wikis and Blogs and My Sites and Search in Knowledge Management. Wikis and Blogs (Usually in case of Wiki content is dynamic i.e. a Wiki page gets modified continuously where as in case of Blog the content i.e. post is static and gets enhanced using say comments ) Team site discussions and Surveys are also important in this regard.

It’s important to understand that maximum value is delivered by un-structured, informal way of knowledge sharing such as wikis and blogs. Its most simple form and with maximum value and can hit the ground running in KM initiative. These can be developed at minimal level using WSS 3.0 as platform. I say this because KM is usually perceived as massive organisational initiative which it is but that doesn't mean that KM is limited to big organisations with lot of infrastructure to support but even very small organisations can do KM with WSS 3.0 without lot of customisation efforts and can start KM initiatives around these areas and slowly add more managed capabilities around it. It will be more agile way of doing it. SharePoint as extensible platform can take the KM initiative to any extent.

Let’s start the whole KM initiative with basics first and enhancing it one by one so that one can pick up only what is needed and get going with KM. I will embed the links to posts for actual implementation in these so that this post remains a central point more like a wiki :)

Let’s say we are doing it for Suman Technologies (STL here after). STL has fully appreciated importance of KM and let’s hit the ground running by implementing it.

SR No
Requirements
Implementation Guidance Links

RC 1.0
Build a Corporate portal.
I will just use OOTB Team site collaboration template. I may add something like branding, navigation etc but let’s be more focussed on KM at this point.

RC 2.0
Build a knowledge repository for STL - Content addition

This is start of KM. KB repository will act as storage of KM assets which organisation cannot afford to lose or let them remain dispersed in collaboration portal in scattered manner (need to get 'start' meaning right here. By that I meant one of KM specific thing which happens to appear as first in this requirement listing here as I feel existence of knowledge base repository is optional if you agree with my 'natural selection' approach to KM assets in case of minimal KM. Building such repository usually bogs down KM initiative only to find later that design is in need of enhancement if not outright convoluted when KM system becomes fully functional. No defiance of Enterprise Architecture, Design Governance, Security and Capacity planning etc etc, I myself is advocator of it, Agile (success is built on top of more granular successes) side of mine says it can be done incrementally. The extent of this largely depends on organisation in picture bear in mind KM is for everyone as small as individual consultant like me to large organisations like NASA, Govt and Public sector bodies and High end and Large Consulting organisations with varying security, structured-ness, management and control, capacity needs. Its about leveraging lively benefits of unstructured , informal mode and using technology and add ons - starting with SharePoint / MOSS , WCM and publishing and metadata management and taxonomies and aggregation across site collections / external systems to custom components, WebParts using .net, Ajax, Advanced federated Search and Analytics or something as advanced as Bayesian inference (this would be the last reference to this hereafter :)) , see its limited by imagination only, rather than mandating the users, to add structure to it and managing it)
Implementation -
http://mossuk.blogspot.com/2009/06/add-knowledgebase-template-from.html

RC2.1
Allow users to add kb content - articles, documents, presentations, spreadsheets, videos, and links to external or internal content to knowledge repository from Collaboration Portal in controlled manner. KB content after submission should undergo approval before getting published on KB repository.

RC2.2
Allow the users to attach meta data tags to kb content.

RC 2.2.1
Meta data tags shall be centrally managed in KB repository and need to be mapped to one or more taxonomical areas of the KB repository. User should be prompted predictive text as she types a tag.

RC 2.2.2
There should be suggested tags area to give the User hint based on content what tags can be reused.

RC 2.2.3
Should Tag be a new one i.e. doesn't already exist, a Tag review task shall be assigned to Central KM authority as part of KB content approval.

RC 2.2.4
Content approver should be able to reclassify, change tags for the content before approving. Content approver should be able to reject/ request modification to Author adding notes

RC 2.3
Content can be uploaded to KB repository portal itself.

RC 2.4
KB repository will provide Hierarchical as well Tag driven navigation.

RC 2.5
All users should have contributory rights to KB Repository.

RC 2.6
Content can remain in Draft status and alert shall be sent to author after specified after specified days requesting completion date, after that there should be alert after that tentative date and after certain cycles of alert content can be expired with proper intimation to user

RC 2.7
Author shall get email when content is published including link to it.

RC 2.8
It should be possible to bulk load content into KB repository from existing WSS 2.0 portal

RC 2.9
It shall be possible to bulk load content into KB repository from existing ASP based KB web site.

RC 2.10
KB repository should allow creating discussion threads.

RC 2.11
KB repository should provide for applying configurable expiration policies

RC 2.12
KB repository shall audit content access and provide content usage report

RC 2.13
KB repository shall provide for allowing certain content to be restricted in view and download which might be specified by content author or approver and should provide item level security in such cases. Integration with RMS should be possible.

RC 2.14
In certain cases it shall be possible to add watermark to content

RC 2.15
In certain cases it shall be possible to prevent printing of content but viewer should be able to request if needed.

RC 2.16
Virus check shall be performed on the content and certain type of content can be blocked as part of configurable policy.

RC 2.17
It should be possible to submit/promote the article which has been created as a blog post by the user on her personal My Site

RC 2.18
System shall be able to find out and report broken links.

RC 3.0
KB Repository - view, search and aggregation

RC 3.1
All STL employees can have reader access to KB portal except areas where it would be role based. The content served would be security trimmed.

RC 3.2
KB Repository home page will have WebParts for Recently added content, Most viewed, Tag Cloud which would allow drilling down further.

RC 3.3
Search can be performed for content in the form for keyword, free text, scope limited and results would be delivered (security trimmed) with ability to filter based scope, meta tags, rating etc

RC 3.4
User can rate the article or add comment. It shall be possible to (default) or not to moderate the comment by application of policy. Comments shall be captured and stored with content

RC 3.5
if the article has been created from a post then there should be ability to synchronise either way including comments.

RC 3.6
It shall be possible in future, to exchange information in discussions internet forum on STL 's customer internet portal where customers have asked certain questions about products / services.

RC 4.0
My Sites

RC 4.1
My Sites shall be provisioned for users whenever user first time navigates ‘My Site’ in collaboration portal in global navigation

RC 4.2
My Site will allow manage user profiles management allowing administrator to update profile attributes and users provide data

RC 4.3
My site will enable user to view her calendar, manage personal documents, view and track colleagues

RC 4.4
My Sites will allow users to create a personal blog, It will be possible to push/publish the blog post to KB Repository

RC 4.5
My site blog shall integrate with MS word / one note

RC 4.6
My Site will provide navigation back to portal, user’s links within portal as well as internal applications

Wikis and Blogs and Search can they deliver Knowledge Management?

2009-06-02T20:29:00.000-07:00

I recently deliberated a lot on how SharePoint can be leveraged for Knowledge Management. I had been preoccupied with KM as more formal way of managing intelectual assets and KM also shall provide measurement of value addition.

When it comes to Wiki/Blog its about knowledge sharing. Good thing about blog is once its placed on mysite it actually ecourages postings of useful stuff as 'its on users own site' and can give some sort pride/recognition which traditional KM portals built using web technologies fail to achieve. A Top Blogger web part on corporate team site would do the trick anyway. So its great and spot on for motivating poeple to share , one of the hardest thing to achieve.

That was about Sharing , is it different from management?

Does it provide any measurable statistics about knowledge asset leverage and increased agility/productivity - Answer is (mine) some charts and graphs cannot be more important than universal truth of blogs as most effective tool for knowledge sharing on internet.

So what about the assets and their management - if someone is looking for something, she can search , read related blogs which show up in result, if found intresting contact the author , inquire if any artifacts can be shared? there you go , reuse the artifacts. Now someone would say whats the gurantee such artefact would be preserved by or shared by that author - well if the artefact is important enough be sure 90% chances it would kept by the author and is there any KM system which automatically captures 100% assets ? so its a very good deal without much cost. Now what if author doesn't want to share - that falls against the spirit of blogging and chances are rare - should it be the case you know auhtor also has a boss in the organsiation who can provide more guidance on that.

Secondly preservation of such assets on long term basis - if the asset is good it would live in the organisation for good no of years even if not with original source so theory of natural selection would apply.

Preservation of articles / posts - well they are in the list anyway.

So making KM informal does seem derive lot of value than costly solutions and all with just wikis, blog sites and my sites and search which would exists in collaboration portal anyway. So stop worrying about KM as such, you got it already.

One key technical point to note with mysite customization - feature stapling is solution as its done using self service mode.
Also Ajax rating control can be added to Post pagelayout and rating as column to Post Content Type.

Should any one be still worried about the statistics and really want to go what KM has been traditionally since mid 90's then it is achievable (you know the 'a lot' word which follows deliberated :)) with some design thought before hand which I would post in future but I would like to hear if thats needed , what you think ... should put this on InformationZen as new topic ...

MOSS Service Pack 2 bug - time bomb

2009-05-29T10:49:00.000-07:00

It appears that applying service pack 2 to MOSS server will result into interprise license being converted to trail one.

Bellow are the related posts -

http://sharepointservices.wordpress.com/2009/04/28/service-pack-2-is-now-released/

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/971620

http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2009/05/21/attention-important-information-on-service-pack-2.aspx

UKAzure Net

2009-05-19T14:52:00.000-07:00

Just attended UKAzure Net Inuagural Meeting at MS campus. There was something for architects as well as devs ( and pizzas for everyone :)).

As with any new platform, there is paradigm shift needed to over come 'not hosted here' mind set (off / on premises - new cloud parlance I will say ) and leverage platform and services which does justice to project budget or rather its a good way to get financials aligned with what project/business really needs.

The Vista Squad showed fantastic apps which were developed using Azure platform. I am sure it will be showcased somewhere soonn if not yet so will update later rather than trying draw some incomplete picture. In nutshell there is nice API to code against. I was really happy to see the API, devs back in business :)I hope to pick up on Azure soon and blog at.

http://azureuk.blogspot.com/

I will add sharepoint specific cloud to current blog.

Visual Studio - OS (VISTA/2008) - Admin prev - WSPBuilder

2009-05-11T19:43:00.000-07:00

UAC - user access control makes Visual studio to run as standard user even when logged on user has admin previleges which is good.

Same is applicable for Windows 2008, in order to WSPBuilder to deploy solution i.e. create timer job Admin previlege will be required. Now solution is to run VS as Administrator ( right click option ).

Given than entire solution is usually loaded in visual studio of which one of the project is WSPBuilder which packages everything (getting various components as post build event actions of other projects), running VS as admin just for the sake of WSP deploy would defeat the purpose of promoting development as non-admin.

There should be better solution to this, probably configuring 'Deploy' / 'Attach to worker process' options of WSPBuilder to run as Administrator. I will post back if I could get such a solution.

Well I tried creating new process to runas administrator (i.e. the process which WSP add on creates which is wsptoools exe). The downside is its not possible to get it working without disabling IO redirects taking away ability to show the o/p of wsp tool in the output window and also it gives approval popups and shows the shell windows.

There should be way to grab the real admin user token and associate with new process or applying local machine policy. Should post back again once I progress more in that direction in spare time.

PerformancePoint (PPS) and MOSS

2009-05-05T15:47:00.000-07:00

Recently Microsoft announced that PerformancePoint server capabilities like Monitoring and Analytics will be consolidated into SharePoint. You can read full press release here http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2009/jan09/01-27KurtDelbeneQA.mspx

Well for those not so familiar with PerformancePoint server (PPS) I will try to give a brief introduction.

To start with data (assume sales data for a product i.e. those order, product tables and etc) is taken from OLTP (current online transactional database which more normalised) source and through ETL ( extract - transform - load - can be done with SQL server Intergration Services SSIS ) its loaded into OLAP ( historical denormalised ) destination i.e. a data ware house so that decision support systems can be built by analysing historical data and trends. Getting from data ware house which usually has star schema having fact and dimension tables is expensive hence need for building Cubes which basically preaggregates data. SQL server Analysis services (SSAS) provides the engine for building cubes.

So we now have historical data ready to be consumed from SSAS in the form of cubes. This data can now be consumed by business users for finding out how Sales are doing on monthly basis (Monitoring) , find out which product is doing badly in a particular region , find out variances (Analytics) , prepare budget or plan for a product launch (Planning). This is where PPS comes into picture. Monitoring , Analytics and Planning are three pillars of PPS.

Monitoring - KPI - a metric , Many KPIs put together becomes Score card, Many scorecards placed together form a dashboard. PPS provides Dashboard Designer to create KPIs, scorecards, reports, and dashboards using Analysis services (one of many possible including excel, SAP, SharePoint Lists etc) as data source. User can also create reports and Strategy maps which are simply put Visio diagrams with objectives tied with KPIs.

Analytics - Charts and Grid reports can be created. It also provides ProClarity tools which allows creation of decomposition trees ( shows the path of drill down), Performance Maps ( shows data in rectangles while size of rectangle can vary based on measure user has selected)
The

Planning - Planning is process of business forecasting. There are three components to the Planning module Planning Server, Planning Business Modeler and Add-in for Excel last two being client components.

Planning server administrative console helps creating Model Sites based on organisation departments and heirarchy and add roles and members.

Business modeller creates model which are data storage units equivalent of cubes. Model results into Cube in Analysis services.

Excel add ons help entering data into the model.

Based on the business process being planned for, models can be very complex.

I can see the logic behind move towards SharePoint, MOSS already has report centre with KPIs, Dashboards which can pull data from SSAS. Planning process and collaboration involved and infrastructure needed ( remember model sites ) are good fit for workspaces. Another SSP service in the form of Performance Services. For analytics part ProClarity has been anyway client tool and such functionality will be outside SharePoint I guess more for excel add on or may be which is Gemini on the way.

I understand this is very abstract article but I guess it would be good starting (I meant for the future performance services in SharePoint) point and overview.

MCTS MOSS 2007

2009-05-05T14:01:00.000-07:00

This week I completed MCTS MOSS 2007 Application Development, which I have been planning for long time. Exam is pretty much as mentioned in syllabus with all topics covered. On job experience helps but I also gave nice read to Inside MOSS 2007 MS press by Patrick Tisseghem ( Thanks to Patrick, its sad that the good fellow is no more with us which I found recently) . While reading blogs and MSDN content I followed the rule not to follow more than 3 links else its very easy to loose focus. I did go through entire MOSS,WSS API but its as such not needed.

MOSS - Excel Services Windows 2008 server

2009-04-26T14:10:00.000-07:00

Today I configured excel services on MOSS 2007 installed on Win 2008 server. There is very good post http://blogs.msdn.com/andreww/archive/2009/04/21/excel-services-setup-and-getting-started.aspx for the entire configuration.

Should you try to create and publish spreadsheet from the windows 2008 server itself, you will need to activate the Desktop Experience feature in order to be able to browse to document library from the excel when you publish to MOSS.

Database project and SQLCMD script

2009-03-24T04:03:00.000-07:00

Scripting SQL server database is easy with Visual Studio , just right click the object in the server expolrer and 'Generate Script ...'
Once you group these scripts appropriately bellow in the database project is a bat which runs all the .sql files in folder

for /F "delims=/" %%X in ('dir /b /ON *.sql') do SQLCMD -S DBSERVERNAME -d DATABASENAME -E -I -i "%%X" > "%%X.txt" 2>&1

Should there be error in executing script it will be logged to script.txt file in same folder.
The script uses a FOR loop for all the files ending .sql and executes using SQLCMD ( SQLCMD which comes with SQL 2005 is better than OSQL please refer - http://www.sqljunkies.com/WebLog/outerjoin/archive/2005/10/27/17226.aspx )
Above uses Intergrated auth (-I -E )but you may use login and password (-U -P) if needed.

Light up MOSS - SilverPoint Part I

2009-03-20T05:00:00.000-07:00

In this Silverpoint series which is Silverlight in Sharepoint I will discuss Silverlight intergation into Sharepoint/MOSS.

I think having enviroment which a developer can use to build using technology is key thing to get confortable with it so Part I will cover the environment setup with later Parts looking into Silverlight and MOSS from more technical point of view.

Background -

Silverlight is light version of WPF for web in simple terms. The rich UI which can be built using Silverlight is the driving factor. Its a step forward in Microsoft web technogies towards RIA (Rich Internet Application) applications.

Silverlight is basically browser (cross) plugin which has little .Net runtime making .Net available to client side. The footfrint is roughly 4mb.

One thing that seem to put off many people initially is Silverlight doesnot allow realtime streaming from a source like CAM or client Microphone but from my point of view, Silverlight enables bulding very rich UX and does quality (HD) streaming of media content which is very important.

Another thing one should be aware when using Silverlight control in ASP.Net / MOSS applications is that they might not be very crawler friendly. But again it depends on how you use it. If you are developing an events calender then there is no need as such to put everything in XAML but rather just the part which needs Silverlight like short video clip showing highlights of the events etc.

you will need either Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and SP1 OR Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and SP1 ( finding out if its SP1 is bit tricky refer - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/936984 )

Best place to start with silverlight is http://silverlight.net/GetStarted/

Currently Microsoft® Silverlight™ 2 Tools for Visual Studio 2008 SP1 and Microsoft® Silverlight™ 3 Tools Beta 1 for Visual Studio 2008 SP1 are available. Please note that both cannot exist side by side so either should be chosen.

Whats new in 3.0 beta can be found at http://silverlight.net/getstarted/silverlight3/default.aspx

Both need VS 2008 SP1. The link to SP1 on the http://silverlight.net/GetStarted/ is not very specific as it just takes to VS 2008 product page. SP1 can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=FBEE1648-7106-44A7-9649-6D9F6D58056E&displaylang=en

Microsoft expression blend can also be installed although more for a designer.

From http://sl4sp.codeplex.com/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=19961 download samples ( note those are for Silverlight 2.0 ) . Some of the samples like Navigation use Publishing API so relevant for MOSS only e.g. Navigation Control. Samples contain install.bat which will install the features.

ASP.Net MVC in Sharepoint ......

2009-03-19T03:51:00.000-07:00

I used ASP.Net MVC in pure ASP.net site recently and I am convinced architecturally its very sound and definitely the way forward for ASP.Net applications. What I intend to deliberate upon in this post is possibility of integrating ASP.Net MVC in Sharepoint / MOSS world. What I don't want to do is prove the importance of MVC or how to ASP.Net MVC.

If you want to
1. Know what's MVC - http://martinfowler.com/eaaDev/uiArchs.html
2. Know what's ASP.net MVC and how to use it - http://www.pnpguidance.net/Category/ASPNETMVCFramework.aspx

Basically there is a paradigm shift thats needed to fully appreciate importance of ASP.Net MVC so that although code behind provides separation of code putting everything in .cs files but having a .cs for each page and control ends up adding more and more business logic to these places making it scattered all over eventually. Bear in mind ASP.Net server controls cannot be used in ASP.Net MVC world and the basic reason I think for that is to discourage or decouple UI and Business Logic.

All right so can we use ASP.Net in Sharepoint - my answer is not yet. There is a very valid scope for leverage of MVC in sharepoint given that Sharepoint now integrates fine with Ajax and JQuery.

Consider the case where a web part in a page needs to show list of suppliers and when the user clicks on it shows the supplier details. Traditionally it would involve post back to fetch details where as in Ajax world the click would make a out of band call to get just the details or html for it and render it. How this out of band call is made ? This can be just a http request mapping to a controller and action and view ( may be JSON view) say http://website/suppliers/getdetails/xxx where xxx could be parameter i.e. supplier id so far so good.

So when we send the request http://website/suppliers/getdetails/xxxx to server, routing table (part of ASP.Net MVC ) comes into picture which will map it to appropriate controllers etc etc.

So what happens when one makes request to a sharepoint page something like http://website/suppliers/ it would look for a sub site suppliers and render a default page from the Pages library (SPRequest module)

How do we tell routing table not to map such requests which are meant to be interpreted by SPRequest , I guess setting routing table to exclude such thing would be bit messy and erro prone and this is an area where I would expect more clarity and support in future before ASP.Net MVC can be used in Sharepoint.

Feature Stapling - Feature/Site Template Associations

2009-03-18T04:28:00.001-07:00

Custom site definitions which are basically customised versions of OTB site definitions by developers are common in Sharepoint world.

The problem with this approach is updates, fixes are not applied to custom site definitions which could become a maintainance issue in long term.

Better and clean approach is feature stapling ...

Its a way to attach your features to OTB site definitions.

All you need is to link your features to OTB site definitions. The way you establish this link is by creating another feature (which is usually called a stapler) Stapler basically looks like bellow

Elements.xml

<FeatureSiteTemplateAssociation Id="E77FE7D3-65D2-43b8-A775-7D6876461894"
TemplateName="BLANKINTERNET#0"/>
<FeatureSiteTemplateAssociation Id="E77FE7D3-65D2-43b8-A775-7D6876461894"
TemplateName="BLANKINTERNET#1"/>
<FeatureSiteTemplateAssociation Id="E77FE7D3-65D2-43b8-A775-7D6876461894"
TemplateName="BLANKINTERNET#2"/>
<FeatureSiteTemplateAssociation Id="E77FE7D3-65D2-43b8-A775-7D6876461894"
TemplateName="BLANKINTERNETCONTAINER#0"/>

Note FeatureSiteTemplateAssociation(http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa544552.aspx) element which creates the link between your custom feature and site definitions that you specify so that whenever a site is provisioned using that site definition your custom features will be activated by Sharepoint. More info - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa544538.aspx

Page Layouts and ContentTypes

2009-03-17T09:35:00.000-07:00

A single content type can be associated with muliple Page Layouts. Individual layout might not use all of those fields avaliable with the content type.

A page layout can only be associated with only one content type ( the content type itself might be derived from another although)

A list can have multiple content types enabled on it but single list item can have only one out of those.

MOSS Search PDFs

2009-03-17T05:22:00.001-07:00

I recently configured the MOSS search to search PDFs from the document library.
Steps
1. Icon -

Add the icon image to 12 hive Images folder. Icon can be found at http://www.adobe.com/misc/linking.html#pdficon Download and save with name which you will mention in next step.
Add Mapping in C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\XML\DOCICON.XML

2. Install IFilter

With Acrobat reader 8.0 IFilter is installed by default

If you want you can alternatively user IFilter 6.0

The difference here would be the class ids are different which needs to be noted. Particularly if you are http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927675 for registry entries.

IFilter needs a system reboot.

3. Search Settings

Add file type in Search settings in central admin SSP admin
Shared Services Administration: SharedServices1 > Search Settings > File Types

This shall get PDF search going.

Should there be problem keep in mind the there could be threading issues as Adobe IFliter is Apartment threaded. Also have a look at IFilter explorer http://www.citeknet.com/Products/IFilters/IFilterExplorer/tabid/62/Default.aspx

Anonymous Access in MOSS 2007

2009-03-16T03:20:00.000-07:00

2 things to remeber about the anonymous access on intenet facing MOSS publishing sites

1. ViewFormPagesLockDown feature is activated by default - This feature prevents access to application pages.
2. if the item (e.g. pdf in document library) has draft status , anonymous users will not have access to it hence will get redirected to Login page

Name ActiveX Control

2009-03-10T03:55:00.000-07:00

I recently came across the scenario where the user gets following message when browsing sharepoint site

Message in the Information bar in Internet Explorer 7 when you browse to a Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 site or to a SharePoint Server 2007 site: "The Web site wants to run the following add-on: 'Name ActiveX Control'"

There is a KB article which describes the different methods to resolve it.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931509

Interesting is Method 3 which is suggested when online presence is not required.

First of all commenting out those function braces results in javascript error due the "return;" statement and later due to unavailability of function.

I think the better option is to override the javascript functions

ProcessImn() ProcessImnMarkers() so that they do nothing. The overriden functions cab kept in separate custom javascript file
save for modifying OTB init.js so that hotfix which might update it get opprtunity to do so.

MOSS Seach API Possible bug

2009-03-09T08:18:00.000-07:00

Further to my post earlier http://mossuk.blogspot.com/2009/03/possible-moss-search-api-bug.html

This is indeed a bug to the extent that Search API always seems to work with default zone. Here is another post which confirms the issue.

http://mysharepointblog.com/post/2007/01/Windows-SharePoint-Services-(WSS)-30-Search-Setup-Notes.aspx

Another post which is more less a same issue.

http://sharepointhacks.blogspot.com/2007/08/how-to-display-reports-on-sharepoint.html

Regards

Possible MOSS search API Bug

2009-03-05T08:07:00.001-08:00

Possible MOSS search API Bug Scenario - I am using search API to get search results which are then displayed using a datagrid in a user control hosted using smart part
The code as bellow -
Even if the Zone of the Site is Internet the KeywordQuery still shows Zone as Default which I think is a bug.
private ResultTable DoKeywordSearch(string keyword) { SPSite site = SPContext.Current.Site; //KeywordQuery kwq = new KeywordQuery(site); KeywordQuery kwq = new KeywordQuery(ServerContext.Current);
switch (SPSecurity.AuthenticationMode) { case AuthenticationMode.Forms: kwq.AuthenticationType = QueryAuthenticationType.PluggableAuthenticatedQuery; break; case AuthenticationMode.None: throw new InvalidOperationException("Authentication Mode not supported."); break; case AuthenticationMode.Passport: throw new InvalidOperationException("Authentication Mode not supported."); break; case AuthenticationMode.Windows: kwq.AuthenticationType = QueryAuthenticationType.NtAuthenticatedQuery; break; default: throw new InvalidOperationException("Authentication Mode not supported."); break; } kwq.QueryText = keyword; kwq.ResultTypes = ResultType.RelevantResults; ResultTableCollection results = kwq.Execute(); ResultTable resultTable = results[ResultType.RelevantResults]; return resultTable; }

Works fine for default zone
But when the internet zone the result links are not rewritten to internet URL zone
Alternet access mappings are in place Server Mappings are in place.
Should post back when find an answer :)