Slipstreamed Install of MOSS 2007

Until recently to install SharePoint 2007 on Windows Server 2008 R2 we had to manually slipstream MOSS SP1 with SP2, but since Jan 20th 2010 Microsoft have released MOSS SP2 slipstreamed package, it is available on MSDN!

Adding web parts to Document library throwing error

Sometimes you may want to add a content editor to a document library page http://server/Shared%20Documents/Forms/AllItems.aspx?PageView=Shared and might want to move it above or below the document library and might get the error below

"The file is not checked out. You must first check out this document before making changes."

This is because in the "Versioning Settings" of the document library settings the item "Require documents to be checked out before they can be edited?" might have been set to "yes". Though you may wonder that you were not editing any documents but just trying to move the document library web part around in the page and it still would not allow you to make any changes before you turn the "require documents to be checked out..." option to "no"!

Once you have moved your web parts around you can go back and change the versioning settings back to how it was.

Delegation Tab missing Windows Server 2008

When trying to setup Kerberos to work with SharePoint you need to setup the app pool account as trusted for delegation. you may find that the delegation tab is missing in AD in Windows Server 2008, this is "as designed", the delegation tab will appear only after an SPN is created for the service account.

So do setspn -A HTTP/intranet.domain.local DOMAIN\Account from a command prompt in the famr and then go to AD and search for the DOMAIN\ACcount and you will see the delegation tab appear.

WSP Stuck on deploying or retracting in Solution Management

If your solution package is stuck on deploying or retracting status for a long time on the "Solution Management" page in SharePoint Central Admin then check that the "Windows SharePoint Services Timer" windows service is started on ALL the web front end machines.

Error when adding web part solution package An object in the SharePoint administrative framework

You sometimes may recieve the error below when trying to do stsadm -o addsolution -filename "wspname.wsp"

An object in the SharePoint administrative framework, "SPSolutionLanguagePack Name=0 Parent=SPSolution Name=il.sharepoint.workflows.wsp", depends on other objects which do not exist. Ensure that all of the objects dependencies are created and retry this operation.

wspname.wsp: The Solution installation failed.

This is especially the case if you have just done a retract/uninstall and you try to add straight away. If you try again in a few seconds it will work. Basically this is because when you delete a wsp from solution management and then immediately run this stsadm command, there will still be clean up operations going on in the background. So just leave a slight delay between uninstall of solution packages and re-deploys.

SharePoint Search Crawl Returns Access Denied

Our SharePoint search suddenly stopped working last week and on googling found out that if the Default Content Access Account in SSP - Search Administration - Default Content Access Account is of the format domain\username it seems to fail but once changed to the format of username@domain.local it works!

"Access is denied. Check that the Default Content Access Account has access to this content, or add a crawl rule to crawl this content. (The item was deleted because it was either not found or the crawler was denied access to it.)".

Restricting access to mysites in SharePoint

You may come accross the requirment where you would want only certain group of people to be able to create my sites. This is possible by modifying permissions on Shared Services Provider, to do so follow these steps

1. Logon to Central Admin
2. Click on the Shared Services Provider that hosts my sites
3. Click on "Personalization services permissions" under the group "User Profiles and My Sites"
4. Click on the group "NT AUTHORITY\Authenticated Users" if it exists in that list and untick the option "Create Personal Site" and click save.
5. Using the menu on the permissions page, add the SharePoint group that you want to give permissions to
6. Click on the Group that you just added and select the permissions "Create Personal Site" and jobs done!

Modify Web Part Properties window very small

When editing a SharePoint publishing page or my site page and if the "modify shared web part" window appears very small or not visible then the short cut fix is to set the below style in your css file that is referenced from your Master Page

#MSO_tblPageBody {
height:600px !important;
}

The Trial Period for this product has expired - SharePoint 2007

I recently copied a Virtual Hard Disk from my Colleague and when I tried to create a new Publishing site, I got the error message "The trial period for this product has expired". I checked the licence tab in Central Admin and found that it said it was a enterprise licence.

On further investigation I found out that the service account used for the web application where I was trying to create a publishing site was using the "Network Service" account, on changing this to an account that was a member of the local administrator's group (since this was a development VM loaded on my laptop) the error message vanished, how strange!

SharePoint Search Error - failed due to the following error: 800703fa.

When I tried to edit my User Profiles and Properties page in my Shared Services Providor, I saw the error below

"An error occured while accessing the SQL Server database or the Office SharePoint Server Search Service. If this is the first time you have seen this messag, try again later. If this problem persists, contact your administrator"

On clicking on the Search Settings in the SSP, I got the error below, and the same error repeated in the event log..
Retrieving the COM class factory for component with CLSID {BDEADEE2-C265-11D0-BCED-00A0C90AB50F} failed due to the following error: 800703fa.

Also no search results were being returned.

We were running MOSS 2007 on Windows Server 2008 R2. The solutions was to reset IIS! No idea why I had this problem and how it solved but didnt have the time to investigate it that day!

One Way Trust in SharePoint , People Picker and Profiles

We had a scenario where SharePoint was installed on Domain A and the users whom accessed SharePoint where from Domain B.

This will work most of the time until you start doing things like People Picker in SharePoint and configuring profiles, my sites etc.

There is some more work for that to happen as listed below

1. To get people picker working correctly for users from other domains you need to run the syntax stsadm -o setproperty -pn peoplepicker-searchadforests -pv domain:domain1.com;domain:domain2.com,domain2\user,password –url https://sharepoint.domain1.com (good guide on this http://www.gk.id.au/2009/04/people-picker-sharepoint-and-forest.html)

2. To greet people from the one-way trust domain by name in SharePoint and to enable creating my sites for the other domain users , you would need to import the profiles of the users from the second domain. You need to do this by going to shared services providor - User Profile and Properties - Configure Profile Import (at the bottom of the page)

Once on that page, choose custom source and create a new source for the AD (example of syntax to use for the custom source can be found here or just google http://miss-sharepoint.blogspot.com/2008/04/custom-source-in-profile-import.html)

3. If you also want the one-way trust users to have their own "my site" then you need to change the app pool account that your my sites web application uses to an account from "Domain B". This is because since it is a one-way trus between
Domain A <- B, a domain account in A will not be able to talk to B but in order for my sites to work, my sites app pool accountconnects to the domain where the user is from to get the information related to the user but it will work the other way round because B has a one way trust with A.

So create a domain user account in Domain B and through Central Admin update the App Pool account that my sites uses to the Domain B account.

Finally add that app pool account into the farms administrator's group to complete the process.

The trial period for this product has expired. Kwizcom

We had a strange problem where certain users were seeing the Kwizcom "trial period for this product has expired" message whereas it was working for others, obviously we had the full licence and had activated it when this occured.

On investigation we found out that our Alternate Access Mappings in SharePoint was not setup correctly i.e. we have multiple WFE's but in AAM we did not have entries for all the WFE's as internal url's and also our public url was not in the Intranet Zone and this for some reason had caused Kwizcom web part to show as though this message!

System.Security.Cryptography.CryptographicException: The system cannot find the file specified

When working with Geneva and SharePoint and if you get the error System.Security.Cyptography.CryptographicException: the system cannot find the file specified, the fix is to run the command below where "AppPoolName" is the name of the app pool under which the SharePoint Web App runs

appcmd set apppool "AppPoolName" -processModel.loadUserProfile:true

appcmd can be found at %systemroot%\system32\inetsrv\ directory

My Site - There has been an error creating the personal site.

If you recieve the error "There has been an error creating the personal site. Contact your site administrator for more information" and you have users from multiple domains or one-way trusted domains then you need to add the application pool that the Mysites web application runs under into the farm administrators group.

data view web part This page allows a limit of 200 controls DataFormwebPart

When working with the Dataview web part I got the error below
This page allows a limit of 200 controls....

I experienced this when adding a lot of "Related Data Sources". I tried adding the dataview web part created using multiple document libraries on a number of pages but got the same error.

But once I started from scratch again and created the first data source and added the "Related Data Sources" one by one again, it seemed to work, no idea why!

Updating SharePoint Menu

Updating SharePoint Dropdown Menu Text, updating defailt text in SharePoint like "Change Site Settings", "Manage Users", etc.

If you absolutely want to change the text that appears on Dropdown lists in SharePoint, for example things like below, you can edit the Core.JS and OWS.js files in the 12 hive at the location C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\1033.

But please be aware that this is not a recommended process because if you get any SharePoint updates or migrate sites from one server to another server you would loose these changes. But putting down here anyway!

var L_Edit_Text="Edit";
var L_ViewItem_Text="View Item";
var L_EditItem_Text="Edit Item";
var L_EditSeriesItem_Text="Edit Series";
var L_DeleteItem_Text="Delete Item";
var L_DeleteDocItem_Text="Delete";
var L_ViewProperties_Text="View Properties";
var L_EditProperties_Text="Edit Properties";
var L_ViewResponse_Text="View Response";
var L_EditResponse_Text="Edit Response";
var L_DeleteResponse_Text="Delete Response";
var L_Subscribe_Text="Alert Me";
var L_CustomizeNewButton_Text="Change New Button Order";
var L_Review_Text="Send for Review";
var L_EditIn_Text="Edit in ^1";
var L_EditInApplication_Text="Edit Document"
var L_Checkin_Text="Check In";
var L_Checkout_Text="Check Out";
var L_DiscardCheckou_Text="Discard Check Out";
var L_CreateDWS_Text="Special Activity Workspaces";
var L_PublishBack_Text="Publish to Source Location";
var L_Versions_Text="Version History";
var L_WorkOffline_Text="Connect to Client";
var L_Reply_Text="Reply";
var L_ExportContact_Text="Export Contact";
var L_ExportEvent_Text="Export Event";
var L_Reschedule_Text="Rescheduling Options";
var L_Move_Text="Move";
var L_Keep_Text="Keep";
var L_Delete_Text="Delete";
var L_Open_Text="Open";
var L_SiteSettings_Text="Change Site Settings";
var L_ManageUsers_Text="Manage Users";
var L_DeleteSite_Text="Delete Site";
var L_SiteStorage_Text="Manage Site Storage";
var L_MngPerms_Text="Manage Permissions";
var L_Settings_Text="Settings";
var L_Remove_Text="Remove from this list";
var L_ModerateItem_Text="Approve/reject";
var L_PublishItem_Text="Publish a Major Version";
var L_CancelPublish_Text="Cancel Approval";
var L_UnPublishItem_Text="Unpublish this version";
var L_DownloadOriginal_Text="Download Picture";
var L_EditVersion_Text="Edit";
var L_EditInOIS_Text="Edit Picture";
var L_Workflows_Text="Workflows";
var L_Send_Text="Send To";
var L_ExistingCopies_Text="Existing Copies";
var L_OtherLocation_Text="Other Location";
var L_GoToSourceItem_Text="Go to Source Item";
var L_NotifyThisIsCopy_Text="This item was copied from another location and may be receiving updates from there. You should make sure that the source stops sending updates or this item may get recreated.\n\n";
var L_SendToEmail_Text="E-mail a Link";
var L_DownloadACopy_Text="Download a Copy";
var L_DocTran_Text="Convert Document";
var L_AddToMyLinks_Text="Add to My Links";
var L_AddToCategory_Text="Submit to Portal Area";
var L_VS_DownArrow_Text="Select a View";
var L_ModifyView="Modify this view";
var L_CreateView="Create a new view";

SharePoint Backup Restore

To migrate a sharepoint site from one server to another server follow these steps

1. Log into the SharePoint server using an account that has admin rights (or relevant permissions) to the SharePoint server and SQL Databases
2. if stsadm is not recognised in your command prompt, go to the 12 hive directory, for me stsadm is found at the location cd C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN and run stsadm from this folder
3. Create a new web application using central admin in the server where you want to restore the backup - http://CENTRAL-ADMIN-URL-GOES-HERE/_admin/extendvs.aspx
4. No need to create a Site Collection

Using command prompt type the following line to backup

stsadm -o backup -url http://sharepointsite/ -filename c:\sharepointsitenamebackup.bak -backupmethod full

Use the following line to restore, WARNING - Using overwrite as per the command below will delete any existing site that you have on the url that you are restoring to!

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN>stsadm -o restore -url http:// -filename c:\sharepointsitenamebackup.bak -restoremethod overwrite


To check the version of your SharePoint site use the url http:///_admin/FarmServers.aspx.

If you get the error below, it is because you have an older version from the server where you have copied the backup from..

"Your backup is from a different version of Windows SharePoint Services and cannot be restored to a server running the current version. The backup file should be restored to a server with version '12.0.0.6219' or later." - See this site for info on this http://www.allbhu.com/Global/Default.aspx?tabid=88&EntryID=3

The form has been closed. Xmlformview web part

When addding the xmlformview web part to a sharepoint page, you may get an error that fills the full page saying "The form has been closed". Since this error fills up the full page you will not be able to edit the properties of the web part that you have just added.

To fix this problem follow the steps below.

1. Navigate to the page library where the web part page is located
2. Click on the options on the page and click "Edit Properties"
3. At the bottom of the properties page, click on "Web Part Page Maintenance".
4. Using the web part maintenance page close the xmlformview web part
5. Go back to the page where you added the web part and click on add a webpart
6. Instead of choosing the xmlformview web part from the web part list click on advanced and select the xmlformview web part from the "Closed Web parts" list
7. Now the web part would be added and the web part properties displayed
8. Edit the web part properties and add the url of the infopath form in the xsn location field in the Data category
9. In the Feature Catergory set the editing status dropdown value to "editing"

Other websites recommend you to add the xmlformview web part again from the main list after closing the web part that you added first but that did not work for me.

Console Configuration File Error: XML Exception: Object reference Sharepoint

If you get the error below in your event viewer
Console Configuration File Error: XML Exception: Object reference not set to an instance of an objet

and the message Object reference not set to an instance of an object! at the area where you would expect your page editing toolbar then the reason is that the xml files in Editing Menu folder in the Master Page gallery are not in the Published state.

To fix this, just publish all the xml files in the folder Editing Menu and approve them!

Customising Ontolica Search

As you know when you instal Ontolica on a Moss box it overrides the default sharepoint delegate search control with ID "SmallSearchInputBox", this is the searchbox that we are customising below.

To customise ontolica search, i.e. to change the search magnifying image button or to change the css classes you just need to modify the xslt file that ontolica uses.

This can be found in the location RootSite/OntolicaStyles/Forms/Allitems.aspx and open the folder SearchBox and edit the default.xslt file in here...you can change the images, change the borders around the search boxes etc.

You do not need to do an IISRESET but it seems to take a while before the changes are reflected on the page so if it is a dev box do an IISRESET to see the changes immediately.