SharePoint 2010 - RTM: June 2010

Tom Rizzo, Senior Director at MS for the SharePoint Product, announced a little while back at SP Tech Con in San Fran.... that the SharePoint 2010 RTM should be available June 2010...

:)

SQL 2008 & .Net 3.5 Error

When trying to Add components to my SQL 2008 Installation, I keep getting the following message:

"Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 installation has failed. SQL Server 2008 Setup requires .NET Framework to be installed."

The Odd thing is I have .Net 3.5 with SP1, so I reinstall, uninstall and pretty much waste half a day searching high and low for a resolve. I have SQL 2008 SP1, even try the mega CU1 update, reintall Windows installer 4.5 - but no change...

When you try to add components to SQL via Control Panel Add\Remove programs it prompts you for an installation source, I navigate to it, a menu to Add, Remove or repair then appears, on selecting an option, the error above appears almost immediately.

Apparently, it checks the \x64\redist\dotnetframeworks (or x86 for 32bit) for the dotnetfx35setup.exe.

I downloaded a fresh bootstrapper from the Microsoft .Net download site, and replace - still no joy!

Anyway, I've finally fixed it!

The original installation was downloaded from MSDN. So I downloaded the 180 trial version of SQL Server 2008 from Microsoft Technet not MSDN! and pointed to that as the installation source and the wizard goes through without a hitch!

It Seems the version on MSDN downloads is a bit 'dodgy'!!

Hope that helps anyone avoid the pain I went through in the last day, not to mention the pain my customers gone through for weeks!

cheers
AJ...

SP2 Bug.. Expiry Activated

An annoucment was made this morning regarding a bug with the Office Servers Service Pack 2...

Apparently, a production expiration date is automatically activated and the updated product will expire after 180 days.

Products affected:

• Office SharePoint Server 2007
• Project Server 2007
• Form Server 2007
• Search Server 2008
• Search Server 2008 Express.
  

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 is not affected by this...

A workaround is to renter your license key on the Convert License Type page in Central Administration.. no features will be disabled.

A hotfix should be available, and the kb article should be going live in the next 48 hours, keep an eye out here http://support.microsoft.com/kb/971620

Aj...

Preliminary Requirements for 2010

The Microsoft Team blog have announced the prelimary requirements for SharePoint 2010. In a nutshell:

• 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.

Also, no support for IE 6.0

More information is available here:

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

There are some tips on how best to prepare for upgrading to the next wave!

Service Pack 2 - Outcomes

I installed Service Pack 2 for WSS and MOSS on two seperate environments, one was a breeze (following Shanes Almanac Instructions), and took around 1/2 hour but the other failed on Step 8 of the Configuration Wizard.

The failed installation showed up the following errors in the logs:

04/30/2009 09:32:06 8 INF Resource id to be retrieved is UpgradeTaskFailConfigSyncDisplayLabel for language English (United States)

04/30/2009 09:32:06 8 INF Resource retrieved id UpgradeTaskFailConfigSyncDisplayLabel is Failed to upgrade SharePoint Products and Technologies.

I tried various psconfig and stsadm upgrade commands, but nothing worked...

Anyway, it seems the Groupboard Workspace application was causing it to fail (as was the case with the Infrastructure Update last July) I uninstalled Groupboard 2007 from Add/Remove programs, and SP2 installed perfectly!

SP 2 offers numerous fixes and performance updates. One, I had a quick look at was the preupgradecheck.

preupgradecheck

Once you've installed SP2, goto a command prompt and type

stsadm -o preupgradecheck -localonly

after a number of checks the results will appear in the 12 hive\logs\ in a file called PreUpgradeCheck--xxxx-xxx.htm

Both my farms are fine, except the fact they both failed on 1 point - the Servers in the farm aren't 64bit Windows 2008! which is a pre req for Windows SharePoint Service 4.0!

Aj...

Installing MOSS Service Pack 2

Service Pack 2 was released yesterday, check out this link from Shane Young for all you need on downloading and installing, quickly...

http://msmvps.com/blogs/shane/archive/2009/04/29/install-guide-sp2-for-sharepoint-wss-v3-and-moss-2007.aspx

The official announcement is here:

http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2009/04/28/announcing-service-pack-2-for-office-sharepoint-server-2007-and-windows-sharepoint-services-3-0.aspx

Will hopefully be installing this afternoon, and report back anything..

Service Pack 2 - April 28th

Service Pack 2 for Office Products, due to ship April 28th...

Check out here for more detail...

Changes that will impact SharePoint:

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.
• Substantial improvements to Forms-based authentication.

Windows Server 2008 SP2 and Windows Server R2 will be supported on their release.

Enterprise Content Management (ECM)

• The performance and stability of content deployment and variations feature has been improved.
• A new tool has been added to the STSADM command-line utility that enables a SharePoint administrator to scan sites that use the variations feature for errors.

Excel Services

• SP2 makes it easier to configure Excel Web Access Web Parts on new sites.
• Several rendering, calculation, and security issues have been resolved.
• Some display issues have been addressed.
• Improved compatibility with Mozilla Firefox browsers.

No More MOSS! Office title dropped...

Excerpt from Press release/Interview

"What happened to the Office piece of the name? We love MOSS. . . .

The first thing you’ll notice is that the MOSS acronym goes away with the new name since Office is no longer in the SharePoint official name. No one should worry that SharePoint doesn’t work great with Office 2010 since we removed Office from the name, just like people didn’t worry whether SharePoint was a great portal product when we removed Portal from the 2007 name.
The primary reason why we took Office out of the name - lots of folks associate the name Office with the Office client. We wanted to take the opportunity to reestablish the Office name and brand to be synonymous with the client suite. I say “Give the people what they Want” so everyone should immediately think of Microsoft Office = Office apps.

Don’t try to acronym Microsoft SharePoint Server to MSS since MSS is already taken by Microsoft Search Server. Just remember, SharePoint is SharePoint is SharePoint."

Gonna Miss MOSS!

SharePoint 2010, Exchange 2010

Microsoft Office SharePoint version 14 now version 2010....

Just saw this -Hot off the press!

"We’re announcing that Microsoft will begin releasing new versions of Office-related products this year. Exchange 2010 will be the first product in this lineup, entering beta for customers to download today. Exchange 2010 will become available in the second half of 2009. Office 2010 — including Office Web applications, SharePoint Server 2010, Visio 2010 and Project 2010 — will enter a technical preview in the third quarter of 2009 and will release to manufacturing in the first half of 2010. "

More at: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2009/Apr09/04-15Office2010.mspx

;o)

Remixing Info - Mashup anyone?

I was doing some research for a client on Mashups and playing around with Microsoft Popfly to demonstrate creating games and educational apps. Anyway, I stumbled across the Wonders of the World demo by IDV Solutions. Its an awesome demo which uses a new mashup tool called Visual Fusion. The demo shows information pulled from a custom list, then ‘mashed-up’ with Virtual Earth.

I’ve come across the term mashup a number of times over the last few years.. its one of those terms like Wiki which is always a bugger to explain to someone.

Wikipedia defines it as: “A Web site or web app that seamlessly combines content from more than one source into an integrated experience.” basically giving you the user the ability to create/customise your own app or web page with the information you need from a variety of sources.

I’ve seen a ton of examples on the web such as looking at a Google Map, overlaid with geo tagged images stored in photo sharing site FlickR. Other examples are BI dashboards which users can create on the fly. Check out and download Flotzam where your facebook feeds and pokes, blog, twitter, FlickR and Digg feeds can come to you in one place.

Creating Mashups

Popfly is Microsoft's Silverlight based Mashup editor. “The mashup editor in Popfly is a graphical programming environment where mashups are built by connecting blocks together. In Popfly a block is basically something that does something. That means that a block can do anything. So a block could add two numbers together, or it could fetch some photos from Facebook and another block could then display those photos.” More here

You can sign into Popfly with your Live ID and start creating games, web pages and apps straight away.

There are a number of other editors which allow you to create mash up apps and web pages such as Mapano, Google Mashup editor, Mozilla Ubiquity and JackBe.

Hopefully will get a chance to dig deeper, will try and post back any  findings.

Technorati Tags: sharepoint,silverlight,mashup,popfly

Data View without SharePoint Designer

SharePoint Solutions have released a web part called the 'Data Zoom'. Its a free tool which allows you to build dynamic data-driven content on any SharePoint page. The data can come from other SharePoint sites, Lists and pretty much any data source. 

The web part provides the ability to perform queries using fairly simple syntax in the web browser. It works with MOSS or WSS and requries the .net framework 3.5. 

There are a number of extensions, code snippets and ready made apps for download, including a growing community of developers...

For more information click here

Blogging from Live Writer…

Lets see how easy this is.. just downloaded Livewriter from Microsoft, (Offline Blog Client)  - installed and going to add some links and an image then publish up to this blog!

Heres the image… (I’ve already added my blog login credentials)

Ok, here goes…PUBLISH!

UPDATE: That was easy, I’ve seen and tried some other open source tools, but this was by far the best! It prompted me to login to Picasa Web Albums, so image gets stored there…

You can add Albums, Maps, Tags and Embed Video. or link to Soapbox and Youtube!

You can add all sorts of plugins to really spice up your blog check this gallery out..

Got no excuse now! cant believe I’ve missed this!

SharePoint Designer 07 - Free...

Microsoft SharePoint Designer 2007 now available for free...

More Info can be found here in a 'Letter to SharePoint Designer Customers'

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

Happy Hacking!

Ferrari Powered by...

SharePoint! Whoa! - check out http://www.ferrari.com/

Seems they are using variations... mmm, v.brave!

More on the new Themes

Just found a blog post which has some screenshots of the new themes:

http://martijnmolegraaf.blogspot.com/2009/03/microsoft-released-10-new-sharepoint.html

New Themes for SharePoint..

Microsoft have released 10 new pretty snazzy themes for SharePoint..


Download here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=0a87658f-20b8-4dcc-ad7a-09ad22641f3a

Note: they are a set of Visual Studio 08 Extensions for SharePoint projects containing designed themes for SharePoint. So you need to package them yourselves.

Although... a Gent from down under, Mr Daniel Brown has packaged up as a wsp for you.. Thank you! ;o)

info: http://www.danielbrown.id.au/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=256


Actual Download: http://cid-99afcdd09a4e0e49.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Public/10Themes.zip

Mojave aka Commerce Server ready...

Another addition to the growing arsenal of SharePoint based products... MS have relaunched Commerce Server, a 2009 version...

What is it? - An ecommerce solution for B2C and B2B scenarios.

Some highlights from the datasheet..

"New default site and easy page skinning features get you up and running quickly. Native integration with Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server (with the availability of 30 new Web parts and controls) and integration with Microsoft‟s Live Services (such as Microsoft Live Virtual Earth™ and Windows ™ Live ID) allows you to pick and choose a range of pre-built functionality without impacting the entire site. "

"Collectively known as SharePoint Commerce Services, Commerce Server 2009 ships with more than 30 different Web parts and controls that offer a building-block approach within SharePoint to deliver contemporary e-commerce Web site functionality"

Some Links:

Commerce Server 2009 @ Microsoft

Readme and Installation Guide - some links to other downloads.

Its available for MSDN subscribers, and available from Microsoft from tommorow... 1st April 09...

KPI’s & RAG Reporting...

MOSS Enterprise comes with some great KPI List functionality, but what happens if you want to apply some RAG (Red Amber Green) reporting to other types of lists, calendars? What about if you only have SharePoint Standard Edition or WSS?

I found a great post by Christophe@PathToSharePoint.com that provides an excellent solution.

The post provides a number of articles on how to apply colour coding, formatting and graphics to list columns using a combination of calculated columns and some clever JavaScript in a Content Editor Web Part to render the content in calculated columns as HTML.

Using the standard Issues list template, I created a project status list which depending on a specific status displays a red, amber or green graphic, and formats the project information to a specific colour.

You could get really creative and have the project status change using workflow or data from another sharepoint list or data source.

The full articles are here:
http://pathtosharepoint.wordpress.com/2008/09/01/apply-color-coding-to-your-sharepoint-lists/ which then links off to a number of other related posts.

Thanks to the author, great stuff!

(Note: In SharePoint 2007, you can edit the list pages and add Web Parts above or below the list content. For this to work ensure you put the content editor web part below the list!)

Cheers

Aj...

February Update released!

February Cumulative Update (CU) released a couple of days ago... tagged the 'Uber' package...

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

It installs on top of SP1 and includes the Infrastructure Update, and all hotfixes from SP1 onwards...

Great Installation Guide can be found here:

http://msmvps.com/blogs/shane/archive/2009/03/12/install-guide-february-cumulative-updates-for-sharepoint.aspx

SharePoint Slow-Freezes after search results

On Site this morning, created a nice shiny new MOSS installation, patched it up with SP1, Infrastructure updates and the December Cumulative Hot fixes, fully configured the SSP, Search et al... and good to go...

Had a strange issue when using the standard All Sites search - The results were instantaneous, but then nothing happened for at least 30 seconds. I couldn’t click on any of the links, breadcrumbs, navigation including the Internet Explorer browser back buttons! Tried it with FireFox, worked a treat, so the issue seemed IE specific. I tested with IE 6, 7 and 8, same Issue.
Advanced search worked fine, after going through a serious of troubleshooting, I tried the Feb updates as there was some reference to resolving search issues – still no change!

In the end, we fixed it, thanks to: http://blogs.msdn.com/dhirajm/archive/2009/02/03/slow-search-result-after-infrastructure-update.aspx
Option 2 fixed it!