Service Pack 2 for the 2007 Microsoft Office System - April 28th is the day!

You can stop holding your breath, as the release date for Service Pack 2 for Office 2007 was announced: April 28th is the big day!  Mark that day down in your calendars and get those browsers warmed up. 

There are, of course, numerous fixes, enhancements, etc for all the products, but since this blog covers SharePoint, I wanted to point out just a small part of what's coming up:

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SP2 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server SP2:

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.

Forms Server:

Memory requirements and the page load times for large browser-rendered forms have been reduced.Browser rendering of various controls, such as the 'cannot be blank' asterisk and the rich text field has been improved.

Project Server:

Better memory management in the queue service.Performance to certain database table indexes is improved.Resource plans, build team, cost resources, and the server scheduling engine have improved.

Search Server:

Improvements to the reliability and stability of very large corpus crawls.Backup-restore has been improved.A new command has been introduced to the stsadm.exe tool that lets a SharePoint Administrator to tune the Query processor multiplier parameter.Improved accuracy in searches involving numbers.

A few more tidbits about what’s coming down the pipeline for the client side can be found on the Office Sustained Engineering blog.  Of course, I am working with a beta engineer to get a few sneak peeks at new features, and will be posting a lot about that in the near future.

View the original article here

December Cumulative Update Packages

Just released, the WSS and Office Server Core CU packages are now out:

Description of the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 hotfix package (Sts.msp): December 16, 2008
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;959644

Description of the SharePoint Server 2007 hotfix package (Coreserver.msp): December 16, 2008
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;959637

One important fix included in the WSS package is the fix for the approval workflow issue, which I covered in a previous post:

You use the Approval workflow in a document library, and you select SharePoint groups as approvers. Some of your domain trusts are offline. In this scenario, when the workflow is initiated, it fails, and you may receive the following error message in the Unified Logging Service (ULS) log:

System.SystemException
The trust relationship between the primary domain and the trusted domain failed.

View the original article here

MOSS Thai Language Pack installation fails on x64 systems

We had reports of customers who are unable to install the x64 Thai Language pack. It will error out with the following error:

An error occurred during the installation of the Microsoft Office Server Language Package 2007 - Thai.
Error installing the set(assembly?): ‘microsoft.office.excel.server.resources, fileVersion=’12.0.4518.1014",version ="12.0.0.0000000",culture="pl",pub
The signature or register(list?) cannot be verified or are faulty(incorrect). HRESULT: 0x80131045

A new build of this package is now posted, and can be found on the language pack page (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=th&FamilyID=318d8562-58bd-4329-b1f6-f1941a38bc7f).

Thank you for your patience while we fixed the glitch.

View the original article here

The page cannot be found HTTP 404 - file not found on the Search Administration site after installing Infrastructure Update

After installing the Infrastructure Update (KBs 951695 and 951297) and successfully complete the upgrade, you note that, within the SSP Administration page, you do not see the “Search Administration” link.  Instead, you click on the “Search Settings” link.  Within that page, that has the correct link to Search Administration.  However, you get a HTTP 404 error.

This appears to be a result of the proper S2 (Search Server 2008) features not being installed properly during the upgrade.  As you may be aware, the IU adds numerous search enhancements, including features from S2.  So, we have to force the features to deploy.

Navigate to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN.

Issue the following commands:

1. stsadm -o activatefeature -filename S2BaseSiteStapling\Feature.xml –url http://server/ssp/admin –force

2. stsadm -o activatefeature -filename S2SearchAdmin\Feature.xml -url
http://server/ssp/admin –force

3. stsadm -o activatefeature -filename S2SiteAdmin\Feature.xml -url
http://server/ssp/admin -force

View the original article here

Guide to enable SSL site collections using host headers to be browse able using ISA Server

After setting up a SSL enabled site collection using SSL, with ISA running with a single rule, you are not able to browse to the SSL enabled site collection.  The cause for this is simple: each SSL enabled site collection must have it’s own rule set within ISA.  Here is a step by step guide on how to do so:

1. In ISA 2006, right click Firewall Policy, New, and finally SharePoint publishing rule; type a new name for the publishing rule.  Click Next.

2. Select Publish a single Web site or load balancer since we are dealing with a single site collection.  Click Next.

3. Select Use SSL. Click Next.

4. Type the name of the published web site, which is the external URL as it would appear on the certificate.  Click the box next to Use a computer name or IP address to connect to the published server, and fill in the correct IP address for the server.  Click Next.

5. From the drop down for Accept requests for, select This domain name.  In the Public name box, type in the domain name you wish to use.  Click Next.

6. We now must create a new listener.  Give the new listener a name.  Click Next.

7. Select Require SSL secured connections with clients.  Click Next.

8. Select External Network and then the IP Address.  This IP address will be dedicated to accept requests from SharePoint traffic externally.  Click on OK, and then click Next.

9. Click on Select certificate and select the correct certificate with the name you are using in the public name.  Click on Select.

10. Select the authentication type, and configure as needed.  Click Next.

11. If SSO is being used, click on Enable SSO for Web sites published with this Web listener, and configure the SSO domain being used for authentication.  Click Next.

12. Click Finish.

 

13. Select the new Listener, and click on Next.

 

14. Select the NTLM authentication, and click on Next.

15. Select the first option if AAMs are already configured; if not select the second option. Click Next.

 

16. Select All Authenticated Users.  Click Next.

 

17. Click on Finish.

View the original article here

February Cumulative Update Packages

Late update:

The “uber” packages are now out.  Sorry for the late update, I was out sick all last week.

Description of the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 cumulative update package: February 24, 2009
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/961755

Description of the SharePoint Server 2007 cumulative update package (MOSS server-package): February 24, 2009
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/961756/

Knowledge base articles:

WSS
961750 Global
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/961750

967703 Language specific
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/967703

MOSS
961749 Global
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/961749

961754 Language specific
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/961754

Download locations:

WSS
961750 Global
http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=961750&kbln=en-us

967703 Language specific
http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=967703&kbln=en-us

MOSS
961749 Global
http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=961749&kbln=en-us

961754 Language specific
http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=961754&kbln=en-us

View the original article here

Items in Site Navigation and Navigation Editor are not displaying after 40 to 50 pages are created

I've had a couple of customer come across this issue, which is actually a limitation that is put in place out of box. By default, the web.config file is set to allow only 50 items to be displayed on the navigation menu chrome on the top of any portal. The 50 items is also taking into account any default navigational tab that the template being used for the portal has. For example, the Collaboration portal template has 6 tabs, by default. To allow more items to be displayed in the navigational chrome, there are 4 lines in the web.config file for the virtual server in IIS that needs to be modified.

Note: Before making any changes to your web.config file, please make a backup of it!

Find the following lines in the web.config file:

add name="GlobalNavSiteMapProvider"
add name="CombinedNavSiteMapProvider"
add name="CurrentNavSiteMapProvider"
add name="CurrentNavSiteMapProviderNoEncode"

At the end of each line, add the following value:

DynamicChildLimit="x"

x = the number of elements you want to allow to be displayed on the navigational chrome. This number also takes into account the number of default navigational tabs that are included with the portal template being used.

If we wanted to allow a total of 85 elements, it would be configured as such:

add name="GlobalNavSiteMapProvider" description="CMS provider for Global navigation" type="Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.Navigation.PortalSiteMapProvider, Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" NavigationType="Global" EncodeOutput="true" IncludePages="PerWeb" IncludeHeadings="true" IncludeAuthoredLinks="true" DynamicChildLimit="85"

add name="CombinedNavSiteMapProvider" description="CMS provider for Combined navigation" type="Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.Navigation.PortalSiteMapProvider, Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" NavigationType="Combined" EncodeOutput="true" IncludePages="PerWeb" IncludeHeadings="true" IncludeAuthoredLinks="true" DynamicChildLimit="85"

add name="CurrentNavSiteMapProvider" description="CMS provider for Current navigation" type="Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.Navigation.PortalSiteMapProvider, Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" NavigationType="Current" EncodeOutput="true" IncludePages="PerWeb" IncludeHeadings="true" IncludeAuthoredLinks="true" DynamicChildLimit="85"

add name="CurrentNavSiteMapProviderNoEncode" description="CMS provider for Current navigation, no encoding of output" type="Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.Navigation.PortalSiteMapProvider, Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" NavigationType="Current" EncodeOutput="false" IncludePages="PerWeb" IncludeHeadings="true" IncludeAuthoredLinks="true" DynamicChildLimit="85"

View the original article here

Guidance: User info synch in MOSS 2007

Recently we have seen more cases were customers are having problems with the synchronization of User info between the SSP and the content databases failing to sync properly; see below for an example of the information I am talking about.

Username Tag that can be found in Lists, Document Libraries, etc:

User display page that you can see from People and Groups:

In MOSS the SSP database is synchronized with Active Directory so we have a copy of Active Directory Objects in SQL. This is then synchronized with user tags and User display page for all active users within your Site Collections using 2 Timer Jobs:

Profile Synchronization - This job runs once every Hour and there is one per Web Application

Quick Profile Synchronization - This job runs once every minute as performance permits and there is one per Web Application

More guidance is available from MSDN.

How it get's broken, how we fix it, and how you can avoid it

Move content database improperly!

Why does this break the sync? We store the ID for the content database in the Config database. By not moving the content database properly we don't prepare the SSP for a new GUID, and the Timer Jobs will continue to try to sync with the old GUID not allowing us to sync with the new one.

How do you fix it? By following these steps

a. Run the command stsadm -o sync -listolddatabases 1 You should then get a list of database GUID.

b. Run the command stsadm -o sync -deleteolddatabases 1 This will remove the record from the SSP database but will not touch the actual Content Database.

c. Then wait for the next sync and you should see tags getting updated.

How do I avoid this? Follow these steps before moving Content Databases between Web Applications:

a. Run the command stsadm -o preparetomove -contentdb -url http://UrlofWebApplication

b. Then disconnect the database and move it to another Web Application in the same Farm.

NOTE: If you have installed the Infrastructure update you do not have to run this command to move a Database, due to issues with Indexing they changed the way they handle the Database ID when dropping and adding it from the Web Application. See the blog for Todd Carter to get more info.

2. Databases are set to offline in Central Administration -> Application Management -> Content Databases

Why does this brake the sync? The timer Jobs that perform the sync will check first to see if the Database is offline, if it is then the job will end without making any changes

How do you fix it? By following these steps

a. Select the database so that you can edit the properties

b. Change Database Status to Ready

How do I avoid this?

If you would like to stop people from adding Site Collections to the Database then set the property "Maximum number of sites that can be created in this database”.

3. Problem with Timer Jobs

Why does this break the sync? There are 2 Timer Jobs that perform the sync "Profile Synchronization" and "Quick Profile Synchronization". There should be 1 per Web Application and they need to be enabled.

How do you fix it?

Depends really on what the issue is but I have provided several articles and blogs to help you troubleshoot your Timer Jobs/Timer Service. Remember it needs to be there and enabled.

How do I avoid this?

Insure you maintain the general health of your farm; install updates as permitted, stay within capacity planning, monitor your ULS logs and event logs.

4. User is not active on the site

Why does this break the sync? When the timer jobs run they will check in the Userinfo table and look to see if tp_IsActive = True or False. And will only update the user tag if it's set to True.

How do you fix it?

Have the user log onto the Site and make a change either upload a document or edit a link; this will toggle it from False to True. Then wait for the Timer jobs to run.

References:

Sync: Stsadm operation (Office SharePoint Server)

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263196.aspx

Database: Stsadm operations (Office SharePoint Server)

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262486.aspx

Manage SharePoint timer jobs (Office SharePoint Server)

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263433.aspx

Joe Rodgers - Blog

http://blogs.msdn.com/josrod/archive/2007/12/12/clear-the-sharepoint-configuration-cache-for-timer-job-and-psconfig-errors.aspx

View the original article here

Troubleshooting Content Deployment

A newly published series of articles has been published to TechNet providing guidance on troubleshooting our old friend, Content Deployment.  The series is divided up into the following sections:

· Determine sites and subsites

· Plan content deployment

· Administer content deployment

· Configure content deployment settings

· Administer content deployment paths and jobs

· Create a new content deployment job

There is also a new topic section, Troubleshoot content deployment, which covers common errors and problems.  Hopefully this information will make your next content deployment attempt go much smoother!

View the original article here

Guidance: Crawling a site with a host header

When crawling content in a site collection that uses a host header, it will fail with the following error in your crawl logs: 

“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.)”

This is because Windows Server 2003 SP1 includes a loopback check security feature that is designed to help prevent reflection attacks on your computer. Therefore, authentication
fails if the FQDN or the custom host header that you use does not match the local
computer name.

As well, the installation of the following patches on a Windows 2003 Service Pack 1 machine will trigger the Access Denied

1. KB957097 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957097/

2. .Net 3.5 SP1 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/959209

On all Web Front Ends that are crawled:

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK
2. In Registry Editor, locate and then click the following registry key:
3. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa
Right-click Lsa, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
4. Type DisableLoopbackCheck, and then press ENTER.
5. Right-click DisableLoopbackCheck, and then click Modify.
6. In the Value data box, type 1, and then click OK
7. Quit Registry Editor, and then restart your computer.

Resolution steps are from:

896861 You receive error 401.1 when you browse a Web site that uses Integrated
Authentication and is hosted on IIS 5.1 or IIS 6
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;896861

You can run System.Net tracing (See KB947285) and in the trace you will find that
you are getting 401.1 Invalid Credentials for the web services
../_vti_bin/sitedata.asmx
947285 How to use System.NET tracing to troubleshoot content deployment issues and
search issues in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and in SharePoint Server 2007
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;947285

View the original article here

Announcing FAST Search for SharePoint

Microsoft has announced today that FAST will be integrated with SharePoint, and released as FAST Search for SharePoint, which will be tied in very closely with the next release of SharePoint.

More information will hopefully come out soon, but for now, read the entire announcement at InternetNews.

View the original article here

WSS 3.0 Service Pack 2 is now available!

953338 Description of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SP2 and of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Language Pack SP2

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;953338

Download links:

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Service Pack 2 (x86)

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=79BADA82-C13F-44C1-BDC1-D0447337051B

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Service Pack 2 (x64)

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=20A100C0-BD58-40CD-A5D9-36C1986FBED9

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Language Pack Service Pack 2 (x86)

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=085E5AC8-58F6-4CF9-8012-33B95EE36C0F

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Language Pack Service Pack 2 (x64)

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=2C2B6CAF-B46D-45EB-AC4D-DEAAA48C3A2C

Downloadable list of issues that are fixed:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/C/2/C/C2C36159-600C-4EEA-B80A-F988EE7A418F/2007%20Office%20Service%20Pack%202%20Changes.xlsx

Service Pack 2 includes all public updates, security updates, cumulative updates, and hotfixes that were released through February 2009. It is recommended that you have 5x to 6x the size of the package free to have a successful deployment; this has increased from the requirements needed for SP1.

Service Pack 2 has some areas of improvement. These include:

Faster more reliable content migration and data backup/restore

Reduced memory consumption

Smoother upgrade experience

Significant database performance adjustments

Updated integration for forms authentication

Advanced permissions management

Helpful administrative tools, which I will cover in a separate post

Expanded browser compatibility

One tool administrators should take note of is the Pre-Upgrade Checker, which ships in the service pack. This can be used to assess the server for potential upgrade issues you may run into when you are planning for the next version of WSS.

Service Pack 2 also adds host header-based site collection crawling for WSS, which was lacking in the product previously.

Service Pack 2 adds stsadm commands to help you list and delete site collections in your farm. Please review the following KB article for more information:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;968787

Please take note of the following KB article:

Known issues that you may experience when you install the 2007 Microsoft Office suite Service Pack 2 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Service Pack 2

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;968173

View the original article here

Upgrade fails when installing December CU

Update: The issue has been corrected, and a new hot fix package has been uploaded. You only need to re-download the WSS December CU package, which can be found here:

Description of the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 cumulative update package (WSS server-package): December 16, 2008 http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;960010

View the original article here

April Cumulative Update Now Available

Update: The uber packages are now available as well:

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 April cumulative update package
http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=968850

Office SharePoint Server 2007 April cumulative update package
http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=968851

The latest round of CUs is now out.  The April CU can be applied after you install the recently released Service Pack 2, as this does not contain this particular CU.  The April CU can be considered a Service Pack roll-up, so to keep yourself fully up to date, install Service Pack 2, then the April CU.

More information below:

968857    Description of the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 hotfix package (Sts.msp): April 28, 2009
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;968857

968859    Description of the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 hotfix package (Coreserver.msp): April 28, 2009
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;968859

A very good tip from the Product Team blog.  If you want to be fully up to date when deploying a new WSS/MOSS farm, updates should be deployed as such:

1. Service Pack 2 for WSS 3.0
2. Service Pack 2 for MOSS 2007
3. April CU for WSS 3.0
4. April CU for MOSS 2007

View the original article here

Guidance: Troubleshooting Search Propagation

A common issues administrators run into is broken propagation.  For a variety of reasons, propagation failures on one or more servers are very difficult to troubleshoot. However, following the process below has been very successful at resolving many of these issues by allowing the query search service to start out fresh and re-provisioning the service.

NOTE: The following steps will require your search service to be offline for a period of time, the length of which determined by the number of servers, index size etc. It will also require you to delete the index files off of your query servers, but does not require you to completely re-index your content. After the service has been online for a short time, the index will be re-propagated to the query servers. If there are any questions on this, please contact Microsoft Support before proceeding.

1) Using Central Administration, stop the Office SharePoint Server Search service on all servers. Choose the server name from the dropdown to toggle between them until the service is “Stopped” for all servers.

1) Once they are all stopped, delete the index on the query servers. This is the GUID folder located by default at C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Servers\12.0\Data\Office Server\Applications. However, to find this location on your individual machine, navigate to Central Admin-> Operations-> Services on Server. From the dropdown, choose the name of your query server and then click on “Office SharePoint Server Search”. Look under default index file location- that’s where you need to go to delete the index on that query server.

NOTE: If you find several GUID folders, as in the example below, you will need to determine exactly which one it is that is tied to your SSP. You can find this by checking the registry hive HLKM\Software\Microsoft\Office Server\12.0\Search\Applications. Here, you will find a listing of all your GUIDs. Clicking on the GUID reveals a key for that GUID named “Display Name”, which will match the name in Central Admin.

1) Use the Central Administration to start the Office SharePoint Server Search service on the index server only.

2) Once started, use the following STSADM commands on all of the Query servers to start the service and configure the propagation share. STSADM is located in the C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\bin directory. NOTE: DRIVE:\PathToIndex in the below commands is the local path (not the share) to the location to store the index on the query servers.

o Run this command to start the service:

stsadm -o osearch -action start -role Query -defaultindexlocation DRIVE:\PathToIndex

o Run this command to configure the share:

stsadm -o osearch -propagationlocation DRIVE:\PathToIndex

o Run this command to ensure that the share is properly configured:

stsadm -o provisionservice -action start -servicetype "Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration.SearchService, Microsoft.Office.Server.Search, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" -servicename osearch

3) Assign the SSP to the indexer. This is done by clicking the drop down tied to the SSP name (in your Shared Services Administration page) and choosing ‘Edit Properties’ (Picture below). This will open the “Edit Shared Services Provider” page. Underneath the ‘Index Server’ setting, choose the name of your index server.

1) Start a full crawl on your content sources. After running for a bit, test to ensure that search results are returned successfully.

View the original article here

Important Information Regarding Service Pack 2 for Office Servers

We take product quality seriously and make every effort to avoid and resolve issues that adversely impact our customers.  Unfortunately, we have recently discovered a bug with Service Pack 2 (SP2) that affects all customers that have deployed it for SharePoint Server 2007. 

During the installation of SP2, a product expiration date is improperly activated. This means SharePoint will expire as though it was a trial installation 180 days after SP2 is deployed. The activation of the expiration date will not affect the normal function of SharePoint up until the expiration date passes. Furthermore, product expiration 180 days after SP2 installation will not affect customer’s data, configuration or application code but will render SharePoint inaccessible for end-users.

We are working to release a hotfix to automatically fix this issue. A manual work-around is currently available and involves customers re-entering their Product ID number (PID) on the Convert License Type page in Central Administration.  For more information and detailed steps please read this KB article. (The KB link is not currently active, it will be available within the next 48hrs)

We want to assure our customers that this issue does not impact data integrity or their SharePoint deployment in any other way.

For your convenience, below are some answers to questions that you may have and we will update this blog post with a link to the hotfix as soon as it’s available.

We apologize for any inconvenience this issue may cause you.

Jeff Teper
Corporate Vice President
SharePoint.

Q&A

Which products are affected by this?
Applying Service Pack 2 to any of the following products will result in this issue: Office SharePoint Server 2007, Project Server 2007, Form Server 2007, Search Server 2008 and Search Server 2008 Express.

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 is not affected by this issue.

What can I do to fix it?
To work around this issue customers will need to re-enter their Product ID numbers (PID) on the Convert License Type page in Central Administration.  Please see this KB article for detailed steps. (The KB link is not currently active, it will be available within the next 48hrs) 

Customers can also wait for the hotfix (available for free from http://support.microsoft.com) to resolve this issue.

Product ID numbers (PIDs) can be retrieved by logging into the Volume Licensing Service Center.

Note: For Search Server 2008 Express the only way to resolve this issue is to apply the hotfix.

What is Microsoft doing to fix it?
Microsoft is working on a hotfix and public update for the product. We will update this blog post with details and a link to the hotfix as soon as it is available.

Do I need to update all of the servers in my farm?
No. The Product ID number only needs to be entered once.

What if I haven’t installed SP2 yet but want to? What should I do?
You can continue to plan for and install Service Pack 2 for SharePoint Server 2007 with the additional step of re-entering your Product ID number after the installation is complete by following the instructions in this KB article. (The KB link is not currently active, it will be available within the next 48hrs)

Does this issue impact anything else?
The issue only activates the product expiration date. The activation of the expiration date does not affect the normal function of SharePoint up until the expiration date passes, at which point SharePoint will be inaccessible for end-users. This issue does not affect customer’s data, configuration or application code.

I can’t find/don’t know my original PID, where can I find it?
Product ID numbers (PIDs) can be retrieved by logging into the Volume Licensing Service Center.

View the original article here

February Cumulative Update Packages

Late update:

The “uber” packages are now out.  Sorry for the late update, I was out sick all last week.

Description of the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 cumulative update package: February 24, 2009
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/961755

Description of the SharePoint Server 2007 cumulative update package (MOSS server-package): February 24, 2009
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/961756/

Knowledge base articles:

WSS
961750 Global
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/961750

967703 Language specific
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/967703

MOSS
961749 Global
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/961749

961754 Language specific
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/961754

Download locations:

WSS
961750 Global
http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=961750&kbln=en-us

967703 Language specific
http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=967703&kbln=en-us

MOSS
961749 Global
http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=961749&kbln=en-us

961754 Language specific
http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=961754&kbln=en-us

View the original article here

Announcing FAST Search for SharePoint

Microsoft has announced today that FAST will be integrated with SharePoint, and released as FAST Search for SharePoint, which will be tied in very closely with the next release of SharePoint.

More information will hopefully come out soon, but for now, read the entire announcement at InternetNews.

View the original article here

April Cumulative Update Now Available

Update: The uber packages are now available as well:

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 April cumulative update package
http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=968850

Office SharePoint Server 2007 April cumulative update package
http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=968851

The latest round of CUs is now out.  The April CU can be applied after you install the recently released Service Pack 2, as this does not contain this particular CU.  The April CU can be considered a Service Pack roll-up, so to keep yourself fully up to date, install Service Pack 2, then the April CU.

More information below:

968857    Description of the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 hotfix package (Sts.msp): April 28, 2009
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;968857

968859    Description of the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 hotfix package (Coreserver.msp): April 28, 2009
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;968859

A very good tip from the Product Team blog.  If you want to be fully up to date when deploying a new WSS/MOSS farm, updates should be deployed as such:

1. Service Pack 2 for WSS 3.0
2. Service Pack 2 for MOSS 2007
3. April CU for WSS 3.0
4. April CU for MOSS 2007

View the original article here

Guide to enable SSL site collections using host headers to be browse able using ISA Server

After setting up a SSL enabled site collection using SSL, with ISA running with a single rule, you are not able to browse to the SSL enabled site collection.  The cause for this is simple: each SSL enabled site collection must have it’s own rule set within ISA.  Here is a step by step guide on how to do so:

1. In ISA 2006, right click Firewall Policy, New, and finally SharePoint publishing rule; type a new name for the publishing rule.  Click Next.

2. Select Publish a single Web site or load balancer since we are dealing with a single site collection.  Click Next.

3. Select Use SSL. Click Next.

4. Type the name of the published web site, which is the external URL as it would appear on the certificate.  Click the box next to Use a computer name or IP address to connect to the published server, and fill in the correct IP address for the server.  Click Next.

5. From the drop down for Accept requests for, select This domain name.  In the Public name box, type in the domain name you wish to use.  Click Next.

6. We now must create a new listener.  Give the new listener a name.  Click Next.

7. Select Require SSL secured connections with clients.  Click Next.

8. Select External Network and then the IP Address.  This IP address will be dedicated to accept requests from SharePoint traffic externally.  Click on OK, and then click Next.

9. Click on Select certificate and select the correct certificate with the name you are using in the public name.  Click on Select.

10. Select the authentication type, and configure as needed.  Click Next.

11. If SSO is being used, click on Enable SSO for Web sites published with this Web listener, and configure the SSO domain being used for authentication.  Click Next.

12. Click Finish.

 

13. Select the new Listener, and click on Next.

 

14. Select the NTLM authentication, and click on Next.

15. Select the first option if AAMs are already configured; if not select the second option. Click Next.

 

16. Select All Authenticated Users.  Click Next.

 

17. Click on Finish.

View the original article here

Office PerformancePoint Merging with SharePoint

Announced today, SharePoint is going to integrate PerformancePoint, and really expand on our BI (business intelligence) offerings.

Kurt DelBene said it best:

“PressPass: How will customers benefit from this decision?

DelBene: It really gets back to the notion of helping more people harness the data inside their organization. Customers have been asking for easier access. Shifting the monitoring and analytics capabilities to SharePoint is a step in that direction.

In conjunction with the scalability of the Microsoft SQL Server BI platform, this move will not only provide greater access to BI features, but also will deliver them alongside the search, collaboration and content management features most people are accustomed to using in SharePoint.

One of our partners, Hitachi Consulting, says that this approach of embedding BI into widely used business productivity tools will help more customers realize the benefits of BI. The benefits don’t stop with the customer, either, because this move helps partners such as Hitachi deliver greater value to their customers without requiring additional technology investments. “

You can read the entire press release at the Microsoft PressPass site.

View the original article here

Attempt to release mutex not owned by caller Exception when Output Cache is enabled

After enabling Output Cache for site collections, you get the following error when browsing to it:

"Error in '/'
Application" message referring to an 'Attempt to release mutex not owned by caller.
(Exception from HRESULT: 0x00000120)'

Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current
web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error end
where originated in the code.
Exception Details: SystemApplicationException: Attempt to release mutex not owned
by caller. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x00000120)
Source Error:
An unhandled exception was generated during the execution of the current web
request. Information regarding the origin and location of the exception can be
identified using the exception stack trace below.
Stack Trace:
ApplicationException: Attempt to release mutex not owned by caller. (Exception from
HRESULT: 0x00000120))
System.Threading. ReaderwriterLock. ReleaseWriterLocklnternal () +0
Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.ThreadSafeCache '2.ReleasewriterLock() +73
Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.AclCache. LoadAllAcls(SPSite site) +715
Microsoft. SharePoint nt. Publishing.
PublishingHttpModule.EnableCachinglfAppropriate(Object source, EventArgs e) +4355
System.Web. SyncEventExecutionStep. System.Web. HttpApplication. lExecutionStep.
Execute() +80
System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStep(IExecutionStep step, Boolean&
completedSynchronously) +177

Also, you will notice the following event being thrown in the Event Viewer:

Event Type: Warning
Event Source: ASP.NET 2.0.50727.0
Event Category: Web Event
Event ID: 1309
Date: 1/7/2009
Time: 9:11:56 AM
User: N/A
Computer:
Description:
Event code: 3005
Event message: An unhandled exception has occurred.
Event time: 1/7/2009 9:11:56 AM
Event time (UTC): 1/7/2009 2:11:56 PM
Event ID: 662477544e324e6da0b5b1007fd46f89
Event sequence: 2165
Event occurrence: 43
Event detail code: 0
Application information:
Application domain: /LM/W3SVC/2127404773/Root-1-128758103422019078
Trust level: wss_custom
Application Virtual Path: /
Application Path: C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\80\
Machine name:
Process information:
Process ID: 6356
Process name: w3wp.exe
Account name:
Exception information:
Exception type: ApplicationException
Exception message: Attempt to release mutex not owned by caller. (Exception
from HRESULT: 0x00000120)
Request information:
Request URL:
Request path:
User host address:
User:
Is authenticated: True
Authentication Type: NTLM
Thread account name:
Thread information:
Thread ID: 7
Thread account name:
Is impersonating: True
Stack trace: at
System.Threading.ReaderWriterLock.ReleaseWriterLockInternal()
at Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.ThreadSafeCache`2.ReleaseWriterLock()
at Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.AclCache.LoadAllAcls(SPSite site)
at
Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.PublishingHttpModule.EnableCachingIfAppropriate(Obje
ct source, EventArgs e)
at
System.Web.HttpApplication.SyncEventExecutionStep.System.Web.HttpApplication.IExecut
ionStep.Execute()
at System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStep(IExecutionStep step, Boolean&
completedSynchronously)

This has been traced back to an issue with the amount of ACLs across a site collection.  If you have more then 10,000 or more per site collection, and enable output caching, this issue may exhibit itself.  So, the question is, how can you verify the ACL count?  Here’s a quick SQL query you can run against the content database to show the number of ACLs per level:

--this query will select the number of ACLs used by any item with unique permissions

select ra.siteid as 'Site Collection GUID', p.scopeurl as 'Item URL', count(*) as 'Number of ACLs'
from roleassignment ra
join perms p
on ra.scopeid = p.scopeid
group by ra.siteid, p.scopeurl
order by ra.siteid

In the column marked Number of ACLs, you will see the count output.  This can be used to show how to best split out your site collection.  To work around this, you have two options:

1. Disable Output Caching for the entire site collection experiencing the
issue.

2. Re-architect the site collection by splitting the site collection into
separate site collections. The new design must result in the new site collections
having fewer than 10,000 ACLs, which is shown using the above query.

For more information on capacity planning, please refer to the following article:

Plan for software boundaries (Office SharePoint Server)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262787.aspx

View the original article here

SharePoint 14 is now Microsoft SharePoint 2010

Over on the SharePoint product group blog, they’ve announced that, along with the name change to Exchange Server 2010, the next version of MOSS will be called Microsoft SharePoint 2010.  Check out the full details on the PG blog!

View the original article here

Guide to enable SSL site collections using host headers to be browse able using ISA Server

After setting up a SSL enabled site collection using SSL, with ISA running with a single rule, you are not able to browse to the SSL enabled site collection.  The cause for this is simple: each SSL enabled site collection must have it’s own rule set within ISA.  Here is a step by step guide on how to do so:

1. In ISA 2006, right click Firewall Policy, New, and finally SharePoint publishing rule; type a new name for the publishing rule.  Click Next.

2. Select Publish a single Web site or load balancer since we are dealing with a single site collection.  Click Next.

3. Select Use SSL. Click Next.

4. Type the name of the published web site, which is the external URL as it would appear on the certificate.  Click the box next to Use a computer name or IP address to connect to the published server, and fill in the correct IP address for the server.  Click Next.

5. From the drop down for Accept requests for, select This domain name.  In the Public name box, type in the domain name you wish to use.  Click Next.

6. We now must create a new listener.  Give the new listener a name.  Click Next.

7. Select Require SSL secured connections with clients.  Click Next.

8. Select External Network and then the IP Address.  This IP address will be dedicated to accept requests from SharePoint traffic externally.  Click on OK, and then click Next.

9. Click on Select certificate and select the correct certificate with the name you are using in the public name.  Click on Select.

10. Select the authentication type, and configure as needed.  Click Next.

11. If SSO is being used, click on Enable SSO for Web sites published with this Web listener, and configure the SSO domain being used for authentication.  Click Next.

12. Click Finish.

 

13. Select the new Listener, and click on Next.

 

14. Select the NTLM authentication, and click on Next.

15. Select the first option if AAMs are already configured; if not select the second option. Click Next.

 

16. Select All Authenticated Users.  Click Next.

 

17. Click on Finish.

View the original article here