Downloadable contents for Office SharePoint Server 2007

Microsoft is providing lots of books, white papers and articles on MOSS configuration and deployment for free. We as a MOSS consultant use these resources in most of the projects as a baseline for architecture. Below link contains a complete list of all downloadable contents available on MOSS, this list is continuously updating by Microsoft for covering new versions and service packs;

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262788.aspx

MCTS (Exchange 2007 Configuration) passed

Yesterday i cleared my MCTS exchange 2007 Configuration exam. The Exam was properly designed and most answers required experience and hands-on. Preparation of any exam always give you an overview of the complete product and normally one gets to now the features which he normally ignored in day to day operations.

For this exam preparation i used following items;

1. MS self paced guide.

2. Virtualized Exchange 2007 Environment.

3. TechNet Exchange Articles.

4. Practice Tests.

MS self paced guide are very well written and normally it gives you 70% preparation rest is your practical experience and TechNet research.

MOSS RSS Feed Reader

If you are planning for using MOSS RSS feed reader for getting feeds from internal MOSS sites then you have to change your MOSS authentication settings from NTLM to Kerberos or set your site to run in Anonymous mode or have to use some third party RSS feeds solutions integrated with MOSS such as smiling goat otherwise you will get authentication error message in your RSS feed reader webpart.

You can find steps for changing MOSS authentication from NTLM to Kerberos in following article

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=832769

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Help for Moving to SharePoint

Consolidating your your data into a single platform makes sense, and there are tools to make the transition easier.

View Original Article

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IIS 6.0 thread access Issue

Three weeks earlier i faced an issue in my MOSS environment.I have an enterprise MOSS farm environment consists of 6 Front-end servers and 5 Application servers. During installation of portal AV solution on these servers, i found that IIS on 5 of these servers were not responding. I opened IIS administration console but nothing was showing. I restarted IIS on all servers but no luck, then i did some research on it and found following MS KB on the same issue

“You may be unable to manage IIS 6.0 by using Server Manager if two threads access IIS 6.0 at the same time”

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946517

As per this KB this issue is because “two threads access IIS 6.0 at the same time. In this scenario, you may be unable to manage IIS 6.0 by using Server Manager.”

Also regarding SharePoint as per this KB “This problem is likely to occur for the SharePoint Timer service (OWSTimer.exe) in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. When this problem occurs for the SharePoint Timer service, you may experience the following symptoms:

• In SharePoint Server 2007, tasks that are scheduled do not run.
• When you try to manage IIS 6.0 by using Server Manager, you receive a blank page, or you receive the following error message:
  The path specified cannot be used at this time“

There is an hot-fix mentioned in this KB but it is not publicly available, one has to request Microsoft support for acquiring this. I got this hot-fix from my Microsoft account manager within an hour (because of our good relationship with them ) and had applied it instantaneously. The issue was fixed after this patch and haven’t occurred yet.

I think that this hot-fix will be included in new windows 2003 service pack(SP3) and also might addressed in IIS 6.0 successor i.e IIS 7.0.

Using SharePoint designer 2007 for backup and restore SharePoint 2003 sites

Before release of SharePoint designer, SharePoint sites can be backed-up and restore by using “smigrate” or “stsadm” tool. Both of these tools are command line and required some background SharePoint knowledge. SharePoint designer is a new tool in this breed; one can easily backup and restore SharePoint sites by using SharePoint designer GUI and performing some basic steps. Following are the simple steps which can be followed for backing up and restoring any SharePoint site.

Site Backup:

Step 1: Open Sharepoint site in Designer

Step 2: Go to Site->Administration->Backup website

Step 3: Click OK

Step 4: Give Name and location of backup file and click Save.

Site Restore:

Step1: Create new SharePoint site for restore (Do not apply template on newly created site, Stop on Template selection screen and don’t click ok)

Step 2: Copy the URL from the Template selection screen (Don’t click ok)

Step 3: Paste this URL in Open site dialog box.

Step 4: Go to Site->Administration->Restore website

Step 5: Select backup file for restore.

Step 6: Click OK for restore.

You will get success message after successful restore

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Database Maintenance for MOSS

Bill Baer from Microsoft has recently released a white paper discussing Database Maintenance strategies specifically for MOSS. Must read for any MOSS or SQL DBA

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=111531&clcid=0×409

MOSS Capacity Planning tool by Microsoft

Microsoft has finally launched its long awaiting Capacity planning tool for MOSS and other Microsoft Servers. I haven’t got ample time to go through this tool but will definitely install it and will share my experience. For those of you who wants an early look on it, please download it from the following link

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=DBEE0227-D4F7-48F8-85F0-E71493B2FD87&displaylang=en

MOSS – Storage Planning and Monitoring

Microsoft has released a new document for MOSS Storage Planning. The title of this document is “Performance Recommendations for Storage Planning and Monitoring”. This document is intended for SQL DBAs and portal Architects who want to plan and monitor their MOSS SQL environment. This document has two sections namely planning and monitoring. A must read for any MOSS DBA. Following is the link

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=105623&clcid=0×409

WSS 3.0 Application Templates

You can download WSS 3.0 Application templates for creating scenario sepecific sites and solutions.

Some of these templates have to be deployed on Site level and some at server level targeting different scenarios.

Following are thier lists;

Site Admin Templates
Board of Directors
Business Performance Reporting
Case Management for Government Agencies
Classroom Management
Clinical Trial Initiation and Management
Competitive Analysis Site
Discussion Database
Disputed Invoice Management
Employee Activities Site
Employee Self-Service Benefits
Employee Training Scheduling and Materials
Equity Research
Integrated Marketing Campaign Tracking
Manufacturing Process Management
New Store Opening
Product and Marketing Requirements Planning
Request for Proposal
Sports League
Team Work Site
Timecard Management

Server Admin Templates
Absence Request and Vacation Schedule Management
Budgeting and Tracking Multiple Projects
Bug Database
Call Center
Change Request Management
Compliance Process Support Site
Contacts Management
Document Library and Review
Event Planning
Expense Reimbursement and Approval
Help Desk
Inventory Tracking
IT Team Workspace
Job Requisition and Interview Management
Knowledge Base
Lending Library
Physical Asset Tracking and Management
Project Tracking Workspace
Room and Equipment Reservations
Sales Lead Pipeline

There are currently 40 templates available. Following is the reference site;

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsserver/sharepoint/wssapps/templates/default.mspx