Moss SP3 is out !

Hi,
Last month Microsoft has announced that soon we will receive the 3rd SP to Moss.
Well...it's out now according to their Blog.

You can get the download links from the chart below, which is taken from the link above.(the chart is best viewed in IE)

Download Links for 2007 Service Pack 3

2007 Microsoft Office Suite Service Pack 3 (SP3) and Microsoft Office Language Pack 2007 SP3	2526086	Suite: 32-bit ; LPK: 32-bit
2007 Microsoft Office servers Service Pack 3 (SP3) and 2007 Microsoft Office servers Language Pack (SP3)	2526299	Server Suite: 32-bit; LPK: 32-bit ; Server Suite: 64-bit; LPK: 64-bit
Office SharePoint Designer 2007 Service Pack 3 (SP3) and of Office SharePoint Designer Language Pack 2007 SP3	2526089	SharePoint Designer: 32-bit; LPK: 32bit
Office Project 2007 Service Pack 3 (SP3) and of Office Project Language Pack 2007 SP3	2526091	Project: 32-bit; Project LPK: 32-bit
Office Visio 2007 Service Pack 3 (SP3) and of Office Visio Language Pack 2007 SP3	2526291	Visio: 32-bit; Visio LPK: 32-bit
Office Proofing Tools 2007 Service Pack 3 (SP3)	2526293	32-bit
Microsoft Office Language Interface Pack 2007 Service Pack 3 (SP3)	2526307	32-bit
PowerPoint Viewer 2007 Service Pack 3 (SP3)	2526298	32-bit
Visio Viewer 2007 Service Pack 3 (SP3)	2526301	32-bit
Excel Viewer 2007 Service Pack 3 (SP3)	2526302	32-bit
Calendar Printing Assistant for Outlook 2007 Service Pack 3 (SP3)	2526294	32-bit
Microsoft Office InterConnect 2007 Service Pack 3 (SP3)	2526296	32-bit
Office Compatibility Pack Service Pack 3 (SP3)	2526297	32-bit
Microsoft Office Access Runtime and Data Connectivity Components 2007 Service Pack 3 (SP3)	2526310	32-bit
Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Service Pack 3 (SP3) and of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Language Pack SP3	2526305	WSS 3.0: 32-bit; LPK: 32-bit ; WSS 3.0: 64-bit; LPK: 64-bit
Microsoft Expression Web 3 Service Pack 3 (SP3) and of Microsoft Expression Web Language Pack SP3	2575737	Expression Web : 32-bit; LPK: 32-bit
Known issues that you may experience when you install the 2007 Microsoft Office suite Service Pack 3 (SP3) and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SP3	2591067	n/a
List of all 2007 Office system Service Pack 3 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Service Pack 3 packages	2591018	n/a
Technical details about the 2007 Microsoft Office System Service Pack 3 (SP3) releases	2591039	n/a
Technical details about the 2007 Microsoft Office Servers Service Pack 3 (SP3) releases	2591050	n/a
Technical details about the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Service Pack 3 (SP3) releases	2591054	n/a

Windows PowerShell Command Builder

Since the coming of SharePoint 2010 we all started to fiddle with Powershell to make our life (and scripts) a litle bit easier.

Well...now the task just got a little bit straight forward thanks to Microsoft Windows PowerShell Command Builder.

Basically it's a Silverlight app that has some built in cmdlets built within a GUI of some sort. you can use it to assemble all kind of cmdlets, it's still a draft in my eyes since the amount of cmdlets are limited at the moment but i'm hoping Microsoft will finish what they have started by adding more cmdlets.

Anyhow it's a big help to those who didn't get into the world of Powershell when SharePoint 2010 came out, for those people this is a good station to climb aboard.

More Info can be found here.

Moss 2007 SP3 Announced

Hello fellow Sharepointer's,

Microsoft has announced that the 3rd SP for Moss will be released on the Q4 of 2011 via manual download from Microsoft Download.

The SP will include updates for the following products :

Office Client 2007 Suites

Office SharePoint 2007 Servers
Office SharePoint Search Server 2007
Office SharePoint Designer 2007
Office Project 2007
Office Visio 2007
Office Proofing tools 2007
Calendar Printing Assistant for Outlook 2007
Office InterConnect 2007
Office Compatibility Pack
PowerPoint Viewer
Visio Viewer
Office Servers Language Pack
Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
Office Access Runtime and Data Connectivity Components

The original announcement can be found here.

SharePoint Time Zone Change 2011

Hello People,

In My previous post i explained how to configure the Timezone.xml file to be ready for the "Winter time" of 2011, or if you want DST 2001 part 2.
In the previous post i was talking about how to move one hour ahead (for Example from GMT+2 to GMT+3)
in this post i'll show you how to revert the changes, and no - it's not deleting your old lines :-)

What we will do is set the Week number,day,hour of the change in the Timezone.xml  file So SharePoint will know when to change the Clock.
One thing i want to make clear - SharePoint does not look at the OS clock for changes - that's the reason we need to change the file - look at it as a sort of an internal clock.

Before we begin, some guideline :

1.before you change the XML files on you servers - BACK THEM UP!, if there is a mistake in the file the  server will not show results correctly. (trust me iv'e been there :-))
2.After changing the file you need to Restart your IIS.
3. the file must be changed on all the servers in the Farm, yes...including back-End Servers.
4.tested on MOSS 2007 SP2 and SharePoint 2010 SP1 June CU.
5.This post shows my work - if you decide to do it on your own Farm i suggest you start in a test environment by changing the date to after the DST changes (which is on 2/10/2011 - 02:00 AM) and create something - it should show you that the date created is 1 hour back than your current time.

Step 1
we will need to add tag to the lines we used last time we changed the file : 

<TimeZone ID="27" Name="(GMT+02:00) Jerusalem" Hidden="FALSE">
        <Bias>-120</Bias>
        <StandardTime>
            <Bias>0</Bias>
            <Date>
                <Month>9</Month>
                <Day>5</Day>
                <Hour>2</Hour>
                <DayOfWeek>6</DayOfWeek>
            </Date>
        </StandardTime>
        <DaylightTime>
            <Bias>-60</Bias>
            <Date>
                <Month>4</Month>
                <Day>1</Day>
                <Hour>2</Hour>
                <DayOfWeek>6</DayOfWeek>
            </Date>
        </DaylightTime>




Step 2
you will need to copy the text from step 1 and change it a bit.
First remove the history tags, then change the numbers you see under the Standard Time tag ass following :

<StandardTime>
  <Bias>0</Bias>
      <Date>
          <Month>9</Month>
          <Day>5</Day>
          <Hour>2</Hour>
          <DayOfWeek>6</DayOfWeek>
        </Date>
 </StandardTime>




**short Explanation -
9 stands for the month
5  Stands for the week of the month (yes week not day like the XML says)
2 stands for the hour when the change will occur
6 - Stands for the Day of the week.

Step 3
After changing the Timezone.xml files on all of you farm servers, and after you restarted the IIS - you are all done :-)

Feel free to ask questions, i didn't get it to work the first time either ;-)

Id'e like to take this chance to thank a college of mine name Roi Kolbinger who helped me this year also to figure things out. Thanks Roi !

pre download prerequisites - SharePoint 2010

Hi guys,

I found a Power Shell Script that will download all the Sharepoint 2010 Prerequists files need for the SharePoint 2010 installation.

I find it usefull when I'm installing SharePoint to a client which I don't know if he has an Internet Connection on the machine at hand.

This is the script :

Import-Module BitsTransfer

## Prompt for the destination path

$DestPath = Read-Host -Prompt "- Enter the destination path for downloaded files"

## Check that the path entered is valid

If (Test-Path "$DestPath" -Verbose)

{

## If destination path is valid, create folder if it doesn't already exist

$DestFolder = "$DestPath\PrerequisiteInstallerFiles"

New-Item -ItemType Directory $DestFolder -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

}

Else

{

Write-Warning " - Destination path appears to be invalid."

## Pause

Write-Host " - Please check the path, and try running the script again."

Write-Host "- Press any key to exit..."

$null = $host.UI.RawUI.ReadKey("NoEcho,IncludeKeyDown")

break

}

$UrlList = ("http://download.microsoft.com/download/C/9/F/C9F6B386-824B-4F9E-BD5D-F95BB254EC61/Redist/amd64/Microsoft%20Sync%20Framework/Synchronization.msi", # http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=141237&clcid=0x409 - Microsoft Sync Framework Runtime v1.0 (x64) 

"http://download.microsoft.com/download/c/c/4/cc4dcac6-ea60-4868-a8e0-62a8510aa747/MSChart.exe", # "http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=141512" - Microsoft Chart Controls for the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5

"http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/0/e/20e90413-712f-438c-988e-fdaa79a8ac3d/dotnetfx35.exe", # http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=131037 - Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1

"http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/8/6/28686477-3242-4E96-9009-30B16BED89AF/Windows6.0-KB968930-x64.msu", # "http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/8/6/28686477-3242-4E96-9009-30B16BED89AF/Windows6.0-KB968930-x64.msu" - Windows PowerShell 2.0

"http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/7/2/D72FD747-69B6-40B7-875B-C2B40A6B2BDD/Windows6.1-KB974405-x64.msu", # "http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=166363" - Windows Identity Framework (Win2008 R2)

"http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/8/1/681F5144-4092-489B-87E4-63F05E95079C/Windows6.0-KB976394-x64.msu", # http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkID=160770 - WCF fix for Win2008 SP2

"http://download.microsoft.com/download/E/C/7/EC785FAB-DA49-4417-ACC3-A76D26440FC2/Windows6.1-KB976462-v2-x64.msu", # http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=166231 - WCF fix for Win2008 R2

"http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/7/2/D72FD747-69B6-40B7-875B-C2B40A6B2BDD/Windows6.0-KB974405-x64.msu", # "http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=160381" - Windows Identity Framework (Win2008 SP2)

"http://download.microsoft.com/download/3/5/5/35522a0d-9743-4b8c-a5b3-f10529178b8a/sqlncli.msi", # "http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=123718&clcid=0x409" - SQL Server 2008 Native Client

"http://download.microsoft.com/download/b/9/a/b9a78047-d269-4a25-88a1-9c4321d90677/SQLSERVER2008_ASADOMD10.msi", # "http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=130651&clcid=0x409" - Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services ADOMD.NET

"http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/7/1/171CCDD6-420D-4635-867E-6799E99AB93F/ADONETDataServices_v15_CTP2_RuntimeOnly.exe", # "http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=158354" - ADO.NET Data Services v1.5 CTP2 (Win2008 SP2)

"http://download.microsoft.com/download/B/8/6/B8617908-B777-4A86-A629-FFD1094990BD/iis7psprov_x64.msi", # http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9655704 - IIS management cmdlets

"http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/0/F/10F1C44B-6607-41ED-9E82-DF7003BFBC40/1033/x64/rsSharePoint.msi", # http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=166379 - SQL 2008 R2 Reporting Services SharePoint 2010 Add-in

"http://download.microsoft.com/download/8/D/F/8DFE3CE7-6424-4801-90C3-85879DE2B3DE/Platform/x64/SpeechPlatformRuntime.msi", # http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=166378 - Microsoft Server Speech Platform Runtime

"http://download.microsoft.com/download/E/0/3/E033A120-73D0-4629-8AED-A1D728CB6E34/SR/MSSpeech_SR_en-US_TELE.msi" # http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=166371 - Microsoft Server Speech Recognition Language - TELE(en-US)

)

ForEach ($Url in $UrlList)

{

## Get the file name based on the portion of the URL after the last slash

$DestFileName = $Url.Split('/')[-1]

Try

{

## Check if destination file already exists

If (!(Test-Path "$DestFolder\$DestFileName"))

{

## Begin download

Start-BitsTransfer -Source $Url -Destination $DestFolder\$DestFileName -DisplayName "Downloading `'$DestFileName`' to $DestFolder" -Priority High -Description "From $Url..." -ErrorVariable err

If ($err) {Throw ""}

}

Else

{

Write-Host " - File $DestFileName already exists, skipping..."

}

}

Catch

{

Write-Warning " - An error occurred downloading `'$DestFileName`'"

break

}

}

## View the downloaded files in Windows Explorer

Invoke-Item $DestFolder

## Pause

Write-Host "- Downloads completed, press any key to exit..."

$null = $host.UI.RawUI.ReadKey("NoEcho,IncludeKeyDown") 

I left out some comments left by the author of this script.

You can find the Original script here.

Cheers.

Modifying the alternate access mapping

Hi Fellow SharePointers J

This week I encountered a problem from an unusual source – AAM (Alternate Access Mapping)

I Tried to edit one of the records when I got this error :

 "An update conflict has occurred, and you must re-try this action" .

I'll let the Microsoft description to do the explanation here since it is well put:

"This issue occurs if the contents of the file system cache on the front-end servers are newer than the contents of the configuration database. After you perform a system recovery, you may have to manually clear the file system cache on the local server."

The way to perform this is as following:

1. Stop the Timer service. To do this, follow these steps:
   1. Click Start, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Services.
   2. Right-click Windows SharePoint Services Timer, and then click Stop.
   3. Close the Services console.
2. On the computer that is running Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and on which the Central Administration site is hosted, click Start, click Run, type explorer, and then press ENTER.
3. In Windows Explorer, locate and then double-click the following folder:
   Drive:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\SharePoint\Config\GUID
   Notes
   • The Drive placeholder specifies the letter of the drive on which Windows is installed. By default, Windows is installed on drive C.
   • The GUID placeholder specifies the GUID folder.
   • The Application Data folder may be hidden. To view the hidden folder, follow these steps:
     1. On the Tools menu, click Folder Options.
     2. Click the View tab.
     3. In the Advanced settings list, click Show hidden files and folders under Hidden files and folders, and then click OK.
   • In Windows Server 2008, the configuration cache is in the following location:
     Drive:\ProgramData\Microsoft\SharePoint\Config\GUID
4. Back up the Cache.ini file.
5. Delete all the XML configuration files in the GUID folder. Do this so that you can verify that the GUID folder is replaced by new XML configuration files when the cache is rebuilt.
   
   Note When you empty the configuration cache in the GUID folder, make sure that you do not delete the GUID folder and the Cache.ini file that is located in the GUID folder.
6. Double-click the Cache.ini file.
7. On the Edit menu, click Select All.
8. On the Edit menu, click Delete.
9. Type 1, and then click Save on the File menu.
10. On the File menu, click Exit.
11. Start the Timer service. To do this, follow these steps:
    1. Click Start, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Services.
    2. Right-click Windows SharePoint Services Timer, and then click Start.
    3. Close the Services console.
    Note The file system cache is re-created after you perform this procedure. Make sure that you perform this procedure on all servers in the server farm.
12. Make sure that the Cache.ini file in the GUID folder now contains its previous value. For example, make sure that the value of the Cache.ini file is not 1.
13. Click Start, point to Programs, point to Administrative Tools, and then click SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration.
14. Click the Operations tab, and then click Timer job status under Global Configuration.
15. In the list of timer jobs, verify that the status of the Config Refresh entry is Succeeded.
16. On the File menu, click Close.

Source : KB939308

I used This Method lots of times and it always saved me :-)

Backup \ Restore - SQL Permissions

Hello again,

The case :

Sometime this month I was performing a restore from the MOSS GUI, and I got the following error :

                                              

It turned out to be an SQL Permission Problem, since the "SQL guys" gave me DB Creator and not SYSADMIN Permission as needed, I was able to create a new DB but what I couldn't do is to set a reference to it in the MASTER db.

Conclusion – always check your Permissions before you start a backup \ restore

"Service Unavailable"

Hi People!

First….The case

Recently I "inherited" a Portal server 2003 (wooooha), and so I went on and tried to browse to the portal URL, but what I got was "Service Unavailable".

The steps I did:

First of all I checked to see if the site itself and it's application pool are running.

Once I saw they were running well, I figured it must be a Permission problem.

So in order to save me some time I googled it and fair enough I found a Microsoft KB.

To save you guys the need to go into the link I'll tell you it’s about how to make sure the Permissions groups are in order and how to change the permissions in the IIS (6.0)

Here are the steps needed to be done :

1. Verify that the application pool is configured for the virtual server. The default application pool is MSSharePointPortalAppPool.
   
   Follow these steps to determine the application pool that the virtual server is using:
   1. Click Start, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.
   2. Expand ServerName, expand Web Sites, right-click the virtual server, and then click Properties.
   3. Click the Home Directory tab.
      
      The application pool that is configured for the virtual server is listed in the Application pool box.
   4. Click OK.
2. Verify that the password for the application pool account is correct. IIS does not automatically poll password changes in Active Directory directory service. If the application pool account is a domain account, and the password expires, you may receive the error message that is described in the "Symptoms" section of this article after a new password is specified for the account.
   
   Follow these steps to verify that the password for the application pool account is correct:
   1. In Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager, expand Application Pools.
   2. Right-click the application pool that is configured for the virtual server (for example, right-click MSSharePointPortalAppPool), and then click Properties.
   3. Click the Identity tab.
   4. In the Password box, type the password of the application pool account that is listed in the User name box, and then click OK.
   5. In the Confirm Password dialog box, type the password again, and then click OK.
3. Verify that the application pool account is a member of both the IIS_WPG group and the STS_WPG group on the server:
   
   Use one of the following methods as appropriate to your situation:
   1. If Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 is installed on a member server:
      1. Click Start, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Computer Management.
      2. Expand Local Users and Groups, and then expand Users.
      3. Right-click the account that is used by the application pool for the virtual server, and then click Properties.
      4. Click the Member of tab.
         
         Verify that both IIS_WPG and STS_WPG appear in the Member of list. If one or both groups are not listed, add the IIS_WPG group, the STS_WPG group, or both groups (as appropriate) to the list.
   2. If Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 is installed on a domain controller:
      1. Start Active Directory Users and Computers.
      2. Expand Users.
      3. Right-click the account that is used by the application pool for the virtual server, and then click Properties.
      4. Click the Member of tab.
         
         Verify that both IIS_WPG and STS_WPG appear in the Member of list. If one or both groups are not listed, add the IIS_WPG group, the STS_WPG group, or both groups (as appropriate) to the list.
4. Restart IIS to recycle the application pools:
   1. In Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager, right-click ServerName, point to All Tasks, and then click Restart IIS.
   2. Click Restart Internet Information Services on ServerName, and then click OK.

 

And that's all, I hope you found this post helpful.

AntiVirus

In this post I will refer to a matter which usually slips out of people's minds when they are installing a SharePoint farm, and that is the Antivirus.

Anti-Viruses that use File-Level Scanning basically scan everything that is being used by the OS or apps, that's good for protecting from viruses but what about SharePoint in this deal?

SharePoint loses Performance on this matter if you don't exclude some folders.

Microsoft has indicated in a KB article exactly what is to be excluded, keep in mind to the changes in OS and 64 VS 32 bit servers.

The main folders are:

C: \Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Service Extensions

C: Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\Temporary ASP.NET Files

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Servers

C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\Temporary ASP.NET Files

C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v2.0.50727\Temporary ASP.NET Files (on 64 Bit Servers)

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\SharePoint\Config C:\Windows\Temp\WebTempDir

C:\WINDOWS\system32\LogFiles 

C:\Windows\Syswow64\LogFiles (on 2008 Servers) 

For reference here is the KB article link.

Daylight Saving Time

Hello Everyone,

This post is mostly aimed to my Israeli crowd (because this problem concerns them the most).
It's about the Daylight saving time issue in MOSS and Sharepoint 2010 in the year 2011.

Sharepoint (or moss) dosen't look at the OS date as regarding to Daylight Saving time, it looks at an XML file located in : C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\Config\TIMEZONE.xml.

This years Changes include the following changes :

<.Bias>-120<./Bias>

<.StandardTime>
<.Bias>0<./Bias>
<.Date>
<.Month>9<./Month>
<.Day>2<./Day>
<.Hour>2<./Hour>
<./Date>
<./StandardTime>
<.DaylightTime>
<.Bias>-60<./Bias>
<.Date>
<.Month>4<./Month>
<.Day>1<./Day>
<.Hour>2<./Hour>
<.DayOfWeek>6<./DayOfWeek>
<./Date>
<./DaylightTime>
<./TimeZone>

That's because the change is due on the night between Thursday and Friday at 2 AM in the date 4.1.2011.

There is also a little bug that a co worker of mine showed me, you can view it in his Blog.

For those of you who dosen't understand Hebrew i'll reveal the bug here.

Israel resides in the GMT+2 Time Line, which means we are -120 minutes away from the Grinich line.

Therefore the data -120 <.Bias>-120<./Bias>

Month being the month the clock changes to daylight saving time  <.Month>4<./Month>

Hour representing Hour <.Hour>2<./Hour>

DayOfTheWeek representing the day of the week it will change. <.DayOfWeek>6<./DayOfWeek>

And get this : DAY representing the week the change will occur (yes the week not the day) <.Day>1<./Day>


The changes to the XML file needs to be done on all the servers in the farm, and don't forget to backup your old XML files just in case.


Here is what Microsoft have to say about the Issue.

Happy transition to the year 2011 DST :-)