Aravindhan Rajagopal's Blog

Install WSS/MOSS on Windows Server 2008 R2

aravindhan r — Fri, 22 May 2009 09:18:00 GMT

WSS/MOSS RTM & SP1 is not supported on WS2008 R2. It is supported with SP2 though. More information can be found at http://blogs.msdn.com/opal/archive/2009/05/08/install-moss-2007-wss-3-0-on-windows-server-2008-r2-you-will-need-sp2-slipstream.aspx...(read more)

Sharepoint Templates for Healthcare

aravindhan r — Thu, 07 May 2009 13:23:00 GMT

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/frontpage/HA012341451033.aspx healthcare domain templates for sharepoint, could be found in the above link....(read more)

Import from XLS into SQL Server

aravindhan r — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 13:35:00 GMT

Importing from an XLS to SQL Server – This can be accomplished several ways mentioned below. We can choose an option befitting the environment and requirement we are looking for.

•	SQL Server Data Transformation Services (DTS)
•	Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Integration Services (SSIS)
•	SQL Server linked servers
•	SQL Server distributed queries
•	ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) and the Microsoft OLE DB Provider for SQL Server
•	ADO and the Microsoft OLE DB Provider for Jet 4.0

You can refer to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/321686 for detailed view of these methods

Web Deployment Projects

aravindhan r — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 08:39:00 GMT

VS.Net 2005 provides options of Copy website and Publish website, which was not present in its predecessor. While these two functionalities are ideal for most cases, web deployment projects give advanced support to the developers, giving them more control over the assembly naming, customizing the connection string etc.,

For more information on web deployment projects refer http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa479568.aspx

Sharepoint Solution Installer

aravindhan r — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 10:49:00 GMT

Installing a solution in SharePoint has just become easy. We used to run the stsadm tool to deploy the wsp file into the solution store and then activate it either to a farm or a site collection. This would be a tedious process for any beginner in SharePoint as things were done in the console with no so called GUI. There is an installer, called “Solution Installer”, which provides a GUI to the process making it easy and friendly to use. In the config file accompanying the installer, we could provide the scope of the solution ie., either farm or site. Also, helps you in customizing the installer by giving an option to choose our own EULA, logo and banner image.

We may link the Solution installer to VS 200X IDE using the WSPBuilder

Sharepoint Templates - Types

aravindhan r — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 08:42:00 GMT

The following are the different templates that are available for sharepoint

Template Name	Description
GLOBAL#0	Global template (1033)
STS#0	Team Site (1033)
STS#1	Blank Site (1033)
STS#2	Document Workspace (1033)
MPS#0	Basic Meeting Workspace (1033)
MPS#1	Blank Meeting Workspace (1033)
MPS#2	Decision Meeting Workspace (1033)
MPS#3	Social Meeting Workspace (1033)
MPS#4	Multipage Meeting Workspace (1033)
CENTRALADMIN#0	Central Admin Site (1033)
WIKI#0	Wiki Site (1033)
BLOG#0	Blog (1033)
BDR#0	Document Center (1033)
OFFILE#0	Records Center (1033)
OFFILE#1	Records Center (1033)
OSRV#0	Shared Services Administration Site (1033)
SPS#0	SharePoint Portal Server Site (1033)
SPSPERS#0	SharePoint Portal Server Personal Space (1033)
SPSMSITE#0	Personalization Site (1033)
SPSTOC#0	Contents area Template (1033)
SPSTOPIC#0	Topic area template (1033)
SPSNEWS#0	News Site (1033)
CMSPUBLISHING#0	Publishing Site (1033)
BLANKINTERNET#0	Publishing Site (1033)
BLANKINTERNET#1	Press Releases Site (1033)
BLANKINTERNET#2	Publishing Site with Workflow (1033)
SPSNHOME#0	News Site (1033)
SPSSITES#0	Site Directory (1033)
SPSCOMMU#0	Community area template (1033)
SPSREPORTCENTER#0	Report Center (1033)
SPSPORTAL#0	Collaboration Portal (1033)
SRCHCEN#0	Search Center with Tabs (1033)
PROFILES#0	Profiles (1033)
BLANKINTERNETCONTAINER#0	Publishing Portal (1033)
SPSMSITEHOST#0	My Site Host (1033)
SRCHCENTERLITE#0	Search Center (1033)
SRCHCENTERLITE#1	Search Center (1033)
SPSBWEB#0	SharePoint Portal Server BucketWeb Template (1033)

OpenNewWindow - Small web page - Not a popup.

aravindhan r — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 11:01:00 GMT

Was wondering for a while about how to show certain tips to the customers in my web application, which is a touch more than the normal tooltip. Well, you would be thinking about that too. The answer is here. You can perform this using the following

Use a image button on your screen with any selected image.
In the property named OnClientClick for this imagebutton, set the value to OpenNewWindow("tips.aspx")
In the script section (javascript), write the client side code as given below

function OpenNewWindow(target)

{

var win=window.open(target,"TheNewWindow",

"height=120,width=200,menubar=0,left=500,top=300,screenX=100,screenY=500");

win.focus();

}

</script>

What are we doing here? we are saying that this image button has to execute the javascript (which opens the page desired in the given size) on the client side click event. This method helps us to show something more than that of a tooltip. We can make it more usable viz provocative to the user by having a help icon for the image in the imagebutton.

Sharepoint Coding Standards

aravindhan r — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 10:16:00 GMT

The following are few critical guidelines to be followed in sharepoint solution development.

1) Switching ON and OFF the AllowUnsafeUpdates option, as and when appropriately.

2) Disposing the SPSite objects after usage.

3) Disposing the SPWeb objects after usage.

4) Avoid disposing objects derived from SPContext.

5) Try the "Using" clause - to avoid the overhead of disposing objects explicitly.

Recently i have blogged about these in detail in our team blog

http://blogs.msdn.com/securitytools/archive/2009/07/29/sharepoint-coding-practices-a-quick-overview.aspx

Additionally, you may refer to the msdn article below

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa973248.aspx#sharepointobjmodel__spsiteobjects