I just got the following from the Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) team, and wanted to share:
The MOF team is pleased to present the MOF Quick Start Kits. Complete with ready-to-use graphics and comprehensive presentation decks, the Quick Start Kits allow you to add to any presentation with ease. Topics covered include an overview of MOF 4.0, information on MOF and compliance, training and certification updates, and study guides. The kits speak to targeted audiences— customers and partners. · MOF IT Pro Quick Start Kit. Available on the MOF home page, this customer-facing kit includes presentations, data sheets, graphics, mind maps, and links to supporting content. The kit does not include MOF core content—it directs users back to the /MOF page to download the documentation. · MOF Quick Start Kit for Partners. This kit is available through the Microsoft Partner Program site. In addition to the customer-facing content in the IT Pro Kit, this resource includes exclusive partner materials, such as data sheets, conversation points, and a customer-facing flyer.
The MOF team is pleased to present the MOF Quick Start Kits. Complete with ready-to-use graphics and comprehensive presentation decks, the Quick Start Kits allow you to add to any presentation with ease. Topics covered include an overview of MOF 4.0, information on MOF and compliance, training and certification updates, and study guides.
The kits speak to targeted audiences— customers and partners.
· MOF IT Pro Quick Start Kit. Available on the MOF home page, this customer-facing kit includes presentations, data sheets, graphics, mind maps, and links to supporting content. The kit does not include MOF core content—it directs users back to the /MOF page to download the documentation.
· MOF Quick Start Kit for Partners. This kit is available through the Microsoft Partner Program site. In addition to the customer-facing content in the IT Pro Kit, this resource includes exclusive partner materials, such as data sheets, conversation points, and a customer-facing flyer.
There is lots of good stuff in the Quick Start Kits, including the Visio diagrams, diagrams, graphics, presentations, training information, etc. The framework is completely open, and you can incorporate any of the MOF concepts, diagrams, workflows in your day-to-day work.
As always, your definitive source for MOF is http://www.microsoft.com/mof.
If you are like me, you haven’t fired up WordPad since somewhere around 1998. It has virtually no functionality at all.
Except… now it does. I was listening to Windows Weekly, and Paul Thurrott and Leo Laporte mentioned that WordPad is significantly improved in Windows 7. I fired it up to check, and they are right… it has morphed into a rather capable word processor! I love the ribbon in Office 2007, and I’m glad to see it show up in WordPad.
Not only that, but you can also natively save in Open Office XML (default format for Word 2007) or ODT (default format for OpenOffice). Not that I’d ever want to, but it’s nice to have the choice.
Very nice!
If you want SharePoint to, well, not look like SharePoint… we just released 10 themes that look awesome!
Download them here.
They are packaged as SharePoint Solutions so you don’t have to do the messy work of going to all of your front end web servers and horking around with your C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\THEMES folder. Seriously… install them as solutions. It will save you from breaking something.
The themes are sample code. To use them you need to have:
Learn SharePoint Development here:
http://MSSharePointDeveloper.com
I ran into an interesting issue with the People Search functionality of SharePoint today (which is the opposite of a problem I ran into sometime back, and which is also covered here)
The problem today: People results are duplicated.
The problem earlier: No people results at all.
The root cause of the issue is the same… People/Profiles in SharePoint are a special object, and need to be crawled with the SharePoint (as opposed to http) protocol handler. You need to make sure that you have a content source of sps3://yourservername/. In Central Administration, open your Shared Services Provider, and click on Search Settings, and then on your Content Sources.
On my particular server, I have My Sites setup on a separate Web Application from my root Site Collection, so I thought it would be smart to add an additional entry to search my My Sites of sps3://yourservername:12345
However, SharePoint was already smart enough to crawl my profiles with the existing sps3://yourservername, so the additional entry for the My Sites host just caused it to crawl (and display) the profiles twice. Deleting the extra entry and running an incremental crawl cleared things right up. (the opposite problem of no people results occurred when I only had http://yourservername/ as a Start Address. I needed to add the sps3://yourservername entry).
I didn’t see anyone else with the duplicate people search results on the Internet, so it is possible I’m the only person that has ever made this mistake, but if not… I hope this helps :)
When SharePoint 2007 creates new Content Databases, by default it adds a GUID to the end of the database name. While you can rename it during the creation process, maybe you forgot to and you now you have a Content Database that looks like the one below (which I intended to hold my “My Sites”). Fortunately, my friend Priyo showed me how to rename the databases.
To rename it, we are going to:
Start by going to Central Administration –> Application Management and click on Content Databases
Select the Web Application associated with the database you want to rename, and click on the Database name itself.
Change the Database Status to Offline (which just makes it so that no new sites can be added to the database), click OK. Click on the database again, select “Remove content database” and click OK. This does not delete the database, just removes it from SharePoint.
Switch over to SQL Management Studio, and back up the database, then take it offline.
Next… restore the database
And choose a friendly name to restore the database to. In this case, it will be the ContentDB for my My Sites.
Switch back over to Central Admin (you probably still have open) and click on “Add a content database”
Change the database to your new friendly name, and hit OK. Voila! You now have a database name that makes sense. Once you have verified that everything still works, you can go back into the SQL Management Studio and delete the database that you previously took offline.
Note: There are some special considerations when talking about the SharePoint AdminContent database, as the GUI does not give you an opportunity to name it during initial setup, and following the GUI method will lock you out of the GUI as soon as you remove the database. The three following posts will walk you through that process, and I’ll try to do the same with screenshots in the next few days.
http://guru-web.blogspot.com/2007/03/renaming-central-admin-content-database.html
http://www.whitworth.org/2006/08/07/moving-or-renaming-the-wss-central-administration-content-database/
http://blogs.msdn.com/krichie/archive/2006/10/30/psconfig-for-wss-3-0-and-moss-2007-is-your-friend.aspx
Unless you are Uber-l33t, you are probably not working on your Microsoft Certified Master certification. This is where the best-of-the-best come visit the better-of-the-best on the Redmond Campus to learn everything there is to know about Active Directory Services, SharePoint, OCS, SQL Server, or Exchange.
Seriously… take a look at the instructors.
Anyhoo, just because you paid the entrance fee, bought a plane ticket, and reserved a hotel room, you still have some work to do before you even set foot in the classroom. The Microsoft Certified Master team posted the pre-reading lists that candidates are encouraged (required?) to power through before showing up. If you are looking for something to keep you busy until the economy picks up, here you go:
What are you waiting for?
One thing that we are absolutely doing right in Windows 7 is paying attention to tiny details that may seem trivial, but that add significant polish to the End User experience.
In checking the date today, I see that the clock politely informs me that it changed the time due to Daylight Savings Time.
So that’s where that hour of my life went…
Good news! The SharePoint 2007 February Cumulative Update (CU) has been released. And there was much rejoicing.
In case you were wondering (I see these questions every once in a while):
Q. Does it include the Infrastructure Update? A. Yes. Q. Does it include all Hotfixes from SP1 on? A. Yes. A. Does it include the August/October/December Cumulative Updates? A. Yes.
Q. Does it include the Infrastructure Update? A. Yes.
Q. Does it include all Hotfixes from SP1 on? A. Yes.
A. Does it include the August/October/December Cumulative Updates? A. Yes.
And now for the official announcement (yes, “February” and “activated” are misspelled. I didn’t write it, just copied-and-pasted ;):
Download Information Feburary Cumulative Update Uber Package for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (Version: 12.0.6341.5000) http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=961755 Feburary Cumulative Update Uber Package for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (Version: 12.0.6341.5002) http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=961756 Detail description Description of the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 cumulative update package: February 24, 2009 Description of the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 cumulative update package: February 24, 2009 (Link is not actived yet) Installation Recommendation for a fresh SharePoint Server To keep all files in a SharePoint installation up-to-date, the following sequence is recommended. Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Service Pack 1 The 2007 Microsoft Office Servers Service Pack 1 Feburary Cumulative Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Feburary Cumulative Update for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Meanwhile, if customer need to index Visio files, there is a Visio iFilter hotfix which is not a part of the uber package. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/960502 After applying the preceding updates, run the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard or “psconfig –cmd upgrade –inplace b2b -wait” in command line. This needs to be done on every server in the farm with SharePoint installed. The version of content databases should be 12.0.6341.5000 after successfully applying these updates. For more in-depth guidance for the update process, we recommend that customers refer to the following articles. These articles provide a correct way to deploy updates, identify known issues (and resolutions), and provide information about creating slipstream builds. Deploy software updates for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc288269.aspx Deploy software updates for Office SharePoint Server 2007 http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263467.aspx How to create a SharePoint slipstream using the latest updates (Updated for FEB CU!)
Download Information
Feburary Cumulative Update Uber Package for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (Version: 12.0.6341.5000)
http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=961755
Feburary Cumulative Update Uber Package for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (Version: 12.0.6341.5002)
http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=961756
Detail description
Description of the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 cumulative update package: February 24, 2009
Description of the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 cumulative update package: February 24, 2009 (Link is not actived yet)
Installation Recommendation for a fresh SharePoint Server
To keep all files in a SharePoint installation up-to-date, the following sequence is recommended.
Meanwhile, if customer need to index Visio files, there is a Visio iFilter hotfix which is not a part of the uber package.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/960502
After applying the preceding updates, run the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard or “psconfig –cmd upgrade –inplace b2b -wait” in command line. This needs to be done on every server in the farm with SharePoint installed.
The version of content databases should be 12.0.6341.5000 after successfully applying these updates.
For more in-depth guidance for the update process, we recommend that customers refer to the following articles. These articles provide a correct way to deploy updates, identify known issues (and resolutions), and provide information about creating slipstream builds.
Deploy software updates for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc288269.aspx
Deploy software updates for Office SharePoint Server 2007
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263467.aspx
How to create a SharePoint slipstream using the latest updates (Updated for FEB CU!)
Internet Explorer: What’s New in Internet Explorer 8
Everyone expects something different from their browser. Some users are most concerned with security and privacy while others are more focused on customizability. Some want full standards compatibility, and others just desire ease of use. Explore the numerous new features and enhancements in Internet Explorer 8 that allow it to meet every user’s needs. Matt Hester
Active Directory: Export, Compare, and Synchronize Active Directory Schemas
If your organization has multiple Active Directory forests, you need to manage multiple Active Directory schemas and ensure consistency between schemas. Check out our step-by-step guide to comparing and synchronizing Active Directory schemas in multi-forest environments. John Policelli
Office Communications Server: Stay Connected with Office Communicator Web Access
Office Communicator Web Access is a messaging client that requires nothing more than a Web browser. Discover how it can extend the capabilities of Office Communicator—instant messaging, presence, desktop sharing, and so on—to anyone with an Internet connection and a supported browser. Greg Stemp and Jean Ross
Office Communications Server: How Voice Conferencing Powers OCS 2007 R2
Office Communications Server 2007 provides very powerful and flexible conferencing capabilities. Learn how OCS 2007 R2 allows users to set up real time conferences with other users inside and outside the corporate firewall, supporting both ad-hoc escalation of calls to a conference and pre-scheduled conferences and meetings. Rajesh Ramanathan
Windows HPC Server 2008: High Performance Computing in the Real World
Windows HPC Server 2008 was designed specifically for use in compute-intensive environments. See how it is used, along with other Microsoft technologies, in a life science laboratory to provide a solution that enables automated processing of data generated from an imaging device. Joshua M. Kunken
I was browsing the ATI/AMD site today to find an updated driver for Windows 7 (no luck…) and got a prompt letting me know that "This website wants to run the following add-on: 'Name ActiveX Control'"
As I am not one to enable ActiveX controls unless they serve a specific purpose that I need, I searched for this particular control. It turns out it is an ActiveX control that provides presence functionality to SharePoint Server (guess what support.amd.com is running on?). On an intranet, this control is enabled by default, but not so in the Internet (guess where support.amd.com is located)?
There are 3 workarounds for this problem, two on the client side and one on the Server site, all documented here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931509
If anyone from AMD’s web team is reading this article, please look into the server-side fix KThxBye. :)
If you are looking to migrate from Lotus Domino or from a generic POP/IMAP mail server to Exchange 2007, I have good news! The (free) Microsoft Transport Suite has been updated, to allow for multithreaded import of POP/IMAP mailboxes, and now supports migration from Lotus Notes R8.x.
Where do I get it ? http://www.microsoft.com/technet/move
Or direct links:
Transporter Suite Release Notes Guidance
The February 2009 release includes the following major updates to the Transporter Suite for Internet Mail:
The February 2009 release includes the following major updates to the Transporter Suite for Lotus Domino:
Some Screenshots:
I ended up having to do quite a bit of cleanup on the profiles associated with a team SharePoint server, and learned a bit in the process that doesn’t seem to be on the Internet in one place, so I thought I’d share.
Note: I will touch on several related areas in this post, so I apologize if I jump all over the place. All buckled in? Let’s go!
Ideally, in SharePoint, you have profiles (and maybe My Sites) for users that actually use the site (or that you want to search). For the most part, you do not want profiles of users that are disabled in Active Directory, users who have left the company, etc.
Most of the work that y0u do with profiles as an Administrator is within the SSP, under “User Profiles and My Sites”.
By default, when setting up Profile Import, SharePoint imports all users from your current domain. This is fine as a default, but you may end up pulling profiles that are not needed and/or wanted in two cases (off the top of my head):
1) You have a bunch of user/service accounts that are disabled in Active Directory.
2) You only want accounts from a particular group or OU to be imported into your SharePoint profiles.
In either of these cases, you will have to customize the LDAP query that SharePoint does on the backend to pull users out of AD. By default, the query searches for (&(objectCategory=Person)(objectClass=User)). In other words “Pull all users”.
SharePoint does not distinguish whether they are active or not. KB 827754 gives us the modified query we need to use if only pulling active users:
(&(objectCategory=person)(objectClass=user)( !(userAccountControl:1.2.840.113556.1.4.803:=2)))
If you want to import users just from a particular group or OU, the query will look something like:
(&(objectCategory=Person)(objectClass=User)(memberOf=[distinguished name of the group]))
Wayne Hall’s post here is the definitive source on how to find the Distinguished Name of the group you are looking for, and how to write the query. If you want to go completely buck-wild, you can read all about LDAP Search Query Syntax on MSDN.
All right. Now if you ran the full profile import before modifying the query, and have a bunch of disabled users in AD, or imported all AD users instead of a specific group, those extra profiles now exist in SharePoint where they are not doing a lot of good.
How can you delete them?
The answer is that you have to do a Full (not incremental) profile import. This does not delete the users, but marks them as “Profiles Missing from Import”. On the “User Profiles and Properties” page of the SSP, click on “View User Profiles”
From here, there is a drop down box that lets you choose between “Active Profiles” and “Profiles Missing from Import”
Don’t laugh at the difference between my Total number of user profiles and Number of active user profiles in the picture below. Long story, no happy ending ;)
In any case, if you select “Profiles Missing from Import”, it will show all profiles that exist in SharePoint that did NOT get pulled/updated from AD in your last full crawl. This could be because someone left the company, or because your modified query now pulls less people. In any case, once you verify that that user no longer exists (or shouldn’t have a profile on the server), check the box next to their profile/account name and hit delete. You can also wait for SharePoint to run three full (not incremental) imports, after which it will delete the profiles on its own. *Update: Although this is how it worked in SPS 2003, it is not how it works in MOSS 2007. It is actually the “My Site Cleanup Job” that does the dirty work. Gyorgy covers how this works here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/gyorgyh/archive/2009/11/13/how-it-works-moss-2007-automatic-user-profile-removal.aspx
A few other considerations to be aware of… If the user is no longer with the company, but somebody explicitly assigned them permissions to a site, list, or library… they will continue to have permissions if they ever come back (This is an issue at Microsoft as vendors may do work for one team and then come back some months later to do work for another team using the same AD account). Removing explicit permissions is a manual process (and is the reason why explicit user permissions should be the exception and not the rule). Use (and do not break) permission inheritance where ever possible. I usually put Active Directory groups within SharePoint groups, and assign SharePoint permissions to SharePoint groups. That way, if any given person joins or leaves the company, I assign/remove them from the appropriate AD group and their permissions accordingly come or go in SharePoint.
The other consideration is My Sites. How do you delete My Sites that belong to people that left the company? Once SharePoint no longer has a profile for a user with a My Site (see above), it will (by default) send an e-mail to that user’s Manager (assuming their profile has a manager listed) saying:
The My Site of Joe Blow is scheduled for deletion. As their manager you are now the temporary owner of their site. This temporary ownership gives you access to the site to copy any business-related information you might need. To access the site use this URL: http://servername/mysite/personal/joeblow
The manager is then added as the secondary site collection administrator for the user’s My Site, and any important documents can be copied off before the My Site is deleted. The wording of the e-mail itself is hardcoded and the wording cannot be changed. As well, this My Site cleanup is NOT part of or related to the “Site Use confirmation and deletion” feature of SharePoint. It takes place as part of the “My Site Cleanup Job” which runs hourly (you can find it under Central Administration –> Operations –> Timer Job Definitions). There were some problems with this job in RTM, but they were fixed in SP1 (in case you are still running RTM and old My Sites are still hanging around). (update to the paragraph above… commenter Chris reminded me that I was not quite right about the My Site deletion. While the e-mail itself is not related to the “Site Use confirmation and deletion” feature, sites are not actually deleted unless that feature is turned on. The e-mail to the manager is telling a fib. If the “Site Use confirmation and deletion” feature is enabled, the site is deleted due to the fact that the user never confirms the e-mail checking to see if they are still using the site; not due to the My Site Cleanup Job itself. I also came across another great resource on My Sites and disabled/deleted users from Phil Wicklund that is well worth reading: http://philwicklund.com/whitepapers/Documents/My%20Site%20Concerning%20Scenarios%20Study%20and%20Strategy.pdf)
I hope the information above helps someone if they ever end up trying to figure out how to clear out 75,000 profiles from a SharePoint server that is only used by a few hundred people :) (yes, I think I am the very definition of an edge case)
-Sean