Users of Microsoft Windows Vista and Office 2007 might have encountered an error "Unknown error trying to lock file" when they click Edit Document. This error however didn't occur for users of Microsoft XP with Office 2007. As far as I know the problem occurred because of the changes made in the Web Client service in Vista and the way Office was communicating with Sharepoint. Installing Microsoft hotfix 943280 and patching your Web Folders with 907306 didn't resolve the problem. Trying numerous workarounds described on the web didn't resolve the problem either. The only workaround that worked setting the office applications to run in "Windows XP SP2 compatibility mode", but then why would you run Windows Vista. You could say this is another reason to go back old Windows XP.
Luckily with the release of SP1 for Vista this problem disappears! So, thank you Microsoft for solving this problem, although I hope such problems will be resolved faster and more efficiently. I would wish that those problems will not exist in the first place, but then I start thinking that if all software would run smoothly, it will make a life of IT guys pretty boring. So, thank you Microsoft for keeping IT guys busy/employed! J
Note: Don't forget to upgrade your SharePoint servers to SP1.
Related resources:
If you have a public Sharepoint site (MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0) that is accessible to anonymous users and you’re not using custom scopes, you probably already noticed that every time users try to search they get a user prompt. To get pass this prompt you must enter valid username, otherwise you’ll get famous “Access Denied” page. So much for anonymous access, right?
Anyway, the problem is with OSSSearchResults.aspx page, specifically with one of the inheritance reference that ASPX page. I’m talking about the part of the code that sets the inheritance of the page from the generic application page base class, which is not really required for this page to function properly.
To allow anonymous users to search your publicly available sites you need to remove that inheritance from the code, so find part of the code inside the <Page> tag that states “Inherits="Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.LayoutsPageBase" and remove that part of the code (not the whole line, just the part that inhertis the application page base.) OSSSearchResults.aspx page is usually stored at C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS on your SharePoint server. Make sure you backup the file before making any changes!
Making those changes will not only allow anonymous users to search the SharePoint content, but also will keep the SharePoint search secure, meaning that anonymous users will only be able to search the part of the SharePoint they have permissions to view.
Related resources:
First of all, you must backup SharePoint. Upgrading to SP1 should not break your WSS3/MOSS2007 install, but it's always better to be safe than sorry.
In my case we have 32-bit installation of SharePoint server, so these guidelines will refer to 32-bit version of SP1 for WSS3/MOSS2007, but as far as I know the guidelines can also be used for installation of SP1 on 64-bit instances of SharePoint server (just make sure you download 64-bit version of Service Pack file). You can download Service Pack 1 from Microsoft website (For MOSS installations, Service Pack 1 for both WSS3 and MOSS2007 must be installed):
- Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Service Pack 1 (27.3Mb)
- Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Service Pack 1 (78.9Mb)
Now that you've backed up your SharePoint install and downloaded the updates, you're ready to install the service pack. First, let's install Service Pack 1 for WSS3:
-
Stop the World Wide Web Publishing Services
- Go to Start >> Administrative Tools >> Services
- Select World Wide Web Publishing Service and click Stop
-
Install the Windows SharePoint Services Service Pack 1
- Run the downloaded executable file WSS3 SP1 (wssv3sp1-kb936988-x86-fullfile-en-us.exe)
- Accept the licensing terms. Technically you should read the EULA terms before accepting, but nobody I know actually does it, so...
- Click Continue and click OK when prompted to remind the administrator to update all SharePoint servers.
- Click OK when the installation completes.
- If you have MOSS2007 installed then skip SharePoint Configuration Wizard (i.e. close it, if prompted) and proceed to installing SP1 for MOSS 2007. If, however, you only have WSS3 installed, then run SharePoint Configuration Wizard, start World Wide Web Publishing Service and that's it.
Second, if you have MOSS2007, we need to install SP1 for MOSS2007:
-
Install the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server Service Pack 1
- Run the downloaded executable file (officeserver2007sp1-kb936984-x86-fullfile-en-us.exe)
- Accept the licensing terms. Technically you should read the EULA terms before accepting, but nobody I know actually does it, so...
- Click Continue and click OK when prompted to remind administrator that you update all SharePoint servers.
- Click OK when the installation completes.
-
Run SharePoint Configuration Wizard
- If SharePoint Configuration Wizard won't run automatically after SP1 install go to Start >> All Programs >> Microsoft Office Server >> SharePoint Product and Technologies Configuration Wizard
- Click Next at the Welcome screen and click Yes when prompted with the warning about restarting services
- Click Next at the Completing the SharePoint Product and Technologies Configuration Wizard and click OK when prompted to remind the administrator to update all SharePoint servers
- Go get a cup of coffee because the wizard might take a while to complete
- Click Finish after the configuration completed
-
Start World Wide Web Publishing Service to make your SharePoint server accessible by users again
- Go to Start >> Administrative Tools >> Services
- Select World Wide Web Publishing Service and click Start
If you want to make sure that you have successfully updated your WSS3 or MOSS2007 to Service Pack 1 you can do that through SharePoint Central Administration or Add/Remove Programs. To verify the SharePoint version through SharePoint Central Administration:
- Open SharePoint Central Administration, go to Operations tab
- Under Topologies and Services section click Servers in farm to list your SharePoint server(s)
- If you see "Version: 12.0.0.6219" next to your SharePoint server, then you have successfully upgraded that server to Service Pack 1.
Alternatively, you can verify the SharePoint version through Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel:
- Go to Start >> Control Panel >> Add/Remove Programs
- Select Microsoft Office SharePoint Server and click on "Click here for support information"
- If you see "Version: 12.0.0.6219", then you have successfully upgraded that server to Service Pack 1.
Please note that if you have multiple SharePoint Servers (WSS3 and/or MOSS2007) you need to update all of them to Service Pack 1!!!
Related resources:
If you're thinking about migrating WSS 3.0 or MOSS 2007 sites to a new server, you need to remember to reinstall any third-party webparts you have installed on the old Sharepoint server. So if your Sharepoint instance have Reporting Services webpart installed you will have to re-install it, but before you do that make sure you remove old webpart from the Web Part Gallery and remove (or comment out) any references to the old RS webpart from web.config file in the Sharepoint's virtual directory.
<SafeControl Assembly="Microsoft.ReportingServices.SharePoint.UI.ServerPages, Version=9.0.242.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=89845dcd8080cc91" Namespace="Microsoft.ReportingServices.SharePoint.UI" TypeName="*" Safe="True" />
<SafeControl Assembly="Microsoft.ReportingServices.SharePoint.UI.WebParts, Version=9.0.242.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=89845dcd8080cc91" Namespace="Microsoft.ReportingServices.SharePoint.UI.WebParts" TypeName="*" Safe="True" />
<SafeControl Assembly="RSWebParts, Version=8.0.242.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=89845dcd8080cc91" Namespace="Microsoft.ReportingServices.SharePoint.UI.WebParts" TypeName="*" Safe="True" />
<add verb="*" path="Reserved.ReportViewerWebControl.axd" type="Microsoft.Reporting.WebForms.HttpHandler, Microsoft.ReportViewer.WebForms, Version=8.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a" />
<add verb="*" path="_vti_bin/ReportServer" type="Microsoft.ReportingServices.SharePoint.Soap.RSProxyHttpHandler, RSSharePointSoapProxy, Version=9.0.242.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=89845dcd8080cc91" />
<add verb="*" path="Reserved.ReportViewerWebPart.axd" type="Microsoft.ReportingServices.SharePoint.UI.WebParts.WebPartHttpHandler, Microsoft.ReportingServices.SharePoint.UI.WebParts, Version=9.0.242.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=89845dcd8080cc91" />
<location path="_vti_bin/ReportServer/ReportServiceAuthentication.asmx">
<system.web>
<authorization>
<allow users="*" />
</authorization>
</system.web>
</location>
Note: If you don't remove the references to the old RS webparts, you won't be able to get reports to display properly no matter how many times you re-install the webpart.
Last night I gave a presentation to the
Toronto SharePoint Users Group on using Visual Studio 2008 to build SharePoint Workflows. I also covered a little bit on LINQ to SharePoint and WCF/WF integration at the end. Attached are my slides. Enjoy.
In case you didn't catch this S. Somasegar announced today during his TechEd Developers Keynote in Barcelona that Visual Studio 2008 will ship by the end of this month (November!). Yeah! Most people were counting on this before the end of the year which mean December or early January so this comes as a nice surprise.
We're talking about some cool technology:
- Visual Studio 2008 (all editions)
- Team Foundation Server 2008
- .NET Framework 3.5
- Language Integrated Query (LINQ)
Now of course the best feature in Visual Studio 2008 is multi-targeting. This features allows you to continue to develop .NET 2.0 or 3.0 applications without migrating to 3.5. There are lots of great features if Visual Studio 2008 - even if you don't move to .NET 3.5:
And if you are a Team System User
- SharePoint 2007/WSS 3.0 or MOSS support
- Simplified Installation
- Better Offline Support
- A bunch of other stuff including Power Tool Rollups.
And don't worry - you can install VS 2008 side by side with VS 2005.
This past Saturday, I gave a talk at the Toronto SharePoint Camp on building composite applications. I started talking in general requirements terms of why composite applications are useful, what they are, and what are the platform requirements - it naturally came down to a SharePoint demo - it's a great platform for building web based composite applications. The nice thing about SharePoint is that much of that work can be done in an ad hoc fashion. This means less plumbing code for us developers and we get to focus on solving business problems.
Some of the things I demonstrated are all available with Windows SharePoint Services (free). For example, Document Libraries and Custom lists, along with the excellent Outlook integration (including offline support) not to mention version control. Then we got into Workflow and integration with enterprise data with the Business Data Catalog of which requires the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server or MOSS 2007 which is not free (approx $5000), but a totally worthwhile investment. You can easily save the license fees several times over in reduced development effort. I also used SharePoint Designer which is about $200-300.
My slides and demo files are attached. Let me know if you have any questions. I've also included some demo script notes in the slide notes for those who asked.
Also, check out Rob Windsor's Pictures on Flickr of the event
Come to camp on Saturday October 20th, 2007 in downtown Toronto. We'll do paper mache, cook marshmallows over a fire, and learn how to rapidly build collaborative portal solutions. You can visit the site and register here, and they are still looking for speakers.
I hope to be speaking about something in the Architect Track, but haven't quite decided on what I'd like to talk about yet. What would you like to hear? Drop me a line.
To install TFS you must have Sharepoint Services 2.0 installed on the same server. Even though there hacks that allow you to integrate TFS with Sharepoint 3.0 that could be installed on another server, there still certain restrictions in place. One of them is Sharepoint naming conventions for when you install TFS:
Application Pool Name: TFSWSS (use TFSSERVICE account)
Application Pool Name: TFSWSSADMIN (use TFSSERVICE account)
Configuration Database Name: STS_Config_TFS
Content Database Name: STS_Content_TFS
Username to use: TFSSERVICE account
You can change those names later on though. Hopefully this issue will be addressed in Orcas…