Migration by the numbers – Step 5

Step 5 in a series of posts documenting the Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 upgrade process on SBS 2008. This is based on the document:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=2dc66a0f-f840-4b29-93d3-13db70c85cba&;;displayLang=en

Step 5: Uninstall Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and edit the Registry

Before you go any further I would suggest that you consider what your recovery plan is if everything goes pear shaped. One of the things that this process doesn’t help you with is recovering a SharePoint v3 installation on SBS 2008. If you don’t know how to do that then I suggest you make sure you at least understand what maybe required to recover SharePoint v3 on SBS 2008, given the steps you are about to take.

You need to firstly download the SharePoint Foundation 2010 installation file from http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=191959. The size is about 170MB so make sure you get the complete copy.

Download the file to you SBS 2008 and run it. After expanding some file you should be greeted by the following splash screen.

Select the option Install software prerequisites under the Install section.

You will then be greeted with a complete list of software that needs to be installed on your server prior to SharePoint 2010 being installed.

Press the Next button to continue.

Accept the EULA and press the Next button to continue.

The first step will be the automatic configuration of the IIS server. This process may take a few minutes so be patient.

Once that is complete you should see the required software being downloaded and installed on your system.

You should also see a number of updates being downloaded and installed. This is going to most likely mean a reboot once this process is complete.

So you may want to keep an eye on the process and delay the pending reboot until the prerequisite process is complete.

When the process is complete you should see the displayed above. Beware, that in my experience if your machine needs a reboot and you press the Finish button your SBS 2008 will automatically recommence a reboot. So make sure you are aware of that.

Even if the server doesn’t need to reboot it, I would just to ensure everything comes up cleanly.

Most likely the SharePoint Foundation 2010 installation will re-launch and start configuring the Web Server again.

No fear, just let the process complete (it may take several minutes).

Once the server has rebooted this is where the real fun begins. Log back into your SBS 2008 server and select Control Panel and the Programs and Features.

Ok, deep breath. Select Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 from the list of installed programs and then select Uninstall from the top.

Accept the UAC.

Press the Yes button.

Your last warning to make sure you REALLY want to do this! Press OK to continue.

Wave bye bye to Windows SharePoint Services v3 on your SBS 2008 server.

Your SBS 2008 server is now SharePoint free. Press Close.

Run regedit and accept the UAC presented. Navigate to the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\VSS\VssAccessControl\.

So the Microsoft documentation says:

4. Double-click NETWORK SERVICE, and then, in Value data, type 1.

In my situation above I have a NETWORK SERVICE and a NetworkService entry but the NETWORK SERVICE not set to 1. So I double clicked on the second entry and changed the value to 1 and selected OK.

Next step is to install SharePoint Foundation 2010 on SBS 2008.

Migration by the numbers – Step 4

Step 4 in a series of posts documenting the Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 upgrade process on SBS 2008. This is based on the document:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=2dc66a0f-f840-4b29-93d3-13db70c85cba&;;displayLang=en

Step 4: Back up the Windows Internal Database files

So now we need to back up the SharePoint content databases. SharePoint uses SQL to store just about all its content so having a copy of these databases is always a good move.

Go to the Services from the Administration Tools.

Scroll down the list of services until you locate Windows Internal Database as shown below.

Right mouse click on this service and select Properties.

Set the Startup Type to Disabled and press the Stop button to stop the service. Then press OK.

The most likely reason for dong this is to ensure that the service doesn’t accidentally start while you are a attempting to backup the databases, which may take some time if they are large.

Now run the file manage and locate the directory in which the SharePoint databases are located. This will usually be c:\windows\sysmsi\ssee\mssql.2005\mssql\data. If you have used the wizard to move the databases they will be in same directory structure but in the drive letter you moved them to.

Microsoft indicates which databases to copy but it is probably just as easy to copy the whole \data directory out.

Aside from the SharePoint databases Microsoft recommends copying out the information in the \schemasig directory as well as the WSUS databases (in C:WSUS\SUSDB\UpdateServicesDbFiles\ usually). Beware that your WSUS databases could also be very large and may take quite a while to copy.

Once you have done this you go back to the Services console and set the Windows Internal Database to start automatically and then start the service.

It would seems that by doing the above steps you are ensuring that if the default installation of SQL 2005 Embedded Edition becomes corrupt you can recover, because don’t forget that SQL 2005 Embedded Edition is not only used for SharePoint so if it smokes it will affect other applications (most likely WSUS).

You’ve now backed up everything and your ready to being the process of removing Windows SharePoint Services v3 from SBS 2008 in preparation for installing SharePoint Foundation 2010 instead.

For an even better SBS 7

As Chris Knight rightly points out in a comment on my recent posting on improving SBS 7 any implementation of SharePoint these days should allow the easy indexing of PDF documents.

Now from personal experience I can tell you to do PDF indexing in Windows SharePoint Services v3 is a pain but do able, but in SharePoint 2010, from what I can determine it is almost impossible for the average IT Professional (though not if you buy my SharePoint Guide). Why this process has been made so hard beats me. Why this process couldn’t be something easily configured by Microsoft an Adobe, beats me.

Given that PDF’s are so common these days, especially as Chris points out, from scanning devices, why there isn’t a simple implementation in SharePoint 2010 (especially on SBS 7) beats me. So I’m definitely adding that to the wish list and thanks to Chris for the reminder, glad someone reads what I post!

For a better SBS 7

I’ve now submitted some suggestions of what could be done to SBS 7 to improve it before it releases. Here’s what I think is are worthwhile inclusions:

1. Automatically install the TIFF iFilter. Windows Server 2008 R2 includes the ability to add TIFF iFilter as a feature. Even though it is not enabled by default I reckon it should be simply because SharePoint Foundation 2010 is installed. Why? Well, and iFilter lets you index the content in file files for which that iFilter is designed for. Thus, an iFilter for TIFF files means they can be indexed and searched by SharePoint 2010. So many documents are scanned using the TIFF file types (e.g. faxes) and if they end up in SharePoint (which makes the most sense for them generally) you’d want them indexed? I reckon so, that’s why I recommended it.

2. Include Search Server Express 2010. This is a biggie I believe. Search Server Express 2010 is a free download from Microsoft that is built on SharePoint technology that allow you to not only index SharePoint information but information from Exchange public folders, web sites and NETWORK SHARES. This means that with Search Server 2010 installed on SBS 7 all the user information stores in shares could be index and made SEARCHABLE through SharePoint! That also includes the ability to search information within documents that have been configured with an iFilter (see point 1 above). How many businesses have an internal search server? Not many, here’s an opportunity, I believe, to give businesses functionality they really need to help them find the information in their network.

There has also been plenty of discussion around including Office Web Apps in some version of SBS, which I certainly agree with. Interestingly in my testing I am finding that I am unable to install Office Web Apps and Search Server Express 2010 together. I am still trying to resolve the issue in case I have over looked something simple and I’ll report here soon about what I find.

SharePoint on SBS 7

If you haven’t heard, the beta of Microsoft Small Business Server 7 is now available for download and evaluation. I’ve done just that to check out SharePoint 2010.

So after a relatively simple install SBS 7 was up and running and typing good old http://companyweb into a web browser brings up the screen shown above, looking all pretty standard.

Some quick observations.

1. SharePoint 2010 on SBS 7 uses SQL Express 2008 R2 which means there is a 10GB database limit for content. This is different from SBS 2008 which had unlimited content database size. The SQL instance is now called \sharepoint.

2. SharePoint 2010 on SBS 7 seems to retain fax integration but doesn’t support email archiving, However this may be because the installation of Exchange 2010 failed on this attempt to install SBS 7 but I don’t think email archiving does appear but I’d need to double check to 100% sure.

3. It supports the installation of Office Web Apps, allowing the viewing and editing of Office documents in a web browser. I really think this is going to be a huge feature BUT you need to be licensed for Office Web Apps, it doesn’t come as part of the SBS 7 installation.

So from what I see all working as expected so far.

Bringing the downloads in house

Most of the free E-books I’ve created over time have resided at http://www.slideshare.net/directorcia. The reasons for that are that I thought they’d get better indexed by Google and I didn’t need to commit storage from my site to saving them.

I was at a client’s recently and suggested they download a getting started with SharePoint document to follow along but it turns out that even though all my stuff is free to download you need to login to Facebook to do that. Boo, hiss….

So, in light of that fact I’ve now moved much of the material to a download page on my site which is here:

http://www.ciaops.com/downloads/

You should simply be able to click on any download listed there and get the information, much less friction. I’ll add more details about the information there over time but hopefully for the time being it is pretty obvious what each item is about. You’ll also find all the Need to Know podcasts there as well.

In future I’ll post my download on my site because you just can’t seem to trust anyone these days can you now?

Need to Know Podcast – Episode 5

I have just released the next CIAOPS Need to Know podcast (Episode 5) with Mark O’Shea from Microsoft Australia.

The details of the podcast are:

http://www.ciaops.com/n2k – Episode 5 = 42MB (45 mins)

or via direct download:

http://bit.ly/cia-n2k5

Mark and I chat about the Microsoft Partner Conference, SBS 7 and Aurora, Microsoft InTune and more.

So let me know what you think and if you are interested on being on the show please also contact me (director@ciaops.com) as I am always looking for people to talk about business and technology.

Stay tuned as there plenty of great episodes coming real soon.

Migration by the numbers – Step 3

Step 3 in a series of posts documenting the Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 upgrade process on SBS 2008. This is based on the document:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=2dc66a0f-f840-4b29-93d3-13db70c85cba&;;displayLang=en

Step 3: Back up the existing data on your server

So before you launch into the migration process you should backup your data. Now, most people probably have a backup via SBS Backup or maybe some form of imaging tool, which is great, however it also a good idea to do a SharePoint backup. The reason for this is that if you need to you can always restore to an existing working SharePoint site (perhaps on another box). In the worst case this maybe on a virtual machine.

Before you go anywhere make sure you have enough space on the drive onto which you wish to save the backup. The default commands here will go to the C: drive but you can preface the file name with a drive and directory. So how much space are you going to need to backup your SharePoint site using these methods? Good question. To get an idea go to the location of the content databases in the filesystem (be default C:\Windows\SYSMSI\SSEE\MSSQL.2005\MSSQL\data) and look at the combined size of sharewebdb and sharewebdb_log as shown below:

if sharewebdb_log is really huge then take a look at this knowledge base article:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2000544

remember the amount of space you’ll need is roughly the combined size of both of these files.

According to the Microsoft document you need to go to the Command prompt as an administrator, then change to the directory:

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\BIN

then type the following command (followed by ENTER)

stsadm -o export -url http://companyweb -filename companyweb.bak -includeusersecurity

Something like the following scroll past:

You should see that the process has completed successfully.

Now, what I would also do is another full backup of your site using the following command:

stsadm -o backup -url http://companyweb -filename companyweb2.bak

which should look something like:

Don’t forget when you use this command it will lock the site while completing the backup. This may interrupt users so probably best to schedule this out of production hours. Also keep in mind the time to complete both of these commands depends on the amount of data in your Companyweb site.

You should now have 2 backup files companyweb.bak and companyweb2.bak in the \bin directory.

The reason I’d recommend that is simply it is always good to have another backup and secondly this backup allows you to totally overwrite an existing site where as the previous export command combines sites. So if you do both you have more options which is what you want.

These commands are unfortunately going to do you no good unless you know how to use them to restore a site so I’d strongly recommend you do a restore of both methods to a test server (on virtual machine works well) if you have never done that before.