SharePoint 2010 Service Pack 1 installation walk through

Here’s a walk through of the installation of SharePoint Foundation 2010 Service Pack 1 on a stand alone server not connected to a domain with a default install of SharePoint Foundation 2010. I’ll look at doing something for SBS 2011 Standard soon.

The first thing you’ll need to do is download the Service Pack 1 file which can be found at:

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=26640

Right mouse click on the file and ‘Run as administrator’

Next, accept the license terms at bottom.

The Service Pack will now commence installation.

You will receive a message indicating the process is complete. However, all that has happened that the binary files have been updated. You need to now apply the update to SharePoint Foundation 2010 manually. This is because now you must manually run PSCONFIG after installing SharePoint 2010 patches on ANY server that SharePoint Foundation 2010 is installed on.

To check to see whether the Service Pack has been installed correctly, firstly run the SharePoint Central Administration. Select System Settings and then Manage servers in this farm.

Note the Configuration database version. Unless it is 14.0.6029.1000 Service Pack 1 has not yet been applied to the SharePoint farm.

To apply the downloaded update to the SharePoint farm run a command prompt as an administrator.

Change to directory c:\program files\common files\microsoft shared\web server extensions\14\bin and execute the following command:

PSConfig.exe -cmd upgrade -inplace b2b -force -cmd applicationcontent -install -cmd installfeatures

You should see the process complete 6 stages in total like shown above.

If you now check the version of the configuration database in Central Administration as shown previously it should be 14.0.6029.1000.

One of the additional features that Service Pack 1 provides is the ability to view the storage usage on a site. To see this go into your site and select Site Settings. You should now notice a new option under Site Collection Administration called Storage Metrics.

As you can see from the above screen shot, this now gives you a break down of exactly where space is being used in your site.

If nothing else this is a great reason to install SharePoint Foundation service Pack 1.

Much to do about Mango

I’ve published in this blog previously annoyances I’ve had with Windows Phone 7. However, I continue to see Windows Phone 7 as a good (although currently weak) alternative in the mobile space. As such I continue to keep an eye on upcoming developments, of which I have been recently reading about the upcoming release of Windows Phone 7 known as Mango.

The following article:

http://www.winrumors.com/windows-phone-mango-overview-outlook-phone-calendar-video/

Is a worthwhile read about what new features are coming. The article contains two videos which cover these additions quite nicely and are well worth a minutes to view.

<img src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-q6zPMUULDJU/UO9im_QyJsI/AAAAAAAAHEw/LJcOtnp8wJI/video5f0561b3974a%25255B6%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" style="border-style: none" galleryimg="no" onload="var downlevelDiv = document.getElementById('31185678-6b01-4ada-816a-1107945bfab3'); downlevelDiv.innerHTML = "

http://www.youtube.com/v/uR5g7tHxwmQ?hl=en&hd=1“;” alt=””>

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR5g7tHxwmQ

and

<img src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-xPG17n6AKjI/UO9iovFev1I/AAAAAAAAHE0/V0X5i3lJLmM/video1ff9068c09da%25255B5%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" style="border-style: none" galleryimg="no" onload="var downlevelDiv = document.getElementById('eb7bc70e-8790-48c9-b136-051c2251bf3a'); downlevelDiv.innerHTML = "

http://www.youtube.com/v/DUFl4la6LdU?hl=en&hd=1“;” alt=””>

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUFl4la6LdU

However by far the video that interests me the most is this one:

<img src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-Iy6vZ5ciYxY/UO9ip9NfsZI/AAAAAAAAHE8/wv9QvtHaqjE/video46b232ef2e2a%25255B4%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" style="border-style: none" galleryimg="no" onload="var downlevelDiv = document.getElementById('1490fcb3-f7a2-4ec8-aadc-10240d8f61f6'); downlevelDiv.innerHTML = "

http://www.youtube.com/v/4liR0XntUFA?hl=en&hd=1“;” alt=””>

http://www.youtube.com/user/winrumors#p/a/u/1/4liR0XntUFA

Why? Because it cover the Outlook and phone features which is what I need more as a business user. I also like the new calendar features which makes a big difference to using the phone. If you are a business user of Windows Phone 7 I’d suggest you watch this last video.

Overall it seems to me that Microsoft has taken on board the feedback it has received so far and will deliver a very worthwhile update to the platform. This certainly give me a lot more faith in platform going forward with two important caveats, that being that this update will be available soon and work on my existing device. My understanding is that the Mango update will be out in September and will work on existing devices. I’ll be keeping my finger crossed but am very happy to see the Windows Phone 7 platform advancing

Evernote for Windows 7 Phone

One of the best cloud based apps that I know and use is Evernote. It is a bit like Microsoft OneNote in that it allows your to keep notes and then have those notes sync’ed across a number of different devices.

Personally, I initially used Evernote to sync study information between my different Windows PC’s initially. However I soon graduated to using it on every device, including the web and iPad. One handy application of Evernote was when I wanted to take a screen capture of a customer’s machine I could do so directly using the web based version of Evernote. Once that was done I knew that when I returned to my office that screen shot would be synced with my desktop. Very, very handy.

The one place that Evernote was missing from was Windows Phone 7 (which I adopted recently). This made me wonder whether the Windows Phone 7 platform had a future simply because an app like Evernote is everywhere else. However, have no fear, Evernote for Windows Phone 7 is now available from the marketplace and like on all other platforms is free.

If you have never looked at Evernote then I strongly recommend you do as it is truly a great example of a cloud based application and besides that I have found that it can really improve your productivity.

Apps for when you are driving

I have come across the following two apps that function on devices that maybe of benefit to those travelling around via car.

1. Trapster.com
This app allow you to track road hazards. More importantly it allows you to track things like red light and speed cameras, school zones and mobile police radar traps. It also allows the tracking of accidents and allows you to enter anything you see to share with other users.

I think the most handy feature is the fact that it warns you both audibly and visually about an upcoming ‘hazard’. I find this very handy when travelling during school zone times as a n audible prompt that a zone is approaching can be very handy as well as saving you getting fined.

2.Waze.com
This is free GPS that works on most devices. It offers the standard stuff like turn by turn navigation but what I really like is the ‘community’ idea where users can report road issues and have that alert other users.

I have only been using this for a short while but it seems to work pretty well. I like the concept of getting ‘rewards’ and ‘points’ for contributing to the information. However, I will say that it is very easy to get distracted by trying to contribute and should only be done with caution. It is probably as bad as SMS’ing while driving so don’t do it! However, when you are stuck in traffic letting others know to avoid the area is a great concept.

What I have found that works well is to run Trapster and then let it run the background with the audio prompts about hazards while having Waze open for navigation. I’m sure there are plenty of features of both of these apps that I’ll discover over time but I gotta say they are working for me.

Easy way to install common software

I recently came across the following site:

http://ninite.com/

What it allows via a web site is basically the ability to select from a number of common software programs (browsers, utilities etc). It then creates a single executable you can download and deploy on the local machine and it will install all those applications automatically for you.

The other good things is that it is totally automated and you don’t end up with any add on toolbars or ‘commercial-ware’.

A single executable makes it pretty easy to roll out common software in a networked environment.

Office365 for SMB webinar

Confused about Office365 and how it work in the small to medium business (SMB) segment? Then this introductory webinar is for you. In it you’ll learn more about Office365 capabilities and more importantly how these map to the SMB market.

You’ll learn things like:

– How Office365 will be licensed
– What the capabilities and options of the licenses are
– Picking the right Office365 options for the SMB environment
– The real world implementations of Office365, good and bad
– and much more.

The webinar is on Tuesday the 28th of June from 10am – 11am (Sydney, Australia time) and only costs $29.90 ex GST. The material covered in the webinar is aimed specifically at the SMB Market so you’ll learn about integration with products like Small Business Server.

To sign up with a credit card visit:

http://www.pagebloom.com/content/product/o/92160/p/1103227

otherwise contact director@ciaops.com to arrange alternate forms of payment.

Standalone installation of SharePoint Foundation 2010

Here’s my walk through of installing SharePoint Foundation 2010 on a stand alone Windows Server.

<img src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-HKOWWv0Ri5w/UO9g9HSC4uI/AAAAAAAAHD0/tE03IgsAnmw/video019d59490ccb%25255B5%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" style="border-style: none" galleryimg="no" onload="var downlevelDiv = document.getElementById('9e65cdf5-3fb5-4f18-802b-ff1f8c8f7644'); downlevelDiv.innerHTML = "

http://www.youtube.com/v/6q1ngQCgL0s?hl=en&hd=1“;” alt=””>

Standalone installation of SharePoint Foundation 2010

Some points to note with this method:

1. There are not many prompts. All the defaults are taken.

2. New SharePoint site ends up on the default web site for the server on port 80.

3. You get a SharePoint Team template by default.

4. You get SQL Server 2008 Express installed which has a 4GB database limit.

5. You generally can’t expand this installation to allow multi server (i.e. a SharePoint farm)

This is really the most basic of SharePoint Foundation installs. Watch out for further installation examples, coming soon.