December update of SharePoint Guide


Subscribers to my Windows SharePoint Guide can now access the latest updates from the subscription site (now running under SharePoint 2010). This month some of the additions include:

– Follow through of Microsoft install method on SBS 2008
– Installation and configuration of Microsoft Online SharePoint (BPOS)
– SBS 2008 SharePoint Exchange server configuration

Also, all subscribers get automatic free access to my recently released eBook:

Windows SharePoint Masterclass: Optimizing Search

I am now working on the next title in the Windows SharePoint Masterclass series which will focus on databases operations. That is, it will provide you with a wealth of information about installing, maintaining, configuring and troubleshooting the Microsoft SQL Server versions used by Windows SharePoint. I expect to have it out very early in the New Year, so stay tuned.

The poor step child

Unfortunately, in the world of SharePoint Foundation 2010 not all file types are created equal. Here is an example.

 

I have saved two identical documents to my SharePoint Foundation 2010 site. One is a Word 2007 document (i.e. docx format) the other is an Adobe Acrobat document (i.e. PDF). Both are pretty standard right? Well, one is certainly a second class citizen as far as SharePoint is concerned. Can you guess which one?

 

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Here are the two documents in my document library. You can clearly see which one is the Word document because of the little file icon but alas, note that the Acrobat document has no file icon so you really aren’t sure what type of file it is. This can be rectified with some configuration but is not so out of the box.

 

If I click on the Word document (and I have Word on my system) the document opens. If I click on the Acrobat document (and I have Acrobat on my system) I see.

 

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Ahhh..where’s the option to open the file? Guess what? That’s also not enabled by default.

 

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To enable this you need to go into the SharePoint Central Administration, under Manage Web Applications you select the Web Application and then General Settings (easy eh?).

 

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Half way down the list change the Browser File Handling from Strict to Permissive.

 

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Now when you click on a PDF in SharePoint 2010 Foundation it will open in a browser window so you can view it.

 

Note that in this document (and the identical Word one) is the term ‘collaboration’. How about we perform a search for this in SharePoint?

 

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After ensuring that indexing is running and that we have indexed all the SharePoint content we run a search for the term ‘collaboration’, which we know appears in both the Word and Acrobat document.

 

We only get one returned result as shown above, that being the Word document, even though we know it also appears in the Acrobat document.

 

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Apparently, the ‘solution’ to PDF indexing on SharePoint Foundation 2010 is to install Search Server Express 2010. As you can see from the above I get exactly the same result. Only one document match and again it is the Word document not the PDF.

 

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Ah ha, you say, but Search Server Express 2010 doesn’t come configured by default to index PDF documents and you are right as you can see from the list of files Search Server Express 2010 above does index be default.

 

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Luckily, I can configure Search Server Express 2010 to index any file type. So I add PDF as shown above, initiate a full crawl of the data and try to search again.

 

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Again, same result no PDF matches are returned.

 

Ah ha, you say again. You need to install the 64 bit iFilter for Acrobat to allow indexing for SharePoint Foundation 2010. Spot on once again Holmes. So I download and install that.

 

With that done and another full manual crawl run the result is once again.

 

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Do an IISRESET followed by a full manual crawl – same result.

Reboot server followed by a full manual crawl – same result.

Etc, etc.

 

But with the wave of my magic wand, hey presto

 

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I now have a ‘duplicates’ hyperlink which when I open I see

 

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It now works! I end up with duplicates since it is effectively the same file and when I expand these duplicates (since I am using Search Server Express 2010 here after going to all the hassle of installing it) I see not one but TWO matches finally Amazing what you can achieve if you have my SharePoint Operation Guide eh? How much more valuable does this make SharePoint Foundation 2010 now?

 

The real question for me is why it is not enabled by default out of the box? Isn’t PDF a common enough format? Doesn’t having the ability to index PDF documents greatly add to the value of SharePoint? How many people are going to know to go in and ‘tweak’ SharePoint Foundation 2010 (and WSS v3 for that matter) to all PDF indexing? Most are going to call the product ‘crap’ and move on to something else because it lack what should be common functionality (at least in my opinion).

 

Worst of all? The configuration to do PDF indexing really isn’t that difficult to enable.

Migration by the numbers – Step 15

Step 15 (and final) 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

 

Previous steps:

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4

Step 5

Step 6

Step 7

Step 8

Step 9

Step 10

Step 11

Step 12

Step 13

Step 14

 

Step 15 – Edit the site bindings for the companyweb site

 

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Click Start | Administrative Tools | Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.

 

Accept the UAC that appears.

 

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Expand the tree under the Connections section on the left of the IIS Manager until you see SBS SharePoint under Sites and click on it.

 

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Locate the Bindings hyperlink on the top right hand side of the screen in the Actions column. Click on Bindings.

 

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Select the existing http item and then press Edit.

 

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In the hostname field enter companyweb.

 

Press the OK button.

 

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Click the Add button.

 

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Change the type to https.

 

For the SSL certificate select remote. where is the name of your internet domain. (*Authors note – not shown here as I have not configured this on my test box).

 

Set the Port = 987.

 

Press OK to save settings.

 

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(*Authors note – you should see something like shown above).

 

The installation process is now complete. You can use SharePoint 2010 Foundation on your SBS 2008 server.

Migration by the numbers – Step 14

Step 14 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

 

Previous steps:

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4

Step 5

Step 6

Step 7

Step 8

Step 9

Step 10

Step 11

Step 12

Step 13

 

Step 14 – Install Windows Small Business Server 2008 Update Rollup 4

 

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In a browser visit http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=199703

 

In the search box enter 979454 and press Search.

 

For the item Update Rollup 4 for Windows Small Business Server 2008 (KB979454) select Add.

 

Click View basket.

 

Click Download.

 

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Browse to a folder where you want to save the file and click Continue.

 

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Open the location where you saved the download and open the folder called Update Rollup 4 for Windows Small Business Server 2008 (KB979454).

 

Double click the CAB file located there. Double click the MSP file this displays and enter a location on your disk to extract the file.

 

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Right mouse click on this extracted file and select Apply from the menu that appears.

 

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Note that after the process is complete you may need to complete a manual crawl of your data to update the search indexes.

Migration by the numbers – Step 13

Step 13 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

 

Previous steps:

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4

Step 5

Step 6

Step 7

Step 8

Step 9

Step 10

Step 11

Step 12

 

Step 13 – Recreate the original internal website environment

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Click Start | All Programs | Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products | SharePoint 2010 Central Administration.

 

Accept the UAC.

 

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Under the System Settings heading select Manage services on server.

 

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You should see that the Microsoft Foundation Search is currently Stopped. Click the Start hyperlink in the Action column.

 

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Enter account details into the Content Access Account area.

 

(*Authors note – this doesn’t have to be a domain administrator account. The account you choose will be given full read only rights to the site. It is recommended that you utilize a dedicated account with appropriate security).

 

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Scroll down the screen and press the OK button.

 

(*Authors note – You may wish to adjust the default indexing schedule to something more often).

 

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You should your configuration being saved.

 

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When complete you will see that the SharePoint Foundation Help Search is started.

 

(*Authors note – You see a service of a different name listed. As long as it says Started your search is enabled).

 

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Select System Settings from Central Administration menu on the left hand side.

 

Select Configure incoming e-mail settings from under the E-Mail and Text Messages (SMS) section.

 

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Press OK to accept the warning message about an SMTP service not being installed.

 

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For Enable Incoming E-Mail choose Yes.

 

For Incoming E-Mail Server Display Address enter companyweb.

 

For E-Mail Drop Folder enter c:\inetpub\mailroot\drop.

 

Scroll down the screen and press OK to save the configuration.

 

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Under E-Mail and Text Messages (SMS) select Configure outgoing e-mail settings.

 

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In Outbound SMTP server enter SharePointSMTPServer.

 

In the From address and Reply-to address enter companywebadmin@domain-name (where domain-name is the name of your organizations Internet domain name).

 

Ensure that Character set is 65001 (unicode UTF-8).

 

Select OK to save the changes.

 

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Select System Settings and under Farm Management select Configure alternate access mappings.

 

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Now select Edit Public URLs from the menu.

 

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Click on the box No Selection in the top right of the screen. From the menu that appears select Change Alternate Access Mapping Collection.

 

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Click on SBS SharePoint.

 

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The box should now read SBS SharePoint.

 

Set the Intranet box to http://companyweb.

 

If you have already run the Set up your Internet address task in the SBS Console set the Internet address to https://:987.

 

If you have not run the Set up you Internet address task in the SBS Console set the Internet address to http://sites:987.

 

Press the Save button to continue.

 

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You should now see the additional URLs you just configured displayed.

 

Return to the main Central Administration screen.

 

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Select Security from the menu on the left.

 

From under General Security select Specify authentication providers.

 

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Click in the Web Application box in the top right of the screen and select Change Web Application from the menu that appears.

 

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Select SBS SharePoint from the window that appears.

 

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Locate the IIS Authentication Settings section which is current set to NTLM. Select Negotiate (Kerberos).

 

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The following warning will appear. Click OK to continue.

 

Scroll down the page and save the changes.

 

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You will then be returned to the Authentication providers screen.

Hosting providers stepping up to SharePoint 2010

Although I still run locally based SharePoint servers (mainly for testing) the majority of my production SharePoint stuff lives in the cloud via a hosting provider. I’ve been using the same company for over 2 years now without an issue and was really excited to see that they are now offering SharePoint 2010 hosting.

 

Without hesitation I decided to upgrade my main SharePoint site to SharePoint 2010. As you can see from below this site includes the CIAOPS Cloud Portal and the site for subscribers to my SharePoint Guide.

 

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The migration was messy simply because the hosting provider doesn’t provide a direct upgrade of the site. I also didn’t have access to a single tool that could read a v3 site and transfer it directly to a 2010 site. I’m sure there are commercial offerings out but for this once off project I was happy to do a bit more manual work.

 

It took a little while to do but it did me a chance to do a tidy up of the information as well as some reorganization which it needed so there are always benefits when you start fresh. However now it is all complete and running on SharePoint 2010.

 

If you are a subscriber to my SharePoint or Cloud guides then you should have already received an email detailing how you bow gain access to the information as part of your subscription. You’ll also find more features rolled out with these sites as I get more experience with exactly what can and can’t be done with hosted SharePoint 2010.

Mobile SharePoint 2010

One of the great features that will be available in Windows Phone 7 will be direct integration into SharePoint 2010 and the use of Mobile Office 2010. If you are a big user of SharePoint this is probably a very good reason to give the new Windows Phone 7 a close look.

 

Until I get that chance probably the best idea of what the experience will be like can be seen in the following video.

 

Optimizing Windows SharePoint Search

One of the major complaints I hear from people when they implement Windows SharePoint Services v3 is that it is limited in what it can index and search. That is certainly true with the following files generally not being indexed by Windows SharePoint Services v3.0 out of the box:

– Office 2007 documents (i.e. docx, xlsx, pptx, etc)
– Adobe Acrobat PDFs
– Outlook MSG files
– TIFF files

to mention just a few. What most people don’t realize is that Windows SharePoint Services v3.0 can be configured to index these documents making them available to all users. The problem is that there generally isn’t a single source of good information about configuring this, that is until now!

This information has always been available in my SharePoint Guide (www.wssops.com) but I have now decided to create a new publication called:

Windows SharePoint MasterClass: Optimizing Search

available in eBook format for only $29.95. The details of the publication are:

This book is designer for those that want to take Windows SharePoint Services v 3.0 Search beyond the default. Did you know that Windows SharePoint Services v3.0 could index the contents of Adobe Acrobat documents and TIFF files? It normally can’t do either of these by default but the information inside this book will show you how to that and more. You’ll learn how to configure Search Server Express 2008 (free from Microsoft) to index information beyond SharePoint sites including Exchange Public folders, web sites and network shares. Implemented correctly Search Server Express can provide you the power of an internal search engine allowing you to make better and faster use of your digital information. If you want to make the most of Windows SharePoint Services then this book is for you.
I working a number of additional titles in this MasterClass series to help people take Windows SharePoint Services beyond the default install and get the most from the product.

If you have a topic you’d like to see appear in an upcoming MasterClass title please let me know (director@ciaops.com).