Search Server Express 2010 resource links

This is a quick post to capture some good resources for working with SharePoint Foundation 2010 and Search Server Express 2010.

Installation steps, prerequisites, etc. from Microsoft:  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee808898.aspx

MSSharePointTips post about installing the two: http://mssharepointtips.com/tip.asp?id=1086

Search Server Express home: http://www.microsoft.com/enterprisesearch/searchserverexpress/en/us/technical-resources.aspx

and TechNet home:  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/enterprisesearch/ee263912

Forum post regarding integrating SPF and SSE: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/sharepoint2010setup/thread/3294d73f-b127-439e-88af-c78c70f9a9e2

SP Foundation, Search Server Express & iFilters

I found conflicting information regarding compatibility between Search Server Express (SSE) and SharePoint Foundation when I started looking online.  Some said SSE couldn’t be installed on a server that already had SharePoint Foundation (SPF) running.  It also was rumored that pdf iFilters couldn’t be installed on SSE or SPF.

I hope this post clarifies some of these misconceptions, rumors, and general confusion.

What I Found

Quick Facts

(I hope I get ’em right, I don’t want to continue spreading confusion)

• Search Server Express CAN be installed on top of an existing SPF install
• PDF iFilters CAN be installed on SSE
• iFilters CANNOT be installed on SPF alone
• Installing SSE on a clean server DOES include SPF

More Info

You can find steps to Install Search Server 2010 Express which can be followed to install on a SharePoint Foundation 2010 server.  The only critical changes are:

1. You must select the Server Farm installation (otherwise the SSE will try installing SPF)
2. Do not select “Create a new server farm” after the SharePoint Products Configuration Wizard completes, and do not use the wizard to setup/configure your farm – Cancel to manually configure the farm.

After you have completed the installation you will have to configure search manually by following the Post-installation steps for Search Server 2010.  That isn’t ideal, but those steps are close enough that you should be able to work your way through successfully.

Final Steps – PDF iFilter

In addition to setting up the iFilters as described in a previous post about SharePoint 2010 PDF iFilters, I had to make the following registry change before I could get Search Server Express to return results that included PDF files.

1. Start, Run… regedit
2. Navigate to the following location:
   • \\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office Server\14.0\Search\Setup\ContentIndexCommon\Filters\Extension

3. Right-click Extension, a menu will appear.
4. Click New–> Key to create a new key for .pdf (enter “.pdf” and Save, be sure to enter the dot)
5. Click your new .pdf key, then right-click and Modify the Default (Name (Default) Type REG_SZ)
6. Add {E8978DA6-047F-4E3D-9C78-CDBE46041603} as the Default Value, click OK
7. You may also have to restart the SharePoint Server Search 14 service (I did)
8. Start a Full Crawl to ensure your content is indexed now that the iFilter is configured

SharePoint 2010 iFilters and PDF setup

About iFilters

IFilters are components that allow search services to index content of specific file types, letting you search for content in those files. They are intended for use with Microsoft Search Services (Sharepoint, SQL, Exchange, Windows Search).

This post pulls together information and steps to do what I consider the typical “pdf setup”.  I find that most often I am asked to setup a SharePoint 2010 system to not only display the pdf icon, but also to enable search, and to allow the pdf’s to open in the browser window.   I am writing this because I haven’t found a step-by-step guide that includes all 3 of these behaviors together.

There are several different things to do to implement the use of PDF’s in SharePoint.   You have to add the icon to display;  you have to adjust General Settings to allow pdf’s to open in the browser, and you enable SharePoint to search for pdf’s by installing the iFilter.

You may also want to Download and install the Microsoft Office 2010 iFilter Pack: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=5CD4DCD7-D3E6-4970-875E-ABA93459FBEE

Let’s get started.

These steps should be completed on the SharePoint “application server” (primary SP server

1. Download AND Install Adobe’s 64-bit PDF iFilter http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=4025 (Make sure you get the 64-bit version – iFilter 9)
2. Download the Adobe PDF icon (select Small 17 x 17) – http://www.adobe.com/misc/linking.html
   1. Give the icon a name or accept the default: ‘pdficon_small.gif’
   2. Save the icon (or copy to) C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\TEMPLATE\IMAGES

Note: Some say that you may need to use the specific file name “pdf16.gif” for the icon to display correctly in the next step.  I have not experienced any issues that confirm this SharePoint hearsay.

1. Steps to Edit the DOCICON.XML file to include the PDF icon
   1. Per Microsoft support (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/832809 ) Stop IIS by running IISRESET /Stop
   2. Start NotePad, Run as Administrator, and then navigate to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\TEMPLATE\XML to open/edit the DOCICON.XML file
   3. Scroll down to the <ByExtension> section of the file, skipping past the <ByProgID> section
   4. Within the <ByExtension> section, insert <Mapping Key=”pdf” Value=”pdficon_small.gif” OpenControl=””/
   5. Save and close the file
   6. Go back to your cmd prompt window and run IISRESET /Start

The easiest way is to copy an existing entry – just copy any “Mapping Key” line that has the OpenControl attribute… and replace the parameters for Key and Value.  It is better to copy from within the xml file than to copy the above line for pasting because the double quotes may not be correct.  Make sure you use the correct image name that was placed in the images directory.

Check the SharePoint site to see that the PDF icon is now displayed.

1. Add PDFto the list of supported file types within SharePoint (to enable Search)
   1. In the web browser, open SharePoint Central Administration
   2. Under Application Management, click on Manage service applications
   3. Scroll down the list of service apps and click on Search Service Application
   4. Within the Search Administration dashboard, in the sidebar on the left, click File Types
   5. Click ‘New File Type’ and enter PDF in the File extension box. Click OK
   6. Scroll down the list of file types and check that PDF is now listed and displaying the pdf icon.
2. Navigate back to Central Administration/Application Management (to allow PDF’s to open in the browser)
   1. Select the appropriate web application (you may have to repeat these steps if you have multiple web apps) then click on General Settings in the Ribbon
   2. Scroll down to “Browser File Handling” and set this to Permissive
   3. Click the OK button.  (Repeat the last two steps for additional web apps)
   4. Close the web browser
3. Stop and restart Internet Information Server (IIS) – IISRESET

• Perform a full crawl of your index.  SharePoint indexes file names with the extensions listed under File Types and ignores everything else. When a new file type is added, you  have to perform a full crawl to force SharePoint to identify all files with the ‘new’ file extension.

Additional Note: there are some reports that the Adobe iFilter installation will not properly update the Registry in some environments.  Check the Adobe iFilter installation information or search online to find possible Registry edits if the above steps do not achieve the desired behavior for PDF files in SharePoint.

UPDATE: Found a nice white paper on this topic by Dave Coleman that is a good reference: http://www.sharepointedutech.com/2010/09/14/adobe-pdf-setup-for-sharepoint-2010/

SP2010 Incoming e-mail behavior

Scenario

I have a SharePoint 2010 library with incoming e-mail enabled.  The settings save all attachments in folders grouped by subject and Save the original e-mail.  The library incoming e-mail configuration also Accepts e-mail messages from any sender.  I have verified that incoming e-mail is routed to the library and attachments are saved correctly. 

Behavior

The original email message is kept for the FIRST email to arrive in a folder

• Any additional emails that arrive in the folder, from the same or different sender do not save the email message. Subsequent email messages are discarded!
• Emails with the same attachment going into a folder (folders based on subject) are discarded when the setting to Overwrite files with the same name is set to No – EVEN if the email is from different senders
• Only unique attachments are saved into the folders in this scenario

Changing the library to Save attachments in folders grouped by e-mail sender altered the behavior significantly:

• Both the email and attachment are saved for subsequent e-mails from the same sender
• Emails with the same attachment from the same sender are saved into the folder, however the new attachment is discarded

This behavior makes some sense, however it seems odd that the email message is discarded.  Be warned. 😉  I will be presenting on this topic (In-coming e-mail in SharePoint 2010) at the SharePoint Saturday San Diego in February so join us if you are interested in this topic.

Web Parts in SharePoint Editions

The table below displays Web Parts available in various SharePoint editions.  This list may not be exhaustive, however it does include all web parts I found when enabling Enterprise features.

Technorati Tags: Foundation,Server,Enterprise,Comparison

Web Part	Foundation	Server 2010 Standard	Server 2010 Enterprise	Description
Business Data Actions			*	Displays a list of actions from Business Data Connectivity.
Business Data Connectivity Filter			*	Filters the contents of Web Parts using a list of values from the Business Data Connectivity.
Business Data Item			*	Displays one item from a data source in Business Data Connectivity.
Business Data Item Builder			*	Creates a Business Data item from parameters in the query string and provides it to other Web Parts.
Business Data List			*	Displays a list of items from a data source in Business Data Connectivity.
Business Data Related List			*	Displays a list of items related to one or more parent items from a data source in Business Data Connectivity.
Chart Web part			*	Helps you to visualize your data on SharePoint sites and portals. (MossChartWebPart)
Excel Web Access			*	Use the Excel Web Access Web Part to interact with an Excel workbook as a Web page. (Excel.WebUI)
Indicator Details			*	Displays the details of a single Status Indicator. Status Indicators display an important measure for an organization and may be obtained from other data sources including SharePoint lists, Excel workbooks, and SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services KPIs.
Status List			*	Shows a list of Status Indicators. Status Indicators display important measures for your organization, and show how your organization is performing with respect to your goals. (KPI List Web Part)
Visio Web Access			*	Enables viewing and refreshing of published Visio diagrams.
Categories		*	*	Displays categories from the Site Directory. (CategoryWebPart)
Relevant Documents	*	*	*	Displays documents that are relevant to the current user.
RSS Viewer		*	*	Displays an RSS feed.
Table Of Contents			*	Displays the navigation hierarchy of your site.
Site Aggregator		*	*	Displays sites of your choice. (siteFramer)
Sites in Category		*	*	Displays sites from the Site Directory within a specific category. (CategoryResults)
Table of Contents		*	*	Displays the navigation hierarchy of your site.
Web Analytics web part		*	*	Displays the most viewed content, most frequent search queries from a site, or most frequent search queries from a search center. (WhatsPopular)
WSRP Viewer			*	Displays portlets from web sites using WSRP 1.1. (WSRPConsumer)
XML Viewer	*	*	*	Transforms XML data using XSL and shows the results.
Choice Filter			*	Filters the contents of Web Parts using a list of values entered by the page author. (AuthoredListFilter)
Current User Filter			*	Filters the contents of Web Parts by using properties of the current user.
Date Filter			*	Filter the contents of Web Parts by allowing users to enter or pick a date.
Filter Actions			*	Use the Filter Actions Web Part when you have two or more filter Web Parts on one Web Part Page, and you want to synchronize the display of the filter results.
Page Field Filter			*	Filters the contents of Web Parts using information about the current page. (PageContextFilter)
Query String (URL) Filter			*	Filters the contents of Web Parts using values passed via the query string.
SharePoint List Filter			*	Filters the contents of Web Parts by using a list of values.
SQL Server Analysis Services Filter			*	Filters the contents of Web Parts using a list of values from SQL Server Analysis Services cubes. (OlapFilter)
Text Filter			*	Filters the contents of Web Parts by allowing users to enter a text value.
HTML Form Web Part	*	*	*	Connects simple form controls to other web parts. (MSSimpleForm)
InfoPath Form Web Part			*	Use this Web Part to display an InfoPath browser-enabled form.
Content Editor	*	*	*	Allows authors to enter rich text content.
Image Viewer	*	*	*	Displays a specified image. (MSImage)
Page Viewer	*	*	*	Displays another Web page on this Web Page. The other Web page is presented in an iFrame. (MSPageViewer)
Picture Library Slideshow Web Part	*	*	*	Use to display a slideshow of images and photos from a picture library. (MSPictureLibrarySlideshow)
Silverlight Web Part	*	*	*	A web part to display a Silverlight application.
My Calendar		*	*	Displays your calendar using Outlook Web Access for Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 or later.
My Contacts		*	*	Displays your contacts using Outlook Web Access for Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 or later.
My Inbox		*	x	Displays your inbox using Outlook Web Access for Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 or later.
My Mail Folder		*	*	Displays your mail folder using Outlook Web Access for Microsoft Exchange Server 2000 or later.
My Tasks		*	*	Displays your tasks using Outlook Web Access for Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 or later.
Advanced Search Box		*	*	Displays parameterized search options based on properties and combinations of words.
Dual Chinese Search		*	*	Used to search Dual Chinese document and items at the same time.
Federated Results		*	*	Displays search results from a configured location.
People Refinement Panel		*	*	This webpart helps the users to refine people search results
People Search Box		*	*	Presents a search box that allows users to search for people.
People Search Core Results		*	*	Displays the people search results and the properties associated with them.
Refinement Panel		*	*	This webpart helps the users to refine search results.
Related Queries		*	*	This webpart displays related queries to a user query. (QuerySuggestions)
Search Action Links		*	*	Displays the search action links on the search results page.
Search Best Bets		*	*	Displays high-confidence results on a search results page.
Search Box		*	*	Displays a search box that allows users to search for information.
Search Core Results		*	*	Displays the search results and the properties associated with them
Search Paging		*	*	Display links for navigating pages containing search results.
Search Statistics		*	*	Displays the search statistics such as the number of results shown on the current page, total number of results and time taken to perform the search.
Search Summary		*	*	Displays suggestions for current search query.
Search Visual Best Bet			*	Displays Visual Best Bet.
Top Federated Results		*	*	Displays the Top Federated result from the configured location. (TopAnswer)
Contact Details		*	*	Displays details about a contact for this page or site.
Note Board		*	*	Enable users to leave short, publicly-viewable notes about this page. (SocialComment)
Organization Browser		*	*	This Web Part displays each person in the reporting chain in an interactive view optimized for browsing organization charts. (ProfileBrowser)
Site Users	*	*	*	Use the Site Users Web Part to see a list of the site users and their online status.
User Tasks	*	*	*	Displays tasks that are assigned to the current user.
Tag Cloud		*	*	Displays the most popular subjects being tagged inside your organization.
Media Web Part		*	*	Use to embed media clips (video and audio) in a web page.
Content Query		*	*	Displays a dynamic view of content from your site.
Summary Links		*	*	Allows authors to create links that can be grouped and styled.
List View Web Part	*	*	*	Use to display a view of a list or document library.
Blog Year Archive	*	*	*	Displays the blog archive of the previous three years.
Document Set Contents		*	*	Displays the contents of a Document Set.
Document Set Properties		*	*	Displays the properties of the Document Set.
Enter a Document ID		*	*	Finds a document by its Document ID
My Links		*	*	Displays a list of a users ‘My Links’
What’s New	*	*	*	This Web Part shows new information from specified lists and libraries.
Whereabouts	*	*	*	Use to display Whereabouts information
PerformancePoint
PerformancePoint Filter			*	This web part displays PerformancePoint filters. Filters may be linked to other web parts to provide an interactive dashboard experience. Filter types include lists and trees based on a variety of data sources.
PerformancePoint Report			*	This web part displays PerformancePoint reports. Reports may be linked to other web parts to create an interactive dashboard experience. Report types include: Analytic charts & grids, Strategy Maps, Excel Services, Reporting Services, Predictive Trend charts, and web pages.
PerformancePoint Scorecard			*	This web part displays a PerformancePoint scorecard. Scorecards may be linked to other web parts, such as filters and reports, to create an interactive dashboard experience.
PerformancePoint Stack Selector			*	This web part displays a PerformancePoint Stack Selector. All PerformancePoint web parts, such as filters and reports, contained in the same zone will be automatically stacked and selectable using this web part.
SQL Server Reporting Services Report Viewer			*	Use the Report Viewer to view SQL Server Reporting Services reports. (ReportViewer) Only available with Reporting Services integration.

SP2010 in-place upgrade error resolution

After running the prerequisiteinstaller successfully, I was running Setup.exe during an in-place upgrade I ran across the following error:

Setup is unable to proceed due to the following error(s):

A system restart from a previous installation or update is pending.  Restart your computer and run setup to continue.

I found only a few blog posts on this, one on TechNet by Bill Baer which points to a couple of registry keys that could be modified to resolve the problem and allow the upgrade to continue.  I tested the registry key solution in a vm test environment, and it did the trick, resolving the error and allowing the upgrade to continue to completion.    (That article describes several different issues that may happen during your SharePoint Server 2010 installation/upgrade and possible solutions)

While implementing this upgrade on a production machine I was a little more concerned about this error and that solution when the same error occurred.   I attempted to restart the system, however the same error returned.  I attempted to re-run the prerequisiteinstaller, reboot, and then run the setup.exe again – but continued to receive this same error.  In this case we had Microsoft Support on the line already so I asked about this error and how to resolve it.  The response was: 

1. Stop the Print Spooler service
2. then disable it
3.  then complete a system restart 

After doing this the SharePoint 2010 installation (setup.exe) ran to completion successfully.    If you have the Print Spooler running on your server you may want to ask yourself if you need that service or not.  In our case, we didn’t so I left the service disabled after the upgrade completed.  You may want to restart yours.

Warm-up SharePoint 2010 sites

Technorati Tags: Warm-up,Windows 2008 R2,IIS

Background

Customers may ask for a “warm-up script” to enable their SharePoint sites to load faster after a restart, etc.  With versions of SharePoint prior to 2010, such as 2003 and 2007 there were several variations of scripts developed to accomplish this, each with their own negative impact.  Generally, Microsoft recommended against using these scripts in a production environment.  For SharePoint 2010 there is a new and better solution which is an extension to IIS.  You must evaluate your environment to determine if this solutions is appropriate or not.

Solution

Use the Application Warm-Up Module for IIS 7.5.

IIS Application Warm-Up for IIS 7.5 can be configured to initialize Web applications by using specific Web pages and user identities. This makes it possible to create specific initialization processes that can be executed synchronously or asynchronously depending on the initialization logic. In addition, these procedures can use specific identities in order to ensure a proper initialization.

Steps To Implement

1. Download the 64-bit version for Windows Server 2008 R2 from the iis.net site (Application Warm-Up Module for IIS 7.5)
2. Install the module on the machine hosting SharePoint 2010 web applications
3. Configure the module by launching IIS Manager
4. Click on your SharePoint site, double-click on the Application Warm-Up item
5. Select Settings from the Actions section on the far right pane
6. Select both options in the Settings dialog and click the OK button
7. Click Add Request….
8. Enter the URL of your SharePoint site (typically the main page) – the status codes will auto-populate
9. Enter a name for this Request in the Request context parameter field, click OK
10. Click Edit User Context… to specify authentication settings
11. Select Set Username and Type only from the Mode selection box of the Edit User Context dialog
12. Select Windows from the Type selection list (or another appropriate option for the environment)
13. Enter the User name and click OK
14. Repeat steps 7-13 for each site or site collection running on this IIS server which you want to ‘warm-up’

Notes

• If you try to use Anonymous or do not set the User Context the module will not work & will generate errors in the event log.  There are situations where Anonymous would work, such as an external SharePoint site with Anonymous access enabled then you could use Anonymous in the User Context settings.
• This module will warm-up the site after an IIS Reset, Server Reboot, or Application Pool recycle.

Reference:

http://www.iis.net/download/ApplicationWarmUp

Using the IIS Application Warm-Up Module http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/688/using-the-iis-application-warm-up-module/

http://sharepointgeorge.com/2010/warm-sharepoint-web-applications-windows-2008-r2-iis-75-application-warmup-module/

SSO Tips

There are lots of blogs out there talking about the problems people have setting up SSO (Single Sign On) in SharePoint 2007 implementations.  There are also quite a few that run down the steps to do it and state that it is easy.  What is the disconnect between these two “camps” talking about SSO setup?

Well, one thing (IMHO) is that the ease of the process depends on YOUR environment and YOUR knowledge of what SSO is, how it works, and what you plan to do with it.  So my first (and most important) tip is take the time to learn about SSO and what you want to accomplish by using it before you attempt to configure it.

My other tips are:

Enterprise Application Definitions –

• If you are planning to use Groups, create an Enterprise Application Definition for each group
• Configuration steps often talk about creating a group for SSO Administrators and SSO Managers, these groups are NOT the groups you want to use here
• The Account Type selection of Group is used when you want to connect to the data source using the same account for all users in the designated AD group.
  • For example, if you are going against an HR database and you have an AD group for HR managers who are allowed to see data from that source – SSO Enterprise Application Definitions let you map the group to an account with permissions to access that data, and that account will be used for everyone in the HR AD group
• Things you cannot change it for the Enterprise Application Definition after initial definition:
  • Account Type
  • Authentication
• Authentication is not clearly described in many places, here are the basics:
  • Select the Windows authentication check box if your clients use Windows authentication when connecting to the external data source (if it is required)
  • Leave the Windows authentication check box unchecked if your data source allows mixed authentication, such as SQL Server does by allowing either SQL or Windows authentication
• Make sure you login to Central Admin with the “Enterprise Application Definition  Administrator” account when you create your definitions, otherwise you will have problems
• After you create a definition using the Account Type of Group, don’t forget to update the ‘account information for enterprise application definitions’ – this is where you enter the AD group that you want to map to a specific account for accessing the data source

Configuration –

• Make your life easier and just create an SSO Administrator account, don’t try to use an existing account.  It can be done, but it also can get confusing
• If you are in a small environment you should still create the SSO Administrators and Managers AD groups as suggested by Robert Bogue (http://thorprojects.com/blog/archive/2008/08/02/moss-single-sign-on-setup-step-by-step.aspx) – It allows flexibility for you in the future without reconfiguring SSO
• Follow Roberts steps (link above) for the basic setup
• Reference links:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sharepointdesigner/arcve/2007/08/27/an-introduction-to-single-sign-on-sso-with-data-views.aspx

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262932(office.12).aspx

Mapping Properties in SP2007 for Search

Search is really one of the most needed, if not most important, components of a corporate intranet based on SharePoint. Why?  Because if you can’t find what you are looking for on the intranet, then the intranet is of little value.  Regardless of whether or not you accept this concept as true, the fact is that improving the search capabilities of your SharePoint farm will increase usage and acceptance. One of the things you can do to improve the search capabilities of your SharePoint farm is to make some (or all) of your site columns searchable in an Advanced Search page.  I know, I know, you can already find content based on the data in your site columns when searching now.  But how many documents are in your result set?  And, can your users search for specific site column content? If you have created Content Types and Site Columns that your users understand, then they will likely want to search for specific content based on them.  Here are the steps to take to enable searching directly on your custom site columns from an Advanced Search.  I created a new Advanced Search page, you could modify your Search Center Advanced Search page if so desired. To search by a column in any list or document library, you need to create a managed property and modify an Advanced Search box…and you will need to crawl your content to make it available. So let’s get to it.  My example is using a Site Column named “Product Name”.

Create a Managed Property

1. Navigate to your SSP and select Search Settings
2. Click on Metadata Properties under the Queries and Results section in the QuickLaunch
3. Click on the Crawled Properties link in the tool bar
4. Find your Site Column by typing it in the search box and clicking on the green & white arrow
5. Capture the exact property name – in my case it is “ows_Product_x0020_Name”
6. Go back to the Metadata Properties page
7. Click on the New Managed Property link in the tool bar
8. In the new form, please enter a name for the managed property, e.g. “ProductName”
9. Select the correct data type, e.g. “Text”
10. Click on the Add Mapping button to open up a “Crawled Property selection” WebPage dialog
11. Type the name of your column in the “Crawled property name” field and click the “Find” button, e.g. type “Product”
12. You will see the column name showing in the “Select a crawled property” list
13. Select the appropriate column, e.g. “ows_Product_x0020_Name”
14. Select the checkbox for Use in scopes if you plan to add this property to a Scope, otherwise leave it blank
15. Press OK to complete the form
16. Start a full crawl. This crawl will map column data to the managed property

We are halfway there, we now have a managed property that can be accessed by the Advanced Search web part.

Modify Advanced Search

To enable users to search for the column from the UI, you have to add the new property to the property drop-down in the Advanced Search web part they use.  Again, this can be any advanced search web part, however this only enables the web part you modify.  If you want users to select this property from any Advanced Search, you will have to modify each of them.

1. Go to the search page (or your Search Center  & click on “Advanced Search”)
2. Click on Site Actions and select Edit Page
3. Click on “edit” and “Modify Shared Web Part” of your Advanced Search box
4. On the right pane, find the Properties text box under Properties section (XML text box)

   • 

     Click image for large view

5. Copy and paste the XML text into Notepad to edit the XML (I just think it is easier this way)
6. Find the <PropertyDefs> node and add a new entry for your new Managed Property:
   • e.g. <PropertyDef Name=”ProductName” DataType=”Text” DisplayName=”Product Name” />
   • The DisplayName attribute  shows in the property drop-down
   • The PropertyDefName is the Managed Property Name you created in Step 8 of Create a Managed Property, above
7. Find the  <ResultType> nodes and add a new entry:
   • e.g. <PropertyRef Name=”ProductName” />
8. Copy and paste the XML text from notepad back into the XML text box
9. Click OK
10. Test your handy-work:
    1. Check that the Properties drop-down menu has the property displayed
    2. Execute a search using the new property

Now your savvy users can search for content with laser accuracy and obtain search results that focus on what they want without having to sift through extraneous results.

Moving MOSS 2007 SQL Databases part 3

If you haven’t seen the earlier posts on this topic: Part 1 and Part 2

D-Day has arrived, it is time to actually move my SharePoint 2007 sql databases to a different SQL Server.  My previous posts touched on the research I did leading up to this event.  This post will cover the actual tasks and outcome.  I am writing this as I go through the process, so let’s all cross our fingers that it goes smooth.

My Plans

A summary of my plan is as follows:

1. Backup the SharePoint farm
2. Backup all SQL db’s
3. Move those backups off to a “safe” spot on the network.
4. Start the process defined in the TechNet article Move all databases (Office SharePoint Server 2007)
5. Backup the SSP’s
6. Remove SSP’s
7. Stop the Farm (services)
8. Backup sql db’s
9. Copy backups to new sql server
10. Restore sql db’s on new sql server
11. Apply roles, permissions, etc. to new sql server & restored db’s
12. Restart Farm
13. Restore SSP’s from backup
14. Cross-fingers and check to see that our SharePoint intranet is up and running
15. Go have a beer

Round 1

I attempted these steps and all went smoothly until I got to step 13 – Restore SSP’s from backup.  The restore made it to 50 percent complete then ran into this error:

SqlException: Timeout expired.  The timeout period elapsed prior to completion of the operation or the server is not responding.

After several attempts and a grueling session of troubleshooting I found that the SQL Server Agent was not running on my ‘new’ SQL server (SQL Server 2008 R2 64-bit, running on Windows Server 2008 64-bit).  The fun part was that I couldn’t get it to start.  The Agent would just stop after every attempt to start it.  I tried several solutions found on-line, none of which worked.

At this point my weekend was over and we needed the production server back online, so I did the restore BACK to the original SQL Server.  SharePoint was up and running fine very quickly.

Finally, I un-installed SQL Server 2008 R2 from the new server and started over.  After carefully reinstalling SQL Server 2008 R2 I no longer had any problem with the SQL Server Agent.  Hurray, now will the SSP restore work?  I have to wait until the next weekend to find out.

Round 2

Friday – A week has gone by and I am now preparing to walk through all of those steps again.  More confident than last time perhaps, but concerned at what I might run into this time around.  I will do all of the initial steps – the backups – tonight, Friday night.  Saturday morning I will start the scary part, removing the SSP’s and moving everything to the new SQL Server.

Saturday – Everything went well up to the restore, again. This time the error was an Access Denied error pointing to the SharePoint backup directory.  Short-story resolution: change the SQL Server account to use a Domain account, make sure that domain account had permissions to the backup folder and to the sql database files folder.  I also wanted to make sure I didn’t have any more trouble getting to the backup folder so I opened it up (temporarily) to several other accounts – my ssp and app-pool users.

The SSP Restore completed successfully, with zero errors and zero warnings.  Hurray!

Hold-on, the process outlined by Microsoft ends here.  What about my content databases?

Searching about I found that I need to use stsadm to detach the content databases, one by one, from the SharePoint server and add the databases on the new server.  So I begin this task and have no problems until I get to the Config database.  It detaches fine, but then the services become disabled and the attach (setconfigdb) results in “Value cannot be null.  Parameter name: str” !  What the?!  Time for Microsoft Support calls.

Support helped resolve the ‘migration’ issues, however now the SSP is not working-including search, and there are several other things missing.  I am told I will have to add any solutions back in, and find whatever features or web parts that might not work and fix them.  Also have to open a new ticket for ‘advanced troubleshooting’ on the SSP.  It has been a long Saturday.

Round 3

Sunday – Monday (ouch)

After hours on the phone and several rounds of running psconfig we were able to get a new Config db setup and restore over it to capture most of my configuration data.  The SSP is a different story.  We had to create a new SSP, which left me with a few more days of reconfiguring the SSP, Search, Audiences, etc. before I was “back” to normal.

Wrap-up

Some good came from this pain… since I had to reconfigure the SSP I could apply some lessons learned since the original install.  Now I feel like my SSP is “better” than it was before. 😉   I improved our Search features, including a federated search we were using, I cleaned up some Audiences that were not used, etc.   I just had to find some improvements!