BIWUG on SharePoint 2010

On Tuesday, the 9th of February 2010 BIWUG organizes the first sessions about SharePoint 2010 in the new Ordina offices in Mechelen. We have a great line up amongst which 3 Belgian SharePoint MVP's presenting.

Date and hours:

February 9th, 2010
(The event is free, but registration is required.)

Sessions:

• 18:00 - 18:30: Welcome
• 18:30 - 19:00: Introduction to SharePoint Server 2010 (Joris Poelmans – SharePoint MVP)
• 19:00 - 19:30: LINQ to SharePoint (Stephane Eyskens – SharePoint MVP)
• 19:30 - 20:00: Client Object Model (Jan Tielens – SharePoint MVP)
• 20:00 - 20:15: Break
• 20:15 - 20:45: Business Connectivity Services (Frank Cleynen)
• 20:45 - 21:15: Workflow (Peter Plessers)

Location:

Ordina HQ
Blarenberglaan 3B
2800 Mechelen

Route description to the Ordina HQ can be found here. Please print the itinerary, as most GPS devices have problems with finding this address.

Registration:

Click here to register for this event.

 

Technorati Tags: sharepoint+2010,sharepoint,sps2010,biwug,community,belgian+community

User activity statistic in SharePoint Server 2007

Did you ever wonder what the User Activity value means in the SharePoint site statistics? Apparently this is the total number of times the user accessed the site (or site collection) over the past 30 days, divided by 30 to give daily average.

Great explanation on MOSS Usage Reports Explained

Technorati Tags: sharepoint,sharepoint+2007,moss2007,moss+2007,usage+analysis

Office 2010 multiple upload with SharePoint Server 2007

The new user interface for uploading multiple documents to a document library is actually part of the Office 2010 clients – so if you install Word 2010 you will also be able to use the new “drag & drop” upload control together with SharePoint Server 2007.

Technorati Tags: sharepoint+2007,sharepoint,office+2010,office2010,moss2007,moss

Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack v4 for Word, Excel and Powerpoint available

A new version of the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel and Powerpoint formats has been released for download .

By installing the Compatibility Pack in addition to Microsoft Office 2000, Office XP, or Office 2003, you will be able to open, edit, and save files using the file formats in newer versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint . The Compatibility Pack can also be used in conjunction with the Microsoft Office Word Viewer 2003, Excel Viewer 2003, and PowerPoint Viewer 2003 to view files saved in these new formats. For more information about the Compatibility Pack, see 924074.

I’m wondering if this works for Office 2010 as well …

Technorati Tags: office,office+2007,microsoft

Bitnami – setups and virtual machines for open source web applications

If you want to try out some open source web applications but don’t want to go through the hassle of setting up everything up yourself – BitNami is the place to be.

Here you can download complete setup packages or even virtual machines with Alfresco, Joomla, Drupal, SugarCRM and lots more … check it out.

Technorati Tags: alfresco,bitnami,drupal,joomla,sugarcrm

Windows 7 – Godmode folder

Create a folder with the magic name “GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}”. The folder's icon will change to resemble a control panel and will contain dozens of control options. Quite interesting but not really divine …

Technorati Tags: windows7,godmode,microsoft

Multilingual User Interface (MUI) in SharePoint 2010 Part II – Adding alternate languages with Powershell

Update: I updated the script to check whether a specific site support multilingual capabilities using the SupportsMultiLingualUI property of a webtemplate – see SharePoint 2010 Meeting Workspaces and Blogs are not MUI capable .

Yesterday I talked about how the SharePoint 2010 Multilingual User Interface feature allows for multilingual collaboration scenario’s without the need for additional third party addons. One of the things which bugged me though is that you need to enable the multilingual feature on a per site basis. So I wrote this little powershell script to activate the multilingual feature for all sites in a site collection and to add a specific alternate language (in my case French). You can use this as a starting point for your own powershell scripts…

   1:  if($args) {

   2:      $siteUrl = $args[0] 

   3:      

   4:      $snapin = Get-PSSnapin | Where-Object {$_.Name -eq 'Microsoft.SharePoint.Powershell'}

   5:      if ($snapin -eq $null)

   6:      {

   7:         Write-Host "Loading Microsoft SharePoint Powershell Snapin"

   8:         Add-PSSnapin "Microsoft.SharePoint.Powershell"

   9:      }

  10:   

  11:      $cultureinfo = new-object system.globalization.cultureinfo("fr-FR")

  12:      

  13:      $site = get-spsite $siteurl

  14:      $site.allwebs | foreach { 

if ($_.WebTemplate.SupportsMultilingualUI){

           $_.IsMultiLingual= 'True' 

  15:             $_.AddSupportedUICulture($cultureinfo) 

  16:             $_.Update()

  17:                              }

  18:      }

  19:      $site = get-spsite $siteurl

  20:      $site.allwebs |foreach {Write-Host $_.Title + " " +  $_.IsMultiLingual}

  21:      

  22:  }

  23:  else

  24:  {

  25:      Write-Host "ERROR: You must supply SiteCollection URL as parameter when calling ActivateLanguages.ps1"

  26:  }

I also uploaded the powershell script to the SharePoint Extensions Codeplex project – SharePoint 2010 Powershell Snippets

Technorati Tags: sharepoint+2010,sps2010,sharepoint,MUI,multilingual,powershell

Installed programs on my Windows 7 PC

I finished reinstalling my portable with Windows 7 over the weekend and I must admit it was a smooth experience. So what do I install on my Windows 7:

• Windows Live Writer – my favorite blog writing tool – I also use the Insert Code for Windows Live Writer plugin. There are a whole bunch of other Windows Live Writer Extensions available online
• RSS Bandit – my RSS reading tool of choice
• Office 2010 Beta 2 – including the Hotmail connector so I can read my mails in Outlook 2010
• Thwirl – my twitter client
• VMWare Workstation – I know I can do SharePoint 2010 development on my Windows 7 but I still prefer to work virtually. Anyone care to comment about using Virtualbox as an alternative?
• Camtasia and Snagit – excellent software for creating screencasts and screenshots.
• Winrar – extraction and compression program
• Mindjet MindManager – great tool for creating mindmaps
• Adobe Reader
• Zune Client software – don’t forget to install Windows Media Player first
• Spacesniffer – interesting little utility for diagnosing disk usage

I have to admit that as a SharePoint guy I do most of my work within my virtual machines so all the dev tools are installed on these machines. Although SharePoint 2010 can be installed on my Windows 7 I still prefer to use virtual machines – see Setting up the Development environment for SharePoint Server 2010.

Any other tools you can’t live without on your machine?

Technorati Tags: windows7,microsoft

Multilingual User Interface (MUI) in SharePoint 2010 – Part I

SharePoint finally provides a decent out of the box multilingual user experience for collaboration scenario’s with the introduction of SharePoint Server 2010 and SharePoint Foundation 2010. After you installed the necessary language packs you will have the option to enable the multilingual user interface (MUI) on a per site basis using site settings (this is also possible using the SharePoint Object Model – using SPWeb.AddSupportedUICulture).

Once you enable alternate languages, users will see a language picker control in the top right of the page where they can switch the site to the language of their choice - this is a huge improvement in comparison with 2007.

At the beta2 framework there are language packs available for German, English, Spanish, French, Japanese, Russian and Chinese (simplified) – see Language packs available for download 

Remember that for SharePoint Server 2010 you first need to install the SharePoint Foundation language packs and afterwards the ones for SharePoint Server 2010 – see Deploy Language Packs (SharePoint Server 2010) for additional details.

So what parts of the SharePoint user interface are actually impacted by the MUI:

• All the standard SharePoint user interface elements are translated
• Navigation menu’s also support multilingual scenario’s with the MUI – if you switch your language and translate specific menu nodes in your navigation – these changes are language specific
• The headings for list columns
• The managed metadata field type also supports multilingual scenario’s.

In a next post I will delve a little deeper into the multilingual experience and take a look at some powershell scripts to work with the multilingual settings.

Technorati Tags: sharepoint+2010,sharepoint,sps2010,spf2010,sharepoint+foundation,multilingual

Troubleshooting Zune software installation error

When I tried installing my Zune software on my new Windows 7 PC I got this interesting error stating:

Operation error failed with 0x8007047F: The specified program is not a Windows or MS-DOS program. Can't find the media for installation package 'Windows Media Format SDK.' It might be incomplete or corrupt. Error Code: 0x80070002

Apparently this was caused by the fact that I did not have Windows Media Player installed on my Windows 7 Ultimate N edition…. . After installing WMP 12 – the installation of Zune went ahead without issues.

Technorati Tags: zune,microsoft,troubleshooting,installation

Windows 7 Ultimate N and Windows Media Player 12

For those of you living in Europe – you will probably notice that when installing Windows 7 there are some versions with a “N” behind the name such as Windows 7 Ultimate N. Apparently this is a version of Windows 7 without Windows Media Player.Apparently we have the European Union to thank for this – see Windows 7 N Explained. Fortunately there is a separate download called Media Feature Pack for Windows 7 N and Windows 7 KN – which contains Windows Media Player 12 and related technologies – which you can install afterwards.

Technorati Tags: windows7,windows+media,wmp12,microsoft

Last chance to register for BIWUG on SharePoint 2010

Today is the last chance to register for the BIWUG session about SharePoint 2010 – with 90 people registered there are only 10 seats available….

PS I will do the Introduction to SharePoint 2010 …

Technorati Tags: sharepoint+2010,sps2010,community,biwug

Solving ThreadOptions error in the SharePoint 2010 Management Shell

I noticed that when I tried to open the SharePoint 2010 Management Shell on my machine I got an error stating:

Exception setting "ThreadOptions": "This property cannot be changed after the Runspace has been opened." At C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\CONFIG\POWERSHELL\Registration\SharePoint.ps1:2 char:48
+ if ($ver.Version.Major -gt 1)  {$Host.Runspace. <<<< ThreadOptions = "ReuseThread"}    + CategoryInfo          : InvalidOperation: (:) [], RuntimeException    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : PropertyAssignmentException

Thanks to Bill Baer for providing me with a solution in the SharePoint 2010 forums –installing Update KB968930 which contains the Windows Management Framework Core package fixed the error.

Technorati Tags: sharepoint+2010,sps2010,microsoft,sharepoint,powershell,administration

SharePoint 2010 – Client Object Model

The SharePoint 2010 Client Object Model feature is definitely in my top 10 list of SharePoint developer enhancements. It basically provides an abstraction layer so that client apps can interact with SharePoint – there are basically 3 flavors of Client Object Models:

1. For .Net managed clients – uses the Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.dll in the “14\ISAPI” folder
2. For Silverlight clients – uses the Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Silverlight.dll from the “14\LAYOUTS\ClientBin” folder.
3. For Javascript client code – using the SP.js file from the “14\LAYOUTS” folder.

These 3 client models all talk with SharePoint through the client.svc WCF service and all provide complete access to SharePoint artifacts such as site collections, sites, lists, items, files, folders, webparts, security, content types, etc …

If you need to retrieve data you will typically have 3 steps you need to perform:

1. Create a connection using the ClientContext object
2. Create a select statement and provide it to the ClientContext.Load method – you might want to take a look at how to create LINQ queries with Lambda expressions since you will need this in more advanced scenarios e.g. ctx.Load(w.Lists, lists => lists.Include(prop => prop.Title, prop => prop.Id, prop => prop.Hidden));
3. Execute the query using ClientContext.ExecuteQuery

There is a great series of blog postings from Steve Peschka about practical use of the Client OM:

• Using the SharePoint Client Object Model Part 1 – Introduction
• Using the SharePoint Client Object Model Part 2 – Retrieving data from a list
• Using the SharePoint Client Object Model Part 3 – Creating and using filters when querying for data via het client OM
• Using the SharePoint Client Object Model Part 4 – Creating a list and managing fields
• Using the SharePoint Client Object Model Part 5 – creating additional ECM menu items

Technorati Tags: sharepoint,sps2010,sharepoint+2010,client+OM,microsoft,development

SharePoint 2010 development – don’t forget to change the target platform

This is something which will probably bite you in the **s, when you start developing against SharePoint 2010. Don't forget to change the “Platform target” to x64 or AnyCPU
SharePoint 2010 only support 64-bit OS so your apps should do the same. So if you don't change it you will see some strange errors – even something as simple as creating a new SPSite object will throw an error stating:

"The Web application at http://intranet.contoso.com could not be found. Verify that you have typed the URL correctly. If the URL should be serving existing content, the system administrator may need to add a new request URL mapping to the intended application."

So the error message is not very helpfull in this case ...

Technorati Tags: sharepoint,sps2010,microsoft,sharepoint+2010

Solving UI problems with Visual Studio 2010 Beta2 in VMWare

I’m using VS2010 Beta2 on Windows Server 2008 R2 within VMWare Workstation and noticed that some parts of Visual Studio were not rendering or rendered in the wrong location – see for example the “New project dialog” which seemed to be missing some stuff.

This KB provided the solution for these issues – Disable SVGA drivers installed with VMWare Tools on Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2…

Technorati Tags: visual+studio,vs2010,windows+server,w2008R2,vmware,troubleshooting,microsoft

Installing SharePoint Server 2010 Dev Box

I finished installing my new SharePoint Server 2010 Dev box a couple of weeks ago … and forgot to publish this post. So here it goes. Installing a SharePoint Server 2010 is not that difficult since there is a lot of guidance out there. It’s really amazing how detailed the documentation is – especially since we are only at Beta 2. So what documentation did I use:

• Determine hardware and software requirements for SharePoint Server 2010 – it has a list of the prerequisites (also listed below)
• Deploy a single server with SQL Server (SharePoint 2010)

So here’s my software configuration:

• Using VMWare Workstation on Windows Vista SP1
• Windows Server 2008 SP2 – I downloaded Service Pack 2 Windows Server 2008 separately although the SharePoint preparation tool would have installed it for me. Don’t forget  FIX: A hotfix that provides a method to support the token authentication without transport security or message encryption in WCF is available for the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 (KB971831)
• Before installing SQL Server 2008 – I needed to install .NET Framework 3.5 and a hotfix for Windows Installer 4.5
• SQL Server 2008 with Service Pack 1 – again don’t forget the Cumulative Update Package 2 for Service Pack
• All the other prerequisites
  • Microsoft Server Speech Platform
  • Speech recognition language for English
  • Microsoft "Geneva" Framework
  • Microsoft Sync Framework v1.0 
  • Microsoft Filter Pack 2.0 (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=166504)
  • Microsoft Chart Controls for Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5
  • Windows Powershell V2 CTP3
  • Silverlight 3 download
  • Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Native Client – if you install SQL Server 2008 with client integration you can skip this one
  • Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services ADOMD.NET – not required  for SharePoint Foundation
  • ADO.NET Data Services v1.5 CTP2 for Windows Server 2008 SP2

All the above prerequisites are the same for SharePoint Server 2010 and SharePoint Foundation 2010 (except for the ADOMD.NET which is used for Excel Services and PerformancePoint Services – thanks Spence for the clarification). So if you plan to create both – this is the moment to create a snapshot. Next just follow the steps as outlined in Deploy a single server with SQL Server (SharePoint 2010)

On to the installation of language packs – I definitely want to check out the new MUI experience. For documentation take a look at Deploy language packs (SharePoint Server 2010) – same applies as for SharePoint Server 2007 - you must first install the SharePoint Foundation 2010 language packs before you install the SharePoint Server 2010 language packs. However I did not see the step with “On the Modify Server Farm Settings page, click Do not disconnect from this server farm, and then click Next.”

Afterwards I installed Visual Studio 2010 beta 2 as well as the Visual Studio 2010 SDK – this is something which you should probably install before installing SharePoint because the first time everything froze during install and I had to restart.

PS I’m using a Dell Precision M4400 with 8 GB RAM and SSD hard disk to run this stuff … works like a charm.

Technorati Tags: sharepoint,sharepoint+2010,sps2010,microsoft

Activating the SharePoint 2010 Developer Dashboard

The Developer Dashboard is a great feature for developers in SharePoint 2010 which enables us to troubleshoot and debug SharePoint pages – take a look at Using the Developer Dashboard in SharePoint 2010 for some great info.

So you can activate the Developer Dashboard in 3 ways:

• Using stsadm: stsadm -o setproperty -pn developer-dashboard -pv On or stsadm –o setproperty –pn developerdashboard -pv  OnDemand. You should probably use the OnDemand mode which will add a VERY LITTLE icon in the top right corner of your pages where you can switch the Developer Dashboard on and off




• Using Powershell

$snapin = Get-PSSnapin | Where-Object {$_.Name -eq 'Microsoft.SharePoint.Powershell'}
if ($snapin -eq $null)
{
    Write-Host "Loading Microsoft SharePoint Powershell Snapin"
    Add-PSSnapin "Microsoft.SharePoint.Powershell"
}
$dash = [Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPWebService]::ContentService.DeveloperDashboardSettings;
$dash.DisplayLevel = 'OnDemand';
$dash.TraceEnabled = $true;
$dash.Update()

• Using the SharePoint Object Model

SPWebService.ContentService.DeveloperDashboardSettings.DisplayLevel = SPDeveloperDashboardLevel.Off;
       SPWebService.ContentService.DeveloperDashboardSettings.Update();

Technorati Tags: sharepoint+2010,sharepoint,sps2010,microsoft,development

Office 2003 Service Pack3 fixes problem with SharePoint content types in combination with a central document library of templates

It is considered best practice to create a central document library with all of the document templates you are using in your different SharePoint content types in SharePoint Server 2007. This way you can easily update your document template without the need to redeploy or change your SharePoint content type. Unfortunately this caused problems with Office which did not seem to be able to find the centrally located template. Fortunately installing Office 2003 Service Pack 3 fixed the problem.

Technorati Tags: sharepoint,office+2003,content+types,sharepoint+2007,moss+2007,moss,microsoft

Solution for converting virtual image files between Hyper-V and VMWare

I just converted a Hyper-V image back to a VMDK to use it in VMWare Workstation using StarWind V2V Convertor. Works like a charm and it is free …

Technorati Tags: vmware,hyper-v,microsoft,vmdk