Since a few weeks i have been using and LOVING powershell for providing SharePoint functionality.
Working with SharePoint AND powershell is really powerfull
But every now and then, it’s not easy to find the right information.

I wanted to create a powershell script that automates the creation of the registry keys for using the PDF iFilter.
The keys have been posted on the internet multiple times, but always from the point of view of using Regedit.

I wanted it to be done by using powershell.
Information on how to create regsitry keys and values is also greatly explained on the internet, but always based on string  values.
The pdf ifilter uses more. reg-dword for example.

So i started my search for the property types of the registry and how they are called in powershell. And that was not easy.
Eventually i ended up at …. technet. Where it should be

But since i couldn’t find it easily, i decided to create a blog about it.
Hereby the mapping between powershell and registry of value mappings

REDMOND, Wash. — Dec. 14, 2011 — Microsoft Corp. today announced that Microsoft Office 365, the company’s next-generation cloud productivity service, is the first and only major cloud-based platform to offer leading information privacy and security standards for customers operating in the European Union and United States. As part of its contractual commitment to customers, Microsoft will now sign the EU’s model clauses, which will help customers certify compliance with the European Commission’s stringent Data Protection Directive, and the U.S.-mandated Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

Link to full article

In the past (in the days that sharepoint still was called MOSS ) we often used port 10000 for central administration. Until we installed it at a customer who had BackupExec as their backup solution.

Seems that the BackupExec agent uses port 10000 to communicate with the BackupExec server. This forced us to review our Central Admin port strategy. Instead of simply using a convenient port number, we decided to research what would be a good port number.

We asked our customer which ports the all used, and we finally decided on a new port number for CA.

When SharePoint 2010 arrived we kept using our chosen port number.

Today, a customer told me that they could no longer backup their server on which SharePoint was installed.
They were using: Backup Exec

So my first guess was, backup exec changed the portnumber of their agent. But this wasn’t the case.

After some investigation it seems that BackupExec 12.5 agent stops working when SharePoint 2010 is installed.

The 12.5 version doesn’t support SharePoint 2010, but in this case was also not needed. We simply wanted to backup files fro the file system.
The SharePoint agent was not to be used.

But the backup exec agent thinks otherwise. It has 2 SharePoint dll’s on board and it really want to see if it can connect to SharePoint.

even when the dll’s are build for older version of sharepoint, it will try to make a connection. And that’s the issue. It simply cannot connect but the process hangs itself trying to connect.

The solution:

1. Stop the backupexec service on the sharepoint server
2. goto to the RAWS directory
3. rename the sharepoint dll’s (bedssps2.dll, bedssps3.dll) so the no longer function as dll (add .old)
4. restart the backup exex service

Your backup exec server should be able to connect to the sharepoint server again.

Symantec has a support page on this issue:http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH125045

As of SharePoint 2010 it’s really simple to change the port number of Central Administration.

When installing the stand-alone version of SharePoint (which generates a portnumber) or simply if you want to change it (maybe some other software wants to use that port)

The simplest way to accomplish this is by using a powershell command.

Type : Set-SPCentralAdministration -Port <your preferred portnumber>

It will change the portnumber on the fly.

BUT…… Keep the following in mind when changing the portnumber.
The moment a webapplication is created, a directory is created based on the original portnumber. When you change the portnumber, the name of the dorectory will NOT be changed and still refelct the original portnumber.

Directory: C:\inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\<original portnumber>

If the names of these directories don’t match your expectations, always take a look at the configuration in IIS.
In IIS you can see both the directory and portnumber and you might see that someone changed the portnumber.

Microsoft released some SharePoint 2010 site templates related to healthcare, named:

Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Application Template for Health Organizations

There are 17 site templates, each with their own functionality. You can download them all in one download here.

• Request for proposal - Link
  The Request for Proposal application template helps manage the process of
  creating and releasing an initial RFP, collecting proposal submissions, and
  formally accepting the selected proposal from among those submitted. The site
  also makes it easier to notify individuals about the status of the RFP and the
  proposals.
• Helpdesk - Link
  The Help Desk application template helps departments such as IT, Facilities, and
  HR manage service requests. Team members use the application template to
  identify a service request, identify the root cause, and track solution status.
  The application template provides role-based dashboards that display information
  relevant to customer service representatives and managers, including performance
  history.
• Physical Asset Tracking and Management - Link
  The Physical Asset Tracking and Management application template helps
  departments such as Facilities, BioMedical, and Surgery manage requests and the
  tracking of physical assets. An asset manager approves asset requests and
  manages the properties of the assets—such as location, condition, manufacturer,
  model, current owner, and estimated value—in the system.
• Team Work Site - Link
  The Team Work Site application template provides a place where clinical and
  business teams, such as Medical Management or Environment of Care committees,
  can upload background documents, track scheduled calendar events, initiate
  discussion topics, and submit action items. The site also tracks the creation
  and purpose of subteams and enables discussion among team members.
• Clinical Trial Initiation and Management - Link
  For those who work in academic medical centers, the Clinical Trial Initiation
  and Management application template helps teams track clinical trial protocols,
  set objectives, select subjects, and manage the budget. The site provides useful
  Office Word 2010 templates as well as the capability to create, track, and
  assign trial-specific tasks and issues.
• Employee Training Scheduling and Materials - Link
  The Employee Training Scheduling and Materials application template helps
  nursing educators and other instructors manage courses and related materials.
  Instructors can use the site to add new courses and organize course materials.
  Employees can use the site to schedule attendance at a course, track courses
  they’ve attended, and provide feedback.
• Employee Activities Site - Link
  e Employee Activities Site application template helps departments such as HR and
  Marketing manage the creation of and attendance at employee events. Activity
  owners can use the site to review proposals for new activities and to create
  event-specific calendar items. Employees can use the site to sign up for
  activities as well as to track which ones they’ve attended in the past.
• Budgeting and Tracking Multiple Projects - Link
  The Budgeting and Tracking Multiple Projects application template helps project
  teams track and budget multiple, interrelated sets of activities. The template
  provides project management tools such as project creation, assignment of new
  tasks, Gantt charts, and common status designators. It also helps team members
  consolidate the status of multiple projects into a single view, tracking
  progress against the project budget and timeline.
• Compliance Process Support Site - Link
  The Compliance Process Support Site application template helps both teams and
  executive sponsors manage compliance implementation endeavors, such as HIPAA.
  The site lets users specify control tasks that allow the capture of compliance
  issues as they arise. The application template contains document libraries used
  by team members to store related files as well as a calendar to track key audit
  dates.
• Case Management - Link
  The Case Management application template helps case managers track status and
  the tasks required to complete their work. When a case is initiated, standard
  tasks and documents are created; these can then be modified based on the work
  each case manager has completed.
• Business Performance Reporting - Link
  The Business Performance Reporting application template helps managers in
  healthcare organizations track the satisfaction of internal customers/patients
  through a combination of surveys and discussions. Surveys can be sent via Office
  InfoPath 2010, and the responses can be consolidated by the template to provide
  an overall view of the survey answers.
• Discussion Database - Link
  The Discussion Database application template provides a location where team
  members can create and reply to discussion topics. Discussions are organized by
  categories, which are created by a site manager and can be linked to Office
  Outlook 2010 via an RSS feed.
• Document Library and Review - Link
  The Document Library and Review application template helps people manage the
  review cycle common to processes like publication, knowledge management, and
  project plan development. It combines the functionality of a version-tracking
  document library with a threaded discussion list to provide a feedback and
  revision system. This template is intended for teams that need a central
  location for document review, discussion, revision control, and approval.
• Call Center - Link
  The Call Center application template helps departments such as Billing, HR, and
  IT manage customer service requests, from issue identification to cause analysis
  and resolution. Role-based dashboards display relevant information for each
  service request, and a knowledge base helps track related documents and items
  previously used to solve past Call Center issues. Management-focused dashboards
  track performance with metrics such as average resolution time and service
  request performance history.
• Change Request Management - Link
  The Change Request Management application template helps users track risks
  associated with a design change. Team members can submit a change request,
  notifying stakeholders of the risks involved with the change. The application
  template allows a team member to approve or reject the request.
• Knowledgebase – Link
  The Knowledge Base application template helps teams manage the information that
  is resident within their organization. The template enables team members to
  upload existing documents or create new ones using Web-based content creation
  tools. Items are tagged with relevant identifying information so that others can
  more easily find the documents and learn from the collective knowledge in their
  organization. The template can be used in a “top down” approach, in which a
  centralized knowledge department “pushes down” relevant content to the rest of
  the business, or in a “bottom up” approach, in which knowledge is captured and
  shared by all users as a normal part of doing business.
• Event Planning - Link
  The Event Planning application template helps teams organize events efficiently
  through the use of online registration, schedules, communication, and feedback.
  Role-based dashboards offer specific information to various event participants
  via home pages tailored for speakers, guests, staff, vendors, delegates,
  attendees, and others.

recently i noticed on a page that the database limit of SQl express was extended.

First of all: what is SQL express. It’s the free version of Microsoft’s SQL server.
because it’s free, it’s (ofcourse) limited. One of these limitations is the maximum database size.

this was always : 4 Gb.
But , as of version 2008R2 (express) this limitation is extended to 10 GB.

Although SharePoint comes OOTB with SQL express 2008 (without the R2), you can cheat during installation. That way you can have a larger database, but still use the free version of SQL. Install SQL 2008R2 express BEFORE installing SharePoint and install it using an Named Instance.

I already showed how this can be accomplished using the full SQL version here.

For more information about SQL express, take a look at the following URL’s

general info about SQL express 2008R2: http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/en/us/editions/express.aspx

Limitation or differences between the versions of SQL 2008 R2 (including the 10 Gb db limit):http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/en/us/product-info/compare.aspx

For development and testing i usually install the standalone version of SharePoint 2010.

I start with installing win2008R2, then i install sql2008r2, then i install the SharePoint pre-requisites, and when i start installing SharePoint i always realize, i don’t have the option to use the installed sql server. Standalone ALWAYS installs sql express and uses this as the database server.

So i end up with 2 sql instllations.

an alternative is to install a farm, based on local accounts, but that’s not always what i want.

For those who want that, take a look at this article : http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/blogs/fromthefield/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=112

So, when i wanted to setup a development environment again i wanted to start with SQL installation. However, this time i remembered i don’t need it.

But what if i still want to use it instead of the express version.

that’s when an idea popped up. What would happen if i installed sql as an instance with the name …….. SHAREPOINT.

The same instance name that SharePoint uses for the express installation.

I installed sql2008R2 as an instance with the name SHAREPOINT and then installed SharePoint.

And guess what …. it used the SHAREPOINT instance i created as database for the SharePoint installation.

Voila. SharePoint standalone installation on the full SQL version.

regards,

Eric

I have a SharePoint 2007 enviroment (Dutch) with Project server (Dutch) installed.

I created a custom search scope. I added this scope to the dropdown list on my portal. When i use this dropdownlist, i can see the new scope.

I also wanted this functionality on my Project Web Access site(collection). Actually, i even want that new scope to be the default scope.

So i added this scope….. but it didn’t show up (i redirected to search center)

After some investigation. i saw that everything was dutch EXCEPT the names of the display groups.

Although all functionality and all buttons and everything else, it struck me that the names of the different groups where not translated.

I went to my primary portal, retrieved the name of the displaygroups, as they are named in dutch.

Created a new group in my PWA site, added the scopes i want, and guess what : My pulldown menu from the search box, was correctly filled wit hthe scopes i entered.

Seems Microsoft made a hickup in translating

Regards,

Eric

This project extends the Visual Studio 2010 SharePoint project system with advanced templates and tools. Using these extensions you will be able to find relevant information from your SharePoint environments without leaving Visual Studio. You will have greater productivity while developing SharePoint components and you will have greater deployment capabilities on your local SharePoint installation.

For all developers there are several features you will like.

Get it here.

Just passed the TS: Microsoft SharePoint 2010 configuring and administering exam (70-677)