Archive for 'SharePoint'

Discover core databases for a Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 farm

Posted on March 4, 2010, under SharePoint.

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Below are steps for one method to discover databases used by a WSS 3.0 farm. Log in to SharePoint Central Administration for each of these activities.

Configuration Database

  1. Go to the “Operations” tab
  2. Click “Servers in Farm”
  3. Under “Farm Information” see the following items:
    1. Configuration database server
    2. Configuration database name

Central Administration Content Database

  1. Go to the “Application Management” tab
  2. Click “Web application list”
  3. Click “SharePoint Central Administration v3″
  4. Under “SharePoint Site Management”, click “Site collection list”
  5. Under the root “/” site, look in the information table for the “Database Name” value

General Usage Content Databases

  1. Go to the “Application Management” tab
  2. Click “Web application list”
  3. For each web application listed other than “SharePoint Central Administration v3″ (see above), perform the following:
    1. Click the web application name
    2. Under “SharePoint Site Management”, click “Site collection list”
    3. For each listed site collection (by URL):
      1. Click the URL of the site collection
      2. In the information table, look for the “Database Name” value

Search Database

  1. Go to the “Operations” tab
  2. Under “Topology and Services”, click “Services on server”
  3. Click the text “Windows SharePoint Services Help Search”
  4. Under “Search Database”, look for the values:
    • Database Server
    • Database Name

VMware Player – Now creates 64-bit VMs!

Posted on January 25, 2010, under General, SharePoint, Web Dev/Tech.

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At home, I recently moved from Vista Ultimate to Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit. On my Vista setup, I had VirtualPC installed to set up my own labs, installing servers and learning more about various server applications.

I was disappointed to see VirtualPC is no longer supported for Home versions of Windows. I was also disappointed to see the free VMware Server equivalent of VirtualPC had disappeared.

However, I just discovered the free VMware Player now not only runs VMs, as it always has, but also allows you to create them! You can also create and run 64-bit guest VM’s if you have the appropriate hardware, which I do. VirtualPC can’t do that. Sweet!

Update: A co-worker (thanks Shane!) mentioned to me the free VMware Server is still available. I’m going to try out Player, hoping it is more light-weight, and see how it goes first.

Nintex Workflow – “Run If” is King

Posted on November 17, 2009, under SharePoint, Web Dev/Tech.

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If you run into logic nesting issues using Nintex Workflow, remember that “Run If” is better than “Set a Condition”.

Team Site Search Broken on SharePoint 2003

Posted on April 13, 2009, under SharePoint.

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I realize SharePoint 2003 is fairly old by now, but there are a few production installs out there I’m sure. I still see frequent hits on the account lockout post from awhile back. Here’s a tip from some troubleshooting last fall in case it helps someone else.

We ran into an issue on one of our SPS 2003 installations where the team site information was not searchable at the team site level. We could successfully search all content at the portal/area level, but no results would come back when we performed the same search inside of a team site.

After some troubleshooting with our DBA and Microsoft Support (mostly our DBA), we realized that a required column by SharePoint for indexing the team site content was missing. The column name was Extension.

The resolution for this problem ended up being fairly simple once we figured it out:

  1. Open SharePoint Central Administration on the front-end server
  2. In the left-hand navigation, click “Windows SharePoint Services”
  3. Under “Component Configuration”, click “Configure full-text search”
  4. Uncheck “Enable full-text search and index component”
  5. Click OK
  6. Under “Component Configuration”, click “Configure full-text search”
  7. Now re-check “Enable full-text search and index component”
  8. Click OK
  9. At this point the required column “Extension” should be recreated in the SQL database
  10. Force a re-index or wait for the next schedule
  11. Test

This fixed the issue for us, and we were able to bring back search results at both the portal and team site level again.

Book Recommendation: MOSS 2007 Best Practices

Posted on December 17, 2008, under SharePoint, Web Dev/Tech.

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moss-best-practices-cover

There are several books that stand-out in my career where the value is well over the $50 spent on the book. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Best Practices is definitely one of those books.


P.S. Wordpress 2.7 is pretty slick

Hide the Title Field in SharePoint Lists

Posted on October 1, 2008, under SharePoint.

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Sean, my brain-scattered friend up North, found an article on “How to *hide* the TITLE field in SharePoint Lists“. This fit something I wanted to do today, and the tip worked like a champ!

Microsoft apps on VMware ESX will now be supported

Posted on September 11, 2008, under SharePoint, Web Dev/Tech.

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Microsoft will now support their applications running on the VMWare ESX platform running version 3.5 update 2. For anyone using both VMWare and Microsoft technologies (like Exchange, SharePoint, etc), this is great news!

Compound conditions and regex in SharePoint Designer workflows

Posted on May 19, 2008, under SharePoint.

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The Microsoft SharePoint Designer Team Blog has some good tips on incorporating compact and powerful conditions in your workflows. I’ve loved using Regular Expressions in the past – they are so powerful for string matching – and I’m really glad to see it can be used in SharePoint Designer workflows.

If you need a little help putting together some of your own regex magic, try out the Regex Coach.