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Workaround for creating timer jobs after a restore in SharePoint

I have recently done a restore of a SharePoint farm without first creating the web applications as Microsoft suggests. (read previous post about web application timer jobs not created during a SharePoint restore ). The issue was the problem wasn't found right away so Microsofts recommendation of running the restore again wasn't an option. I searched and searched for a solution that allowed me to manually fire up these timer jobs for these web applications, but nothing was found. Seemed like creating a new web application was the only option. Below are the steps that I took to resolve this issue for each web application involved (usually it would be every web app except for central administration). Step 1: Backups and Preparation Before starting any endeavor that can potentially hose up a web application and / or database it is recommended that the entire farm run a full backup just in case :). Next we will have to make sure we stop the IIS web sites so there are no additional changes being made to the databases as we are trying to move them. Do this by going into IIS and stopping the appropiate virtual servers running. Step 2: Create a new Web Application I created a new web application on a different port number and a temporary database name (WSS_Content_Port_DELETEME). I did so that I knew when finished which databases to delete. The temporary port number is there as a place holder until I could manually swap the ports with the "old" web application later....

Sharing Links: SharePoint Designer Governance

I just wanted to take a quick second to direct you to a post published today by Robert Bogue, a SharePoint MVP: http://thorprojects.com/blog/archive/2008/02/12/737.aspx The article covers Rob's views on the proper usage of SharePoint Designer (SPD) and how that usage should be governed by SharePoint administrators. SPD is a great tool for the customization and modification of SharePoint, but when not used properly it can really generate some heartburn for you. I highly recommend checking out Rob's article and taking his advice to heart; it may not be directly applicable to your situation but hopefully at least it will get you thinking about what kind of limits your organization needs around tools such as SPD. Posted on SharePoint Blogs Del.icio.us | Digg It | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | DotNetKicks

Today’s SharePoint Downloads 01.25.08

Microsoft has just released a few SharePoint related downloads for everyone to enjoy over the weekend: Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Application Template: Product and Marketing Requirements Planning (productplanning.exe) - The Product and Marketing Read More......( read more ) Del.icio.us | Digg It | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | DotNetKicks

Virtual PC - How To Configure Loopback Adaptor

This really helped me out while working on virtual machines on my laptop. I recommend all developers to have your virtual machines configured to use the Microsoft Loopback adaptor. Click Start, and then click Control Panel. If you are in Classic view Read More......( read more ) Del.icio.us | Digg It | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | DotNetKicks

Backup / Restore

We can need backup/restore our SharePoint for security reasons, or sometimes when we deploy some contents from one server to other one. In SharePoint 2007 we have several choices to save and restore the content. On the Central Administration site we can start backup or restore manually: the Operations page give us possibilities to save our farm, site collection or SSP. We have more freedom if we choose the stsadm command-line tool. Additionally, running these commands as a script, moreover: scheduled...( read more ) Del.icio.us | Digg It | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | DotNetKicks

With Great Power: Beware the New Shiny Precious

If you're like me and read over 100 SharePoint blog posts a day (and I hope you're not, because you need to get a life!), you're probably aware that Microsoft has released service packs for WSS v3, MOSS 2007, and Office 2007. So I'm not going to go through the motions of posting links to the download pages for those files, or run through the list of what's included in these updates. That's been done quite well by far more competent bloggers before me. If you don't know what a service pack is, here's a quick summary. Since the latest versions of Office and SharePoint were released last year, Microsoft has been publishing patches and updates to the platform. These updates are intended to fix bugs, patch security holes, and correct functional errors that have been found post-release in SharePoint, and they are a very normal part of the process for commercial software. If you have Windows Update enabled on your workstation, you've seen Windows download similar patches and updates for the programs installed on your computer. At intervals throughout a product's life cycle, Microsoft releases service packs as a way to roll all of those updates up into one package, to catch up anyone who might have not applied any of those smaller updates. Often, new functionality is often included in the service pack, as an additional incentive to apply the update, such as the Security Center functionality included in Windows XP Service Pack 2. So in this round...

Two More Small Notes about Features with a Big F

In the process of working on some other topics for posting, I've noticed a couple of small details that you'll want to keep in mind when working with Features in SharePoint. I realize they may be kind of nit-picky, but I work in a world where not paying attention to the tiniest of details can lead to days or weeks of re-work. NOTE: Please read my previous post if you need some background on the difference between features and Features in WSS v3 and MOSS 2007. The first is that when you're in the Site Settings pages, the links for administrating your Site Features and your Site Collection Features use the term "feature" in all lowercase. Don't be alarmed, these are the admin pages you'll want to check out if you need to activate or deactivate Features in your site or site collection. The other thing I noticed was that when you open one of those Feature administration pages, the list of features displayed has some icons showing up to the left of each available Feature. I've opened these pages quite a few times in the past, and this was the first time that I've noticed that there are some difference between some of these icons. The most common one appears to be this: . This is the Generic Feature icon. It shows up next to basic Features like "Office SharePoint Server Publishing" and "Reporting". Another icon you'll see is ; the Workflow Solution Feature icon. This icon appears next to all the out of the box workflow-related...

When a Feature Isn't the Same Thing as a feature

Hopefully it isn't any sort of a great revelation to anyone that the latest versions of SharePoint (WSS v3 and MOSS 2007) have a lot of great new features, such as blogs, wikis, Excel Services, and many more. I also hope that almost a year after their release, that you've gotten a chance to experience and use some of these new features. But there is one item in the update feature sets for SharePoint that may be a cause for some confusion: Features. Huh? What kind of recursive nightmare am I trying to perpetuate? Features are a feature? That doesn't make any sense, does it? Well, in SharePoint it does. One of the new features in the latest version of SharePoint is a piece of functionality titled "Features." Please don't hate me for this confusing wordplay; I didn't come up with it. And I would go so far as to encourage you not to hate on the SharePoint product team for this either; I've wracked my brain to try and come up with an alternative name for this and failed. I'm not here to criticize (this time ), I'm here to edjamakate you. Once you get beyond the name, Features are great. Out of the box they provide an easy way for site admins and farm admins to turn on and off different components of a SharePoint site. Depending on your version of SharePoint, you'll find stock Features that determine what web parts or workflows are available for use within a site. You don't have to install any applications or run an administrative process...

New Tools for Anyone Who Uses SharePoint

I've added yet another new section in the right-hand column of this blog titled " My Toolbox ," and added two initial links to it. I've found myself using both of them on a pretty regular basis recently, and highly recommend that you take a look at them. The first item is a link to a website that I just setup to display a Google custom search engine that I've been working on for the last year or so, http://searchforsharepoint.com . Google's custom search engine offering is a great way for you to create a custom search engine (leveraging all the stuff Google has done that makes their normal search engine so great) built on a specific set of web sites that you provide. So over time I've been working to add pretty much any site I come across that has any sort of postings, articles, or information regarding SharePoint in all its incarnations to my own custom search engine. Somehow I've managed to come across over 750 sites out there and add them all into my engine (I suppose some might term that obsession... ). And I've finally been able to get the site up on its own URL, which makes me feel like its ready for public consumption. Let me know what you think! NOTE: The site doesn't work in FireFox; I need to take a look at my JavaScript and figure out what's breaking. Sorry! The other link I've added to My Toolbox is http://sharepointpedia.com . This is a great new social news site (similar to digg.com, reddit.com, and dotnetkicks.com...

Great Power: Giving Users All the Rope They Need

If I had to name just one thing that impresses the heck out of me about SharePoint, I'd go with the power that SharePoint grants to the end users who manage sites. Sure, publishing, document versioning, the SharePoint object model and so many other features are pretty cool, but what you can do as a site admin or site collection admin is pretty dang impressive. You have the ability to control just about every aspect of your site, from who uses it to what goes into it. You are able to manage all of it from your web browser without any additional tools. And you don't have to be an experience IT professional to be able to do it. In fact, this is so apparent in the current version of SharePoint that Microsoft changed their security model for sites to fully embrace this approach. In WSS v2 and SPS 2003 if you were a SharePoint Admin (someone who had administrative rights to the servers hosting SharePoint and all its administrative resources, such as User Profiles, Search, etc); you had the keys to the castle. You could access any site and make any changes to it you felt like, and no one could stop you. It was definitely an all or nothing proposition; your SharePoint admins could go to any site (such as an executive-only site) and view its contents. All in all, it was quite exhilarating Now in WSS v3 and MOSS 2007, as Lee Corso likes to say, "Not so fast my friend!" SharePoint administrators no longer have default access to your site. Each site collection can have a...

Tips and Tricks: Deleting a site that has subsites (yes, you can, despite what the error message says)

One of the first things I have students do in an End User SharePoint Workshop is to create a test environment so they can play in a sandbox without blowing away their production environment. (”Who, me?” I know, I know. YOU would never implement Read More......( read more ) Del.icio.us | Digg It | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | DotNetKicks

Missing Web Applications When Creating SSP

Have you ever gone to create a Shared Services Provider only to discover that the Web Application dropdownlist(s) are missing your Web Applications? Here is a work-around to create the shared services provider manually using the stsadm tool. (Only the required parameters are included) C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\bin\stsadm.exe stsadm –o CreateSSP -title SSP1 -url http://MOSSSite -mySiteUrl http://MySite.MOSS -sspLogin domain\user -sspPassword password ...( read more ) Del.icio.us | Digg It | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | DotNetKicks

Renaming a MOSS Server

Renaming a MOSS server is meticulous job. If anything goes wrong along the way chances are that you need to reconfigure your whole MOSS environment. Here are the steps to take, and the order in which to take them if you want to rename a server that has MOSS already installed and configured on it: *** NOTE: Use only letters, digits and minus for the machine name (so no underscores), max 15 characters. Change each alternate access mapping for your MOSS...