Open the registry editor. Browse to “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office Server\12.0\Search\Applications”. Here you will find a key for each SSP in the farm. Drill down to "\Gather\ProfileImport\ContentSources\0" (which is the Full Import) and check the key “CrawlNumberInProgress”. If it´s not “0xffffffff” then the number displayed corresponds to a key under the branch “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office Server\12.0\Search\Applications\\Gather\ProfileImport\Crawls”.
I changed the number in the key “CrawlNumberInProgress” to “0xffffffff” and then restarted the “Office SharePoint Server Search” service for the settings to be applied.

Tackling the job of migrating from subsites to new site collections is no trivial task.  There are however, some COTS products specifically tailored to this case:

• Metalogix Site Migration Manager
• Quest Software Migration Manager for SharePoint

Unfortunately, I did not have the luxury of using one of these purpose-built tools for this endeavor.  Instead, I have relied on Gary Lapointe’s fantastic stsadm extensions.  Specifically, the following:

• gl-convertsubsitetositecollection – this one does all of the heavy lifting, using the SharePoint Content Migration API.
• gl-replacewebpartcontent – this allows you to use regex patterns to search and replace links that are in content editor web parts
• gl-copynavigation – because the new site collections create their own global navigation, I set the global navigation of the root (/) site collection to be all manual links, and use this extension operation to copy that navigation to the new site collection
• gl-addsiteadmin – add site collection administrators to the site collections easily

These commands have been grouped into a batch file which will handle each step of the migration process.  This has worked pretty well.  The batch file is executed through a Scheduled Task as the process often can exceed 24 hours in runtime so executing through RDP is not an option. 

The last utility I have made use of for this effort is bmail from Beyond Logic.  This is a simple command-line SMTP mailer which is used at the end of the conversion batch file to notify me that the process is complete.  This saves me the trouble of having to login to the server several times a day to check on progress.

Have I missed any utilities that you find useful for similar work?  If so, please comment!

SharePoint Content Deployment Wizard

http://spdeploymentwizard.codeplex.com/

The SharePoint Content Deployment Wizard is a tool for SharePoint 2007 which provides the means to deploy the following content:
- site collections
- webs
- lists
- folders
- list items (including files)
Content is exported using the Content Migration API (PRIME) as a .cmp file (Content Migration Package) which can be copied to other servers for import. Unlike the out-of-the-box tools, the Wizard allows *granular* selection of content via a treeview.

 

SharePoint Access Checker Web Part

http://accesschecker.codeplex.com/

Quickly check what objects within a Sharepoint site hierarchy a user has access to.

The Access Checker Web Part is a Windows Sharepoint Services Web Part, for use within Windows Sharepoint Services v3 and Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server 2007, that displays a tree view showing permissions on objects for a user scoped to a Site hierarchy. It also has a second mode which will show the permission inheritance of objects within a Site hierarchy.

 

SharePoint ULS Log Viewer

http://ulsviewer.codeplex.com/

A windows application for viewing SharePoint ULS log files more easily. Supports filtering and easy viewing of data.

SLAM! SharePoint List Association Manager

http://slam.codeplex.com/

Most developers who have used SharePoint as an application development framework have run into the realization that SharePoint is NOT a relational database. In fact, the accepted wisdom is if you need relational tables, use ASP.NET/SQL straight-up, not SharePoint.

Enter SharePoint List Association Manager (SLAM). In short it allows you to define relationships (one to one, one to many, many to many) between SharePoint lists (or Content Types) and then leverage those relationships in webparts or custom field types using familiar and straight forward SQL queries.

Have I missed any?  Please comment if there is a “must have” (except WSPBuilder of course, everyone knows that ) I have omitted!

We are working to release a hotfix to automatically fix this issue. A manual work-around is currently available and involves customers re-entering their Product ID number (PID) on the Convert License Type page in Central Administration.  For more information and detailed steps please read this KB article.

In addition, Microsoft is working on a hotfix to be released shortly.  More information can be found on the Microsoft SharePoint Team Blog:

Microsoft SharePoint Team Blog : Attention: Important Information on Service Pack 2

Benefits

Customers can be benefited from the following enhancements with Service Pack 2.

• Performance and Availability Improvements

Service Pack 2 includes many fixes and enhancements designed to improve performance, availability, and stability in your server farms, including:

• New Timer job automatically rebuilds content database index to improve database performance.
• When a content database is marked as read-only, the user interface will be modified so users cannot perform tasks that require writing to the database.
• Performance enhancement across nearly all the components.
• Improved Interoperability

Service Pack 2 continues to improve SharePoint interoperability with other products and platforms.

• Broader support of browsers
  Internet Explorer 8 is added into Level 1 browser support.
  FireFox 2.0/3.0 is added into Level 2 browser support.
• Provide improved client integration user experience with Form Based Authentication. Now the client application can store user credentials instead of asking for them every time. For more technical details please refer to the updated articles on TechNet.
  Configure forms-based authentication (Office SharePoint Server
  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262201.aspx
  Configure forms-based authentication (Windows SharePoint Services)
  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc288043.aspx
• Getting Ready for SharePoint Server 2010

A new preupgradecheck operation is added to stsadm tool. It can be used to scan your server farm to establish whether it is ready for upgrade to SharePoint Products and Technologies "14". It identifies issues that could present obstacles to the upgrade process. It checks for several SharePoint Products and Technologies "14" system requirements, including the presence of Microsoft® Windows Server® 2008 and a 64-bit hardware, and provides feedback and best practice recommendations for your current environment, together with information on how to resolve any issues that the tool discovers. 

I am particularly excited about the early release of the preupgradecheck tool.  This will allow IT departments to begin planning 2010 deployment rollout well in advance, and identify any significant hurdles.  Of course, “performance enhancement across nearly all the components” is also a welcomed improvement!

“Unable to validate data.”

Thanks to Angela Chng for the solution:

Did you customize your application master pages and get this error while trying to delete list columns?

Unable to validate data. at System.Web.Configuration.MachineKeySection.GetDecodedData(Byte[] buf, Byte[] modifier, Int32 start, Int32 length, Int32& dataLength)  
at System.Web.UI.ObjectStateFormatter.Deserialize(String inputString) 

Ok that probably means you have a search box in the template which is messing things up, just remove it or hide it, and that will do the trick!

Removed the search box from the application.master and the issue was resolved!

From my vantage point as an architect and developer of SharePoint solutions, it is important to note where it is appropriate to use SharePoint Designer (SPD) and where it is more appropriate to develop SharePoint solution packages (WSP) using Visual Studio.  I frequently use SPD for what I would consider “power user” tasks, such as creating one-off workflows.  I also use SPD to create Data View Web Parts, although I will typically export the web part from WPD and move it into a Visual Studio project for deployment and version control.

In short, this is a great win for SharePoint users, be mindful as an organization and/or development team around some of the following:  how will I version the work I’m doing in SPD?  how will I perform code promotion (development, integration, staging, production)?  is this solution generic and can I deploy it to other sites or site collections?

Happy customizing!

   1:  Set o = CreateObject("OISCTRL.OISClientLauncher")

   2:  o.LaunchOIS "ois.exe /upload ""http://sharepointpicturelibraryurl.com"""

The result was "Unspecified error".  A further review of the SharePoint javascript indicated that it first looks for "OISCTRL.OISClientLauncher" but if it doesn’t find it, it will fall back to good ‘ole "STSUPLD.DLL" which powers the standard upload multiple functionality.  For now, we have worked around the issue by unregistering "OISCTRL.dll" which is in the C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE12 directory:

regsvr32 /u OISCTRL.dll

If anyone has an actual fix for OISCTRL.dll not being able to launch the ois.exe process, let me know!

I was preparing a response to an RFP today for SharePoint that required Forms Services to be used for both anonymous Internet sites AND authenticated-user Intranet scenarios.  When I first reviewed this requirement I thought, "Oh snap!  MOSS licensing doesn’t permit mixing Internet and Intranet, this will need to be two farms!".  I was dead certain of this.  So certain, that I wanted to go straight to the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 frequently asked questions page and quote it in the response.  This is when things took a turn.  My world was flipped upside down.  Dogs and cats, living together.  Mass hysteria.  The following is what I found:

Can I mix SharePoint editions in the same farm?

For Microsoft Office SharePoint Server and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server for Internet Sites, the use of a server determines its licensing requirements, not its location in one farm or another. Consequently, you can mix Microsoft Office SharePoint Server and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server for Internet Sites within the same farm–so long as the use cases are licensed appropriately. However, because Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Internet Sites licenses the functionality of the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server Enterprise CAL, you will need to ensure that your users only access functionality they are licensed for based on their CALs.

Microsoft Office Forms Server and Microsoft Office Forms Server for Internet Sites cannot be mixed with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server for Internet Sites.

Additionally, as an accommodation for various possible deployment scenarios, customers wishing to consolidate their SharePoint needs under a single deployment may acquire licenses for both Office SharePoint Sever and Office SharePoint Server for Internet Sites, assign those licenses to the same servers, and use the same running instances of the software simultaneously under both licenses. However, customers must acquire CALs as required under the Office SharePoint Server use rights for users and devices accessing content in any manner not permitted under the Office SharePoint Server for Internet sites use rights.

WHAT?!?!?!  How could this be????  I distinctly remember it stating that you could NOT mix Internet Sites with Enterprise or Standard.  It was a cardinal rule!  Break it at your own peril!  Could I have been mistaken?  (Here’s a hint, I’m never wrong.  Ask my wife )  I was distraught.  I felt like I had been hoodwinked.  So I did a quick search to see if the licensing terms had changed.  For the sake of my sanity, thankfully I found this blog post regarding the change to the MOSS licensing.  In it, Tom Rizzo states the following:

I’m happy to say that beginning Sept 1^st, we made a change that makes running MOSS Server Licenses and MOSSFIS legal in the same farm. So, let the deploying begin! One thing to realize is that this does not reduce the number of licenses you need to buy. So, if you’re running MOSS Server licenses and MOSSFIS on the same farm, you still need to buy both licenses as well as the correct number of client access licenses (CALs) for your internal users.

Sweet vindication!  Well.  Sort of.  I am writing this blog posting December 17th, 2008.  Tom Rizzo wrote HIS blog post September 23rd, 2007.  Apparently I got this news roughly 15 months late.  Ouch.