andreas glaser

MOSS 2007 / WCMS development: PortalSiteMapProvider, SPNavigationSiteMapNode and external links

Andreas Glaser — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 17:18:36 +0200

This is one of the things in MOSS 2007 / WCMS development which are not obvious but can save some time if you know it. Some time ago i blogged about the PortalSiteMapProvider and how you can use it to build your custom navigation:

These things work really fine but if you want to have external links in your navigation you need to be aware that the object behind a navigation node can be different.

Here you can see 3 different types in the SharePoint UI:

The first 2 nodes are of type site, the next 2 are pages and the last is my external link. External link means that if you click it the link should be opened in a new tab (target=’_blank’).

PortalSiteMapProvider and SPNavigationSiteMapNode

You get a PortalSiteMapProvider object like I have described it in the older posts:

PortalSiteMapProvider map = new PortalSiteMapProvider();

SiteMapNodeCollection nodeColl = map.CurrentNode.ChildNodes;

foreach (SiteMapNode childNode in nodeColl)
{

    //childNode.Title;

    //childNode.Key;

    //childNode.Url;
}

If you iterate through the childNodes you have an object of type [Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.Navigation.PortalWebSiteMapNode] which has no property where it says that this link is external or not. The external link has an object of type [Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.Navigation.SPNavigationSiteMapNode] which has a property called isExternal (boolean). You need to cast the childNode:

if (childNode.GetType() == typeof(Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.Navigation.
     SPNavigationSiteMapNode))
{
    bool externalLink = ((Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.Navigation.
        SPNavigationSiteMapNode)(childNode)).IsExternal;
}

Works great ;)

SharePoint 2007 resources – June 2009: WCMS and virtualization (Hyper-V)

Andreas Glaser — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 22:29:54 +0200

A little bit later than usual but here are the in my opinion most interesting SharePoint 2007 resources in June 2009… with every link comes a short description of the content available. This month is about SharePoint 2007 in general and WCMS as well as virtualization.

SharePoint 2007 WCMS

Modifying out-of-the-box SharePoint files
How to incrementally deploy SharePoint MySites
Want to modify out-of-the-box SharePoint files? The UK SharePoint Team writes about common modifications and suggests alternatives. You can also find an easy way to incrementally deploy the My Site to users.

Limitations of STSADM -o export/import related to publishing sites
SharePoint application pool hang on servers where Visual Studio has been installed in the past (last updated: May 27th, 2009)
Don’t install Visual Studio or the .NET Framework 2.0 SDK on a production server. Why? Stefan Gossner explains in detail…

Service pack 2 Update.
There is a fix for the product expiration which came with Service Pack 2 for SharePoint 2007.

Virtualization (Hyper-V)

Changes to virtual machine snapshots in Windows Server 2008 R2
Ben explains 5 changes to virtual machine snapshots in Windows Server 2008 R2.

Hyper-V and in-place upgrade to Windows Server 2008 R2 Release Candidate
Don’t disable the Hyper-V role even if you read a notice while upgrading Windows Server 2008.

Changes to andreasglaser.net

Andreas Glaser — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 22:31:43 +0200

I have made some changes regarding the layout and topics of my blog. Besides the new layout which you can see right now I have clearly defined my fields of work: The categories as well as the tag cloud now represent my knowledge.

Breadcrumb

All of my posts have one category and several tags which are now presented as a breadcrumb. It should be easier to navigate through content which you find interesting.

Summary

There are a lot of changes regarding layout and the structure of my content. I hope you as a reader benefit from the changes. If not drop a comment below.

MOSS 2007 / WCMS development: onet.xml and Site Collection features

Andreas Glaser — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 00:32:14 +0200

Today I had a problem with a site collection feature I wanted to activate using a custom onet.xml. I’m developing a WCMS intranet site with custom Master pages and Page layouts so I created my own features and a custom onet.xml. I referenced the feature GUID of the MOSS 2007 Publishing Site feature in the SiteFeatures section.

After creating the Site Collection the feature was not activated and I wondered why. I got no error message… the feature was just not activated.

This is how I referenced the Publishing Site feature in the SiteFeatures section:

<SiteFeatures>
...
<!—PublishingSite -->
<FeatureID=" f6924d36-2fa8-4f0b-b16d-06b7250180fa" />
...
<SiteFeatures>

As you can see I made a mistake because I inserted a blank right before the feature GUID.

<SiteFeatures>
...
<!—PublishingSite -->
<FeatureID="f6924d36-2fa8-4f0b-b16d-06b7250180fa" />
...
<SiteFeatures>

After removing the blank I did an iisreset and recreated my Site Collection.

I hope this helps before someone searches hours ;)

Relaunch of SharePointCommunity.de

Andreas Glaser — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 13:00:41 +0200

Fabian Moritz and Michael Greth, both SharePoint MVPs, put their blogs and the community board under one platform:

The board and the blogs are running with Community Server 2008.5.

If you have subscribed to their feed it’s time to update the Url.

SharePoint 2007 resources – May 2009: WCMS and virtualization (Hyper-V)

Andreas Glaser — Sun, 31 May 2009 11:15:02 +0200

Here are the in my opinion most interesting SharePoint 2007 resources in May 2009… with every link comes a short description of the content available. This month is about SharePoint 2007 in general and WCMS as well as virtualization.

SharePoint 2007 WCMS

SharePoint Master Page Content Place Holders
The UK SharePoint Team has released a table which “provides a list of the ContentPlaceHolder Ids and corresponding UI element for the default.master Master Page”.

The April cumulative update for WSS V3 and MOSS 2007 has been released yesterday
Red is Green, Up is Down and the Unsupported suddenly becomes Supported!
MOSS 2007 Blob caching and it's limitations
MOSS 2007 SP2 - a must have for everyone who uses Variations on his site
Technet article on how to troubleshoot Content Deployment has been released
Stefan Gossner has written some interesting and important articles in May 2009. You should definitely check them out! :)

Virtualization (Hyper-V)

New in Hyper-V Windows Server 2008 R2 Part 1 – Dedicated Networks
John Howard always describes important things like networking with Hyper-V with a lot of pictures.
Hyper-V and in-place upgrade to Windows Server 2008 R2 Release Candidate
Don’t disable the Hyper-V role even if you read a notice while upgrading Windows Server 2008.
Hyper-V R2 Import/Export – Part 1 – The Case for New Import/Export Functionality
Hyper-V R2 Import/Export – Part 2 - The New Import/Export APIs
Hyper-V R2 Import/Export – Part 3 – The UI
Hyper-V R2 Import/Export – Part 4 – Export code sample
Hyper-V R2 Import/Export – Part 5 – Import code sample
Not satisfied with import and export in Hyper-V v1? Here are the new features like “Copy on Import” (missed that one a lot in v1).

SharePoint 2007 SP2 – Known problems

Andreas Glaser — Mon, 25 May 2009 07:33:13 +0200

There are some problems so far related to the SharePoint 2007 SP2. The last update comes from the Microsoft SharePoint Team Blog:

“During the installation of SP2, a product expiration date is improperly activated. This means SharePoint will expire as though it was a trial installation 180 days after SP2 is deployed. The activation of the expiration date will not affect the normal function of SharePoint up until the expiration date passes. Furthermore, product expiration 180 days after SP2 installation will not affect customer’s data, configuration or application code but will render SharePoint inaccessible for end-users.

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.”

Summary

There is a nice summary of know problems caused by SharePoint SP2 which is provided by Wictor Wilén.

Important information on Service Pack 2 from the Microsoft SharePoint Team.
Nintex Workflow 2007 problem with Service Pack 2
Failure when running configuration wizard after applying SP2 (problem and solution)
Problem with SQL Server and AWE memory allocation
Some people says that it takes some time to start SharePoint after applying the update
Me and some others had some problems when running the installer which was due to the fact that the download of the updates failed so the installation package was corrupt. I had to retry a few times to get all the bits
SharePoint SP2 and SPDatabaseGbwSequence error is caused by free SharePoint templates
SharePoint Designer needs Service Pack 2 to connect to a SharePoint Service Pack 2 farm
MSI error 1603 while installing MOSS Service Pack 2

Please visit his blog to get more detailed information.

Virtual PC 2007 or Virtual Server 2005 to Hyper-V migration guide

Andreas Glaser — Wed, 13 May 2009 07:58:17 +0200

I’m working with Hyper-V since more than 1 year and now I’m migrating the developer images of my company from Virtual PC or Virtual Server 2005 to Hyper-V. For me the process is straightforward since I have done it a lot of times last year but I thought this might be interesting for someone else.

This guide doesn’t use any third party tools or the System Center Virtual Machine Manager and it doesn’t include clustering. For a list of Hyper-V supported guest operating systems please read About Virtual Machines and Guest Operating Systems. There are also a lot of information at TechNet:

Hyper-V
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc753637(WS.10).aspx
Virtual Machine Migration Guide: How To Migrate from Virtual Server to Hyper-V
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd296684.aspx

If you are interested in Hyper-V networking with a Loopback Adapter you might want to take a look at the following articles:

In my case I had to migrate a virtual machine from Virtual PC 2007 SP1 to Hyper-V so you will see Virtual PC instead of Virtual Server 2005 in the screenshots.

Prepare the virtual machine

Before you can run the image with Hyper-V you need to prepare the virtual machine using Virtual PC or Virtual Server.

Document your virtual machine configuration

First of all you need to remember your virtual machine configuration so you can recreate it later with Hyper-V. Without 3rd party tools you need to write it down or to make a screenshot.

As you can see in the picture I’m using 2 virtual network adapters: one for the communication between the images and one for getting access to resources outside your image (file share, internet). The communication between the images is faster using a local network adapter.

Important: “You cannot use a SCSI disk to boot a virtual machine in Hyper-V. If the boot disk of your virtual machine is not IDE, you should change it before migration. You can use a script for changing virtual machine disk type to automate changing the disk controller configuration type from SCSI to IDE. The script is available at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=135672.” (from the Virtual Machine Migration Guide)

Update your operating system with required updates and hotfixes

You need to update your image in order to meet Hyper-V guest operating system requirements. At the beginning of this guide you can find the requirements.

In my case I needed to update Windows Server 2003 SP1 to SP2. Otherwise you can’t install the Hyper-V Integration Services.

Uninstall the virtual machine additions

After installing all necessary updates you need to uninstall the Virtual Machine Additions. In Windows Server 2003 you can do this using Control Panel – Add or remove programs.

After uninstall I restart the image in order to be sure everything worked fine.

Remove network settings and shut down virtual machine

Before you shut down your image you need to remove the network settings. Since Hyper-V Integration Services will install new network adapters you will get an error message when you try to reuse static IP settings.

After removing the network settings you need to shut down the image. Using a saved state will not work.

Create Hyper-V virtual machine

Now it’s time to get the image working with Hyper-V.

Create the virtual machine

At first I created the virtual machine using the Hyper-V wizard. Here you need the settings documented in the first step.

Install Hyper-V Integration Services

When you connect to a Hyper-V image a console will open where you can select Action – Insert Integration Services Setup Disc from the menu (no need for searching the .iso file manually ;) ). This will automatically start the setup.exe inside the image.

At first a new HAL will be installed and after rebooting the rest of the Integration Services will be installed which needs a second reboot. Please be aware that you need an install disc of your operating system if you deleted all drivers from your Windows folder. I did it when I created the image since it saved a lot of disc space and doing a copy of my image needed less time.

Recreating network settings

At the end you need to recreate the network settings since the Hyper-V Integration Services installed new network adapters.

If you didn’t remove static IP addresses at the end of the preparation process you will get an error message saying that the IP address is already assigned to an other network adapter. You can chose no if you don’t want to assign a new IP address. Using the same address worked for me without errors so far.

Conclusion

When doing a migration from Virtual PC or Virtual Server 2005 to Hyper-V you need to take care of a few things. Although I don’t have a cluster I can imagine that this might not be straightforward like it is written in this post.

SharePoint 2007 and HTTP Error 401.1 - Unauthorized: Access is denied due to invalid credentials.

Andreas Glaser — Sun, 10 May 2009 15:33:33 +0200

Ok this was one of the weeks where I had some trouble with my environment… After a year without problems this week had some challenges for me.

HTTP Error 401.1 - Unauthorized: Access is denied due to invalid credentials.

Here is the scenario: I have a development environment with Windows Server 2003 SP1 as a domain controller and Windows Server 2003 R2 as the SharePoint 2007 server. After applying a lot of updates I wasn’t able to browse my SharePoint web:

"You are not authorized to view this page"

“You do not have permission to view this directory or page using the credentials that you supplied.”

“HTTP Error 401.1 - Unauthorized: Access is denied due to invalid credentials.”

Soon I discovered that the reason was neither related to the SQL Server nor to insufficient permissions within SharePoint. After doing an IIS reset the SharePoint web immediately prompted for an login without even starting the application pool.

Solution

I remembered that I had tried to enable Kerberos on the image which did not succeed. I also created SPNs in the active directory… So I just changed the IIS Authentication Settings to Kerberos and it worked again.

Ok enough challenges for the month… ;)

SharePoint 2007 SP2: Failed to detect if this server is joined to a server farm and Failed to register SharePoint services error messages

Andreas Glaser — Wed, 06 May 2009 12:33:59 +0200

Ok the last days I got some error messages while installing SharePoint 2007 SP2. The error messages didn’t occur because of SP2… the problem was my development environment so it was easy to find a solution.

Failed to detect if this server is joined to a server farm.

The first error message was

“Failed to detect if this server is joined to a server farm. Possible reasons for this failure could be that you no longer have the appropriate permissions to the server farm, the database server hosting the server farm is unresponsive, the configuration database is inaccessible or this server has been removed from the server farm. To diagnose this problem further, review the extended error information located at {0}. If this problem persists, choose to disconnect from the server farm. After disconnecting, run the wizard again to create or connect to an existing server farm.”

The problem was related to my SQL Server service which wasn’t running. So after restarting the service the installation of SharePoint 2007 SP2 was no problem.

Failed to register SharePoint services.

After installation I was running the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard which stopped with the following error message:

“Failed to register SharePoint services. An exception of type System.Security.SecurityException was thrown. Additional exception information: Access denied. Completed configuration settings will not be rolled back. Resolve the problem and run this configuration wizard again. The following contains detailed information about the failure:”

It was a long time ago when I received this error message and I remembered to restart the wizard which was successful the second time.

Conclusion

The problems may occur in scenarios where SP2 is not involved since they were related to my environment. ;) I hope this helps if you are having problems installing SharePoint 2007 SP2 or something else.

andreas glaser

MOSS 2007 / WCMS development: PortalSiteMapProvider, SPNavigationSiteMapNode and external links

PortalSiteMapProvider and SPNavigationSiteMapNode

SharePoint 2007 resources – June 2009: WCMS and virtualization (Hyper-V)

SharePoint 2007 WCMS

Virtualization (Hyper-V)

Changes to andreasglaser.net

Categories

Tag cloud

Breadcrumb

Summary

MOSS 2007 / WCMS development: onet.xml and Site Collection features

Relaunch of SharePointCommunity.de

Read more

SharePoint 2007 resources – May 2009: WCMS and virtualization (Hyper-V)

SharePoint 2007 WCMS

Virtualization (Hyper-V)

SharePoint 2007 SP2 – Known problems

Summary

Virtual PC 2007 or Virtual Server 2005 to Hyper-V migration guide

Prepare the virtual machine

Document your virtual machine configuration

Update your operating system with required updates and hotfixes

Uninstall the virtual machine additions

Remove network settings and shut down virtual machine

Create Hyper-V virtual machine

Create the virtual machine

Install Hyper-V Integration Services

Recreating network settings

Conclusion

SharePoint 2007 and HTTP Error 401.1 - Unauthorized: Access is denied due to invalid credentials.

HTTP Error 401.1 - Unauthorized: Access is denied due to invalid credentials.

Solution

SharePoint 2007 SP2: Failed to detect if this server is joined to a server farm and Failed to register SharePoint services error messages

Failed to detect if this server is joined to a server farm.

Failed to register SharePoint services.

Conclusion