§ | Q | A | Modified |
|---|
| I | 04 - What is the Relationship to FrontPage? | Just as FrontPage XP could be used for a certain amount of basic customization with STS 1.0, so FrontPage 2003 can be used for similar customization with WSS.
Front Page 2003 also extends (compared to STS) the range of customizations that are possible.
The use of back versions of FP is not possible in connection with a WSS site.
In STS 1.0 it was dangerous to amend certain of the template and similar files with FP. It is unknown whether this is the case with WSS.
Gavin Wall points out that (text slightly amended)
Modifications to the Default.aspx file with Frontpage will prevent 'Ghosting' from working for that site or subsite.
Thanks Gavin! | |
| I | 05 - What is the Relationship to MSDE and SQL Server? | STS 1.0 used as default MSDE 1.0 and also worked with both SQL Server 7.0 and 2K.
WSS uses as default WMSDE which is a special version of MSDE 2K and ONLY works with SQL Server 2K (and variants) not 7.0.
Note that in order for SQL Server 2K to work on a Windows 2003 Server it (SQL Server) must use Service Pack 3 or later. (Ed: in fact SP3a)
Note also that some functionality (see below I.7) is not available with MSDE 2K.
Note: A little known fact is that the version of MSDE used with WSS (called "WMSDE") is not the same version of MSDE as that used by SPS v2.
WMSDE, whose use is restricted to Windows Components (in this case WSS), has a different product code in which the 5 concurrent users (then a slowdown in performance) limit from MSDE 1.0 has been removed as has the 2GB limit in the size of the database that was also present in MSDE 1.0.
(I was asked by Paul Lynch if the text in a Microsoft document about reduced storage space with WMSDE was incorrect - yes, as far as the size of the database goes it is!)
Both these limits are still contained within the MSDE version that is used by SPS v2.
Finally, note (SPS v2 only) that if you are installing onto a Domain Controller, MSDE is not available as an option. | |
| I | 07.01 - The basic search function | In STS 1.0 the search function (as provided by MS) searched only in documents.
In WSS the built-in search function now searches on the contents of both documents and lists.
In STS 1.0 the search function was always available no matter what database was used.
In WSS the search function is no longer available for sites with MSDE 2K unless they also have SPS 2.0 (SharePoint Portal Server 2.0) installed.
(The options are SQL Server searching or SPS 2.0 searching. SPS 2.0 searching works where the WSS database is either SQL Server 2K or MSDE 2K; SQL Server searching works only where the WSS database is SQL Server 2K. MS recommend SPS 2.0 searching for very large sites)
Stop Press: This link no longer works. Try going to www.wssdemo.com and searching the site for this item. | |
| I | 07.02 - Adding file types to the indexing routines needed for the search | In STS 1.0 adding file types to the indexing routines required very difficult adjustments. The only company which provided a routine for this was Adobe who provided a routine that both added an icon for .pdf files (as IV.2) and added .pdf files to the types covered by the search. Otherwise the only option was to allow indexing of *all* file types. (Recently a Visio filter - untested by this user - has become available from Microsoft for searching Visio files).
In WSS indexing is SQL Searching or SPS Searching (see I.7.1).
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| I | 07.03 - Can you tell me how an SQL Search is performed ? | When you search WSS sites with SQL Searching, the search is performed by using a FREETEXT statement.
Using FREETEXT allows searching by intent; all terms are 'stemmed' or in other words the query looks for all inflectional forms of each query term.
For instance, if you query for "swim", the query also returns results including "swam"; "swimming", and so on.
If you want more information on what is possible using FREETEXT look at SQL Books Online.
(Thanks to Jerry Orman who provided the basic information in this text)
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| I | 07.04 - Which things are covered by SQL Searching ? | Full information is in the Admin Guide. Here are some basic facts
Searched
List items
Documents
Lists
Possibly searched
File types other than .doc, .xls, .ppt, .txt, and .htm
These need customized SQL Search search filters to be included in searches.
Not searched
Non-text list fields (such as currency, number, lookup, Yes/No)
Attachments to lists
File Properties used by Office 2003 documents (such as "Author" and "Company")
Survey Lists
Hidden Lists
Other things you can't do
Boolean searches (but see I.07.09 for a fix)
Display the number of matching items
(Thanks again to Jerry Orman for pointing out the Admin Guide and giving the above in a different form) | |
| I | 07.05 - Why are SQL search results grouped in sets of only five items ? | The search results page is divided into two sections - list items and document items.
This is to avoid a situation in which only documents are selected by a search (because of the number of times the search word appears in a document).
Because there are thus potentially a number of list items AND a number of document items selected it was decided that the most suitable number of list items and documents per page would be five (each) - i.e a possible total of ten. | |
| I | 07.06 - How do I ensure that .pdf files are included in the Search function? |
The first step would be to ensure that .pdf files are included in the list of acceptable file types (see I.12.3 File Types you can't upload) as otherwise you won't have any .pdf files in your WSS system that you can index.
Secondly, you should add the Adobe IFilter to the WSS server (or, if you are running with the database on another server to the WSS front-end, to the database server).
This IFilter can be found on the Adobe site and is an .exe file that automatically sets up your site to be able to index .pdf files.
Christian Super adds a new link for the new version of the PDF IFilter - 6.0.
and notes that this version has been tested with SPS (no specific mention of WSS) as shown below:
In addition, PDF IFilter 6.0 has been tested in the following environments:
• Microsoft Windows 2000 Server (Service Pack 3) with Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2001
• Microsoft Windows 2003 Server with Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003
Thanks Christian !
* Ian Morrish posted the following comment
I have seen it mentioned that if you already have PDF files in a document library and then add the Adobe iFilter you have to re-add the documents to the library before they will be indexed. Fortunately this is not true. SQL Server has some system stored procedures to manage indexing.
Use SQL Query Analyser to run the following command (after installing your iFilter)
USE Name_of_your_WSS_content_db
EXEC sp_fulltext_catalog 'ix_STS_servername_xxxxxx', 'rebuild'
You will find the correct string for 'ix_STS_servername_xxxxxx' by using SQL Server Enterprise Manager. Expand the WSS content database and click on Full-TextCatalogs.
No restart of any services was required for me to be able to search on PDF contents.
Philip Colmer added this addition to Ian's method.
I struggled with the EXEC command in order to get the full-text index rebuilt. I've got two potential full-text catalogs on my SQL server and I didn't know which one to execute the command against.
In the end, I went to Central Administration, turned off full-text search, waited for the full-text catalogs to be removed from SQL and then turned it back on. I then waited again for the population of the catalogs to finish, performed a test search and my PDFs were found. This is a safer path to take if the SharePoint admin is cautious about executing SQL commands.
Marc David commented that
"I'm running my WSS server on a seperate front-end and a back-end SQL server. I installed this iFilter only to the front-end web server and indexing worked just fine. I did not have to install it to the database."
I'd be grateful if someone else could confirm this on two new servers. It goes against everyone else's experience.
SPS 2003 only note:
Monty added that
If using SPS 2003 you need the iFilter on the Indexing server as it has the Service that controls indexing.
Dan added to that (!)
We have WSS running one front-end server and backend SQL 2000. I installed the PDF ifilter v6 to the SQL server, restarted the MS Search service (on SQL server) and it appears the PDF docs are now being indexed.
Thanks, Monty and Dan!
Finally (?), Carlos added the way he does this:- But note that he uses 12/ so it must be for a v*3* SharePoint product so isn't really appropriate for this v2 FAQ
1) you install iFilter
2) add registry 38 with value pdf
3) iisreset
4) perform full update
net stop spsearch
net start spsearch
under 12/bin
stsadm -o spsearch -action fullcrawlstop
stsadm -o spsearch -action fullcrawlstart
Thanks, Carlos
Matt Beaver has a blog item on adding PDF icons to the Search function *for MOSS* here
Thanks, Matt, for letting me know. | |
| I | 07.07 - What is the scope of a search? | Search in WSS is scoped to a site (what in STS was a "subweb").
So if you do a search on a Main Site, it will return results only from the top level Site and not from any lower-level sites that are under it in the structure.
(Adapted from a message from Iyaz) | |
| I | 07.08 - How can I get the results of a search to open a document rather than the WSS information about the document? | When you click on the results of a Search, you will get the DispForm.aspx view of the document (typically Name; Title; Comments) opening rather than the document itself. You then have to click on the document name in the DispForm page to open the document itself.
To avoid this amend the stored procedure (*)proc_FetchDocSearchResults as follows.
Look for the following lines:
SET NOCOUNT ON
SELECT
NULL,
NULL,
NULL,
Docs.DirName,
Docs.LeafName,
Docs.DocLibRowId,
Docs.ListId,
Lists.tp_Title,
UserData.tp_Author,
UserData.tp_Editor,
UserInfo.tp_Title,
Docs.TimeLastModified AS LastModified,
Docs.[Size],
Docs.Id AS ItemId,
Docs#CT.Rank AS CT#Rank,
CASE WHEN (Docs.Type = 1)
THEN 3
ELSE 2
END
FROM
Docs
and replace the line
Docs.DocLibRowId,
with
null,
Many thanks to Carl Lewis for providing this.
* Rich Marshall points out that
"you edit the stored procedure using SQL Server Enterprise Manager. Drill down until you find your WSS database."
Thanks Rich!
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| I | 09.3 - Can I restrict the number of versions ? | No.
The number of versions just goes up and up !
If you want to control the number, the only way at present is to delete versions you don't want to keep.
But ...
"Tim" points out that provided you don't mind coding, the WSS SDK section here
will allow you to delete versions.
Stop Press: This link doesn't work (April 2005). Go to the WSS SDK and look for tsptDocLibEvents instead.
Thanks, Prem ! | |
| I | 11 - Which Languages are available? | On an STS 1.0 Server only one language was possible (one per server).
On an WSS Server several languages are possible (one per main site).
STS 1.0 was available for the same languages as WSS see below (minus Hindi ? - the list produced in August 6 2001 does not include Hindi) with the same languages being fully translated.
WSS is available for the following languages
- fully translated (="Localized")
Arabic; Czech; Danish; Dutch; English (British, US); Chinese (HK, Simple, Traditional); Finnish; French; German; Greek; Hebrew; Hungarian; Italian; Japanese; Korean; Norwegian; Polish; Portuguese (Brazilian, Portugal); Russian; Spanish; Swedish; Thai; Turkish
- not translated but local language(s) may be used (="Enabled"):
Bulgarian; Croatian; Estonian; Hindi (with Indic); Latvian; Lithuanian; Romanian; Serbian; Slovak; Slovenian; Ukrainian
Note that in WSS SP1 templates are available for 11 further languages Croatian, Serbian, Hindi, Romanian, Estonian, Slovak, Latvian, Bulgarian, Lithuanian, Ukrainian and Slovenian. As these languages are ALL the languages in the "enabled" languages list, it means that these eleven languages have been added to the "localized" = fully translated section !
["Enabled" has been described as follows - "When a site is enabled, the UI is in English. Anywhere a user can enter text in the interface of a WSS site will allow the user to input the enabled language." Or, I suppose, you can use the alphabet of your language.]
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| I | 12.2.2 - Document Library - Alerts - Amending the text | In STS 1.0 it was not possible to amend the text of Alerts because they were a .DLL file.
In WSS it is possible to modify the content and format of Alerts about changes to list items.
You do this by customizing XML files in the ...\Template\XML directory.
(For full details see the WSS SDK under the heading "Customizing the Message Text for Alerts")
Note from Mark:
You cannot display additional fields in v2, or avoid truncated titles.
Thanks, Mark! | |
| I | 12.3 - Document Library - File Types you can't upload | In STS 1.0 you could upload to a document library any file you liked. This obviously had the drawback that you could upload a script (say) and by clicking on it start it carrying out its functions. The usual way round this was for the Administrator to request that such "dangerous" file types (scripts, exes etc.) should be zipped and then the zip file uploaded to the document library.
In WSS there is a set (long) list of file types that can not be uploaded to a document library.
This file () can of course be amended by the administrator - usually I suspect to reduce the list of restricted file types rather than to increase the number. As I wrote enough the default list is *very* long.
The file is ....60/CONFIG/DOCEXTFL.XML
To change the list of non-uploadable files you can either amend the file itself (and probably do IISRestart to make it work) or you can use the User Interface *on the server* as follows (the example being removing chm files from the list).
1. Programs
2. Administrative Tools
3. Open SharePoint Central Administration
4. Under Security Configuration, click Manage blocked file types
5. Remove the line for CHM and click OK
Note: If you are migrating a site that contains documents which are blocked by WSS, these documents will not be migrated to the new server. | |
| I | 13.4 - Lists - Limits in the size of fields per list | A single-line field is by default 255 characters in length.
A multi-line field is **in a document (or forms or or picture) library** by default 255 characters in length.
A multi-line field in **any other list type** has no such limit (one correspondent had over 5000 characters in such a field).
[The difference between the character limits in two kinds of fields was explained by Gabe Bratton thus
"The reason there is a 255 character limit for Multiline Text Fields in Document (Forms/Picture) Libraries is that the OLE property stream doesn't support more than 255 characters. Having more than 255 characters would cause problems demoting properties into documents."
Thanks to him, and to Thierry Masson for asking why.]
Zlatar Hrvoje adds the information that
"The 255 character limit for multiline field in document/picture/form library is enforced only through the UI. It is possible to programatically set and get values longer than 255 characters.
Those properties are visible in the UI, but you won't be able to change the value of any property of the item which has a value longer than 255 characters.
This is useful if you're building WSS based with your own UI and need to store a long value such as XML data. "
Thanks Zlatar (or should that be - Thanks Hrvoje?)
Roger Williams adds
Apparently CAML allows this with the MaxLength= attribute. I as able to define one of 500 characters. But OWS.JS (in the UI) has the 255 character limit hard-coded inside.
Thanks, Roger!
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| I | 14.1 - Supported Browsers - General Information | In STS 1.0 there were problems accessing STS sites from Macs and by users using Netscape browsers.
I'm vague on the details but I seem to remember that in addition to the need to use Basic Authentication there was also some loss of features (i.e. some things didn't work). In addition some older versions of IE didn't work entirely satisfactorily.
In WSS I've been told that (and this is a direct quote from inside MS - with my thanks to the sender)
"Any Windows, Macintosh®, or UNIX client can use Windows SharePoint Services ... features, providing the client runs the following software:
Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.01 or later (best results with Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 or later),
Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.2 or later for Macintosh,
or Netscape Navigator version 6.2 or later
So we're including Mac and Unix running IE 5.01 or later and NS 6.2 or later."
[Russ Novak points out that you still have to use Basic Authentication even with WSS. Thanks Russ!]
Note: Linux Mozilla is not a supported Client browser. However Mozilla 1.4 is based on Netscape 6.2 and thus does seem to work.
Note 2: Both Mozilla 1.4 and some late Netscape versions have difficulties rendering the menu line of this (FAQ) WSS-based site. This has been passed on as a potential bug to Microsoft.
Note 3: Following a comment from one correspondent that the latest version of Opera works, I received the following additional information on Mozilla from another correspondent.
Depends on what you consider "works" I've been using Mozilla (Firebird/Firefox and it's derivate K-Meleon) now for more than a year as default browser and a lot, but not all, features of SharePoint (no matter if WSS or SPS) work.
However, all the features which rely on client-side ActiveX of course don't work (Personal Menu, Document Library Explorer view, Datasheet Views, Linking to Outlook/Excel/Access).
The really sad thing is that several features are blocked on purpose for Netscape/Mozilla (including Firebird/Firefox and K-Meleon). One I am suffering from is the grouped view expand/collapse option where the code explicitely says to exit if the browser is Netscape (or Mozilla, which is the same codebase). I wish the developers would have been more focused on following the Internet standards for XHTML, DHTML, CSS and JavaScript instead of only looking into the proprietary IE stuff .
Pretty much the same applies to Opera (just checked my site with Opera 7.23).
Note 4: Mozilla Firefox 0.9 works *for most uses*.
The limits I have found to date are
i) does not support the free Office web parts
ii) does not support formatting when editing in a multi-line box (does but you have to know the html codes used so it's messy)
iii) does not support revolving banners (Collutions site)
iv) does not support drop-down editing (Edit Item; Delete Item; Set Alert)
Bil Simser sent me the following additional things that don't work in Firefox 0.9x
1. Cannot drag and drop web parts at all
2. Cannot edit properties (rename) for a folder in a document library
3. I've hidden the Quick Launch image on our sites for IE but it shows up in FireFox as a black image
4. Formatting on Modify Shared Web Part panel is foobar
5. Sections are not collapsed (and can't be) when modifying a view on a list or document library
He (and I) are sure there will be more !
It is however a faster way to access both the European mirror WSS FAQ site (www.wssfaq.com) and the main WSS FAQ site (wss.collutions.com) than IE 6.0.
Note that Mads Haugbo Nissen has set up a web page for Firefox with WSS info - see
http://workspaces.gotdotnet.com/sharepointbrowserenabler
Simon Crase sent me a specific case where Firefox won't work
I started the customization described in http://www.intranetjournal.com/articles/200503/ij_03_02_05a.html, which works fine under IE (displays current date). However, the date isn't displayed in Firefox.
Thanks, Simon!
I got e-mail telling me that a KB article has something else that doesn't work with non-IE browsers.
Thanks to the unknown person who sent it to me!
It's this article
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/930103
and it's about "the content on certain Web pages in the site is not displayed as expected. "
The example the give is of amending a theme and getting one of these
"• You receive the following error message:
304 NOT MODIFIED/1.1 200 OK
• Content, such as images, is not displayed on the Web page.
• Raw HTML code is displayed instead of HTML.
"
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| I | 14.2 - Supported Browsers - Web Parts | According to a seminar given by MS on Web Parts, the full Web Part experience is available to users of IE 6.0 and 5.5 and Netscape 6 and 7 only.
There is a useful table on the Microsoft site here
("About Web browser support for Web Part Pages")
According to it even Netscape 6 (and 7?) users on Windows are second-class citizens.
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| I | 19.1 - What limits are there for the number of sites for particular set-ups? | The Administration Guide recommends the use of SQL Server rather than MSDE if you are supporting more than 10 “active and large Web sites”.
For more than 1,000 sites, the same source suggests installing SQL Server on a separate server.
[The next level would be a couple of Web Servers and a Couple of SQL Servers. The Admin Guide does not indicate at which point such a configuration would be necessary.]
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| I | 20.2 - What doesn't work when using Office 2000? | (this is a work in progress)
All the restrictions from Office XP (see I.20.1) plus -
- Edit in Microsoft Word / Excel
(Thus with Office 2000 and earlier you need to open the document in WSS; Save it to your hard disk; amend it locally and then upload it under the same name back to WSS. [Well not actually - see III.91 for workarounds])
Note that there is a new (August 2003) paper from Microsoft called “Good, Better, Best: Windows SharePoint Services Integration with Microsoft Office” which includes a table with a cross-reference of what works with Office 2000; Office XP and Office 2003 respectively.
See the "MS Articles" section in this FAQ for the current link to that.
Troy Phillips adds the following
- Presence capability doesn't work (IM awareness)
- Edit and Download in My Pictures doesn't work | |
| I | 22.1 - What are the differences between standalone WSS and the WSS in SBS 2003? | Many thanks to Dustin Miller for supplying this.
The differences are -
New list types
Fax Library
Create a fax library to view and store incoming faxes. This library displays the fax number, time received, and number of pages.
Help Desk
Create a help desk list to offer users an easy way to submit requests for technical help. Your network administrator can choose to be
alerted by e-mail when requests are submitted or modified.
These are implemented as list template files, and not as new list definitions in ONET.XML with their own SCHEMA.XML.
Default lists available on the "default site":
Archived Documents (doclib)
General Documents (doclib)
Incoming Faxes (faxlib)
Presentations (doclib)
Projects (doclib)
Our Photos (piclib)
Announcements (announcements)
Help Desk (help desk)
Links (links)
Vacation Calendar (events)
General Discussion (discussion)
Susan Bradley (SBS MVP) has written a detailed blog item about the differences between 'WSS in SBS' and 'standard WSS' the main thrust of which is that all the above differences are just ready-made lists provided in the SBS WSS that use the same List options included in standard WSS (Help Desk being for instance just another example of an Issues List and most of the Fax functionality being provided by SBS outside WSS).
Read it here
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| I | 22.2 - What are the differences between standalone WSS and the WSS in Project Server 2003? | (More information gratefully accepted)
The Template used by Project Server 2003 (the "Project Workspace" template) has the following additions compared to standalone WSS.
Additional Customized Lists
Issues (*)
Risks
Shared Documents (*)
* Issues and Shared Documents are lists that also appear in the other implementations of WSS. The difference here is that these lists (and the Risks list) when they come in a special template for use with PWA (Project Web Access) can also be linked back to and synchronized with Project Server 2003.
(Thanks to Rainer Wittman for most of the above * section)
Further information (from me)
Both Issues and Risks come with predefined Views such as "All Issues owned by Me"; "All Active Issues" etc. and also include a new action "View Reports" leading to a page with a number of ready-made reports. | |
| II | 07.1 - Can I run WSS under VMWare ? | Windows 2003 Server only runs under VMWare Workstation 3 if USB is disabled.
Note that this is not officially supported
Windows 2003 Server also runs under VM Workstation 4, on which platform people have also had WSS (as part of SPS 2.0) running successfully.
(Thanks to David McKenzie for the Workstation 3 update)
Oisin Grehan reminds me that it also runs fine under VM Workstation v 5
(I have been running this myself since it came out).
Thanks, Oisin! | |
| II | 11.2 - My uploads of (single) very large documents are failing. What is the problem? | WSS has problems when adding large documents.
Problems seem to start at a document size of > 70MB and with documents over 100MB almost always being rejected.
(Note: this is partially corrected with SP1)
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| II | 12 - How do I enable Session State? | You can enable session state by uncommenting the following line in the web.config
<!-- <add name="Session" type="System.Web.SessionState.SessionStateModule"/> -->
In addition you need to set the <pages> enableSessionState attribute to true.
Stephane Baudet adds that the web.config file should be located at the root of the IIS virtual server.
Thanks Stephane!
Denis Briel sent me a note which seems mostly to repeat the above information.
(Note: probably because the above [Stephane] paragraph was only in www.wssfaq.com)
He does however add two things that may help you all
- the line specified above is in the <httpModules> section
- the root of the IIS virtual server is usually
C:\[Your IIS root]\wwwroot
Thanks, Denis! | |
| II | 17.2 - How do I install WSS to use an existing copy of SQL Server instead of WMSDE? (Single server) | This too is in the Admin Guide in the Single Server Deployment part of the Deployment Scenarios section.
The short answer is to use the remotesql=yes parameter
so
setupsts.exe remotesql=yes
(or as 'Mike' pointed out "choose Server Farm during the normal Install")
Again the Admin Guide has this in more detail. | |
| III | 01 - How do I change Time and Date styles? | In STS 1.0 a common request was to have the date set to "European" i.e. DD/MM/YY or "Swedish" i.e. YY/MM/DD instead of the STS 1.0 standard US date MM/DD/YY. This and the change to a 24 hour clock were only possible outside STS at the operating system level.
These settings were thus valid for all the sites located on the server.
In WSS it is possible to set "Regional Settings" in Site Settings / Site Administration where there are selections for Locale (which presumably includes date format); Sorting order; Time Zone and Time Format (12/24 hour clock).
These settings are valid for *the site* which means that a single server can run sites which are operating in different time zones and with different language 'styles' (for want of a better word).
Note: The wording above needs tightening up says MikeW.
"I set Regional Settings at the site level and it had no effect on the date format in my document libraries which were contained in sub-sites. Only after I set Regional Settings in each sub-site did I get Finnish date formats."
Thanks Mike! | |
| III | 04 - What can you tell me about Logging? | STS 1.0 had logging to C:\WINNT\system32\LogFiles\W3SVC1 (and W3SVC2, W3SVC3 etc.)
WSS has (RTM) a configurable registry key that you can set to control how verbose the logging is.
Critical events will be logged to the application log in the event viewer.
The stsadm.exe command line utility uses a log file called stsadm.log which is stored in the temp directory of the person running this utility.
The log for the w3wp process (w3wp.log) is stored in the windows temp directory.
Serge van den Oever adds some information about the configurable registry key mentioned above.
Location to change the LogLevel
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\6.0
Change the LogLevel to Value Data of 9
The Loglevel is by default set to 0.
(If you look in this container you also find the key MaxLogSizeKB. I assume this specifies the maximum log file size, don't know what happens if this size is reached.)
More logging is available after setting this registry key
Thanks to Serge for blogging this.
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| III | 05.2 - Forbidden characters | In WSS Site Names may not contain the following characters.
\ / : * ? " < > | # { } % & <TAB>"
In addition site names may not begin with underscore "_" as this is reserved.
Finally, here is the WSS invalid character set (which I would guess means for the names of files that you upload to WSS)
" # % & * : < > ? \ { | } ~
Note too the following limits on the number of characters used for file names etc.
Thanks to Bob for tracking these down in the Admin Guide.
File and folder names cannot be longer than 128 characters.
Also note that the complete URL for the file or folder cannot be longer than 260 characters.
In addition Megan points out that a file name cannot contain 2 periods in a row.
Thanks, Megan!
"Dread Pirate" points out that there is now a KB article with a similar (longer?) list of these characters here
(Thanks to him/her)
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| III | 05.3 - How can I change a site name? |
Site Settings and changing the Web Name:.
Where the site is a site collection, you have a couple of options
1. Create a new site with a new name but do not apply a template and use smigrate.exe to migrate the original site to the new site. This option does not preserve security.
2. Use stsadm.exe -o backup/restore to backup the site and restore it to a new name. After restoring you can delete the original site. This option is full fidelity and does preserve security.
Cornelius J. van Dyck had this detail
The best way I've found to achieve your server rename, for which you will require another SQL server, is as follows:
1. Shut down your WSS installation by terminating all connection to it and
shutting down IIS. This will prevent any unexpected connections during the
process.
2. In SQL Server, detach from the WSS databases.
3. Copy the database files to the "spare" SQL server.
4. Attach the database files on the "spare" SQL server.
5. Ensure your SharePoint user account has propper access rights to the
newly attached database.
6. Start "SharePoint Central Admin" from "Administrative Tools".
7. Click "Set configuration database server" in the "Server Configuration"
section.
8. Change the "Database server" field to that of the "spare" SQL server.
9. Click the "OK" button.
10. Click "Set default content database server" in the "Server
Configuration" section.
11. Change the "Database server" field to that of the "spare" SQL server.
12. Click the "OK" button. Your server is not running off the remote
database.
13. Rename your server.
14. Start "SharePoint Central Admin" from "Administrative Tools".
15. Click "Set configuration database server" in the "Server Configuration"
section.
16. Change the "Database server" field to that of the new server name.
17. Click the "OK" button.
18. Click "Set default content database server" in the "Server
Configuration" section.
19. Change the "Database server" field to that of the new server name.
20. Click the "OK" button.
Thanks Cornelius!
Sebastian Seidel had a possible other way.
I use the stsadm-Tool.
(Thanks to Zinon for pointing out a syntax error in what Sebastien originally posted - the above version is corrected)
Thanks, Sebastien!
Mike Fairley added the following alternative
As we discovered after much searching you can also save the site as a template (including content). Then delete the original site and make a new one based on the template.
Thanks, Mike!
Troy Axtell comments
You could also use stsadm to backup the site and then restore it using a different URL. That way you don't have to delete the old site until you are ready to do it. You can lock the old site from having changes made while you do this process.
I like this process because the rename will require a restore if it doesn't work. It could also corrupt the database and need to be cleaned up a bit before a restore can be performed to the new or old URL.
Thanks, Troy!
| |
| III | 06.1 - Site Migration from STS to WSS | To upgrade from STS v1 to Windows SharePoint Services you will have to use the smigrate.exe command line utility to first backup the STS v1 site, then restore it to a new WSS site that has no template applied.
Instructions for doing this are in the Windows SharePoint Services Admin Guide at
(The latest version (2) at time of writing being 2nd Sept. 2004)
In the admin guide find the primary topic Backup and Migration and the instructions for using smigrate are in Migrating and Upgrading Web Sites.
It is required that you apply Office XP SP 1 and SP 2 to your STS v1 server. You can get these from here,
Once your STS v1 server is updated to SP 2 you will need to apply a QFE patch to it from
Common issues:
1. When you create a new WSS site to restore a STS v1 site, do not apply a template to the site. When you get to the template picker page do not apply a template.
2. After applying the QFE patch to your v1 server you may need to upgrade your web sites. This is done using the owsadm.exe command line utility. On your STS v1 server you can upgrade all of your v1 sites by running owsadm.exe -o upgrade -p all
(after having in a command line session negotiated your way to \program files\common files\microsoft shared\web server extensions\50\bin)
(above instructions from Gabe Bratton in a beta newsgroup)
-----
Also note that when using the -u and -pw passwords with smigrate, you may get an error message
"You are not authorized to perform the current operation"
In this case please refer to Knowledge Base article 828210 for an explanation and workaround. | |
| III | 06.3 - Site Migration from WSS to WSS | The following is quoted directly from Jerry Orman's response to a question from me.
For details of the smigrate program itself, please refer to the item III.6.1 (Site Migration from STS to WSS)
"You can use smigrate to move a v2 site to another v2 site.
The limitation is that you have to use the same build of WSS on both of the servers. So you can't smigrate a Beta 2 .fwp file to a Beta 2 Technical Refresh server.
Note (from Ed.) that this also applies to a WSS Security Fix - you have to have used (for instance the WSS Security fix from early February 2005) the WSS security fix on both servers.
Here are the respective version numbers (specified in Site Settings) to help you with this:
- 6.0.2.5530 - WSS
- 6.0.2.6361 - WSS + SP1
- 6.0.2.6411 - WSS+SP1+Security Fix (KB887981 / 8thFeb 2005)
- 6.0.2.6568 - WSS + SP2
(- 6.0.2.6551 - R2 WSS (SP2 equivalent))
- 6.0.2.8000 (?) - WSS + post SP2 rollup (KB900929)
- 6.0.2.8117 - WSS+SP2 (+KB900929?)+ KB924881 (DST patch for SharePoint Services.)
Penny Coventry of Microsoft UK has also a different set of numbers in an item in her blog (mindsharpblogs.com/penny/articles/481.aspx).
These numbers are what is shown by going to Control Panel and then Add and Remove Programs; select WSS and then "click here for support information"
11.0.5608.0 - WSS
11.0.6361.0 - WSS + SP1
11.0.6411.0 - WSS + SP1 + security fix (probable code)
11.0.7969.0 - WSS + SP2 (added by me 30.9 and may in fact be 11.0.7929.0 (Perry))
11.0.6551.0 - R2 WSS (SP2 equivalent)
11.0.8000.0 - WSS + post SP2 rollup (KB900929)
(Ed: The version numbers for R2 will no doubt have changed by RTM.)
Thanks, Penny!
and just in case you were wondering the 11.0 numbers for SPS 2003 are
SPS 2003 - 11.0.5704.0
SPS 2003 + SP1 - 11.0.6715.0
and
SPS 2003 + SP2 - 11.0.8126.0
SPS 2003 post SP2 rollup (KB897722) - 11.0.8126.2 (thanks to Andrew Connell)
In order to migrate the site you would need to:
1. Install the build of WSS that you guys used to smigrate the site originally on a server. So if you guys were running Beta 2, install Beta 2 of WSS on a different server.
2. Use smigrate on this server (the beta 2 server) to restore the site (.fwp file) to this server.
3. Upgrade WSS on the server to the Beta 2 Tech Refresh build.
4. Smigrate the site to a .fwp file from the upgraded server
5. Then use smigrate to move the site.
Thanks as always to Jerry.
Note that the question he was answering concerned using smigrate to upgrade from Beta-2 to Beta-2 Tech Refresh.
The key parts of the general answer are the first two paragraphs of his reply (in the web site version in red).
-------------------
This has never really been enough information so here is the code that I have used successfully to transfer WSS sites.
Thanks to Jim Duncan for taking time out to post it to me when I needed it.
You can run it from your local WSS server but
specify the remote url for the source site.
smigrate.exe -w German_Web_site_URL -f backup_filename -e -y -u user_name
-pw password
(Note: "Oscar Berke" noted that if you remove the "-e" from the statement above you will be making a backup of the site *with it's sub-sites*. The only problems came with empty sites [sites that had been created but nothing done with]. Removing them and adding them again meant the links to them then worked.)
Create a new site on local server, don't apply site template then:
smigrate.exe -r -w Local_Web_site_URL -f backup_filename -u user_name -pw
password
Note that as always, smigrate does not transfer authorization information - for that use stsadm (see the Admin Guide for more on that).
Saurabh Nikumbha adds the following comment on smigrate
The smigrate utility creates a new backup set (.fwp file) everytime the size increases beyond 25MB. So if the size of your site is 40 MB then be prepared for one backup set of 24.99MB and the other of 15.01 MB.
Also the restore using 2 backup sets means delay and potential data loss.
Thanks, Saurabh!
| |
| III | 06.4 - "Upgrading" from WSS to SPS 2003 | Microsoft have a (long) Knowledge Base paper on this at
It should be noted that the procedure listed does not work for WSS installations that use Host Header mode or Active Directory mode.
So avoid both of these if you think that you will later be "upgrading" to SPS 2003.
| |
| III | 07.2 - How does locking work in WSS? (What are the two kinds of check-out?) | Here is some text from Iyaz explaining this better than I could.
SharePoint supports two kinds of check-out:
Long term check out
This is the explicit check out .
This holds a lock on the document whether you have it open for edit or not.
Short term check out
You get this feature implicitly.
If you open a document for editing, you get a short term lock on the document to prevent other people from editing the doc while you are.
The Office client applications refresh this lock periodically as long as you keep the document
open. Once you close the document, your short term check out is released.
Shawn Ort suggested adding the following information (received from Microsoft support) to this item
Q: What is time period for the short term lock message?
A: Every three minutes
Q: Is there a difference in file locking when accessing document for editing over the Internet or internally?
A: No. It will be treated the same
Q: What happens if the Internet session is terminated before it releases a document?
A: If the session is terminated for any reason, WSS does not receive short term lock every three minutes, after 10 minutes WSS will release the document
Thanks, Shawn!
| |
| III | 09 - I've forgotten which port I need to use when I administer my site. What is my administration port number ? | Unlike STS 1.0 which always used the same administration port number, WSS generates a random port number as the administration port.
If you are not happy with the random number, you use the following command line command to alter it (to 1234)
stsadmin.exe -o -setadminport -p 1234
Sebastian Seidel adds
If you want to know which port is used:
stsadm -o getadminport
Thanks, Sebastian!
| |
| III | 11.3 - How do I delete a Meeting Workplace? | You browse to the (Meeting Workplace) site and -
1. Click 'Modify This Workspace', select Site Settings
2. Click 'Go to Site Administration'
3. Click 'Delete this Site'
--------------
Note that removing a meeting from a meeting workspace is at this section of the WSS SDK
This is needed in the following case -
"Meetings you create through an events list are not canceled or deleted when the associated event is deleted, and it is not possible to cancel or delete a meeting from a Meeting Workspace site through the user interface."
| |
| III | 12.01 - Where can I get web parts from ? | Microsoft provides in addition to the standard web parts that come with WSS a set of Web Parts for Office components.
These (which are at present WebParts for Datasheet; PivotChart; PivotTable; PivotView; Spreadsheet; QuickQuote and webCapture) and are installed on the server can be found at
The client Office web components download which might be needed to view some web parts if Office 2003 is not installed on the client is at
--------
Tim Heuer has several web parts (some chargeable at reasonable prices, others free) at
At the time of writing (7.2003) these are
Workspace Explorer ("provides an out-of-the-box function for quickly viewing the hierarchy of a site collection")
RSS Feed Reader (free)
Flash Movie Viewer (free)
Doc Lib Utils
However, for an up-to-date listing of WebParts, please go to Hitesh Seth's web page
(Which appeared almost simultaneously with the posting of the above text) | |
| III | 12.02 - How do I remove a web part ? | - At the top level of a site, go to Site Settings
- In Administration click on "Go to Site Administration"
- In Site Collection Gallery click on "Manage Web Part Gallery"
- Edit the part you want to remove
- Click on the menu item "Delete"
Note: This procedure is only possible when you are the top level site
Note 2: There is a different procedure for SharePoint Portal Server
| |
| III | 12.03 - A web capture web part that accesses information from an external site requires action from me. How can I avoid this? | I am using a Web Capture part that gets information from news.bbc.co.uk. Every time I access the page containing this web part, a message box comes up with the following text
"This page is accessing information that is not under its control. This poses a security risk. Do you want to continue?"
On Pressing OK, the part refreshes correctly.
However I want to avoid having to press OK every time I access the page. This is how to do it.
In Internet Explorer select Tools from the Menu line. Then
Internet Options
Security
with Local Intranet selected click on 'Custom Level'
In the Miscellaneous section change the value of 'Access Data Sources Across Domains' from Prompt to Enable
(Thanks to John Dougherty for asking a question that had been annoying me for weeks; thanks too to David McKenzie for supplying the answer)
Warning: Any effects on your sites/clients security caused by amending this security item in IE are your problem.
P.S. 'CINsyg' sent me this comment
"It can be done by adding the following line above the namespace in your code
[assembly:AllowPartiallyTrustedCallers]
(or by setting the web.config to Full trust, but that is not the way to go). "
| |
| III | 12.04 - Is there any way to have the web part title wrap if it's wider than the column it's in? | No.
-----------------------------------------------
Kaj Sjöberg suggests that
You could do this by opening the page where the webpart is displayed in Frontpage 2003 and then switch to XSLT mode. Of course you must do a little programming for it to work but it should be straightforward.
Can anyone confirm that works in practice as well as theory?
| |
| III | 12.05 - I've just installed a third-party web part, but it's not listed on my site. What's the problem? | Some webparts from third-party suppliers (usually the ones that cost money) include installers that also ensure that their web part is (after installation) automatically visible in your list of web parts (after doing Add a Web Part + Browse) typically in the "Virtual Server Gallery".
[All the following takes place on the WSS server]
Once the standard installation has been completed, open a Command Prompt and go to
c:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\60\BIN and run the following command line exe
stsadm.exe -o addwppack -filename <filename> -globalinstall
Here the tricky thing is that you do NOT specify as file name the *dwp file but instead specify the .cab file (in the case of the Tim Heuer file something like TimHeuer.SharePoint.WebParts.Rss.cab in place of <filename> - I was lazy and copied the file to the BIN directory first).
After that it might also be a good idea to do an IIS Restart.
[One way to do this is to go to Administrative Tools / Computer Management / Select 'Internet Information Services (IIS)' in 'Services and Applications' / Right Click and 'All Tasks' / Restart IIS]
Now when you Modify My Page in your Client and do Add WebPart / Browse, these new webpart(s) should be listed in Virtual Server Gallery and you can use them just as you use webparts from Microsoft.
Finally there are parts that come without any form of installation package such as those from Jan Thielens ( http://weblogs.asp.net/jan/Rss.aspx) and Patrick Tisseghem( http://radio.weblogs.com/0126624/rss.xml) that need to be installed completely by hand.
Here is an example of Jan's installation instructions To install these web parts:
copy the DLL into the BIN folder (or put it in the GAC),
copy the DWP files in the WPCATALOG folder and add the following line to the SafeControls section of the Web.Config:
<SafeControl Assembly="Leadit.SharePoint.Essentials, Version=1.1.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=6f708acd0ffbe583" Namespace="Leadit.SharePoint.Essentials" TypeName="*" Safe="True" />
In order for you to be able to do this you need the following information about the paths used by default for these three items (for a single standard WSS site)
a) bin subfolder
c:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\60\BIN
b) wpcatalog
c:\inetpub\wwwroot\wpcatalog
c) web.config
c:\Inetpub\wwwroot
Aside (you shouldn't need this):
d) _wpresources (for images, javascript etc.)
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server
Extensions\wpresources
Karsten Grombach notes that both wpcatalog and wpresources could be mapped to other locations so these locations should both be checked first before installing anything.
| |
| III | 13 - How can I make a field read-only? | You can't.
However for a standard field at least you can use the following workaround from Jerry Orman.
This consists of removing the field from the EditForm.aspx page - and thus by not seeing it, you can't edit it.
The example he uses is the Title field in a document library which always appears in the Edit page even if you have created your own field to store the Document's name.
His text then continues -
1. Open the site in FrontPage 2003.
2. Navigate to the EditForm.aspx file for the list you want to modify (in this example a document library).
3. Right-click the list.
4. Select Customize SharePoint List Form.
You will now get icons with question marks for the various parts of the form. Each of these icons represent a control on the form in CAML.
For the document library example, the last icon on the top row has the following code :
<ows:Field name="Title">
5. Remove the question mark for this code.
6. Save the page.
The Title field will no longer appear on the EditForm page.
Sathish comments that this doesn't work for custom lists.
Aamir adds the following for custom lists
For custom list or for that matter any EditForm or NewForm add the following to the nearest html tag like TD, TR or A etc
style="Display:None"
This will make the tag contents disappear.
Thanks, Aamir!
Dennis Goedegebuure knows of an article on this
"Cakriwut has a nice article on how to make a field read-only via a div and simple javascript.
-------------
Marc commented on this FAQ item as follows
If you remove a field from the Edit Page (as suggested) then that field will be blanked after saving the list item - this is hardly the same as read-only!
Much better to hide it as suggested lower in the faq.
Also, the suggestion by Cakriwut on how to create a read-only field is overly complicated!
Simply add this js to your page:
function convertInputToLabel(pFieldName) {
try {
frm.FieldPost(frm.FindField(pFieldName)).insertAdjacentHTML("afterEnd",
'<span id="'+pFieldName+'ValueLabel">'+ frm.FieldPost(frm.FindField(pFieldName)).value +'</span>');
frm.FieldPost(frm.FindField(pFieldName)).style.display = "none";
} catch(e) {
//alert(e.message);
}
}
then call, eg:
convertInputToLabel("Title");
Thanks Marc!
Another suggestion is this one from David Tweito
You can make a field read-only in Sharepoint and it is not difficult.
First, you need to know the name of the field you wish to make readonly. When Sharepoint displays a fieldname, it assigns an "OWS:" prefix and assigns a suffix to the fieldname depending on the field type. Valid field types are "Dropdown" and "Textbox", among others.
If I have a dropdown field named "Subgroup ID" that I wish to make read-only, the Sharepoint assigned name is:
"OWS:Subgroup_x0020_ID:Dropdown"
Notice that the space between "subgroup" and "id" has been converted to its hex equivalent of "x0020".
With that name, I add the following code to the bottom of my editform.aspx:
<script>
var strSubGroupID = "OWS:Sub_x002d_group_x0020_ID:Dropdown";
if (document.forms[0].elements[strSubGroupID] != null)
{
document.forms[0].elements[strSubGroupID].disabled=true;
}
</script>
I add this to the end of the editform.aspx because I want to make sure that Sharepoint has rendered this field before the script executes.
Thanks, David!
Matt Strain added this comment (which applies to the previous two solutions)
If you use the style display:none method and the field is a required field and it has not been populated by some other means, IE gives a script error when the save and close button is clicked as it is trying to set focus on a field which does not exist.
However if you use the disabled method you don't get this problem.
Thanks, Matt!
| |
| III | 21 - I get ""HTTPException (0x80004005) Debugging is not supported under current trust level settings". What do I need to do to activate debugging? | This problem arises when running DotNet web applications on the same machine where WSS has been installed and where debug has not been set to "false".
Here is the solution as posted by 'Pica'
You need to customise the web.config file either in "c:\Inetpub\wwwroot\" for all the application or the web.config file in your application directory.
Add the following line to your web.config in your application directory
<trust level="WSS_Medium" originUrl="" />
or
<trust level="Full" originUrl="" />
OR
edit the line in the wwwroot\webconfig File.
The default setting for the level is "WSS_Minimal" which is not sufficient to debug your applications. Change this setting to at least "WSS_Medium" or "Full". ("Full" might be needed for applications that access Active Directory for instance - comment from Andre Perusse - whereas Maurice Prather thinks that setting this to "Full" is (in his words) "overkill" - JES goes further "will permit webparts to 'do as they will' with any secure resource they please!")
In addition, this document might help:
(Section: Specifying a Trust Level in the Web.config File)
Many thanks to Pica for providing the question and the detailed answer.
| |
| III | 24 - I get "Access Denied" or "Cannot Complete This Action" when accessing a WSS site. What might be my problem? | This is the subject of KB 823278 (27 Aug 2003)
This occurs if you delete a user account in Windows and then re-create it using the same name.
The same user name is not accepted in WSS as being the same user that was given access rights to WSS.
Please refer to the KB article for how to deal with this situation.
(included in the FAQ to get this brief info in the PDF edition)
Eddy commented (in 2007!)
For me, it works if I impersonate as ...myself:
<code>System.Security.Principal.WindowsImpersonationContext wic = null;
wic = System.Security.Principal.WindowsIdentity.GetCurrent().Impersonate();
SPSite site = new SPSite(...);
SPWeb web = site.OpenWeb(...);
....
wic.Undo();</code>
Thanks, Eddy!
Kees Kerkhoven comments
You do not impersonate as yourself, but as the (system) account that sharepoint uses. "This account is allowed to "do anything. Be sure to store the 'original' user and set the impersonation to this user after the code that needs impersonation is finished.
Thanks Kees!
| |
| III | 25.1 - Why am I being prompted for Authentication many times when I open an Office document in WSS? | Sorry but even the French and Italian versions have now been withdrawn ! (Sorry too because I didn't take a copy of it when I could have done)
This is covered in KB 823553.
When you give up and finally press Cancel, the document then appears as read-only.
This can occur if the WSS direc |