 Q: 01 | General Introduction | |
The world has moved on since I started writing the WSS FAQ (during its beta timeframe) as (initially) information about the differences between it and the predecessor product (SharePoint Team Services (STS)).
One main difference is that people now more and more blog about their solutions and in the newsgroups now just point to their blog item (or to someone else's blog item).
What this means for a FAQ site is that a cross-reference to those blog items is just as important as a strict Q+A. So I have already started to add content to the "Articles for 2007 Products" section that consists of both links to items coming from Microsoft and to items coming from outside Microsoft.
(The WSSv2 separation between "MS Articles" and "Non-MS Articles" was in the end not very helpful.)
However a FAQ is still needed for WSSv3 and so I've now added this section and I will add items to it as things become "frequently asked".
Needless to say the first item I've added (in the Installation section) breaks this rule, however, while it might not be frequently asked, I hope that providing a clear list of what to install; in what order and where to get it will be helpful to at least some of you. Anyway I had to start somewhere ...
Mike
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| Q: 02 | Are Excel Web Services available in WSSv3? | |
No.
Excel Web Services are only available in MOSS 2007.
(Note: It seems likely that these will be only available in the *Enterprise* version of MOSS 2007 not the base version.)
--------------------
Here's an example of how they could be used (if you have MOSS 2007!) to have only a graph visible on the "SharePoint" page.
"You can create an Excel Workbook with a graph and publish only the Graph when saving the file to Excel Web Services.
Then using the Excel Web Access Web part you can point at the Excel file and the Graph will be displayed.
If you would like the values to update/change and the graph be somewhat dynamic you can make it a Pivot Table Graph and then using the Workbook Scheduling using Excel Services Web Service API scenario you can schedule the data to update and the graph will then be modified to the new data. Or you can publish both the Pivot Table and the Graph and then your users can select the Pivot table and perform a manual update.
If the data is not on the SharePoint site be sure to use SSO if you are not using Kerberos authentication.
Please note that while the workbook can be stored on a Share in the network if using Kerberos or a Trusted SubSystem in the SSP but it is best if the xlsx file is stored on the SharePoint server in a Document Library that is trusted in the Excel Services Settings in the SSP. Also if using a Data connection you will need to trust a DCL or embedded connection."
(CN)
-------------------------
Ed: If you only have WSSv3, there is a problem because the Office web part components that could have been used in WSSv2 to provide this functionality are said to be no longer available for WSSv3.
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| Q: 03 | What improvements have been made in Scalable hosting mode? | |
Scalable hosting mode had some limitations in v2.
The first limitation was that you had to specify whether or not you wanted to use scalable hosting mode when creating the SharePoint configuration database by using the -hh parameter. Once selected, this setting could never be changed.
The second limitation was that scalable hosting mode limited you to extending only one IIS Web site with SharePoint. We didn't support extending any additional IIS Web sites with SharePoint when this mode was enabled.
The third limitation was that only WSS supported scalable hosting mode. SharePoint Portal Server didn't support this mode.
In our new release, we've made several improvements.
First off, this feature is no longer exposed through a "mode." In other words, you no longer need to specify whether you want to use host header site collections when creating the configuration database. Instead, you can now just specify
whether site collections should be host header-based or path based when creating the site collection itself.
Second, you can now have host header-based site collections on multiple web applications, so you're no longer limited to extending just one IIS Web site with SharePoint. In fact,
you can have a mix of path-based and host header-based site collections on the same web application.
Finally, we've expanded host header-based site collection support to include other Office Server applications, including
Portal sites.
So how do you create host header-based site collections?
As in v2, you must use the stsadm.exe createsite operation.
You add the following parameter to that operation to indicate that it should be host header-based instead of path-based:
-hhurl <web application URL>
Where <web application URL> is one of the URLs assigned to the "target" web application in Alternate Access Mappings (Start -> Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration -> Operations -> Alternate access mappings).
For example, let's say I have a web application called www.example.com and I wanted to add a host header-based site collection with the URL http://troy.example.com. The command would look like this: Regular ISPs would configure their DNS servers to associate troy.example.com with the appropriate IP address. For your own testing, you can just edit your %WINDOWS%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts file to associate host header site names with the IP address of your SharePoint server. Once this is done, you can browse to http://troy.example.com to access your site.
Host header-based site collections can be used with both HTTP and SSL if you create them on the default port. If you create them on a non-default port, then each individual host header-based site collection can be only HTTP or only SSL, depending on which URL you entered with the -url parameter in the
createsite operation.
Also, host header-based site collections cannot be used with the advanced extranet scenarios provided by the Alternate Access Mappings feature such as SSL termination.
(TS)
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| Q: 04.01 | Browsers: Which browsers are supported? | |
Warning: this is an early list (and "supported" might not be what users of these browsers have in mind - i.e. functionality will probably still vary - see the clarification in the second half of this item)
Windows
* Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 (32-bit)
* Internet Explorer 6.0+ (32-bit)
* Firefox 1.5+
* Netscape 8.1+
* Mozilla 1.7+
Macintosh
* Safari 2.0+
* Firefox 1.5+
Unix/Linux
* Firefox 1.5+
* Netscape 7.2+
The following browsers, which were supported in previous versions of WSS, are no longer supported:
* Internet Explorer 5.01
* Internet Explorer 5.5x
* Internet Explorer for Macintosh
* Third-party browser versions earlier than the ones listed as supported above
------------------------
Here are some of the improvements made in cross-browser support:
* Context menus are now supported in non-IE browsers.
Note: web part context menus (the menus that offer you the
ability to minimize, close, modify, etc., web parts) will continue to use frames for non-IE browsers.
[This means when the user clicks on the web part triangle in a non-IE browser, the page is refreshed with a frame on the right side providing the user with the options for that web part.]
* Creating file attachments to list items is now supported in non-IE browsers.
* The tabs in the top navigation bar will appear to be vertically stacked in Safari.
* Creating file attachments to list items is broken in Safari.
(TS)
Note the following addition on the levels of support
There will be 2 support levels in terms of the functionality you can utilize.
IE6 and IE7 for Windows are "Level 1" and have full functionality on all sites including the Central Admin site.
"Level 2" browsers will have main functionality with some different user experience due to the (Ed: lack of?) functionality of browsers such as ActiveX support. The Central Admin site will not be supported by Level 2 browsers either.
The March 2006 list of Level 2 browsers was:
Windows: Firefox 1.5+, Netscape 8.0+
MacOSX: Safari 2.0.2+, Firefox 1.5+
*nix: Firefox 1.5+, Mozilla 1.7.12+, Netscape 7.2+
(mostly TM)
There's a useful clarification of all this in the public blog of the SharePoint team (in this case Troy Starr) here
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| Q: 04.02 | Browsers: How do I get rich text edit functionality with Firefox or Safari? | |
Microsoft have arranged with Telerik that licensed MOSS 2007 user can use the Telerik rich text edit control for nothing.
This supplies this functionlity for Firefox and Safari browsers.
See www.telerik.com/sharepoint
(Based on information from Steve Wigren)
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| Q: 05 | Will it be possible to use the Atlas Framework with WSSv3? | |
No. This will not be available in the initial WSSv3 release (RFM).
(DW; KK) | |
| Q: 06 | Can Item Level Permissions be specified via Web Services or via the Object Model? | |
This is not available at the moment (Beta2) and is unlikely to be available at RFM.
(Answer applies to both Web Services and OM)
(KP) | |
| Q: 07 | Why aren't "My Sites" included in the site map? (MOSS2007 only) | |
My Sites are now hosted by default on a seperate Web
Application (IIS Website) and thus reside outside of the SiteCollection.
(AK) | |
| Q: 08 | What are Solutions? | |
Solution Deployment assists developers with the process of getting their files onto the SharePoint front end. As a developer, you can package all of your SharePoint entites in one file (a solution package), submit that to SharePoint (the solution store), and have SharePoint handle the process of
deploying the files to front ends.
A solution package is basically a CAB file with a manfiest. In addition, the CAB file contains SharePoint file. Specifically, a solution package can contain:
site definitions
feature definitions
web part files (*.dwp, *.webpart)
template files, which can include:
_layouts files
resources (*.resx)
resource files (*.doc, *.xls)
assemblies
Because solution packages can contain feature definitions, and feature definitions can have custom code that runs during feature installation, this gives you a capability to have custom installation logic which can be used to do things like provision entries into the configuration database.
Solution packages basically go through two stages to get them deployed.
First, you need to submit the solution package to the SharePoint solution store (in the configuration database) via the stsadm -o addsolution command. From there, you can deploy the solution package to the front end
(stsadm-o deploysolution). Solution deployment can be done immediately or on a time-delayed basis (e.g., deploy this solution at midnight when usage is low). In addition, you can deploy your solution across multiple front ends.
As a technology, solution deployment is an alternative to more extensive deployment mechanisms, like Windows Installer.
Compared to Windows Installer, solution deployment has the following positives:
is simpler to create -- a solution package is a cab file and a manifest.xml file plus the files you normally create can be deployed across multiple front ends by an administrator via a single operation
can be deployed according to a schedule
Windows Installer has the following advantages over solution deployment:
Can provide a devleoper with an opportunity to have a custom user interface, including a EULA.
Lets you do more than just deploy SharePoint entities; you can deploy arbitrary files. write reg keys, etc.
Exposes your solution in typical Windows entry points, like Add/Remove Programs
You should also be able to use Solution Deployment to deploy to back end server -- that is, install things like new Excel Server UDFs or document transform services. To do this, in your solution package you can add the attribute to the <Solution> tag in manifest.xml:
DeploymentServerType="ApplicationServer"
=====================================================================
Creating a Solution Package
To create a solution package, you need to take the following steps:
1. Create a Solution manifest.xml file.
A solution manifest XML file is a simple XML file which enumerates the set of features, site definitions, resource files, web part files, and assemblies.
The structure of a manifiest.xml file is <Solution SolutionId="4AFC1350-F354-4439-B941-51377E845F2B" xmlns=" http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/"> <FeatureManifests> <FeatureManifest Location="SpecLibrary\feature.xml"/> </FeatureManifests> <TemplateFiles> <TemplateFile Location="ControlTemplates\speclibraryform.ascx"/> </TemplateFiles> <Assemblies> <Assembly DeploymentTarget="GlobalAssemblyCache" Location="ms.samples.sharepoint.speclibrary.dll"/> </Assemblies> </Solution> In addition, you can add a DwpFiles pair to specify .webpart or .dwp files, and ResourceFiles to specify resource files. 2. Annotate your feature.xml files with <ElementFile> tags
In your <ElementManfiests> tag in your feature.xml file, add <ElementFile Location="..."/> for all of the extra files in your feature -- things like aspx pages (e.g., allitems.aspx), master pages, etc.
3. Create your CAB package
CAB files are a Microsoft packaging technology dating back to the mid 90s. You'll need to use some old-but-good tools to create your CAB files. You will want to use a tool called makecab.exe to create a package. Makecab.exe takes a pointer to a .ddf file, which describes the structure of the CAB. The format of .ddf is fundamentally .inf style; basically, you
declare a standard header and then enumerate, one file per line, the set of files in terms of where they live on disk seperated by where they should live in the CAB.
;
OPTION EXPLICIT ; Generate errors
Set CabinetNameTemplate=SpecLibrary.wsp
set DiskDirectoryTemplate=CDROM ; All cabinets go in a single directory
Set CompressionType=MSZIP;** All files are compressed in cabinet files
Set UniqueFiles="ON"
Set Cabinet=on
Set DiskDirectory1=Package
build\manifest.xml manifest.xml
build\SpecLibrary\feature.xml SpecLibrary\feature.xml
..
(HH) | |
| Q: 09 | Are there any known limits to the backup and restore operations in SharePoint 2007? | |
The backup/restore feature has been modified from WSSv2 and we are actually using SQL backup/restore under the cover and the performace should be pretty much the same as if you trigger the backup/restore on SQL yourself.
We had been doing internal testings on sites with more than 100GB in size with the out of the box backup/restore function.
There are no actual hardcoded limits.
(J) | |
| Q: 10 | How do you create a Portal Site in MOSS 2007? | |
(Newcomers to SharePoint might wonder at this but not those moving from SPS 2003!)
"In MOSS - when you create a web application, and specify the name, possibly port number, and application pool, you've created your portal site.
Now you can create site collections (WSS) below this portal.
You can create 1 or many site collections below the portal (web application) site."
(Michael H.)
--------------
Here's a bit more on this
The new portal technology completely relies on Windows Sharepoint Services sites. So when you create a portal, you are actually creating a WSS site now. There are no more areas in Sharepoint 12, everything is now based on WSS technology.
So when you create a new portal, you are in fact creating a new WSS site.
Whether it will look like a teamsite or a portal site is determined by the template that you choose. When you choose the template "portal home area", your site will look like the default portal (the same as when you first installed SPS12).
(AK)
---------------
and finally a bit more detail on the steps outlined in the first section.
Go to Central Administration-> Application Management.
Click on Create or extend Web application.
On the next page click Create a new Web application.
In the next page you can choose whether you want to use a
hostheader or portnumber to identify the new website (normally you should do this in IIS, but this funtionality is now also available within Sharepoint).
You can choose the authentication method and whether you want to use a new or existing application pool.
After reviewing the options, click on OK at the end of the page.
Once this is done, click on the create a new Windows Sharepoint Services site collection.
As there no longer are areas in the new sharepoint version, you need to create a new toplevel site collection in order to make the portal accesible.
At the option, create site at this URL, choose root.
Fill in the new site collection owner and choose a template at the bottom of the screen.
By default a portal home area looks like the Corporate Intranet Site template, so I would choose this one for this occasion.
Click on OK and let it finish.
(Beta Note?: you might get a provisioning error, but you should be able to access the new portal anyway)
(AK) | |
| Q: 11 | When Excel 12 files are being used with "SharePoint 2007" do you need to use the .xslx format? | |
Publishing a Workbook using Excel Services (Save As / Excel Services) is specific to Excel 12 and thus requires the new .xslx format.
Shared workbooks (Share / Document ManagementServer) can use any previous formats.
Excel Web Access Parts only support the new .xlsx format otherwise you will get the error message
"The file you selected could not be found. Check the spelling of the file name and verify that the location is correct. Make sure that the file has not been renamed, moved, or deleted, that the file is in an Excel Services Trusted Location, and that you have access to the file. If the problem persists, contact your administrator."
(FP)
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| Q: 12 | WebParts: What's a Hybrid Webpart? | |
1. General Philosophy
Hybrid web parts let you use "modern" ASP.NET web part development techniques and capabilities combined with base Windows SharePoint Services capabilities.
The general design is to, wherever possible, make implementing a hybrid web part operate like a "vanilla" ASP.NET web part.
2. Creating a Hybrid Part
To create a hybrid web part, one derives from
Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.WebPart.
Usage of certain features will automatically make your web part a Hybrid Web Part:
- ManagedLink
Implements IPersonalizable
- Uses the ASP.NET Personalizable attribute
Also, if your web part does not contain any XML serialization attribute hints, we will consider it a Hyrbid Web Part.
3. Restrictions on a Hybrid Part
Hybrid parts can not:
- Return toolparts via the GetToolParts method. They must use ASP.NET's CreateEditorPart function
Hybrid parts can have:
- Xml serializable properties but they won't be used when we try to persist the Web Part. For that each personalizable property will need an applicable type converter.
Windows SharePoint Services Facilities you can use in a Hybrid Part
- Web Part Caching (e.g., SharePoint based caching methods, like PartCacheWrite/PartCacheRead/PartCacheInvalidate)
- V2 Web part connection interfaces, including client side connection capabilities and cross page connections
- Asynchronous features of web parts (work items)
ToolParts with Hybrid
Toolparts are not automatically injected for Hybrid webparts (this is only done for ASP.NET WebParts to simulate the pure ASP.NET developer experience where there might be toolparts inside the ZoneTemplate on an EditorZone on an ASP.NET page.)
So:
You always call GetToolParts and CreateEditorParts for Hybrid Parts.
You call CreateEditorParts and inject toolparts for ASP.NET parts
(AK) | |
| Q: 13 | What best practices are there for developing MOSS 2007 on Virtual PC? | |
- start with an installation of Windows Server 2003 SP1 and move the memory over to 1024MB
- Configure network connections, so you are able to connect to the internet and/or domain
- run windows update and get all patches applied. This will also pull in the correct .NET version.
- avoid running antivirus on the VPC.
- install IIS through the Configure My Server wizard.
- confirm that ASP.NET support is selected and NOT frontpage server extensions
- confirm that ASP.NET 2.0 is enabled in the IIS web server extensions. In case of any other order of installation, run aspnet_regiis -i to install ASP.NET 2.0
- install the prereqs and then start the MOSS installation.
- as a thumbrule cap SQL Server's memory by setting Max Server Memory to somthing like <250 MB on a 2GB box and maybe <190MB on a 1GB box.
(HH) | |
| Q: 14 | Is Active Directory Account Creation mode supported in WSSv3 and MOSS 2007? | |
WSS v3 supports Active Directory Account Creation mode as did WSSv2.
MOSS 2007 does not support Active Directory Account Creation mode.
(SPS 2003 also did not support Active Directory Account Creation mode.)
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| Q: 15 | In which way is the SharePoint Project Task list connected with Project Server 2007? | |
You can import Sharepoint Project Task lists as a
Lightweight Project into Project Server 2007. (under the control of Project Server 2007)
There is no way to publish a Project Task list to Project Server from a SharePoint site.
(Based on RW)
I.e. The connection is one-way only (and one time only) and is controlled by Project Server 2007. There is no such (publishing) functionality in the SharePoint UI.
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| Q: 16 | Where do I find the public newsgroups for WSSv3? | |
The only people who are able to access the beta newsgroups for WSSv3 (where there is Microsoft support) are those who were involved in the private beta stages. Everyone who has only now started using WSSv3 betas (at the Beta 2 public beta stage) has no access to beta groups.
So where to look for information and assistance?
There used to be four main current Microsoft public newsgroups for SharePoint products.
WSSv2 was supported by
1. microsoft.public.sharepoint.windowsservices
and (for programming issues) by
2. microsoft.public.sharepoint.windowsservices.development
and
SPS 2003 (and actually very occasionally for SPS 2001) by
3. microsoft.public.sharepoint.portalserver
and (for programming issues) by
4. microsoft.public.sharepoint.portalserver.development
When the betas first moved into the public phase, these four newsgroups started getting occasional messages with MOSS2007 or WSSv3 (or "Beta") in the Subject line because old users of these newsgroups knew that the assumption was that any message posted without such information would be considered as an SPS 2003 or WSSv2 one.
A couple of weeks later Microsoft created four new newsgroups that were intended to cater for the new 2007 products where there are fewer basic differences between the "portal" (MOSS 2007) and the "team site" (WSSv3) products and therefore these new newsgroups concentrated on the different areas of use - roughly programming; customization without programming; administration (and installation) and a newsgroup (general) for everything that didn't fit the above three newsgroups.
These four new newsgroups are (in the order as above)
microsoft.public.sharepoint.development_and_programming
microsoft.public.sharepoint.design_and_customization
microsoft.public.sharepoint.setup_and_administration
and
microsoft.public.sharepoint.general
There are a couple of issues that you should know about if you decide to post to one of these four new newsgroups.
The main one is that unlike the original SPS 2003 and WSSv2 newsgroups, there is no longer an assumption that a particular SharePoint product is meant. These newsgroups are meant to cover ALL possible main SharePoint products and versions - so STS; SPS2001; WSSv2; SPS2003; WSSv3 and MOSS2007.
So if you do post to one of these newsgroups, no matter which SharePoint product you have, make sure you say it somewhere - preferably in the Subject line but if not in the text.
The second problem is that the only support in these new newsgroups is "from your peers". If you want Microsoft support you will have to sign up in MSDN for their "managed newsgroups" support and these are only available for both WSS newsgroups and the main SPS newsgroup (and as far as I am aware only for the current products SPS 2003 and WSSv2 and not the beta products).
Finally the third problem is that while MOSS 2007 and WSSv3 are more alike than SPS 2003 and WSSv2 were, there is still a lot of functionality that is only available in MOSS 2007, so when asking a beta question, it's not enough just to say "SharePoint 2007" or "the Beta" - MOSS2007 or WSSv3 is needed.
---------------------------
In Summary:
There are now eight main SharePoint newsgroups.
Two assume WSSv2 unless stated.
microsoft.public.sharepoint.windowsservices
and microsoft.public.sharepoint.windowsservices.development
Two assume SPS 2003 unless stated
microsoft.public.sharepoint.portalserver
and microsoft.public.sharepoint.portalserver.development
In all these four you should clearly state in the Subject line which product you are using if you are not using the default for that newsgroup.
Four assume no product or version
microsoft.public.sharepoint.development_and_programming
microsoft.public.sharepoint.design_and_customization
microsoft.public.sharepoint.setup_and_administration
and
microsoft.public.sharepoint.general
Here no matter which product you have, you should make sure it is clear from the question you are asking - the easiest way being to give the product name in short form (such as SPS2003).
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| Q: 17.01 | Will I be able to upgrade a WSSv3 Beta installation to the released product? | |
Yes, but there are certain restrictions.
1. You must start with Beta2.
This means that you can not upgrade a beta 1 (of any kind) installation.
It also means that if (when) a Beta2 TR (Technical Refresh) version comes out, that will only be available as an upgrade to a Beta2 installation.
2. Having started with Beta2 you must first upgrade toBeta2 TR before then in turn ugrading to the final release (RTM=Release to Manufacturing)
Note that Beta2TR will be a fix to Beta2
Note that Beta2TR to RTM will not be a fix. Instead the procedure will be to
- modify a registry key
then
- uninstall B2TR
then
- install RTM
I presume the same procedure will apply for MOSS 2007.
Note: This article was based on a blog item written by a MS person in the know. If when TR comes out the situation is changed in any way, I will update it. | |
| Q: 17.02 | Can I transfer content from WSSv2 to WSSv3? | |
Microsoft will not provide anything out of the box which allows the transfer of some content (such as a site or a list) from WSSv2 to WSSv3.
Instead they expect you to upgrade your entire WSSv2 system using one of the three support methods (In-place; Gradual In-place; Content DB)
There may at some stage be third-party tools that provide this kind of fucntionality. At the moment (September 2006) as far as I know there aren't any. | |
| Q: 18.01 | Where can I find a list of Known Issues with WSSv3 Beta? | |
This is here:
but note that you will be only able to access this page if you are running some office 2007 applications on the PC you are using at the time. | |
| Q: 18.02 | Where can I find a list of Known Issues with MOSS 2007 Beta ? | |
This is here:
but note that you will be only able to access this page if you are running some office 2007 applications on the PC you are using at the time. | |
| Q: 19.01 | What are the different versions of MOSS 2007? | |
There will be a base version and an Enterprise version.
The Enterprise version will contain the contents of the base version plus
- Excel Services
- Forms Server
- BDC (the Business Data Catalog)
- Reporting Services
(Note: yes I know this is meagre. If anyone has more, please let me know. It's a Gmail address and the name is englantilainen) | |
| Q: 19.02 | What are the different CALs for MOSS 2007? | |
Users will be able to choose from three CALs
a) The Base CAL
The base CAL does not allow use of Excel Services, Forms Server, BDC and Reporting Services.
b) The Enterprise CAL
The Enterprise CAL includes the right to use Excel Services, Forms Server, BDC and Reporting Services.
c) The Enterprise Suite CAL
This in addition to the coverage of the Enterprise CAL (for MOSS 2007) also includes Enterprise licenses for other things such as Exchange Server.
Readers will have noticed that the base CAL matches the Base MOSS 2007 (see I.19.01)
[Note: Preliminary information and subject to change] | |
| Q: 19.03 | What are CAL Suites? | |
CAL Suites are a way of buying a set of CALs rather than one at a time. Buying the set gives cost benefits if you need to otherwise buy most or all of the CALs anyway.
The following information has been taken from a long article written by Simon Jones in the UK computer magazine PC Pro's February Edition called "..considers the implications of de-emphasised Public Folders in Exchange Server 2007, then ...".
I recommend that people outside the UK who can't easily buy the paper edition register (free) for the web site at www.pcpro.co.uk and access the "Real World Computing" section especially the articles by Simon Jones; Jon Honeyball; and David Moss.
The Core CAL Suite is CALs for accessing Windows Server; Exchange Server; SPS/MOSS; and the SMS Configuration Suite.
The Enterprise CAL suite is CALs for accessing Windows Server; Exchange Server; SPS/MOSS; and the SMS Configuration Suite PLUS Exchange Enterprise CAL; MOSS Enterprise CAL; Office Communications Server Standard and Enterprise CALs; Windows Rights Management CAL; System Centre Operations Management CAL and Forefront Security CAL.
As always, contact Microsoft to be sure that any licensing statements are correct! | |
| Q: 20 | How do I choose between creating a sub-site and a new top-level web site? | |
This is probably hidden away in some Microsoft document but here in brief are how to choose.
Choose to create a subsite when you:
- Want to have shared navigation, permissions, lists, or design elements (such as themes or styles) between the new site and another site.
Choose to create a new top-level Web site in a new site collection when you:
- Need separate security.
- May need to move the site collection to a different database.
- Want to be able to backup or restore just that site.
- Want to be able to scope a workflow to just that site.
(based on RW who took it from a beta document)
| |
| Q: 21 | Will WSSv3 (and MOSS 2007) work with Windows 2000-based AD? | |
The official answer is
"While WSS V3 and MOSS 2007 require Windows Server 2003, they will work natively with Windows 2000-based Active Directory as well as Windows 2003-based AD, but they do take advantage of some Windows 2003-based AD features to improve both cross-forest trust handling as well as incremental
directory import performance."
Or in other words - "Yes, but". | |
| Q: 22 | What functionality in connection with SharePoint is lost when moving from Excel 2003 to Excel 2007? | |
This is an extract from a blog item from the Excel 2007 team about things that were in Excel 2003 but are not in Excel 2007.
"Writeback to SharePoint
Excel 2003 added the ability to connect to (read) and update (write) to lists that reside on SharePoint sites. Moving forward we are focusing our efforts on Access as the best way for writing data to lists on SharePoint and taking SharePoint lists offline.
For Excel we are deprecating the update behavior in the following ways:
· Existing files from Excel 2003 will load and continue to support update functionality when opened in Excel 2007.
· Lists linked to SharePoint will be converted to read-only Tables when existing files are saved to the new Excel 12 file formats.
It is still possible to “publish” a Table to SharePoint, however this is a one-time write to SharePoint."
The full article is here
but this is the only piece of SharePoint information in it.
(Ed: Yes I know that this isn't specific to WSSv3 but it may cause users some headaches [after all it's unusual to *lose* functionality when you upgrade] so that's why it's here.) | |
| Q: 23 | SPD: What are the difference between Data View Web Parts in FrontPage 2003 and in SharePoint Designer? | |
(Note that FP 2003 is used for WSSv2 and SPD for WSSv3 - this comparison is thus comparing what you got when creating these web parts for WSSv2 to what you get with WSSv3)
The dataviewwebpart should behave in exactly the same way as in FP 2003.
(based on JJ)
Note: SPD also includes a new WebPart called the
Data Form Web Part which has all of the functionality of the Data View Web Part plus further functions including the ability to write back to any of your datasources that you have permissions to.
(based on JJ) | |
| Q: 24.01 | Office Web Parts and Components: Will there be a version of these for Office 2007? | |
The definitive answer here
is that there won't be. | |
| Q: 24.02 | Office Web Parts and Components: Can you get the Office 2003 version of these to work with WSSv3 (and MOSS 2007)? | |
I've read the article ( http://blogs.msdn.com/excel/archive/2006/07/17/668544.aspx) that says that there won't be a version of the Office 2003 Web parts and components for WSSv3 (I.24.01) very carefully and this MS guy carefully avoids the question of whether the old parts will work in WSSv3and MOSS 2007.
One thing for sure is that they don't install in WSSv3 or MOSS 2007 just like that.
Luckily we have SharePoint community people able to experiment a bit and one of those - MVP Shane Young - has found a way to get these to install on (and thus work with) WSSv3 and MOSS 2007 systems.
You'll find the details here
Step one is to find the CAB files, but for how and for the rest, go to his blog item.
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| Q: 25 | How do I enable Intellisense with WSS v3 / MOSS 2007 XML Files (in Visual Studio 2005)? | |
The key information is that you need to select all the .xsd files in the XML folder.
If that isn't enough information for you, see Paul Gallagher's blog item at
which has the details of how to do this.
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| Q: 26 | Microsoft provided a set of application templates for WSSv2. What's the situation with WSSv3? | |
The application templates for WSSv2 were made available freely by Microsoft quite a time after the release of WSSv2.
They were written by an outside supplier and there were problems with some of them because of hard code linking to addresses on that suppliers (internal) site.
A second version was later made available of several templates.
In the end there were - according to one source - 33 applications templates available for WSSv2.
The situation with WSSv3 is thought to be better.
Firstly, there are more application templates - there are expected to be 40 of them.
Secondly, these are expected to be released at approximately the same time that WSSv3 itself is released.
Thirdly, I would hope that they have learnt their lessons from the WSSv2 templates and will this time avoid the use of hard code and if MS have used an outisde supplier this time that the MS quality control is better.
Fourthly, we're expecting them to be more useful than the rather trivial makeovers of standard web sites that the WSSv2 versions often were.
Later: There are 40 (41) Application templates out for WSS 3.0 and several for MOSS 2007. See the downloads section of Articles - 2007 Products in this site.
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| Q: 28 | I've read that MOSS 2007 has support for Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS). What good is this to me? | |
VSS takes snapshots of files while they're in use.
See also
("How Volume Shadow Copy Service Works") | |
| Q: 29.01 | What are the differences between the different versions of WSS? | |
Microsoft have written a document that compares the functionality of
a) SharePoint Team Services
b) Windows SharePoint Services 2.0
c) Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
You'll find it here
("Windows SharePoint Services Document: Version Comparison") | |
| Q: 29.02 | What are the differences between WSS v3 and the different versions of MOSS 2007? | |
Microsoft have written a document that compares the functionality of
a) WSS 3.0
b) SPS 2003
c) MOSS 2007 for Search
d) Office Forms Server 2007
e) MOSS 2007 with standard CALs
f) MOSS 2007 with enterprise CALs
You'll find it here
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| Q: 29.03 | What are the differences between the level of cooperation between MOSS 2007 and different Office versions? | |
No document is at the time of writing available for the level cooperation between MOSS 2007 and the various Office products including Office 2007.
The following document which gives the differences between the level of cooperation between Office 2K, Office XP and Office 2003 and SPS 2003 is however a good starting point for this.
These levels of cooperation will also be the levels of cooperation between these Office versions and MOSS 2007. Only Office 2007 will give more functionality.
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| Q: 29.04 | What are the differences in the number of documents that can be processed by MOSS 2007 and MOSS 2007 for Search? | |
MOSS 2007 for Search Standard edition has an imposed limit of 500,000 documents.
MOSS 2007 for Search Enterprise Edition and both editions of MOSS 2007 have no such limit. All three have been tested up to 50 million documents in a single index but this is not a limit that is enforced technically.
Note that (both editions of) MOSS 2007 can have up to 20 indexes while both editions of MOSS 2007 for Search can only have a single image.
Note: the information above was re-written from Mark Harrison's blog which you'll find here.
Mark Harrison works for Microsoft UK and his blog often has early information - especially on third-party products that work with SharePoint products. | |
| Q: 29.05 | What are the differences between the Features that are available in WSSv3 and those available in MOSS 2007? | |
MVP Andrew Connell has written a blog item here
which includes tables listing the features available in a WSSv3 installation and in a MOSS 2007 installation respectively.
There are 33 Features available in a WSSv3 installation and 107(+2) available in a MOSS 2007 installation.
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