Yet Another IT Blog

Issues regarding ItemAdding and ItemUpdating EventReceivers when not firing

2010-08-30T12:38:00.001+02:00

Today I succeeded in creating working event receivers for my custom list in a MOSS 2007 environment.
I had some difficulties to get those EventReceivers fired. I started with ItemAdding and ItemUpdating events. Those where installed and fired correctly.
But I actually needed the ItemAdded and ItemUpdated events. So I switched to them. And there the problems started.

One big problem is the caching (or something like that) of the elements.xml file of the feature (between brackets: don't forget to change the events in the elements.xml file!). Upgrade of the solution won't work!

You need to uninstall and remove the feature from the solution store. Make sure that all files of the feature are gone from the 12-hive\template\features\-folder.
To make sure that you really get rid of all the old version feature settings, do a IISRESET /NOFORCE. Until I did this, SharePoint remembers some settings of the old version feature. This is quit anoying and frustating and took me a while to get this sort out.

Include or Exclude Users from SharePoint Profile Import

2010-05-28T17:08:00.003+02:00

During a (default) import of user profiles (from Active Directory (AD)) inside SharePoint (MOSS) you will notice a bunch of user profiles you are not interested in (like system_mailbox, some dummy users as well as disabled accounts).
I was wondering if it would be possible to exclude these AD user profiles during the profile import in SharePoint. After a little search, I found the solution to obtain this.

You need to go to your SharedServiceProvider (from within the Central Administration). Navigate to 'User Profile and Properties' > 'Manage Connections'.
Here you will find the field called 'User filter'. The content will look like this (which is default):

(&(objectCategory=Person)(objectClass=User))

Between '(&' and the last ')' (let's say the filter placeholder) you can add fields you want to filter on. Add the following string just after the last fieldfilter to exclude those user accounts that are disabled in AD:

(!userAccountControl:1.2.840.113556.1.4.803:=2)

So the entire string will be like this:

(&(objectCategory=Person)(objectClass=User)(!userAccountControl:1.2.840.113556.1.4.803:=2))

If you also want to include only those user accounts where (e.g.) the company name is filled in, you need to include (company=*). In reverse, if you want to exclude those that have a company name, just place a exclamation mark right for company: (!company=*). The 'include' version will then look like this:

(&(objectCategory=Person)(objectClass=User)(company=*)(!userAccountControl:1.2.840.113556.1.4.803:=2))

An easy way to figure out to create your own filtersyntax (like company start with 'bla'), you can build easily a query inside AD which will show you the correct syntax.

Is SharePoint a PITA?

2010-05-20T16:45:00.002+02:00

Sometimes SharePoint drives me crazy. But not only me. Google, our big friend shows the following results on some search terms:

moss 2007 problem: about 53.400.000
moss 2007 errors: about 8.160.000
moss 2007 bug: about 28.000.000
moss 2007 failed: about 4.560.000
moss 2007 failure: about 8.420.000
moss 2007 not working: about 23.300.000
sharepoint problem: about 8.270.000
sharepoint error: about 3.380.000
sharepoint bug: about 1.920.000
sharepoint failed: about 892.000
sharepoint failure: about 1.240.000
sharepoint not working: about 16.300.000
wss 3.0 problem: about 334.000
wss 3.0 errors: about 237.000
wss 3.0 bug: about 78.500
wss 3.0 failed: about 90.500
wss 3.0 failure: about 855.000
wss 3.0 not working: about 289.000

Do these numbers say something? I don't know. Is SharePoint a PITA? Well sometimes it definitely is!

A Solution for: SharePoint 2007 Workflow 'Failed on start'

2010-05-12T14:23:00.003+02:00

The Problem:
I struggled some time to get my out-of-the-box (OOB) workflow working on a MOSS 2007 environment (Win2K3 64-bit). I got always the error 'Failed on Start'. The log file on the 12-hive shows two records like this:


w3wp.exe (0x0AF4)  0x0724  Windows SharePoint Services  Workflow Infrastructure  72fs  Unexpected  RunWorkflow: System.ArgumentException: Value does not fall within the expected range.     at Microsoft.SharePoint.Workflow.SPWorkflowActivationProperties..ctor(SPWorkflow workflow, Int32 runAsUserId, String associationData, String initiationData)     at Microsoft.SharePoint.Workflow.SPWinOEWSSService.MakeActivation(SPWorkflow workflow, SPWorkflowEvent e)     at Microsoft.SharePoint.Workflow.SPWinOeEngine.RunWorkflow(Guid trackingId, SPWorkflowHostService host, SPWorkflow workflow, Collection`1 events, TimeSpan timeOut)     at Microsoft.SharePoint.Workflow.SPWorkflowManager.RunWorkflowElev(SPWorkflow originalWorkflow, SPWorkflow workflow, Collection`1 events, SPRunWorkflowOptions runOptions)


w3wp.exe (0x0AF4)  0x0724  Windows SharePoint Services  Workflow Infrastructure  98d7  Unexpected  System.ArgumentException: Value does not fall within the expected range.     at Microsoft.SharePoint.Workflow.SPWorkflowActivationProperties..ctor(SPWorkflow workflow, Int32 runAsUserId, String associationData, String initiationData)     at Microsoft.SharePoint.Workflow.SPWinOEWSSService.MakeActivation(SPWorkflow workflow, SPWorkflowEvent e)     at Microsoft.SharePoint.Workflow.SPWinOeEngine.RunWorkflow(Guid trackingId, SPWorkflowHostService host, SPWorkflow workflow, Collection`1 events, TimeSpan timeOut)     at Microsoft.SharePoint.Workflow.SPWorkflowManager.RunWorkflowElev(SPWorkflow originalWorkflow, SPWorkflow workflow, Collection`1 events, SPRunWorkflowOptions runOptions)

The Solution:
I search a lot, but didn't find a working solution. Finally I found it. It turns out that I had changed the account for the SharePoint - 80 application pool (don't remember why, but I did). But, I did this on IIS 7 and not using the Central Administration (CA).
Well, this was a wrong action. Changing the account of one of the SharePoint application pools must be done using the Central Administration (Serviceaccounts on the 'operations' page inside the CA).
And again, a big SharePoint miracle occured: the workflows started to work!

Work around ServerContext en UserProfile troubles

2010-05-07T17:16:00.003+02:00

I struggled some time with working with the UserProfile and ServerContext inside SharePoint (MOSS 2007).
I wrote a web part to show more details of a sitecontact. For that, I needed to get details from the UserProfile. The UserProfile was obtained from the UserProfileManager.
The code (web part) was running fine on the SharePoint server itself, but it failed on a client machine.
After struggling a lot, trying different suggestions (like fake SPContext and so on) today I found the solution. You need to use the SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges method. RunWithElevatedPrivileges runs the code in the brackets under the SharePoint System Account.
So here is the piece of code I am using:


try
{
  SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges(delegate()
  {
    using (SPSite site = new SPSite(SPContext.Current.Site.ID))
    {
      ServerContext context = ServerContext.GetContext(site);
      HttpContext currentContext = HttpContext.Current;
      HttpContext.Current = null;

      UserProfileManager profileManager = 
        new UserProfileManager(context);

      UserProfile user = 
        profileManager.GetUserProfile("domain\\accountname");

      PropertyCollection propCollection =
        user.ProfileManager.Properties;

      if (user != null && propCollection != null)
      {
        \\ do your stuff with the 'user'
      }
      HttpContext.Current = currentContext;
    }
  });
}
catch (Exception)
{
  \\ handle the exception
}

I used this code for retrieving userprofile details. I didn't try to edit the user profile. But I assume it should work as well.

Deployment of a class library with WSPBuilder

2010-05-05T15:41:00.001+02:00

This topic contains some points about deployment class library with WSPBuilder. For a couple of weeks I am working with WSPBuilder (http://www.codeplex.com/wspbuilder) for creating SharePoint web parts.
Due to the lack of some functionality, I wrote a class library which contains some extension methods for the SPWeb object. At that time the problems began.
Situation:

VMWare machine with MOSS 2007 on a Win2003 machine for development and test purposes
Visual Studio 2008 with WSPBuilder extension
Solution with several WSPBuilder web part projects
Custom class library SPExtensions.dll

Three of the WSPBuilder projects in my solution are using this class library with the extension methods in it. That works fine, until you are going to deploy it.
The deployment of the first WSPBuilder project deployed the class library into the GAC. This will affect the build process of the other two WSPBuilder projects. Those two wsp-packages do not have the class library dll in it. This happens even the referenced dll property "copy local" is set to "true". This was/is a real PITA! Because after updating the SPExtensions project, the new dll was not updated in the GAC for the 2nd and 3rd project (because the dll is not included in the wsp file).
So I want the SPExtentions.dll deployed to the WebApplication bin and not in the GAC. After some search and trial and errors I found the solution to get this job done.

Make sure the SPExtensions.dll (or whatever your class library is called) is not present in the GAC anymore. You can use gacutil to uninstall the assembly.
Created a '80' folder with a 'bin' subfolder inside all of the projects (e.g. ..\ProjectFolder\80\bin) that uses the SPExtensions.dll.
Create for each of these project a post build event:
move /Y "$(TargetDir)SPExtensions.dll" "$(ProjectDir)80\bin"
NOTE: You should use the "move" command and not the xcopy. The WSPBuilder (by default) sets the DeploymentTarget of the assemblies found in folders, other than GAC and 80\bin to GlobalAssemblyCache. So make sure you move the SPExtensions.dll from the ProjectFolder\bin\release (or debug) to the 80\bin folder created in step 2.
Now you can build the project, create the wsp-files and deploy (or upgrade) them. After step 3, I used the "clean" option, just to be sure that I do not get messed up with some left crap.

Format file size (C#)

2010-04-13T13:58:00.005+02:00

This post is not spectacular, but might be useful for some of you. I wrote a simple function to format the file size like it is in the file explorer (21 KB, 1,23 MB etc). I needed this for showing the file size in a tooltip for a SharePoint treeview.


private string FileSizeFormat(long size)
{
 const int KB = 1024;
 const int MB = 1048576;
 const int GB = 1073741824;

 if (size < KB)
 {
  return string.Format("{0} bytes", size); 
 }
 else if (size < MB)
 {
  return string.Format("{0} KB", (size / KB)); 
 }
 else if (size < GB)
 {
  return string.Format("{0:0.00} MB", (size / MB));
 }
 else
 {
  return string.Format("{0:0.00} GB", (size / GB)); 
 }
}

Just enter the file size (which usually is a long) into this function, you get the appropriate format back.
Edit: Made the code a bit easier (thanks Frank!)

Update all fields in Word, including headers and footers

2008-11-11T11:22:00.035+01:00

The regular 'update all fields' method in Word does not update used fields in the headers and footers. I searched on the internet to find a proper method and I found some code, but almost every time, they didn't really do what they are supposed to do. I found one piece of code which will update the fields in headers and footers. I combined it with the normal update procedure and now I have one method to update all field:


Public Sub UpdateAllFields()
  Dim currentDocument As Document _
    = Globals.DnmOfficeAddIn.Application.ActiveDocument
  If currentDocument IsNot Nothing Then
    Dim aStory As Range
    Dim NumberOfFields As Integer = 0

    Cursor.Current = Cursors.WaitCursor
    Try
      For Each aStory In currentDocument.StoryRanges
        NumberOfFields += aStory.Fields.Count
      Next

      If NumberOfFields > 0 Then
        'Update all available fields in the document
        For Each aStory In currentDocument.StoryRanges
          aStory.Fields.Update()
        Next
        
        Dim section As Section
        Dim DocumentRange As Range
        Dim DocumentHeaderFooter As HeaderFooter

        ' Loop through the header/footer for each section.
        ' If this isn't done specifically, Word seems to
        ' skip the header/footer of sections after section 1.
        For Each section In currentDocument.Sections
          For Each DocumentHeaderFooter In section.Headers

            DocumentRange = DocumentHeaderFooter.Range
            For Each aField As Field In DocumentRange.Fields

              If aField.Type = WdFieldType.wdFieldDocProperty Then
                aField.Update()
              End If

            Next aField

          Next DocumentHeaderFooter

          For Each DocumentHeaderFooter In section.Footers

            DocumentRange = DocumentHeaderFooter.Range
            For Each aField As Field In DocumentRange.Fields

              If aField.Type = WdFieldType.wdFieldDocProperty Then
                aField.Update()
              End If

            Next aField

          Next DocumentHeaderFooter

        Next section
      Else
        MessageBox.Show( _
          "This document does not contain any updatable fields.", _
          "No fields", MessageBoxButtons.OK, _
          MessageBoxIcon.Information)
      End If
    Finally
      Cursor.Current = Cursors.Default
    End Try
  End If
End Sub

Good luck!

(By the way, I used this code in a Office 2007 environment)

EDIT: See my latest blog for a working version: http://blog.vanmeeuwen-online.nl/2009/09/update-all-fields-in-word-including.html

Outlook in SharePoint or Website

2008-06-04T13:55:00.008+02:00

In SharePoint you can use the standard web parts for displaying e.g. your outlook inbox or tasks. This web part is actually quit limited. Use the following tags for better (end) user experience:


<P>
  <OBJECT classid="CLSID:0006F063-0000-0000-C000-000000000046"
      width="100%">
      <param name="Folder" value="Inbox">
  </OBJECT>
</P>
<P>
  <OBJECT classid="CLSID:0006F063-0000-0000-C000-000000000046"
      width="100%">
      <param name="Folder" value="Tasks">
  </OBJECT>
</P>

Those tags shows a control displaying your inbox and tasks.

See more information at My Calendar in SPS Home Page. Note: you should have Outlook installed on the machine that you are using to view the SharePoint site or web site.

Improve performance of VMWare

2010-03-26T12:13:00.003+01:00

For a while I am using VMware environments for SharePoint development projects. Last time, I was really struggling with performance issues. My host OS is Windows 7 (64-bit) with an Intel T7700 processor and 4 GB RAM. About every 10 minutes, the CPU of the virtual machine (Windows 2008 R2, 64-bit) was up to 100% caused by a variety of services (every time another one).

There are some improvements I have made which worked (at least) in my situation.

Configuration of the virus scanner.
Exclude the VMware files from real-time protection and for the ThreatSense-engine
Add some parameters to the VMware configuration file (.vmx)
- Disable page sharing (improves I/O). Add following line to the vmx-file:
sched.mem.pshare.enable = "FALSE"
- If you have enough free RAM for all planned concurrent VMs, be sure to disable memory trimming for guest OSes adding the following line to the virtual machine configuration (.vmx) file:
memTrimRate="0"
A really performance hitter for virtual machines is a fragmented host OS disk. Be sure to schedule a disk defragmentation on your host OS a regular basis (best: daily)
See more tips here.

By now, I am a bit more happy

Div width in IE and FireFox

2009-06-18T10:23:00.016+02:00

Today I run into a strange problem. I was setting up the width property of a <div> container on a web site. I always test my sites on both IE and FireFox. But it seems that they render the width property differently. I put it together in the following picture:

As you can see, if you set the <div> width on 775px, in IE the actual width is 775px, including margins and paddings.
FireFox (and also Google Chrome) behaves different. The width property is for them only for the element, without the margins and paddings. They added their size onto the actual width as well.

To get you site behaving the same in both IE and FireFox, you can add some nasty css tricks or just put the following line just before the <html> tag on your (master)page:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
This doctype declaration will let behave IE as FireFox (and Google Chrome) does.

And again, IE (I'm using IE8!!) is wrong and not following the W3C standards. Read about the formatting model here how a browser needs to deal with element width and box width.

One way to fix slow FireFox startup

2010-03-19T11:37:00.008+01:00

Last time FireFox was starting up very slowly on my computer. I am using FireFox 3.6, which is by now the most recent version.
The next solution helped me to increase the startup time.

Start FireFox
Type about:config in the address bar
Search for the preference name browser.sessionstore.enabled
Edit the value to false
If you cannot find it, you should create this preference name:
1. Right click somewhere in the window
2. Choose New>Boolean

3. Enter the preference name browser.sessionstore.enabled

4. Select the value false in the 'Enter Boolean value' window
5. Press 'OK'
6. Restart FireFox

Note:
with this value set to this preference, you will not have the option for session restore if FireFox crashes. To get the session restore option back, just edit this preference value to true or just delete this entry (Right click on preference and select Reset, restart FireFox and your entry is gone).
EDIT:
Search also for browser.sessionstore.resume_from_crash and set this value also to false.

SharePoint 2007: Create and manage custom theme in a flexible way

2010-03-12T11:14:00.008+01:00

Recently I started to create a custom theme. As you may know, when you change the theme of a site, SharePoint will get a copy of the chosen theme and place that in the content database.
And that is exactly not what I was looking for. I just want to have one single place where my custom theme is located so I can easily manage and change the theme. This will affect than all sites that are (already) using my custom theme.

Here is how to do this:

Go to 12-hive\TEMPLATES\
A good starting point is to make a copy of an existing theme that’s close to what you want to have. For example make a copy of the VINTAGE folder.
Rename it to e.g. MYCUSTOMTHEME.
Inside this folder, rename the VINTAGE.INF file to MYCUSTOMTHEME.INF.
Open this MYCUSTOMTHEME.INF and replace all ‘vintage’ text into ‘mycustomtheme’ (without quotes).

Add an entry for the MYCUSTOMTHEME in the SPTHEMES.XML


<Templates>
 <TemplateID>mycustomtheme</TemplateID>
 <DisplayName>My Custom Theme</DisplayName>
 <Description>This is my cool customized theme</Description>
 <Thumbnail>images/thmycustomtheme.gif</Thumbnail>
 <Preview>images/thmycustomtheme.gif</Preview>
</Templates>

(Note: the thmycustomtheme.gif image can be created when you are done with customization of your theme. Place this file on 12-hive\TEMPLATE\IMAGES\)

Instead of leaving the theme images and stylesheets inside the MYCUSTOMTHEME folder (12-hive\TEMPLATE\THEMES\MYCUSTOMTHEME) we need to move the images and stylesheets to be able to edit and see our changes immediate.
a). Create subfolders called MYCUSTOMTHEME inside the following folders:
i. \12\TEMPLATE\IMAGES\
ii. \12\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\1033\STYLES\ (note: 1033 is dependent on your language)
b). Move all images from the 12\TEMPLATE\THEMES\MYCUSTOMTHEME to 12\TEMPLATE\IMAGES\MYCUSTOMTHEME.
c). Move the theme.css (and when using MOSS, mossExtensions.css) to \12\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\1033\STYLES\MYCUSTOMTHEME\. These two files you will use for your customizations.
d). Go to 12\TEMPLATE\THEMES\MYCUSTOMTHEME\. There is one file left (mycustomtheme.inf).
e). Create a new (text)file, called theme.css and open it.
f). Add the following lines of code:
```
@import "/_layouts/1033/STYLES/mycustomtheme/mossextensions.css";
@import "/_layouts/1033/STYLES/mycustomtheme/theme.css";
```
g). Now, when you set a site theme to your ‘mycustomtheme’, the theme.css you just created (with the import statements) are stored in the content database, but the site will use the the css-files on your file system. Now you are ready to edit your css files.
Remember to refer to the images like: url(“/_layouts/images/mycustomtheme/)

The following pictures shows where the customtheme folders are located:

Release date SharePoint 2010 and Office 2010

2010-03-08T12:22:00.004+01:00

Last Saturday, Microsoft announced the release date of both SharePoint 2010 en Microsoft Office 2010. Arpan Shah wrote:

"Today, we officially announced that May 12th, 2010, is the launch date for SharePoint 2010 & Office 2010. In addition, we announced our intent to RTM (Release to Manufacturing) this April 2010."

For consumers, Office 2010 will be available online and on retail shelves this June.
You can read more at http://blogs.technet.com/office2010/archive/2010/03/04/get-office-today-or-tomorrow.aspx and http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/businessproductivity/proof/pages/2010-launch-events.aspx

Site Tips: Branding SharePoint (WSS3.0 and MOSS2007)

2010-03-02T09:31:00.002+01:00

Yesterday I started with branding SharePoint for one of our customers. Creating a custom theme is not that easy as it should be. I will come back later on that.
I found some useful sites on the internet. I want to share this one in particular with you:

http://www.heathersolomon.com/content/sp07cssreference.htm

This is a nice overview of the used style elements in SharePoint sites. You can easily find the corresponding element that are used in the stylesheets ( e.g. .ms-topnavselected) by using the index or screenshots.
The main site, http://www.heathersolomon.com/blog/articles/sp2007.aspx, shows a lot of information about the structure and customizations of sites.

Install WSS3.0 and MOSS 2007 on Windows 2008 Server R2

2010-03-01T14:05:00.005+01:00

Installing SharePoint (either WSS 3.0 or MOSS 2007) on a Windows Server 2008 R2 is not just a 'next-next-finish' action.
At least, I tried it with MOSS 2007 with SP1. It will not work!

You will get the following error message:

Title: Program Compatibility Assistant
Message: No solutions found for Office SharePoint Server 2007 - Please read Microsoft Knowledge Base article: 962935

Don't try to find this KB article (it's here). It doesn't have anything to do with this particular problem.

The work-around for this problem is as follows:

Copy the setup folder of WSS3.0 or MOSS 2007 to the local drive of the server, e.g. C:\Moss_Install
Delete all content in the sub folder "updates"
Download WSS3.0 SP2 (here) and MOSS 2007 SP2 (here)
Open a command prompt and navigate to the folder where you put the both SP2 files
Extract WSS 3.0 SP2 and MOSS 2007 SP2 using the command prompt:
[filename] /extract:[path to copied setup folder step 1]\Updates /quiet
Example:
officeserver2007sp2-kb953334-x64-fullfile-en-us.exe /extract:c:\Moss_Install\Updates
The SharePoint installation program will automatically read this folder to apply the patches.
Optional: some people mention to delete the wsssetup.dll file. I didn't for the MOSS setup. It just works leaving this file.
Start the setup.exe in the copied setup folder and you are on your way.

Windows 7 and a GodMode

2010-01-11T14:07:00.002+01:00

Ever heard of a GodMode (strange name by the way) in Window 7? Yes, it's there.
Create a folder somewhere and call it:
GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}
And you get a control panel with 270 options, getting from Action Center (15 actions) down to Windows Update (2 actions). It seems to me that not all settings you can edit and control via control panel are listed. However, is it useful? I don't know, I usually use the search box in the upper right corner of the control panel.

Edit Office Document from SharePoint in IE8 64 bit version

2010-01-08T12:59:00.007+01:00

Have you ever tried to open a Word document from a SharePoint 2007 document library using Internet Explorer 8 64 bit edition? Today I tried, because I am running a 64 bit Windows 7 edition.
Guess what, next message was shown:

So I tried also to open a Word document from a SharePoint 2010 document library in IE8 x64. Of course, it doesn't work either. Only the message was a bit different:

Oh, by the way, I am using Office 2007 SP2. I didn't try it with Office 2010 (not installed yet). Maybe that will work? I guess not, but I let you know.
Thanks Microsoft! :(

Update:

I read on technet that the IE8 64 is a so called Level 2 brower. According to Microsoft, Web browser support is divided into two levels: level 1 and level 2. Although administrative tasks on SharePoint sites are optimized for level 1 browsers, SharePoint Server 2010 also provides support for other browsers that are frequently used. To ensure that you have complete access to all functionality, we recommend that you use a level 1 browser for administrative tasks.

So it seems that editing a Word document from SharePoint is administrative task. In SharePoint it is called 'contribution'... do you follow it?

Read more at Microsoft Technet:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263526%28office.14%29.aspx

SharePoint 2010: Solution for failing step 5 of the configuration wizard

2010-01-07T14:19:00.004+01:00

This week I was trying to install SharePoint 2010 on Windows 2008 R2 (on VMware). That was not that easy. The major problem I faced with was step 5 on the configuration wizard. All the rest went well. There are a lot of sites/blog with information about the different steps, not that hard to do.
But I got every time the following exception:

Failed to register SharePoint services. An exception of type System.ServiceProcess.TimeoutException was thrown. Additional exception information: Time out has expired and the operation has not been completed. System.ServiceProcess.TimeoutException: Time out has expired and the operation has not been completed. at System.ServiceProcess.ServiceController.WaitForStatus(ServiceControllerStatus desiredStatus, TimeSpan timeout) at Microsoft.SharePoint.Win32.SPAdvApi32.StartService(String strServiceName) at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPWindowsServiceInstance.Start() at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPWindowsServiceInstance.Provision(Boolean start) at Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration.SearchServiceInstance.Provision() at Microsoft.SharePoint.PostSetupConfiguration.ServicesTask.InstallServiceInstanceInConfigDB(Boolean provisionTheServiceInstanceToo, String serviceInstanceRegistryKeyName, Object sharepointServiceObject) at Microsoft.SharePoint.PostSetupConfiguration.ServicesTask.InstallServiceInstances(Boolean provisionTheServiceInstancesToo, String serviceRegistryKeyName, Object sharepointServiceObject) at Microsoft.SharePoint.PostSetupConfiguration.ServicesTask.InstallServices(Boolean provisionTheServicesToo) at Microsoft.SharePoint.PostSetupConfiguration.ServicesTask.Run() at Microsoft.SharePoint.PostSetupConfiguration.TaskThread.ExecuteTask()

To overcome this problem, I tried to increase the amount of RAM from 1GB to 2GB. But that does not solved the problem. One of the other advices was to install SQL Server 2008 SP1. I was not able to install that on my version, so I skipped that part.
The solution that worked for me was removing a couple of registry keys. Removing the following keys solved the problem for me:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\14.0 \WSS\Services\Microsoft.SharePoint. Search.Administration.SPSearchService
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\14.0 \WSS\Services\Microsoft.SharePoint. Search.Administration.SearchService

So, finally I have a beta version of SharePoint 2010 running on a virtual machine. So time to play with it!

Windows 2008 R2 and bluescreen

2010-01-07T13:21:00.003+01:00

Last year I posted about the blue screen in Windows 7. Today, when I tried to startup my Windows 2008 R2 in VMware (for SharePoint 2010 test purposes), I got a blue screen. So it's still there...

Sometimes I get sick of it... (even SharePoint 2010 is not getting configured correctly... :( )

Happy new year!

2010-01-04T09:49:00.001+01:00

To all my blog readers: I wish you a good, healthy and happy 2010!

Portable Skype version available!

2009-12-28T21:49:00.003+01:00

Till today, I worked with a Skype version (3.8). For this version there was no portable version, and I love portable apps. My colleague and I created from the installed 3.8 version a portable one. That worked ok.
Today, I found that there is a portable Skype version (4.1) on portableapps.com. So no need to create your own work-around portable version.
You can download it here.

The easy way to use jQuery DatePicker on ASP.NET controls

2009-10-01T14:16:00.007+02:00

There are several posts on the internet on how to use jQuery datepicker control on ASP.NET (controls). Most of the solutions works with ASP.NET MVC from Microsoft (http://www.asp.net/mvc/). Other wrote their own extension classes and you need to use them to get it work. With other words, a lot of extra development steps and stuff. And that's not what I was looking for.

I was looking for a smaller, faster and easier way of attaching the JQuery datepicker to one of my controls. So I just tried to figure out my own route, and I found one.

Here follows the way I did it.
1. Just use the ordinary ASP.NET textbox for entering a date:


<asp:TextBox ID="txtDate" runat="server" Width="79px"></asp:TextBox>

2. Downloaded the appropriate JQuery libraries, placed them on your website and place a reference to the libraries (jqueryui.com/download/)


<script type="text/javascript" src="/umbraco_client/ui/jquery.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="/umbraco_client/ui/effects.core.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="/umbraco_client/ui/ui.datepicker.js"></script>

3. You can use one of the predefined themes (http://jqueryui.com/themeroller/). Place a reference to the CSS


<link href="/CSS/ui-lightness/jquery-ui-1.7.2.custom.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />

Ok, so far it's just ordinary stuff. Nothing special.

4. As mentioned in step 1, the input box for a date is called txtDate. As you know, looking at the source code of you page when its rendered, the name (and also the id) is 'renamed' to something like 'ctl00_ctl00_ctl00_ContentPlaceHolderDefault_MasterTemplateContentPlaceHolder_ctl01_ContactForm_4_txtDate'
Don't worry, as long as there is the 'txtDate' part inside the name, the following JQuery function will find it:


<script>
$(document).ready(function() {
 $("input[name*='txtDate']").datepicker();
});
</script>

This piece of code will attach the jQuery datepicker functionality onto all input boxes with (somewhere) txtDate in the name. E.g. it will find input boxes with the name 'ct100_(...)_txtDateIn', 'ct100_(...)_txtDateOut', 'ct100_(...)_oldtxtDateIn' etc. As long as txtDate is used, it will be found.

I placed this code in the header section of my master page, so all forms that has a txtDate input box, will get the JQuery datepicker.

SharePoint 2010 not possible on Virtual PC

2009-10-14T21:38:00.002+02:00

Today I searched around to see whether it's possible to setup a virtual pc (VPC) with SharePoint 2010. I was planning to setup a virtual domain with two virtual pc's: one as a Domain Controller and one as a SharePoint server. Just as I have now for a MOSS development (and presentation) environment.
Anyway, do you want to know if you can setup this? Well you cannot.

Why? Well in short:

SharePoint 2010 will run on 64-bit systems only.
VPC can run on a 64-bit host OS, but only supports 32-bit guest OS.
Virtual Server 2005 R2: same story. It doesn't support a 32-bit guest OS.

I am really wondering whether Microsoft will sort this problem out, because running Hyper-V is not really an option. Hyper-V supports a 64-bit guest OS but it’s not an ideal platform especially if you do development on a laptop (as I do). I assume a lot of other SharePoint developers are running into this problem as well.

It is possible to use VMware, but I don't understand why Microsoft does not have a proper solution for this. They are coming with something that's called MED-V.
I didn't have had time yet to read it all in detail, but the basic idea is that those that are 32-bit or running Windows Server 2003 will not have an in-place upgrade option.
Well, that's the place I am standing, right now...

Workaround to run Umbraco V4 on MySQL V4

2009-10-09T10:34:00.007+02:00

I had some troubles running Umbraco version 4 on a MySQL database version 4. I developed a website on a MySQL V5 database, which works fine. The problem occured when I tried to place a backup on the live environment which appeared to be MySQL version 4.

The following error message was shown:
ERROR 1074 (42000) at line 1947: Column length too big for column 'EMAIL' (max = 255); use BLOB or TEXT instead

It seems that you cannot use varchar(1000) on MySQL 4. In the backup script (which is an sql file) I replaced all varchar(1000) into TinyText (thanks to my colleague Arno Raps) and as far as I can see now, it works fine.

Unfortunately, this problem is not well documented on Umbraco, so I just post it here...