CAML.NET IntelliSense for SharePoint

CAML is being used a lot by sharepoint in order to provide lot of functionality and microsoft has done a good work here by providing an intellisense to make coding easier.

Check out more information here

CSS Reference Chat for MOSS 2007

Using SP designer is a good way to design a sharepoint site and if you have lot of information about CSS then you are lucky as you can make your site very rich with excellent UI.

I found very useful article by heather solomon’s and this link is a must see

See your gtalk friends in Sharepoint

I had one of my client’s fellow talking to me about the msn messenger feature enabled in almost most of the office products.

Suddenly i thought of doing the same with putting a gtalk section in my sharepoint site for testing and the result was super pleasing. I didnt know its so easy to plug in the control in any of the webpage. here is a line of code that you can keep in your page either in a simple HTML or a script; im providing script part.

<script src=”http://www.gmodules.com/ig/ifr?url=http://www.google.com/ig/modules/googletalk.xml&amp;
synd=open&amp;w=320&amp;h=451&amp;title=My+gtalk&amp;
lang=en&amp;country=US&amp;border=%23ffffff%7C0px%2C1px+
solid+%23993333%7C0px%2C1px+solid+%23bb5555%7C0px%2C1px+
solid+%23DD7777%7C0px%2C2px+solid+%23EE8888&amp;output=js”>
</script>

the snapshot will look a bit like below

For more details you can visit here

How to customize “My Sites” in sharepoint

I was very much stuck and spend long time to figure out to find a way of customizing MySite section in sharepoint and i came across a informative article in google search http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2007/03/22/customizing-moss-2007-my-sites-within-the-enterprise.aspx

Change machine name after installing Sharepoint

I have tried only on a standalone machine. Follow the steps to sort out the issue

1. Change alternate access mappings in Central Administration
   1. Central Administration > Operations > Alternate access Mappings
      
   2. Edit each mapping so that it reflects your new server name
      1. Ensure port numbers are the same
         
2. Use stsadm renameserver operation

   1. stsadm -o renameserver -newservername  -oldservername  

3. Rename Server
   1. My Computer > Properties > Computer Name (tab) > Change (button)
   2. Type in new name of server
   3. Reboot server

“An unexpected error has occurred” in Sharepoint – Find more details

Are you getting frustrated with “An unexpected error has occurred” in sharepoint 2007? I found some useful tips. You can get more error messages from MOSS especially when they are not written to the application log. Do follow the steps below to get more:

1. Go into the web.config of the specific sharepoint web and set custom errors to off. Search for customErrors tag

mode=”Off”

2. Turn on tracing and the callstack by setting both to true. Search for SafeMode

CallStack=”true” DirectFileDependencies=”10″ TotalFileDependencies=”50″ AllowPageLevelTrace=”true”>

Though event viewer also stores vital informaiton but above tricks are handy when a log in not written to EV

Security Validation error in sharepoint

 While creating one of the sites from the browser i came an error saying “The security validation for this page is invalid. Click Back in your Webbrowser, refresh the page, and try your operation again“
I got bit confused as i didn’t know where to find and sort it out so i checked few sections in central admin site found one place. You can check for this :

• Navigate thru the following Central Administration Site->application management->web application settings->”turn security validation off”

If above is ok then you may also check out below alternate

• The Windows SharePoint Services Web site is configured to use Anonymous Access in addition to another method of authentication, such as Basic Authentication. Turn off the Basic Authentication from ISS->your sharepoint site-> right click properties->Directory Security tab
• The last alternate is if you need code fix

using (SPSite site = new SPSite(parentSiteUrl))

{       

site.AllowUnsafeUpdates = true;       
using (SPWeb web = site.OpenWeb())       
{           
web.AllowUnsafeUpdates = true;           
SPList list = web.Lists["mylist"];           
_listItem = clientsList.Items.Add();           
_listItem["Title"] = “test”;           
_listItem.Update();                   
}       
}

}

One of the above alternate should help you out

{61738644-F196-11D0-9953-00C04FD919C1} – “The update cannot be started because the content sources cannot be accessed” error in Sharepoint

I was trying to install moss 2007 on one of the rebuilt box and came across strange error. I googled it found out that actually the error CLSID {61738644-F196-11D0-9953-00C04FD919C1} is related to what i found in registry:

• Open  Start–>Run–>regedit.exe and goto HKCR->CLSID and search for the GUID
• With the registry editor open, ensure that your cursor is on the computer at the beginning of the tree (make sure you are not in the middle of some previous edit session in the registry editor).
• Edit–>Find and paste in the GUID. It’ll stop at the application entry – and you will want to note the application name on the right side pane. In this example, it was the IIS WAMREG admin service that popped up.

This security permission can be modified using the Component Services administrative tool which is present in “Administrative Tools”; Follow the steps to sort out the error

• Now, open Component Services (typically, from the server – Start–>Administrative Tools–>Component Services), expand Component Services, Computers, My Computer, DCOM Config. Scroll down and find the application (IIS WAMREG in this case)
• Right-Click–>Properties and select the Security tab. You’ll have some options here – the first block Launch and Activation Permissions – ensure that the Customize radio button is selected, and click Edit. Now, add your service account – giving it launch and activate – and in some requirements – remote launch / activate permission
• Restart IIS and continue on with no error

Configuring website and network access between XP host and Win2003 with MOSS 2007 VPC

I assume that you have a XP host which has a VPC image with win2003 and moss 2007 installed but the host will not be able to access the sharepoint sites due to network related issues.
So its time to setup and enable website access between host and the VPC. I assume few things before you apply this solution:
1. You have a rotuer and you access internet
2. You have disabled DHCP option in router and have given manual IP with you subnet like 192.168.1* or 10.10.1.* to your machine and VPC
Then check my blog here that covers the steps of converting the win2003 VPC from a workgroup into a domain.
Now you need to do is to setup XP to recognize the win2003 server. I found a solution of doing so without adding my XP to the domain that you just created.
On our host machine irrespective of you using your lan or wireless card; just double click the icon in system tray or goto start->settings->network connections and right click the active adapter and select properties. The adapter properties window will appear; select TCP/IP and click properties. refer to below snapshot

The trick is under “Preferred DNS” enter the manual IP of the win2003 server running in VPC as the server now has a DNS installed. In order to allow your host to access internet as well enter the IP of your ISP under ”Alternate Preferred DNS” so that internet is accessible

If you wanted to enter the alternate Preferred DNS of your ISP then you can add by clicking advance button and enter the IP as shown under

And you are done; hopefully you shall be able to access the sharepoint websites. I doubt that you will face any further issue but by chance if you get stuck then you may try below section as well.
The last thing to do in both host and VPC is to add an entry of the IP address of both in host file. Just type drivers in the start->run to and windows will open windows explorer windows; go into etc folder and double click the hosts file; select notepad and open the file; 
In XP host file add entry in a new line with 192.168.1.4 myserver and in win2003 VPC add entry in a new line with 192.168.1.3 xphost
By following above information you can have multiple development environments on a single machine and explore the benefits of VPC.


Hope it was useful

Moving MOSS 2007 from a workgroup to a domain running Win2003 VPC in XP Host

This post is for those who have XP host and a VPC running with Win2003 and others as well who have the below stated problem.
If you installed Moss 2007 on a standalone machine running Win2003 and later you plan to move it on a new domain then below steps will help you.


1. First in win2003 run DCPromo.exe from the start->run and set it up. DC promo is the most easiest, simple and automatic way of configuring AD and DNS easily
2. After the machine is added to the domain and if you try to open the sharepoint central or other sites then browser will give error. The reason is that Administrator account has been updated with domain information and moss is not updated. In order to fix up the problem just run the below commands in dos prompt to sort it out.
First, goto cd %commonprogramfiles%\Microsoft Shared\Web server extensions\12\Bin directory
Second, stsadm -o updatefarmcredentials -userlogin DomainName\UserName -password NewPassword
Here NewPassword can be the same password that you are using or you can give the new password
Lastly goto c:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\Temporary ASP.NET Files in windows explore and right click the folder->Sharing and Security->security tab; add Network Service to the group with full access
After this just run the central site and you are done.
Hope this is useful.