Microsoft Sharepoint Services

After a long wait, SP2 is available for download . With this new service pack, SharePoint users could benefit from
1.    Performance
2.    Stability
3.    Availability improvements
4.    Security

Installation Steps
Please check SharePoint Team Blog and Updates Resource Center for SharePoint Products and Technologies when the articles go live.

Related Resources
About Service Pack 2 for SharePoint Product and Technologies
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=148551

Service Pack 2 Overview (TechNet article links, very useful)
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=148374

Updates Resource Center for SharePoint Products and Technologies
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/sharepointserver/bb735839.aspx
The full list of changes in SP2 (Excel 2007 format)
Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SP2 Changes
2007 Office Servers SP2 Changes
You can also go to this KB article for a full list of downloads for Office System 2007 SP2 (client & server).
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968170

Q&A
Q: Why is the new STSADM upgrade checker operation important for my customers?
A: The upgrade checker is a stsadm operation that scans server farm to establish whether it is ready for upgrade to SharePoint 2010. It does so by identifying issues that could present obstacles to the upgrade process. It provides feedback and best practice recommendations on your current environment, together with information on how to resolve any issues that the tool discovers. It also check operating system requirement for Windows Server 2008 and 64bit.

Q: Which browser will be added into support for SP2 for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0?
A: Internet Explorer 8 will be added into level 1 browser support, and Firefox 2.0/3.0 will be added into level 2 browser support.

Q: Which operating system will be added into support?
A: Windows Server 2008 SP2 and Windows Server 2008 R2 will be supported on their release.

Q: Can customer skip other updates and directly apply SP2 in their server farm?
A: Yes. SP2 includes SP1 and Infrastructure updates. [Thats so good. No mess of installing different updates all the time.]

Q: Will there be a MOSS slipstream build with SP2?
A: There’s no plan for official MOSS slipstream build with SP2. An official slipstream guide will be provided so users can create their own slipstream build based on their patch needs. WSS with SP2 slipstream builds are provided on download center.

IIS 7 sites can be authenticated in “User mode” as well as “Kernel mode”. When we configure kerberos and use IIS 7 site in kernel mode authorization mode, SharePoint sites will give an error:

“HTTP Error 401. The requested resource requires user authentication.”

Take a look at the following article to understand how IIS7 authentication works.

http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/101/introduction-to-iis7-architecture/#Application

RESOLUTION:

Disable the kernel mode authentication in IIS7.

You can disable Kernel-mode authentication by clicking Advanced Settings of the web site in IIS.

NOTE: As a best practice, you should not disable this setting if you use Kerberos authentication and a custom identity on the application pool.

But at this point, we do not have any alternative at this point. May be SP2 for Office Servers should provide a resolution for this.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968170

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/944981
This is a very common issue that people are facing these days. The above KB should resolve the issue.

ISSUE
*****************************
Issue specific to the web application. Users are prompted for username and password and the site does not load. Using a modified Content Query Webpart and ItemStyle.xsl sheet to display the first 1000 characters of a blog site posting.  When the blog post is large(8000 lines) it causes the 1000 character render to blow up the application pool.

Symptoms:
*****************************
Event id = 2262
ISAPI ‘C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v2.0.50727\aspnet_isapi.dll’ reported itself as unhealthy for the following reason: ‘Deadlock detected’.
For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

Event ID=1000
Faulting application w3wp.exe, version 6.0.3790.3959, stamp 45d691cc, faulting module kernel32.dll, version 5.2.3790.4062, stamp 462643a7, debug? 0, fault address 0×0000000000027d8d.
For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

Errors in ULS Logs:
*****************************
An SPRequest object was not disposed before the end of this thread.  To avoid wasting system resources, dispose of this object or its parent (such as an SPSite or SPWeb) as soon as you are done using it.  This object will now be disposed.  Allocation Id: {E7B5E974-452A-4FB4-A71A-ECA0C7AFE647}  This SPRequest was allocated at    at Microsoft.SharePoint.Library.SPRequest..ctor()     at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPGlobal.CreateSPRequestAndSetIdentity(Boolean bNotGlobalAdminCode, String strUrl, Boolean bNotAddToContext, Byte[] UserToken, String userName, Boolean bIgnoreTokenTimeout, Boolean bAsAnonymous)     at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSite.GetSPRequest()     at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSite.get_Request()     at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSite.OpenWeb(Guid gWebId, Int32 mondoHint)     at Microsoft.SharePoi…        

04/03/2009 11:13:09.58*        w3wp.exe (0×0AC4)                               0×1A48        Windows SharePoint Services           General                               8l1n        High            …nt.SPSite.OpenWeb(Guid gWebId)     at Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.CachedArea.GetIdentityWeb(Guid webId, SPSite elevatedSite, Boolean isSuperUser)     at Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.CachedArea.GetSuperReaderIdentityWeb(SPSite site)     at Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.CachedArea..ctor(PublishingWeb area, String id, String parentId, String title, String url, String description, CachedObjectFactory factory)     at Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.CachedArea.CreateCachedArea(PublishingWeb area, CachedObjectFactory factory, String parentId)     at Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.CachedObjectFactory.CreateObject(PublishingWeb area, String parentUrl)     at Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.CachedObjectFactory.CreateObject(PublishingWeb area)     at Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.Publishi…        

04/03/2009 11:13:09.58*        w3wp.exe (0×0AC4)                               0×1A48        Windows SharePoint Services           General                               8l1n        High            …ngPage.IsPublishingPage(SPListItem sourceListItem)     at

FIX – for now
*****************************
Remove the large blog post or close the web part

Microsoft has announced that they will be taking the December Cu off from their site as there were number of known issues after installation. These issues were fixed in the Feb CU. So, if you have installed the December CU, go ahead and install the Feb CU for WSS and MOSS.

Feb CU information [Reference Microsoft SharePoint Official Blog]

Download Information

Feburary Cumulative Update Uber Package for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (Version: 12.0.6341.5000)

http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=961755

Feburary Cumulative Update Uber Package for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (Version: 12.0.6341.5002)

http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=961756

Detail description

Description of the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 cumulative update package: February 24, 2009

Description of the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 cumulative update package: February 24, 2009 (Link is not actived yet)

Installation Recommendation for a fresh SharePoint Server

To keep all files in a SharePoint installation up-to-date, the following sequence is recommended.

1. Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Service Pack 1
2. The 2007 Microsoft Office Servers Service Pack 1
3. Feburary Cumulative Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
4. Feburary Cumulative Update for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

Meanwhile, if customer need to index Visio files, there is a Visio iFilter hotfix which is not a part of the uber package.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/960502

After applying the preceding updates, run the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard or “psconfig –cmd upgrade –inplace b2b -wait” in command line. This needs to be done on every server in the farm with SharePoint installed. 

The version of content databases should be 12.0.6341.5000 after successfully applying these updates.

For more in-depth guidance for the update process, we recommend that customers refer to the following articles. These articles provide a correct way to deploy updates, identify known issues (and resolutions), and provide information about creating slipstream builds.

Deploy software updates for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc288269.aspx

Deploy software updates for Office SharePoint Server 2007

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263467.aspx

How to create a SharePoint slipstream using the latest updates (Updated for FEB CU!)