Archive for the ‘Setup and Configuration’ Category
Service Pack 2 is now released.
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.
No More December Cumulative Updates for SharePoint
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.
- Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Service Pack 1
- The 2007 Microsoft Office Servers Service Pack 1
- Feburary Cumulative Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
- 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!)
December Cumulative Updates
The December Cumulative update information is posted at http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2008/12/17/announcing-december-cumulative-update-for-office-sharepoint-server-2007-and-windows-sharepoint-services-3-0.aspx.
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
Admin Jobs failing on one of the SharePoint Servers.
Administration jobs means the timer jobs that are executed on regular basis on the SharePoint Server. They range from Alert processing, Synchronization, etc. To get the complete timer job list for the farm, browse to Central Administration -> Operations -> Timer jobs
If you see any failed job in the timer jobs status, the first thing that you might try is running the following command on all the servers :
stsadm -o execadmsvcjobs
The above command will try and execute the timer jobs that are stuck/scheduled for the specific time when you run that command. There are possibilities like the stsadm command is stuck and shows “Executing….” in the command prompt after you attempt to run the above command.
To run the above command successfully, follow the below troubleshooting steps :
- Open Central Admin -> Operations -> Diagnostic Logging
- Select “All” under the jobs and set the Error logging to Verbose.
- Try to execute the execadmsvcjobs command.
- Open the log file under “C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\Logs” . This is the default log directory. It might be possible that the logs directory is changed by the administrator who has set up SharePoint. We can check the logs settings from Central Administration -> Operations -> Diagnostic logging.
- Open the file in MS Excel -> Apply filters for the columns -> Under the Levels column, select “high” and “verbose”. Under the category column, select “Timer” and “Unified Logging Service”
- Check for any errors that you get there.
- Based upon errors, we need to further troubleshoot the issue.
- The possible errors that you might get are :
- The previous instance of the timer job ‘Application Server Administration Service Timer Job’, id ‘{12403D5C-D18B-4D06-9E2F-C2855E30385C}’ for service ‘{83A518CA-9139-4A50-999B-6C35E4D42A34}’ is still running, so the current instance will be skipped. Consider increasing the interval between jobs
- Error during Encrypting Decrypting
If you get the above two errors, they probably are related. This issue normally occurs where you have multiple server farm configuration. The first error says that there is an admin jobs that is not getting executed. As the job is stuck, we need to remove that job from the config so that other jobs can be executed. Run the following two commands to check if it is a ssp timer jobs or a admin timer job that is listed :
stsadm -o deletessptimerjob -id “12403D5C-D18B-4D06-9E2F-C2855E30385C”
If the above command says that there is no ssp timer jobs listed with the above ID, run the following command to delete the object with that id :
stsadm -o deleteconfigurationobject -id “12403D5C-D18B-4D06-9E2F-C2855E30385C”
This will remove the timer job that was stuck. Now try and execute stsadm -o execadmsvcjobs on the other servers and you might get the second error that I have listed above. The Encryption/Decryption error states that for some reason, the password used by the timer service on that server is not valid.
Open Services.msc on the server where you are getting the error and re-enter the log on credentials for the “Windows SharePoint Services Timer”. Run the following command to update the username and password for the timer service account :
stsadm -o updatefarmcredentials -userlogin “domain\username” -password “xxxxxxx” -local
NOTE: For the complete list for updating the farm credentials follow this kb :http://support.microsoft.com/kb/934838/en-us
Run the stsadm -o execadmsvcjobs on the server where you were getting the errors and this time it will run succesfully. If you face any further problems, or other error messages, please leave a comment and I should get back to you soon.
Issue: Failure when adding web part to a web page in SharePoint.
Symptoms:
- When trying to close a web part from the SharePoint page, we get an error message :
“The file is not checked out. You must first check out this document before making changes.”
Web Parts Maintenance Page: If you have permission, you can use this page to temporarily close Web Parts or remove personal settings. For more information, contact your site administrator.
WebPart CheckOut Error
If we go to the Web part maintenance page using “?Contents=1” at the end of the .aspx page
Getting to the Web part maintenance page
Now try to either close or delete the web part from that page, we get an error :
“Could not complete the operation. The file is not checked out. You must check out the document before making changes.”
Web Part Check Out Error
I tired to check out the document from the IE as well as from SharePoint Designer, but we still get the same symptoms.
Work-around #1:
This workaround does not actually resolve the issue completely, but I found that out while trying to get rid of that error message.
- Browse to the SharePoint page where you want to modify the web part. Make sure that you are logged in as the site admin or with a user account that has modify permission over the site.
- Click on Site Actions -> Edit Page.
Now you can close the specific web part that you were not able to close before.
Work-around #2
- Browse to the Reports site and click on “View All Site Content”
View All Site Content
- Browse to “Pages” under document libraries. I was working with the default.aspx page and thus, by default it is stored under the pages directory of the site. You might be working with some other pages and so basically you need to browse to the library where you have stored the .aspx page where the web part exist.
- Click on the drop down of the .aspx page and select “View Properties”
- Document Drop Down Properties
- Check Out the file from the properties page and then go back and try to close the web part and that should work. You can even “Check Out” the file using the drop down menu -> Check Out. Now, if you do not wish to create a new version of the file, you can discard the check out after you have deleted the web part. But that would revert back the changes. You will need to check in the .aspx page file so that other users are able to see the page after the modifications are made.
Now, I am not too sure why the above settings do not work when we check out the file from SharePoint Designer or from the Edit Page view of the page. But this seems to do the trick and works great all the time.
