SharePointers

In working through my last post  I managed to leave a remnant in Central Admin of a removed Host Named Site Collection that was stored in the default HNSC Content database.   After many attempts to repair in a more acceptable way, (DB Repairs, removing/adding content db, etc) I finally realized that the issue wasn't in my HNSC content db, but rather a leftover reference in the SharePoint_Config DB .  Taking a page from the book-of-things-you-should-never-do-in-SharePoint, I found the reference in the SiteMap table and had to manually delete that row.   I backed up the database first in anticipation of impending doom , but it seems to have done the trick. I'm going to poke around the internet a little more, hoping there's a better way to clean this up or even some timer job or other process that takes care of this in the future, but if you know of the better way, please post it.

Well, it's been a while, but I'm finally getting around to really digging deep into SP2013.  As I go through this I figured I'd start putting together a few helper PowerShell Scripts: Once you've got a SP2013 developer machine created you may want to stand up additional Host Named Site Collections (If you haven't created one yet, use the Critical Path Training guide at http://www.criticalpathtraining.com in the Members section).  I've also included the ability to stand up a new ContentDB for your site collection. Here's a relatively simple Powershell script to help you with this: $snapin = Get-PSSnapin | Where-Object { $_.Name -eq "Microsoft.SharePoint.Powershell" } if($snapin -eq $null) {     Write-Host "...loading Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell snapin" -ForegroundColor Gray     Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell } function CreateHNSC($name, $url, $template, $contentdatabasename) {     $defaultWebApp = Get-SP...

This is a command that will quickly let you know which w3wp.exe you should be debugging on Server 2008 (IIS7, since the App Pool isn't listed in Visual Studio's 'attach to process' dialog). go to \Windows\System32\inetsrv and run "appcmd list wp" and you'll get a list that associates App Pool and PID

I use virtual box as my SharePoint VM host because I want to be able to run 64bit Server 2008 R2 on my Windows 7 host machine.   When I first installed SharePoint 2010, the VDI (Virtual Disk for VirtualBox) I created was too small, so I had to expand it.   This is a bit of a challenge, but by doing some research I figured out how to do it. The process involves creating a new, larger disk and copying the original boot and main partitions to the newer disk.   This can be done with gparted .  and the steps to do so are well documented here However there are a few more steps you'll need to follow because you are using 64bit Server 2008 R2: After you've followed the above instructions, mount the newer larger drive as the Primary Master and mount the Server 2008 R2 ISO. Boot to the ISO (hitting any key when prompted) Choose your language then on the next screen select repair Select the partition and click ok Choose the command line option Switch to your c: drive ...

A client of mine recently had an issue where he wanted to insert a direct link to a FileMaker Pro document (e.g. fmp://...) in SharePoint. Both the rich text and source editors were stripping out the link, making life even more miserable for my FileMaker Pro-dependent client. It turns out that SharePoint controls the list of allowed protocols in a static .js file, and not in Central Administration, as one might be inclined to assume. Here's the solution: Open Core.js in Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\12\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\INC Look for the line with the text "Hyperlink.arrAllowedProtocols" Add the necessary protocol to the list of protocols below Return to a web browser and press Ctrl + F5 to force a reload of cached javascript files Insert the previously outlawed protocol link to test

Joel Oleson's blog has a great post on dealing with the slowness on first page request we've all dealt with.

In order to turn on anonymous access (I had to do it so my XML Web Part could use a list's RSS Feed as an XML source) follow these steps. Enable Anonymous access on your Web Application in Central Admin. Go to 'Application Management' and choose the 'Authentication Providers' link. Choose your authentication provider in the appropriate zone and check 'Enable Anonymous Access'. Go to your site and turn on Anonymous Access by going to 'Site Settings' then 'Advanced Permissions' If there is no 'Settings' option in your advanced permissions list, then your site is inheriting permissions, you can either stop inheriting by clicking 'Actions'>'Edit Permissions' (after which the 'Settings' option will show, or you can choose to turn anonymous access on at the parent's level by choosing 'Manage Parent Permissions' Once you have the 'Settings' menu, choose Anonymous Access and turn it on at the S...

One of our Server Admins was asking about IIS settings to optimize WSS/MOSS performance. This blog posting is a pretty good starting place, as it gives pretty good descriptions for the settings that MOSS installation/configuration doesn't take care of for you.

Just a quick post to document a problem that I was having. I was refreshing my memory on Event receivers and was following this tutorial: http://www.wrox.com/WileyCDA/Section/id-306329.html The only difference between my code and the example was that I put in a comment (<!--like this-->) between the <Receivers> opening tag and the <Receiver> opening tag just to document something....well, SP doesn't like this at all and I got this error: Cannot insert the value NULL into column 'Name', table 'WSS_Content_Portal.dbo.EventReceivers'; column does not allow nulls. INSERT fails. The statement has been terminated. So I took out the comment and reran the install and activate commands (from the command line) and everything worked fine...or so it said (I got the operation completed successfully), message. However when trying to test the sample (after activating), I created a new announcements list and got an error. I checked the logs and lo and behold, the...

During the configuration of the SharePoint site, per Scot Hillier's book you are instructed to set up the Shared Services Provider creating separate Web Applications for the Shared Services (on port 8080) and Personal sites (on port 8081). Once I did this I continued on until I got to the Shared Services section of the book (chapter 4) and began playing with the My Site feature. The first thing I noticed (after enabling Self Service Site creation) was that each My Site I tried to create (as various different users) would fail. I began digging through the Central Admin and went to the Shared Services administration. On the 'User Profile and My Sites' section, click the 'My Site Settings' link and ensure that in the 'Personal Site Services' section the 'Personal Site Provider' is your Web Application you indicated as your Personal Sites Application (if you followed the book's instructions in setting up Shared Services it should be the app on p...