How to give intelligence into feature XML file

One day I was creating my feature file into solution package, at that time I saw that I didn’t get intelligence of all elements and attribute into my file and I have found that by adding below schema file, we will be having intelligence in any XML file. Though it’s very small things, but I thought to share with you.

Schema file:

"C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\XML\wss.xsd"

Error while deploying solution “This solution contains no resources scoped for a Web application and cannot be deployed to a particular Web application”

I was getting error while deploying solution through STSADM command, error was “This solution contains no resources scoped for a Web application and cannot be deployed to a particular Web application”

I have figured out that it’s giving me problem because of URL parameter into deploysolution STSADM command, after removing it from command, my solution package was working fine.

Reference Link:

http://snahta.blogspot.com/2008/08/this-solution-contains-no-resources.html

Sizes and items limitation for SharePoint List objects

Below are recommended guidelines for creating total # of site collection, webs, document library and many more …

 1. Recommended limitation for SharePoint site objects  

 http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc287790.aspx

 2. Limitation guidelines for SharePoint 2003 and SharePoint 2007

 http://www.sperto.com.ar/fs_files/user_img/articulos/SharePoint%20Limits.pdf

 Apart from this article discussion, here is very good link which will describes logical architecture of site collection. 

http://www.sharepointblogs.com/llowevad/archive/2007/06/25/site-collection-logical-architecture.aspx

Block specific file types while uploading from SharePoint interface

One easy way:

We can block specific type of files from entering file extension into “Blocked File Types” from the SharePoint Central Admin Site -> Operations-> Security Configuration.

We can select specific web application for blocking or not allowed file types/extension list.
 
Other way:

We can also do programming and modify current Upload.aspx page, we can write simple JavaScript by checking file extension and content type when user is uploading any file and then we can give alert to user if its not valid file type or extension type for uploading into SharePoint.

How to add new managed property and customize advanced search page

We can customize search and advanced search page, by adding properties to it, generally all columns which we created into site comes in crawl properties when we do FULL CRAWL of the SSP. So then after we have to create new managed properties from going to SSP->Search Settings, we have to mapped crawl properties to manage properties and we can use those all managed properties into customization of advanced search page by adding “Properties”  into it.

You can find all these stuff from below links

http://jopx.blogspot.com/2006/08/add-document-properties-to-advanced.html

http://www.mosssearch.com/searchcolumn.html

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/sharepoint/MOSS_Advanced_Search.aspx

How to add property into advance result page

MOSS Faceted Search

From last some time, I am working in Search Functionality in SharePoint, we have installed “Search 2.5” into our server, and it gives us more ready to use web part functionality like search facets, caching, stemming and many more.

You can download faceted search 2.5 from codeplex by below link.

http://www.codeplex.com/FacetedSearch

We have also installed SharePoint Infrastructure Upgrade patch, it includes Federated Search like we can easily view and capture our search data from SharePoint SSP Screen.

http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2008/07/15/announcing-availability-of-infrastructure-updates.aspx

http://blogs.msdn.com/enterprisesearch/archive/2008/07/15/announcing-availability-of-infrastructure-updates.aspx

Till now, I did all things from SharePoint GUI only, not SharePoint Search object model, it has also many search library through which we can code our own specific search functionality, through SharePoint GUI, we can also customize functionality by changing respective web part configuration XML file.

I will give you updates regarding same on regular basis.

Conflict into SharePoint version

One time, I had problem while installation of MOSS 2007, my installation was corrupted due to some problem, so I was not able to repaired, every time I was getting error when I run “SharePoint Products and Configuration Wizard” from the interface.

I find the below solution, If we run below psconfig command from command prompt then will able to install SharePoint successfully without any version confliction.

C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\12\BIN>
psconfig -cmd upgrade -inplace b2b -wait -force

SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard version 12.0.6217.1000
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation 2005. All rights reserved.

Performing configuration task 1 of 4
Initializing SharePoint Products and Technologies upgrade...

Successfully initialized SharePoint Products and Technologies upgrade.

Performing configuration task 2 of 4
Initiating the upgrade sequence...

Successfully initiated the upgrade sequence.

Performing configuration task 3 of 4
Upgrading SharePoint Products and Technologies...

Successfully upgraded SharePoint Products and Technologies.

Performing configuration task 4 of 4
Finalizing the SharePoint Products and Technologies configuration...

Successfully completed the SharePoint Products and Technologies configuration.

Total number of configuration settings run: 4
Total number of successful configuration settings: 4
Total number of unsuccessful configuration settings: 0
Successfully stopped the configuration of SharePoint Products and Technologies.
Configuration of the SharePoint Products and Technologies has succeeded.

Unable to connect to database. Check database connection information and make sure the database server is running

In the morning, we were getting below production issue in all SharePoint Sites.

Problem: Users getting errors saying that "Unable to connect to database.  Check database connection information and make sure the database server is running"

The SharePoint Farm appeared to have a login issue with the Database Server. The following error was noticed on the Database Server Event Type: Error
Event Source: NETLOGON
Event Category: None
Event ID: 5719
Date: 10/27/2008
Time: 9:36:22 AM
User: N/A
Computer: SQL DB Server Name
Description:
This computer was not able to set up a secure session with a domain controller in domain AD due to the following:
There are currently no logon servers available to service the logon request.
This may lead to authentication problems. Make sure that this computer is connected to the network. If the problem persists, please contact your domain administrator.
ADDITIONAL INFO
If this computer is a domain controller for the specified domain, it sets up the secure session to the primary domain controller emulator in the specified domain. Otherwise, this computer sets up the secure session to any domain controller in the specified domain.

Resolution: one of my colleague just logged into our Database server with SharePoint service account to verify the account was not locked out.  He was able to log in without error.  Almost immediately after logging in, the Database Connectivity issues started to clear up and we were able to open all SharePoint site and central admin site without any the errors.

We didn’t figure out the exact root cause for the issue, because we already looked into SharePoint Log, event log  and database log, but at the last, we found that in some particular time of period there were problem with SharePoint AD service account, and by just logging into server, it gets resolve.

I’ll update you, if we find the root cause for the problem.

SharePoint Manager 2007 – Administration Tool

SharePoint Manager 2007 - Administration tool which will give one window interface to see all our farms web application lists and object model data.

http://www.codeplex.com/spm

It’s not like Avepoint tool, because Avepoint is used for taking backup, restore and scheduling all things, SPM 2007 don’t have this type of facility, but it’s give inner details of all farm web application, list, site collection and features also.

We can also change any value and that will reflect into Central Admin or web application level from SPM 2007.

There is one loop hole or bug into SharePoint Manager 2007 tool, it will display plain text password.
We can see password by opening tool and going to

ENT Farm Configuration -> Administration Service -> Web Application -> Click on web application name -> SharePoint Central Administration v3

Check properties into right side of window, it will show username and plain password field.

Meta data information from SharePoint document

We can see meta data and content type information into document quickly by doing Right click on document “Properties” into file system, there will be tab called “Custom”, from this tab, we can see all meta data like same way we used to do “View Properties” from selecting document into SharePoint site.

Access denied error while installing feature

I was getting “Access denied” in command prompt when I tried to execute below command

Stsadm –o installfeature –name “featurename” –force

Solution:

1. Log in user was not added into Central Admin Database security group into SQL Server.

2. Log in user has to be in farm administrator/site collection users group in SharePoint site.

By adding my current Log in users into above two parts, I was able to successfully install feature.

Audiences creation and compilation

With the help of audiences, we can target content to users based on their job or task, as defined by their membership security group, distribution list, and organizational reporting structure.

We can create Audiences from SSP - > Audiences -> create Audiences link.

Purpose of audience compilation:  when any new user is added into active directory at the same time, it will not add into audience group, so for reflecting and making synchronization with active directory, compilation is necessary.

Manual compilation of Audiences
1. go to SSP - > Audiences -> view Audiences link and select each audience name and click on compile

Scheduling compilation of Audiences
1. On the Shared Services Administration home page, in the Audiences section, click Audiences.

2. On the Manage Audiences page, click Specify compilation schedule.

3. On the Specify Compilation Schedule page, select Enable scheduling.

4. Select a start time in the Start at menu, as follows:
•To compile audiences at the same time each day, select Every day.
•To compile audiences at the same time once per week, select Every week on, and then select a day of the week
•To compile audiences once a month, select Every month on this date, and then select a day of the month.

Restoring SharePoint Site.

I was getting below error while executing follow steps.

1. Executed command for restoring SharePoint site.

stsadm -o deletesite -url %SITE% -deleteadaccounts false
stsadm -o restore -url %SITE% -filename %BACKUPFILE LOCATION%

Error: The site collection could not be restored. If this problem persists, please make sure the content databases are available and have sufficient free space.

Solution: I delete any unnecessary sites and also truncate logs for SQL database, so after that there was enough free space.

After this, I was able to restore SharePoint site successfully.

2. I had created new farm envirorment and trying to restore sharepoint site.

Error : Your backup is from a different version of Windows SharePoint Services and cannot be restored to a server running the current version. The backup file should be restored to a server with version '12.0.0.6318' or later.

Solution : I need to install/run infrastructure updates into my new created farm server, The Infrastructure Update contains the new Enterprise Search features that were shipped in Search Server 2008 and Search Server 2008 Express that were are not already in SharePoint Server 2007; this includes Federated Search capability, a unified administration dashboard and several Search core platform performance updates.

you can download updates from below location.

• Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Servers (KB951297) - x86


• Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Servers (KB951297) - x64


• Infrastructure Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (KB951695) - x86


• Infrastructure Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (KB951695) - x64


• Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Project 2007 (KB951547) - x86

After doing installation, I was able to restore sharepoint site.