leedesmond’s blog

With over 35 technical sessions presented by top speakers*, the third SharePoint Connections conference is taking place at The Meervaart in Amsterdam (22 - 23 Nov 2011).  IT Pros, Developers and Business Management Professionals who use or want to learn more about SharePoint should not miss this exciting 2 day event from design, development, administration, on-premise rollout all the way to the public /private /hybrid cloud (computing). Use this special discount code HHG7KJU to register at a special price of Euro 359 (usual at Euro 499) while stock lasts!

Blog Special
Working in close collaboration and continuing support of the Swiss IT Pro User Group technical community, the event team and NC Communications Ltd have kindly sponsored a limited number of free conference passes to this major event. To stand a chance to qualify for a gratis pass** valued at €499, simply submit your details (first/last name, company name, job title and telephone number with your work e-mail address) to desmond [do+} lee {a+] swissitpro.ch. First-come-first-serve basis only so hurry today! All decisions are final and the winners will be notified by electronic mail.

( please contact me if you are keen to take this opportunity to participate as an event sponsor to showcase your SharePoint products and solutions )

* keynote by Steve Fox, Microsoft Director, Developer and Platform Evangelism for SharePoint; Dan Holme, MVPs and so many more
** all other forms of accomodation, travel and expenses, etc. excluded

Technorati tags: SharePoint, Events

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Hot off-the-press!

The RTM of Office 2010, SharePoint 2010, Visio 2010 and Project 2010 have been announced! Join in the virtual event launch on 12 May 2010 at 1100 hrs (US Eastern). More information at www.the2010event.com. Retail availability of Office 2010 is expected in June 2010 with pre-order possible at store.microsoft.com/OfficePreorder today.

In the meantime, check out the “Office 2010: Product Guides” (download). This provides a good overview of what’s new with a deep look into Office Web Apps and Office Mobile 2010. On a related note, the final release of Silverlight 4.0 is now shipping; check it out here for more.

Other items of interest:
- Microsoft Office Protocol Documentation
- Microsoft Office File Formats Documentation
- Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies Protocol Documentation
- Microsoft Online Services Sign In (Windows)
- Office 2010 Reaches RTM! (Office 2010 product development group)

Technorati tags: Office 2010, SharePoint 2010

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Available now as a free download*, you can run Microsoft SharePoint Designer 2007 on Windows Server 2003 or XP SP1 and above to build workflow-enabled applications and reporting tools on the SharePoint platform in an IT-managed environment.

Watch this video to learn more about SharePoint Designer 2007 (April 2009 announcement). If you are looking to add free search, indexing and filtering capability on SharePoint, check out this site and this post on iFilter Pack for Indexing for SharePoint Server 2007 Search and SQLFTS.

Technorati tags: SharePoint

* registration required.

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IIS Powershell Snap-in (x86 and x64)
Simplify Web site administration by scripting administrative tasks across single or multiple Web sites and servers. With Windows PowerShell Provider for IIS 7.0, you can query run-time data, access to low-level and task-based cmdlets specific to IIS, execute advanced configuration tasks and integrate existing scripts or other Windows PowerShell providers or solutions. Runs on Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista SP1 with Powershell 1.0 or 2.0.

Administration Pack for IIS 7.0 (x86 or x64)
Comprising of the Configuration Editor and UI Extensions modules, the Admin Pak enables management of configuration files and features through the IIS7 Manager. Requirements: Internet Information Services 7.0 and the IIS Management Console must be installed beforehand on Windows Server 2008.

Microsoft WebDAV 7.5 for IIS 7.0 (x86 and x64)
Completely rewritten for Windows Server 2008, this new WebDAV extension module enables improved content publishing, and increased security and deployment options for web authors and administrators with seamless integration into the IIS 7 administrative interface.

Microsoft FTP Service 7.5 for IIS 7.0 (x86 or x64)
Like the WebDAV extension module, this new FTP service provides improved content publishing, and increased security and deployment options for web authors and administrators that seamlessly integrates into the IIS7 administrative interface. Additionally, support for new Internet standards like FTP over SSL, UTF8, IPv6 and adaptive networking bandwidth usgage is just one of the many new highlights.

Technorati tags: Windows Server 2008 R2, PowerShell , IIS7

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A short video showing the essential steps for a basic setup and configuration of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SP1 on Windows Server 2008 RTM.

Eine kurze Videoaufnahme, die über die Installation und Konfiguration Anleitung von Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SP1 auf Windows Server 2008 RTM zu zeigen.

[ click for Flash version ]

Created with TechSmith’s Camtasia Studio 5.

Technorati tags: Windows Server 2008, Windows SharePoint Services, WSS

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Windows SharePoint Services comes as a separate, free download for installation on Windows Server 2008 RTM. Simply running the original release of WSS 3.0 executable (download) will not work:

[Window Title]
Program Compatibility Assistant

[Main Instruction]
This program is blocked due to compatibility issues

[Expanded Information]
You must install Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 with the most recent service pack. Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 without service packs has a known compatibility issue with this version of Windows.

[^] Hide details [Check for solutions online] [Cancel]

Without WSS 3.0 already installed, executing the standalone SP1 for WSS 3.0 (download) will fail as well:

—————————
Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Service Pack 1 (SP1)
—————————
There are no products affected by this package installed on this system.
—————————
OK
—————————

The only supported scenario is to download WSS 3.0 with SP1 already integrated. To successfully run the setup on Windows Server 2008 RTM, ensure that .NET Framework 3.0 is installed beforehand to avoid the error here:

—————————
Setup Errors
—————————
Setup is unable to proceed due to the following error(s):
This product requires at least Windows Workflow Foundation version 3.0.4203.2, which is part of the .NET Framework 3.0.
Correct the issue(s) listed above and re-run setup.

—————————
OK ?
—————————

Using the command line version of Server Manager, the syntax to install the .NET Framework and all sub features looks like this:

servermanagercmd -install NET-Framework -allSubFeatures

Technorati tags: Windows Server 2008, Windows SharePoint Services, WSS

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Upgrade Your Business Applications to Windows Server 2008 was the theme of this evening’s Swiss IT Pro User Group monthly event. This was a local IT Pro community effort organized as part of the global “Heroes happen {here}” wave to celebrate the launch of Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008.

The team was even delighted to welcome delegates that are developers in their day-time job attending this (IT Pro) event. Many thanks go out to our kind sponsors Microsoft and Digicomp and you for supporting the event run by long-time volunteers for the community (please contact us if you are interested to contribute).

Sessions that discussed the general guidelines, strategies and best practices to migrate and upgrade IIS, SharePoint and Exchange to Windows Server 2008 were presented at 200 level. Unfortunately, the standard Microsoft launch event materials (slide desk and demos) used are still based on pre-release versions. As can be expected, the final RTM versions typically differ from the beta or even release candidates. It is inevitable that some contents may have already changed and are no longer valid. Unless completely rebuilt with the final versions, delivering a smooth, seamless flow under such changing situations and time constraints is always a big challenge. Your understanding is greatly appreciated when things do not always work out or come together nicely as planned.

By the way, for those who asked about the cool Windows Server 2008 wallpaper I use, this and other great WS08 technical resources can be found here.

{ Lessons learnt from the speakers’ desk: virtual machines created on Virtual PC or Virtual Server 2005 do not necessary work well (yet) on Hyper-V. Juggling between the laptop monitor and projector screen positioned at right angles to each other (in dual monitor mode) to run presentation and demos needs lots of practice, patience and good eye-hand coordination (not to mention having to deal with disappearing host/guest mouse pointer). }

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Upgrade Your Business Applications to Windows Server 2008 is the hot theme of our popular monthly event this Tue 3 June 2008. Dejan (Exchange MVP / exchangemaster.net) and myself will be bringing you 2 focus sessions on upgrading your IIS, SharePoint and Exchange 2007 to the exciting new OS release.

This free Swiss IT Pro User Group monthly event by IT Pros for IT Pros takes place next Tue 3 June 2008 at Digicomp Zurich. Registration and more information here.

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It is possible to deploy PowerShell in the management of Internet Information Server 7.0 through the new IIS WMI Provider. I have written a number of examples using this mechanism before (do a search on IIS on this blog). This is not as intuitive as having a native PS (namespace) Provider or set of cmdlets that expose the underlying richness and functionality in IIS … until now.

iis.net has announced the PowerShell Tech Preview 1 for IIS 7.0 for x86 and x64. The IIS PowerShell Management Console will allow you to use new and familiar commands, aliases as well as cmdlets to administer your web farm - dir, cd, md, New-Item, Set-WebconfigurationProperty, to name a few.

Go download, test and give your feedback to help make IIS 7.0 PowerShell Provider better!

Technorati tags: IIS, Windows Server 2008, PowerShell

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Microsoft WebDAV Extension for IIS 7.0 (for Windows Server 2008) has gone RTM. Get the right versions for your OS (x86 and x64) and start enjoying features such as tight IIS7 integration, per IIS-site configuration and per URL security.

To learn more about WebDAV on IIS 7.0 and IIS in general, bookmark this link here and here.

Technorati tags: IIS, Windows Server 2008

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