Patrick, you'll be greatly missed...

Yesterday I got word that the legendary SharePoint developer, presenter, author, instructor, and friend Patrick Tissghem suddenly and unexpectedly passed away. I had just talked to him over IM just a day earlier. If the name isn't familiar to you, well you have surely used some of this work. From the blog posts, the books, the screencasts... you name it, he's been instrumental in the SharePoint world for years.
But it isn't just SharePoint. Patrick was a great person... someone who was a ton of fun and a real joy to be around. I consider myself quite fortunate in working with him over email and virtually over the last few years and fortune to get to finally meet him last year at TechEd.

My thoughts are with Patrick's family and extended family at U2U. You will be greatly missed.

Integrating ASP.NET AJAX with SharePoint

How does Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX integrate with SharePoint? Here are some notes I've collected on this.

Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX 1.0: A Background

Microsoft ASP. NET AJAX 1.0 lets developers build Web 2.0 sites using the latest Ajax techniques.
ASP.NET AJAX extends ASP.NET 2.0 and makes several new tools and techniques available to help you build applications more quickly:

• Extensions to JavaScript. ASP.NET AJAX extends the JavaScript library to bring standard object oriented concepts to JavaScript. It brings a formal type declaration system, with support for inheritance. It also provides a significant number of out of the box types, including types such as Sys.Net.WebRequest for working with web services. Finally, it helps to abstract some cross-browser issues such as XML element traversal. This makes it much easier to create robust JavaScript libraries and frameworks which are commonly needed by rich internet applications.
• ASP.NET Control Extenders. Extenders are additional ASP.NET controls which can extend the functionality of existing controls with additional Ajax capabilities. A common example is an extender which allows existing textbox controls to have autocomplete functionality with no modification to the extended control. (The autocomplete extender is included with the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit.)
• UpdatePanels. UpdatePanels allow your existing ASP.NET controls and web parts to achieve the fluid, no-postback updates of Ajax-based applications with minimal re-coding of your control or part. Quite simply, controls within the UpdatePanel control which ordinarily would post back to update their data will now be routed through an Ajax-style callback, resulting in a silent update back to the server. This makes your application “postback” much less, making interaction with your control more seamless.

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Fix for Forefront Update Timeout Errors

I use Microsoft Forefront Security for SharePoint Server on my SharePoint Server 2007 .Recently I noticed the following error in the Application Event log:

Event Type: ErrorEvent

Source: GetEngineFiles

Event Category: Engine

ErrorEvent ID: 6014

Date: 2/9/2008Time: 10:08:43 AM

User: N/A

Computer: GATEWAY

Description:Microsoft Forefront Server Security encountered an error while performing a scan engine update.Scan Engine: Kaspersky5Update Path: http://forefrontdl.microsoft.com/server/scanengineupdate/x86/Kaspersky5Proxy Settings: DisabledError Code: 0xC0001F58Description: The operation timed out.

Followed immediately by:

Event Type: Information

Event Source: GetEngineFiles

Event Category: General

Event ID: 2017

Date: 2/9/2008

Time: 10:08:43 AM

User: N/A

Computer: GATEWAY

Description:Forefront Server Security has rolled back a scan engine.Scan Engine: Kaspersky5This was happening every 5 minutes after Event ID 2034, which reports that Microsoft Forefront Server Security is attempting a scan engine update of the Kaspersky5 scan engine.

To solve this error make the following change to the registry on the server running Forefront:

> Open Regedit
> Navigate to the following key:
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Forefront Server Security\Exchange Server
>Click New DWORD Value
>Type EngineDownloadTimeout, and then press ENTER
>Right-click the new value and select Modify
>Select Decimal as the base, enter 600 in the Value data box, and then click OK. This setting causes the scan engine download process to time out after 600 seconds (10 minutes, instead of 5 minutes)
> Exit Regedit

Note: You do not have to restart Forefront Server services or Exchange Server services after you change this registry entry.
Now perform a manual scanner update in Forefront:
Open Forefront Server Security Administrator
Click Scanner Updates under Settings
Select the appropriate scan engine that was previously timing out. In my case, Kaspersky Antivirus Technology
Click the Update Now button on the right side of the screen
Check the Application event log to ensure that the scan engine has updated properly (Event ID 2012).