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.

For More...

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).

WSS 3.0 Tools: Visual Studio 2005 Extensions, Version 1.1 on Win2k3 64bit

I got this to work for me using Orca to edit the MSI using the following:

1. Download Visual Studio 2005 Extensions, Version 1.1 for Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition 64-bit
A. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=3E1DCCCD-1CCA-433A-BB4D-97B96BF7AB63&displaylang=en
2. Save the install file: C:\Temp\VSeWSSv11.exe

3. Extract the MSI using this command: C:\Temp\> VSeWSSv11.exe /Extract

4. Output MSI file: C:\Temp\VSeWSSv11.msi

5. Downloaded Windows® Server 2003 SP1 Platform SDK
A. Installed just Orca

6. Edit MSI using Orca
A. In the Tables column
1. Select: InstallExecuteSequence
2. In the right pane, drop these two rows.
a. X64System
b. WSSNotInstalled
3. Select: InstallUISequence
4. In the right pane, drop these two rows.
a. X64System
b. WSSNotInstalled
B. Save MSI

7. Run edited MSI and follow the prompts.

Hope this helps someone else, it sure did for me!

Where is the change log?

Shane today in class was looking for where the SharePoint change log is. I did a quick search and found a decent answer on MSDN with detail on Change Log Freshness...

"The Change Log is a physical table in each content database, and each transaction writes to the log." The Change Log recevied by hitting the lists web service http:///_vti_bin/Lists.asmx GetListItemChanges with GetListItemChangesSinceToken method of the Lists Web service to get changes starting from a specified point in time."

Found a great WSS 3.0 web service one page quick reference on Look Alive blog which I'm sure came from across the various MSDN pages.

Note: The change log is security trimmed. "The change log returns a list of SPChange objects for changes that happened, for example, to the following object types:

• Items, files, and folders
• List metadata
• Site metadata
• Security

How to change service accounts and service account passwords in SharePoint Server 2007 and in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

This article describes how to change the passwords for service accounts in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and in Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. Use the procedure in the "More Information" section to update the passwords if the passwords for service accounts expire.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/934838

Deleting A Web Part

It is important to realise the difference between Closing and Deleting a Web Part. By default the Reminder Web Parts will not let you Close them for reasons explained below. Therefore you must delete them form a page instead.

Deleting a Web Part

To Delete a web part you must first Select Modify Shared Page > Design This Page

You can then select Delete from the Web Parts Menu
Note - Reminder Web Parts will not have a Close menu item for reasons described below.

Closing a Web Part

By default SharePoint Reminder Web Parts will not allow you to close them, although you can change this. Closed web parts are often mistaken for Deleted Web Parts. If you Close rather than Delete a web part you will receive a warning in your servers event log.
You can then delete the web part by Adding it back onto the page and then deleting it or by using the Web Part Maintenance page.
Deleting a closed web part using the Web Part Maintenance page
You can open the Web Part Maintenance view of any web part page by appending ?contents=1 onto the end of the URL? E.g.
http://www.yourserver.com/yoursite/yourpage.aspx?contents=1

The following page will open

You can the web part that has been closed (Open on page = No) and delete it by selecting the checkbox and pressing Delete

Adding a closed web part back onto a page in order to Delete it
You can select the Close command from a Web Parts Menu.

The web part is not actually deleted from the page, it is removed from the Visible area of the page and placed in the Web Part Page Gallery.
To Delete this web part completely you would drag it back onto the page and perform the steps for Deleting A Web Part above.