Future for Microsoft SharePoint?

Microsoft is facing important pressures from market and technology forces, which will force it to make fundamental changes to SharePoint's architecture and future development plans. Gartner analysts said SharePoint Online will evolve relatively quickly by integrating with Yammer, Exchange Online and Lync Online, to the extent that the lines between the various elements of the overall Office 365 suite will seem to disappear, although it remains possible to buy them separately. On premises SharePoint Server will follow a different path with slower updates.

Jeffrey Mann, research vice president at Gartner, examined the future of SharePoint today during his Maverick presentation at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo in Orlando titled, “Should Microsoft Kill SharePoint?”

Gartner’s Maverick research is designed to spark new, unconventional insights. Maverick research is unconstrained by Gartner’s typical broad consensus-formation process to deliver breakthrough, innovative and disruptive ideas from the company’s research incubator to help organizations get ahead of the mainstream and take advantage of trends and insights that could impact IT strategy and the wider organization.

We asked Mr. Mann to share his views on the outlook for SharePoint.

Q: Where is SharePoint now?

Jeffrey: SharePoint has proven to be a highly successful product, bringing billions of dollars of annual revenue to Microsoft. It is used, in some form, at a majority of Gartner's clients. SharePoint does not excel in any particular area when compared with best-of-breed, single-purpose products. Instead, it provides "good enough" features across a variety of integrated capabilities. A large part of its success comes from providing reasonable support for most of the things, most people, need most of the time. Together with support from the third-party developer ecosystem, this brand promise has made SharePoint widely deployed. However, few end users really love using it. It remains a tool that people are required to use, not one they want to use.

Q: What dilemmas is Microsoft facing regarding SharePoint?

Jeffrey: Microsoft faces two important dilemmas regarding SharePoint, which are also important for SharePoint users:

• SharePoint needs to go to the cloud, but some customers can't or won't —Microsoft needs to move SharePoint to the cloud for its own interests, as well as the interests of its customers. However, many organizations using SharePoint cannot go to the cloud because they have regulatory restrictions or complex, customized implementations that prevent adopting SharePoint Online. Some third-party add-ons they depend on are not available for the cloud version. Others do not trust the cloud or see no reason to change, so they won't make the move.
• Users want improvements, but IT doesn't want to upgrade — We regularly hear end users and administrators complain about features or user-experience improvements that they would like to see in SharePoint. Although they want new functionality, they are less keen to have more upgrades, which are seen as expensive, disruptive and time-consuming. It is difficult to see how users can expect to get changes without implementing new versions. If upgrades were easier, they might be less reticent to install new versions. This is a move Microsoft is trying to address with the app model introduced in SharePoint 2013.

Q: How should users handle the overlapping functionality between Yammer and SharePoint?

Jeffrey: Microsoft has recommended that users adopt the Yammer activity stream rather than the SharePoint newsfeed, and provided tools to do so. Customers who don't want to or cannot use Yammer (because it is cloud-based, for example) can continue to use the SharePoint newsfeed, although new developments will concentrate on the Yammer activity stream. Capabilities such as "following" documents are provided by SharePoint 2013's native interface, but do not support Yammer's activity stream.

Aside from this recommendation about the Yammer activity stream versus the SharePoint newsfeed, there is little guidance on how to handle the overlaps. Organizations must decide whether to use Yammer or SharePoint for groups, discussions, Q&A, blogs, wikis and file storage. Without guidance, users are unsure which way to go to avoid future difficulties.

Q: Will Microsoft Kill SharePoint?

Jeffrey: In a word, "No." Gartner expects that the SharePoint product franchise will continue for quite some time, with new releases for both the on-premises and the cloud product. In one way, nothing has changed: SharePoint Server continues to be supported and developed, with new versions expected at pretty much the same schedule as with earlier versions.

However, this argument ignores the monumental efforts Microsoft is devoting to SharePoint Online and Yammer. It is disingenuous to expect that these cloud efforts will not affect the on-premises products, which would simply go on as before. Given how Microsoft is shifting focus to the cloud, and with differences emerging between SharePoint Online and SharePoint Server, it will become increasingly difficult to consider them the same product, especially as Microsoft integrates SharePoint Online ever more closely with Yammer, Lync Online and Exchange Online.

Q: What should organizations with complex, on-premises SharePoint installations do?

Jeffrey: The implications I’ve mentioned will unfold slowly over several years — there is no need to take panicky, immediate action. SharePoint Server 2013 will be a viable platform for doing what it does now, at least until 2018 (when mainstream support ends). However, it is not too early to start planning for a post-SharePoint world.

While Microsoft will not walk away from this product line, there are strong arguments that the changes coming will split the on-premises and online versions of SharePoint sufficiently, and that Microsoft should acknowledge that they cannot remain as one product, and help customers plan accordingly.

Reference to http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2605118 

SharePoint Application Template Error

Action: when user trying to create new site using sharepoint Application template

Error:
Feature '75a0fea7-c54f-46b9-86b1-2e103a8fedba' is not installed in thisfarm, and can not be added to this scope.

Solution:
Did you install the Application Template Core prior to installing the ProjectTracking Workspace?

If not, you would have to do that first, and then re-install the ProjectTracking Workspace.

step1: First install ApplicationTemplateCore

• stsadm -o addsolution -filename "C:\ApplicationTemplateCore.wsp"
• stsadm -o deploysolution -name "ApplicationTemplateCore.wsp" -allowgacdeployment -immediate -force
• stsadm -o copyappbincontent

step2:Install your selected Application template

• stsadm -o addsolution -filename "C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\WSP\ProjectTrackingWorkspace.wsp"
• stsadm -o deploysolution -name "ProjectTrackingWorkspace.wsp" -allowgacdeployment -immediate -force
• stsadm -o copyappbincontent

February 2010 cumulative update for WSS V3 and MOSS 2007

Windows SharePoint Services V3 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 are now be able to get updated to the latest available bits with February CU.

WSS:
978396 The full server package for WSS http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;978396

MOSS:
978395 The full server package for MOSS http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;978395

Download and installation information:
Install SP2 for WSS and MOSS SP2 and Language Packs if not yet happened. With the next CU in April 2010 SP2 will be a real mandatory step!
Install the full server package for WSS http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=978396&kbln=en-us
Install the full server package for MOSS http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=978395&kbln=en-us
After applying the preceding updates, run the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard or “psconfig –cmd upgrade –inplace b2b -wait” in command line. This needs to be done on every server in the farm with SharePoint installed.

reference from Click

Download the SharePoint 2010 VHD

The SharePoint team just released a fully installed SharePoint 2010 VHD file. This will same you a ton of time when you are setting up your development environment.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=0c51819b-3d40-435c-a103-a5481fe0a0d2&displaylang=en

The download contains 2 VHDs, 1 for SharePoint 2010 (and Office 2010) and 1 for Exchange 2010. Running both virtual machines will allow you to test out workflow and email scenarios with SharePoint and Office.

This is the same VHD that is used to complete the Hands On Labs in our SharePoint 2010 online training course.

http://blogs.msdn.com/pstubbs/archive/2009/12/15/updated-sharepoint-2010-training-kit-with-offline-and-hands-on-labs.aspx

SharePoint - IE Crashes when opening Office documents

You cannot create a new document, Open document, or check out an existing document in a Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 document library when you have multiple versions of Office installed

The problem happens when you have, or had, two versions of office installed. You have to go into your program files directory and delete the version of owssupp.dll you're not using (for example if you upgraded to office 2007 and then downgraded back to office 2003 you delete owssupp.dll in the office12 directory). IE 7's manage addons you can see two versions of the owssupp dll registered so IE gets confused and you have to forcefully remove the version you're not using anymore.

To resolve this problem, install hotfix 938888. For more information about hotfix 938888, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
938888 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938888/ )

Download Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Beta -Now Available!!!

Download : http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/ee388573.aspx

SharePoint Document Library: Require Check Out

Today's best practices recommendation, why you should require check out in your document libraries, and how to go about doing so.

The reason that it's recommended that you require check out on the documents in your library is that, unless you do so, multiple users will be able to check out and edit a single document at the same time*, and without any indication that another user is already editing the same document. What do you think happens if two people are making changes to the same document at the same time? If you said, "whoever saves first wins," give yourself a gold star.

Such headaches can be avoided by requiring that users check out a document from a library before making changes. Don't worry, if someone has checked out a given document and is in the process of making changes, a read-only version can still be accessed by other users.

Is it a complicated or laborious process to set up a document library to require check out? Not at all. In fact, setting up a document library to require check out is as simple as selecting a single radio button in the library settings:


To navigate to the above setting, from within the library itself,

• first select Document Library Settings from the Settings dropdown,
• then select the Versioning Settings hyperlink under the General Settings header.
• From there, you'll be presented with the setting options page for the library, and you'll notice that the last option is Require Check Out. Once you're here, all you need to do is switch the defaulted Require Check Out radio button selection from No to Yes (as pictured above),
• click OK at the bottom of the page, and you're all set.

How to hide Meeting Workspace Option in SharePoint Calendar

Use content Editor Webpart and copy following code into source editor, and add this web part to your Calendar's New Item Page [NewForm.aspx]

< type="text/javascript">
var TDs = document.getElementsByTagName("TD");
var i=0;
var tagContent = "";
while (i <>
{
try{tagContent = TDs[i].innerText TDs[i].textContent;
if (tagContent.indexOf("Workspace") == 0 tagContent.indexOf("Workspace") == 3)
{
TDs[i+1].parentNode.removeChild(TDs[i+1]);
TDs[i].parentNode.removeChild(TDs[i]);
}
}
catch(err){}i=i+1;
}
< /script >

SharePoint Server 2010 Preliminary System Requirements

We’ve heard loud and clear that you want system requirements information as early as possible to assist in your budgeting and planning, so today we’re happy to announce (and confirm) some preliminary system requirements for SharePoint Server 2010:

1. SharePoint Server 2010 will be 64-bit only.
2. SharePoint Server 2010 will require 64-bit Windows Server 2008 or 64-bit Windows Server 2008 R2.
3. SharePoint Server 2010 will require 64-bit SQL Server 2008 or 64-bit SQL Server 2005.
   

In addition to the requirements listed above we also wanted to share with you some preliminary detail about SharePoint Server 2010 browser compatibility.

To ensure the best possible experience across multiple browsers we’re focusing our SharePoint 2010 engineering efforts on targeting standards based browsers (XHTML 1.0 compliant) including Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8 and Firefox 3.x. running on Windows Operating Systems. In addition we’re planning on an increased level of compatibility with Firefox 3.x and Safari 3.x on non-Windows Operating Systems. Due to this focus Internet Explorer 6 will not be a supported browser for SharePoint Server 2010.

So, what can you do today to get into the best shape for SharePoint Server 2010?

1. Start by ensuring new hardware is 64-bit. Deploying 64-bit is our current best practice recommendation for SharePoint 2007.
2. Deploy Service Pack 2 and take a good look at the SharePoint 2010 Upgrade Checker that’s shipped as part of the update. The Upgrade Checker will scan your SharePoint Server 2007 deployment for many issues that could affect a future upgrade to SharePoint 2010.
3. Get to know Windows Server 2008 with SharePoint 2007, this post is a great starting point.
4. Consider your desktop browser strategy if you have large population of Internet Explorer 6 users.
5. Continue to follow the Best Practices guidance for SharePoint Server 2007.
6. Keep an eye on this blog for updates and more details in the coming months.

Below are a few common Q&A’s (which we’ll add to as required)

Q: What about Internet Explorer 6 and SharePoint 2010 publishing sites?

A: The Web Content Management features built into SharePoint 2010 will provide a deep level of control over the markup and styling of the reader experience. These features will enable customers to design pages that are compatible with additional browsers for viewing content, including Internet Explorer 6. A standards based browser such as Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8 or Firefox 3.x will be required to author content.

Q: Is Internet Explorer 6 officially supported by Microsoft?

A: Official Microsoft Product Support for Internet Explorer 6 follows the lifecycle of the Operating System with which it was shipped. In order for customers to receive product support through the Mainstream Support and Extended Support phases, they need to have installed a supported Service Pack. For example, customers who are using Windows XP must transition to Service Pack 3 by July, 2010 and are eligible to receive support for Internet Explorer 6 until April, 2014.
You can find additional information on Microsoft’s Support Lifecycle Policy including specific dates, product information and support offerings here: http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifepolicy.

Q: Why are you only supporting the 64-bit versions of SQL Server 2005 or 2008 for SharePoint Server 2010?

A: This decision was based on our current test data for SharePoint Server 2010 and real world experience from customers running SharePoint Server 2007 with 32-bit SQL Server. SharePoint performance and scalability can benefit significantly from 64-bit SQL Server and the throughput increases are significant enough for us to make the difficult decision to only support SharePoint Server 2010 on 64-bit SQL Server 2005 or 2008. It has been our strong recommendation for some time that SharePoint Server 2007 customers take advantage of 64-bit SQL Server due to the inherent performance and scale benefits it can provide.

Q: Where can I find more information on the advantages of 64-bit hardware and guidance on how to migrate SharePoint from 32-bit to 64-bit.

A: These two TechNet articles are a good starting point;
Advantages of 64-bit hardware and software (Office SharePoint Server 2007)
Migrate an existing server farm to a 64-bit environment (Office SharePoint Server 2007)

Adding a new document type and file type icon

To add a document type and type icon, do the following:

1. In the Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\50\Templates\1033\xml directory, open DOCICON.XML.
2. In the middle of the file, find the ByExtension section.
3. For the sake of example, we will add a wav file type and an icon to represent what kind of file it is. Add a line like the following:
4. In the Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\50\Templates\1033\Images directory, add an appropriate icon and call it "icwav.gif".
5. Restart Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS).
6. Create a new subweb.
   All sites created from now on will display icwav.gif in document libraries for files that have the .wav extension.
   

Hiding the Web Controls When Printing - example Search Box

The Search box can be hidden, along with other parts of a form you don’t want printed by using styles. This can be done using Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer:

• Open the master page in SharePoint Designer
• Add the following style either to a CSS file included in the master page or as a style within the master page itself:

@media print{
.HideForPrinting
{
display:none;
}
}

• Locate the delegate control used to display the search box and add the code shown in italics:

<asp:ContentPlaceHolder id=”PlaceHolderSearchArea” runat=”server”>
<span class=”HideForPrinting”>
<SharePoint:DelegateControl runat=”server” ControlId=”SmallSearchInputBox”/>
</span>
</asp:ContentPlaceHolder>

This defines a span that uses the style HideForPriting, the content of which will be hidden when the page is printed.

Health Check Screening of the MOSS Farm

Web Front End Servers

• Check Installed Software through Add/Remove Software and make sure there is no unwanted software installed on the server.
• Check "My Computer" for number of drives, partitions, and used/available space. Add more space if it there is hard disk space problem. Make sure there are additional drives configured for the logs and index files.
• Go to "Task Manager" and check for CPUs, Resource Usage, Network Performance.
• Go to "System" in control panel and check for hardware profiles (RAM, Processor Speed, etc.), Automatic Updates (Make sure its disabled), and Networking Capabilities
• Check IIS Manager - Check for host headers and IP address bindings, SSL settings, App Pool Settings, and App Pool Service Accounts. Put the IIS Logs on the drive other than C.
• Check Event Log for any MOSS errors. Resolve all the critical errors.
  

Central Administration Site - Operations Tab

• Check Servers in farm page - Check for all the SharePoint servers with the same version and patch level
• Check the search service accounts on MOSS Search and WSS Search page, it should be dedicated account, shouldn't be farm admin account
• On the MOSS Search Service for Index role, check for Indexer Performance based on the Number of CPUs on the machine. At minimum, use Partially Reduced
• On the MOSS Search Service for Index role, check WFE Crawling setting - Use all WFE servers for crawling. Do not use Dedicated WFE.
• Make sure only one server is running Index Role in the farm for each SSP
• Make sure WSS Search Service runs only once a day and only one instance of WSS Search Service runs on the farm
• Make sure Outgoing Email Settings are set to the valid exchange/SMTP server
• Check the Timer Job Status page - Check for any failed jobs
• Diagnostic Logging and Usage Analysis Logging - Change the default location to the drive other than C (e.g. F:\logs) and make sure all servers in the farm has a defined drive (e.g. F in this case).
• Check Current License Type - Verify what license is and make sure farm is not running on trial version. This is very crucial to understand what MOSS services are running on the farm.
  

Central Administration Site - Applications Tab

• "Check the Services Enabled in the Farm" section to see any farm configuration errors
• Make sure Web Application URLs and Content Databases has a meaningful name.
• Check the number of Content Databases per web application, site collection created per content databases, and verify round-robin allocations.
  

Content Databases on the SQL Server

• Check the DB size - Shouldn't be more than 100 GB.
• DB Files Properties - Check the Auto Growth Settings - it should be minimum 500 MB or 1 GB.
• Transaction Log Files Properties - Check the log file size. It shouldn't be large. Shouldn't be more than 4-5 GB. If it's too large, backup and shrink the logs, set the Auto Growth settings to reasonable settings.
  

Shared Service Provider: SSP

• SSP Edit Page - Index files location other than C drive, Check for the SSP service accounts, and shouldn't be farm admin accounts
• Search - Check Crawl Schedules and Crawl Log Errors. Make sure Crawl Schedules won't overlap.
• User Profiles - Verify the Profile Source and Check the Crawl Schedules

Now SharePoint Designer available as a free download

Wow !!! good news about SharePoint Designer 2007. Starting now (April 2, 2009), SharePoint Designer 2007 will be available as a free download! Microsoft want more of you customizing SharePoint and feel that this a good way to put the tool in the hands of more people.

a) Letter to our Customers
b) Frequently Asked Questions
c) Free Download

Also, make sure to watch this YouTube video where Tom Rizzo and J.R. Arredondo discuss these changes and provide some insights into what is coming in the future. Or if you prefer to download the video, just pick the appropriate version for your bandwidth in the list below:
· Small size video (6MB)
· Medium size video (17 MB)
· Large size video (83 MB)

Announcing Service Pack 2 (SP2) for the Microsoft Office System 2007

Microsoft Office Team’re pleased to announce that Service Pack 2 (SP2) for the 2007 Microsoft Office system is expected to be released in the near future. Although we aren’t yet announcing the exact release date, it will fall between February and April of 2009.

Historically, we have waited to communicate details about service packs until their release (or very shortly before). As we communicated with SP3 for Office 2003 and SP1 for the 2007 Office System, we will be taking steps to increase transparency and visibility into the Office servicing model at the request of our customers. To that end, we would like to start sharing some details into what will be included in SP2 for the 2007 Office system. This is by no means an exhaustive list of everything included in this service pack and we will share more details prior to the final release, but we want to start communicating to customers what they should be aware of at a high level.

To be fair, this is not the first time we have talked about SP2. Several months ago, we announced that we’ll be further demonstrating our increased commitment to interoperability by including support for Open Document Format (ODF), XML Paper Specification (XPS), and Portable Document Format (PDF) in SP2. In addition to those file format additions, some other highlights that you’ll find in SP2 include:

For Office Desktop Programs:
· Improved Outlook Calendaring Reliability
· Improved Outlook Performance
· Enabling Object Model support for Charts in PowerPoint and Word
· Improved cryptographic functionality by supporting all cryptographic algorithms offered by the operating system
· Improved functionality in Excel’s charting mechanism
· Ability to ungroup SmartArt graphics (and as a result, the ability to add animations to them in PowerPoint)
· Ability for Visio to export UML models to an XML file compliant with the XMI standard
· Tool that enables the uninstall of Office client Service Packs

For Servers:
· Performance and manageability improvements to variations in Enterprise Content Management (ECM) including STSADM commands for repairing links between source and target pages
· Improvements around processing status approvals from Office Project Web Access into Office Project Professional 2007
· Improvements to read-only content databases and index rebuild timer jobs in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

In the coming weeks, individual product teams across Office will begin updating their blogs and highlighting some of the specific work that they’ve included in SP2. You can find the links to some of the blogs at the end of the post.

In the next few days we will also invite a select set of Office enterprise customers to a private SP2 beta. From these customers we hope to gather great feedback about the service pack, including areas that we’ll need to improve upon before we release it to the general public. Based on the success of the SP2 beta program and customer needs, we will certainly evaluate whether to expand this in the future.

Sharepoint Conference 2009

Microsoft is delighted to announce the SharePoint Conference 2009 - the premier worldwide conference dedicated to SharePoint and related technologies. There’s an exciting mix in the plans for this year. This year’s conference will be looking towards the future with a broad array of deep content centered on the next version of SharePoint, codenamed SharePoint “14” and at the same time be firmly planted in the present, sharing real world experience and guidance to help you maximize your investment in SharePoint Server 2007. SharePoint Conference 2009 will be the conference to learn about SharePoint “14”. Be the first to learn about the improvements we’ve made to the platform and how many of those investments can be quickly implemented to add value to your organization and businesses. If you’re an IT Professional, an IT Decision Maker, an Architect or a Developer you’ll find a deep set of technical content to give you a kick start for SharePoint “14” and further your skills and knowledge with SharePoint Server 2007. In addition to the session content you'll have ample opportunities to network with technical and industry experts including many of the Microsoft staff that helped build SharePoint, Microsoft Most Valued Professionals and many of our top Certified Partners. Don’t miss out on the biggest SharePoint event of the year! REGISTER NOW to attend from the 19th to the 22nd of October 2009 at the Mandalay Bay Hotel & Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada. This event promises to be the biggest and the best SharePoint Conference yet! Early bird registration is open today for $899 (USD) for the first 500 registrations - a savings of $300 (USD) off the regular attendee cost.

Link: http://www.mssharepointconference.com/Pages/default.aspx

Using the new features in SQL Server 2008 with Office SharePoint Server 2007

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 includes several new and enhanced features that are important for deploying Office SharePoint Server 2007. New and enhanced SQL Server 2008 features are especially relevant for SharePoint deployments in four principal areas:

> Performance
> Availability
> Security
> Resource management

You can improve Office SharePoint Server performance by implementing the new database backup compression feature in SQL Server 2008. The ability to compress database backups is a significant improvement for Office SharePoint Server users; it enables you to significantly decrease the size of your database backups and shipped logs.

You can improve Office SharePoint Server availability by implementing the new log stream compression feature in SQL Server 2008. One of the performance-limiting factors of database mirroring is network throughput between the principal and mirror servers. SQL Server 2008 supports compression of the log stream, which consists of the inserts, updates, and deletes that are transferred between servers. Log stream compression can help maximize network throughput, especially in environments where network conditions are poor.

You can improve Office SharePoint Server security by using the new Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) feature in SQL Server 2008. TDE enables you to encrypt entire databases and requires no application awareness or modification. TDE encrypts data as it is written to disk and decrypts data as it is read from disk.

You can improve Office SharePoint Server resource management by using SQL Server 2008 Resource Governor. SQL Server Resource Governor enables you to maintain and administer your SQL Server resources, such as CPU and memory. You can use SQL Server Resource Governor to precisely control how your SQL Server resources are allocated. With SQL Server Resource Governor, you can apply thresholds to incoming connections based on assigned criteria.

For prescriptive guidance about implementing some of the new features in SQL Server 2008 that enhance the deployment of Office SharePoint Server 2007, see Integration of SQL Server 2008 and Office SharePoint Server 2007.

For information about SQL Server 2008 system requirements, see Hardware and Software Requirements for Installing SQL Server 2008.

SharePoint group audience targeting stops functioning

After you install the updates that are described in Microsoft Knowledge Base articles 952294 and 946517, Microsoft Office SharePoint 2007 audience targeting stops functioning for nested SharePoint groups for global navigation and for any SharePoint group audience targeting for Web parts. The navigation links and Web parts in these cases are not visible at all. Therefore, they are inaccessible to the user targeted.

Hot Fix :

Description of the SharePoint Server 2007 hotfix package (Coreserver.msp): October 28, 2008
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957693
http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=957693

WSS & SharePoint Update / Hot Fix

Announcing August Cumulative Update for Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
The Microsoft Office team has changed the way that it delivers hotfixes for reported problems. This change comes in the form of cumulative updates and critical on-demand hotfixes. The objective is to deliver high-quality fixes in an acceptable time and on a predictable schedule. Cumulative updates are scheduled for every two months, so customers can be better prepared to test and apply new updates. Those who need an emergency fix can request critical on-demand (COD) fix. For information, please refer to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953878.
The detail of August Cumulative Update (CU) for Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 can be found here:
Description of the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 hotfix package (Wssmui.msp): August 26, 2008
Description of the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 hotfix package: August 26, 2008
Description of the SharePoint Server 2007 hotfix package: August 26, 2008
Customers are not needed to install these updates unless they are affected by specific problems described in the KB articles. And these cumulative updates will be rolled in to Service Pack 2.
To keep all files in a SharePoint installation updated, we recommend customers to follow the path below:
1. Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Service Pack 1
2. The 2007 Microsoft Office Servers Service Pack 1
3. The Windows SharePoint Services Infrastructure Update x86 x64
4. The Microsoft Office Servers Infrastructure Update x86 x64
5. KB 953397: Excel Server Security Update x86 x64
6. KB 955586: Document Lifecycle Workflow Update
7. August Cumulative Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (Global)
8. August Cumulative Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (Local)
9. August Cumulative Update for Microsoft Office Servers
After applied all these updates, run SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard or “psconfig –cmd upgrade –inplace b2b” in command line. This need to be done on every server in the farm with SharePoint installed.
The version of databases should be 12.0.6327 after all these updates.
For a better guided update process, customers would also like to check out the following guides. These articles provide a correct way to deploy updates, as well as known issues and how to do slipstream builds.
Deploy software updates for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc288269.aspx
Deploy software updates for Office SharePoint Server 2007
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263467.aspx

Update: October Cumulative Update has been released on Oct 28th. Here're the download links and descriptions.

______________________________________________________________

Cumulative update packages for the 2007 Microsoft Office core suite applications and for 2007 Microsoft Office servers: October 28, 2008

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/958847

Description of the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 hotfix package: October 28, 2008

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957691

http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=957691

Description of the SharePoint Server 2007 hotfix package (Coreserver.msp): October 28, 2008

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957693

http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=957693

Announcing December Cumulative Update for Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

___________________________________________________

We are happy to announce that December Cumulative Update for Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 is available now. Despite the fixes and improvements, this new update package is also an effort to create a more convenient way for SharePoint administrators to keep all files in their SharePoint installations up-to-date. In this post, we will guide you on how and when to update, and the background of this new update model improvement.

December Cumulative Update Steps & Suggestions
Customers do not need to install these updates unless they are affected by the specific problems described in the KB articles. These cumulative updates will be rolled in to Service Pack 2.
To keep all the files in a SharePoint installation up-to-date, we recommend that customers install updates in the following sequence:

1. Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Service Pack 1
2. The 2007 Microsoft Office Servers Service Pack 1
3. December Cumulative Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
4. December Cumulative Update for Microsoft Office Servers

After applying the preceding updates, run the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard or “psconfig –cmd upgrade –inplace b2b -wait” in command line. This needs to be done on every server in the farm with SharePoint installed. The version of content databases should be 12.0.0.6335 after successfully applying these updates.

The detail of December Cumulative Update (CU) for Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 can be found here:
Description of the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 cumulative update package: December 16, 2008 (The link will be active soon)
Description of the SharePoint Server 2007 cumulative update package: December 16, 2008 (The link will be active soon)

Visual Studio 2010 Tools for SharePoint & .NET Framework 4.0

Visual Studio 2010 Tools for SharePoint Announced at TechEd EMEA Developers 2008

This week at TechEd EMEA in Barcelona, Jason Zander, the GM for Visual Studio, announced and demonstrated the Visual Studio 2010 tools for SharePoint. Here's a quick summary of what he showed:
•Server Explorer for SharePoint viewing Lists and other artifacts in SharePoint directly inside of Visual Studio
•Windows SharePoint Services Project (WSP file) Import to create a new solution
•Added a new web part project item and showed the Visual web part designer which loads a user control as a web part for SharePoint
•Showed adding an event receiver for SharePoint and using the wizard to choose the event receiver and to just create a source file with that event receiver.
•Added an ASPX workflow initiation form to a workflow project and showed how this workflow initiation form has designer capability
•Showed the packaging explorer and the packaging editor which lets you structure the SharePoint features and WSP file that is created

Web Url: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vs2008/products/cc948977.aspx

Visual Studio 2010: http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/2010/overview.mspx

.NET Framework 4.0 [Dublin] : http://www.microsoft.com/net/Dublin.aspx

Custom Site Theme for SharePoint 2007 (MOSS 2007) and WSS 3.0

The easiest and the fastest way to apply the same look and feel on any SharePoint site is creating a site theme. A SharePoint site theme basically consists of theme.inf, theme.css, and image files. Theme.inf file simply represents the title of the theme. Theme.css is a stylesheet file that defines colors, header images and layouts of a site and image files can be referenced here to display on the page. By creating a custom site theme, you can easily change the style but in fact, writing and editing the stylesheet can be somewhat chanllenging when you have more than a hundred of elements to deal with.

Here is a short procedure of creating a custom site theme named "India":
1. Copy any theme folder in "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\THEMES" folder and paste with its name replaced with "India". In this example, copy GRANITE folder.
2. In India folder, rename GRANITE.INF file to INDIA.INF in upper case.
3. Open INDIA.INF file with notepad.
4. Change the value of title under [Info] to India.
5. Replace every word, Granite, under [titles] with India.
6. Open "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\1033\SPTHEMES.XML" file with notepad.
7. Add the following lines under tag:
Templates>
TemplateID>India
DisplayName>India
Description>We love India .
Thumbnail>images/India.gif
Preview>images/India.gif
/Templates>

Notice that preview and thumbnail paths are images/India.gif. By default, MOSS 2007 and WSS 3.0 will not have such image files.

8. In order to display thumbnail and preview correctly, you will need to capture the screen and save the file in "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\IMAGES" folder with India.gif name. You can change the .gif file name if you change the thumbnail and preview file names in tag.

9. Do an iisrest for the server to recognize the new theme.

Pretty simple procedure. Now you are ready to test your new theme. In Site Settings, you can now choose India theme; however, the theme will not differ from Base theme. Now, it is time for you to play with theme.css file!