SP 2010 - SharePoint Ninja

7/20/2010

Unhiding the Visual Upgrade in SharePoint 2010

If you went ahead and clicked the "Hide Visual Upgrade" button it is kind of pain to get the visual upgrade option enabled. I had to jump into powershell and run the following comands to turn it on for a web site (press enter after each line and replace http://yoursite with the url of your sharepoint site).

$web = Get-SPWeb http://yoursite

$web.UIVersionConfigurationEnabled = 1

$web.Update()

You shoud now be able to see the Visual Upgrade options under Title, Description, and Icon under site settings.

Posted at 11:21 AM by Michael Doyle | Category: SP 2010 | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

6/7/2010

Notes on upgrading to SharePoint 2010 via addcontentdb

Using addcontentdb is one way to upgrade your SharePoint 2007 content to SharePoint 2010. There are some things to consider when doing it. Addcontentdb is a stsadm command and it takes a lot of resources. I recommend having a lot of free space on your sql server’s hard drives when you run it. At least 5 times the size of the database (more is better) to allow for the log files and content database increase in size. Also, while you are running it the following two databases seem to be locked.

Sharepoint_config

Sharepoint_admincontent

This means you can’t be making changes to those databases (creating web applications, deploying solutions, etc.) while you are upgrading. I have had different experiences with the speed of the operation but it seems to be dependent on the number of site collections more than the size of the content. It can take hours if there are a lot of site collections (as in the case of My Sites for example).

Quick and dirty of how to do the upgrade via addcontentdb

1. User SQL Server (for 2007 site) to back up the content database you want to move over.

2. Copy the backup file to somewhere the SQL Server for the 2010 site can get to it.

3. Restore the backup to the 2010 site

4. Create a web application, but don’t create a top level site collection.

5. Run the stsadm command addcontentdb
stsadm –o addcontentdb –url <url of new web application> -databasename <name of restored database>

6. Wait patiently while the database is upgraded.

You will now have an upgraded content database that is accessible via the new web url. It will look exactly (hopefully) like the old site. The search settings will not be transferred so you will probably get a scope error if you had any special scopes set up. You can do the Visual Upgrade to individually convert the sites to the new look and feel of SharePoint 2010. You will still have to install the custom web parts and solution to the 2010 environment after the upgrade for them to work.

Posted at 12:41 PM by Michael Doyle | Category: SP 2010 | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

5/25/2010

Stopping Application Services with PowerShell

There are times you might want to stop a service instance (like the User Profile Synchronization Service) on SharePoint 2010 and the UI is not letting you stop it. This happens in instances where it might get hung up (due to something like a permissions issue). When this happens you will have to use the PowerShell command

stop-spserviceinstance <GUID of service instance>

Since you probably don't know the GUID of your service instance off the top of your head you need to use the following PowerShell command to show all the GUIDs of the service instance.

get-spserviceinstance

This will give you the listing in your powershell window. If you haven't done copy and paste inside the powershell command window it can be a bit tricky. First right click anywhere in the command window and choose Mark and then click on first letter/number of the GUID you want and drag the mouse to the end of the GUID. Then press the Enter key. Now it is in memory so you can right click after your command and choose Paste to put the GUID in.

Note: you need to put single quotes around your GUID and you will be asked to enter a Y or press enter to really stop it.

Example:

stop-spserviceinstance '5e4ae2d7-c364-4395-8cc9-c80dca4
a1c7f'

Posted at 1:49 PM by Michael Doyle | Category: SP 2010 | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

3/1/2010

Controlling Tags/Notes

Tags and Notes are cool new features in SharePoint 2010 but you may want to turn them off or control who gets to use them. There are some things to note before you start turning things off.

Turning them off does not remove the ability on the My Sites. That has to be done via master page modification.
It is dependent on the Managed Metadata Service in service applications.
Turning them on/off is at the farm level (as of the latest release)
By default they are activated as long as there is an instance of the Managed Metadata Service running.

So let's get down to how to turn them off. You can turn them off by going to Central Administration and navigating to Manage Farm Features under System Settings. There you will see Social Tags and Note Board Ribbon Controls.

You can also enable/disable them with the following Powershell commands.

Disable-SPFeature –Identity SocialRibbonControl
Enable-SPFeature –Identity SocialRibbonControl

You can also disable them for certain Users or Groups. You do this by going to Manage Service Applications and selecting User Profile Service Application. In the People section, click Manage User Permissions and add the User or Group and clear Use Social Features. Note that rights are cumulative so if you give everybody rights and then everybody will have them even if you add a user and remove the social feature (at least in the beta).

Posted at 10:14 PM by Michael Doyle | Category: SP 2010 | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

1/26/2010

Creating a Document Set

Document sets are a great new feature for SharePoint 2010, but if you haven't used them then it is might not be straightforward on how to create them. What is boils down to is that document sets are just a content type.

Step 1. Turn the feature on. Go to Site Settings -> Site Collection Administration -> Site Collection Features and activate on Document Sets.

Step 2. Go to a document library or create a new document library. On the ribbon click Library.

Step 3. Click on Advanced Properties and turn on Allow Management of Content Types.

Step 4. Go back to Library Settings and at the bottom of the page there will be a content types area. Click Add from existing content types and add Document Set

Step 5. Now you can click Documents under Library Tools and then under New you should see Document Set. It should look like below.

Posted at 9:33 PM by Michael Doyle | Category: SP 2010 | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

12/22/2009

Profile Pictures in SharePoint 2010

There are some significant changes in how profile pictures are stored in SP 2010. Instead of pictures being stored on individual’s My Sites, they are now stored in a common directory. This directory can be found at

http://<mysite>/User%20Photos/Profile%20Pictures

Once a picture is uploaded it is converted into three different thumbnails (large, medium, and small). Large is 144x144, medium is 96x96, and small 32x32. You can access these files with other programs if you know the person’s logon. The formula is domain_login_LThumb.jpg (for large, replace the L with an M for medium, and an S for small). Note that the original uploaded picture is not stored.

If you are upgrading from SharePoint 2007, these thumbnails will not be automatically created (at least not in the beta). There is a powershell command included that will do it though. It is Update-SPProfilePhotoStore.

Posted at 9:30 PM by Michael Doyle | Category: SP 2010 | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)