When looking in the application log on the server I saw:

Event ID: 5226 - Excel Calculation Service
Unable to create or access workbook cache at C:\Windows\TEMP\Excel server\FileCache\SharedServices1-942760090\Ranges. Excel Services is unable to function without a workbook cache.

Googling the error will present you with posts to check that the disk is not full, that the account running the application pool tied to Excel Services has appropriate permissions to TEMP and to try restarting the Excel Services service. Great places to start, but I found my issue was much simpler:

It turns out previous to the error I ran CCleaner on the server, which goes through the system and removes "unneeded" files...which included some of the subfolders in temp. I did have all the structure down to C:\Windows\TEMP\Excel server\FileCache\SharedServices1-942760090\ but missing subfolders. It seems that it's OK to delete all of TEMP (it will simply recreate the cache), but if the subfolders are missing Excel Services gets confused.

So browse to the directory in question under \FileCache\[SSP Path Name]\ you should create 3 subfolders: \Ranges, \Charts, and \SavedWorkbooks.

Web Part Error: One of the properties of the Web Part has an incorrect format. Windows SharePoint Services cannot deserialize the Web Part. Check the format of the properties and try again.

You'll quickly find the following MS KB article for the error message: KB 826786.

It boils down to SharePoint needing to work out of the WinDir\Temp and WinDir\System32\logfiles directories. Which may be a permissions issue as noted in the KB article.

This can also be caused by your virus scan software. For example, McAfee's On-Access Scanner may be blocking executables from being written to the Temp directory: SharePoint writes .dlls to temp which will be blocked, which would be blocked from functioning and cause the noted error.

So in short, if you are getting the above error message it might be a good first step to disable your virus scan and see if the message goes away, if it does work from there to readjust your virus scan settings.

During the installation of SP2, a product expiration date is improperly activated. This means SharePoint will expire as though it was a trial installation 180 days after SP2 is deployed.

This is fairly common (haven't had a chance to see if it was fixed in SP2). It looks to be a memory leak of some sort as it seems to happen over time.

Luckily the fix is very simple: simply restart "Windows SharePoint Services Search" and "Windows SharePoint Services Timer". No iisreset is needed afterwards from all the cases I've seen.

NOTE: Reader Richard suggests the hotfix KB946517 may resolve the issue. I will try shortly and confirm. Thanks Richard!

The process uses a Content Editor Web Part to inject some CSS and alter the page and hide the Quick Launch bar. You won't need to know CSS though, the snippet is provided below.

1. Go to your site you want to hide the Quick Launch
2. Click Site Actions > Edit Page
3. Click the Add a Web Part in any section
4. Put a "Content Editor Web Part" on the page
5. Click "open the tool pane" on the new web part.
6. Click "Source Editor" and paste the below in the editor window:

7. Click Save.
8. In the tool pane expand Appearance and change the title to read "Hide Quick Launch"
9. Still in the tool pane under Appearance select NONE for the chrome type.
10. Click OK to get out of the tool pane and exit Edit Mode.

If you have searched on how to remove the Title column from a SharePoint list you probably found a few articles on how to edit the "Item" content type to hide the Title column. This solves your issue if you just want to solve a) above. But you'll notice if you try to create a new column named "Title" with a different column type, say Lookup, you'll get an error that Title still exists.

I will quickly run through resolving both a) and b) if you still want "Title" but want it to be a different column type.

1. Go to Settings > List Settings > Advanced Settings on the list in question
2. Click YES to allow management of content types and click OK
3. You will now see the "Item" content type under "Content Types", click "Item"
4. Click on the Title column
5. Select the radio button to make "Title" Hidden and click OK.
6. (Optional if you want to make a new "Title" column under a different column type) Click Title again and then click "Edit column in new window". In that new window change "Title" to anything else, make sure "Require that this column..." is set to NO. And click OK. Close the new window and click OK on your main window.
7. You will now see Title is no longer there when you click "New"
8. You will want to go through any views you have and remove any references to the know hidden column. You can also now create a new column, name it "Title" and give it any column type you want.

I've been spending time brushing up on my all-around MOSS knowledge for several reasons including taking the MCTS SharePoint exam (70-630), which I took and passed with a nearly perfect score earlier today.

What I want to touch on briefly today is the move from Exchange Public Folders to SharePoint. Once upon a time Exchange public folders were one of the best ways to store shared calendar events and a quick and easy way for users to store emails, files and contacts that could also be easily made available for offline use.

With the release of SharePoint 3.0 there is now no real advantage to using Exchange public folders, with all the functionality you see in public folders improved upon with the SharePoint features: email enabled document libraries, alerting, Outlook 2007 integration including data made available offline. Microsoft itself is endorsing SharePoint as its collaboration platform to replace public folders in the future.

If you are a heavy user of Public Folders there is no rush to migrate off to SharePoint as MS will continue to support public folders through at least the next major release after Exchange 2007. But small to medium implementations of public folders may want to look at migrating their content to SharePoint.

There are currently no migration utilities available from Microsoft to migrate existing public folder content to SharePoint, but there are several 3rd party apps that will make the conversion painless (eg: AvePoint, Quest). I recently demoed the Quest Public Folder Migrator for SharePoint and was pleasantly surprised at how well it worked.

The Quest utility provides many options I didn't even think about including linking the old Public Folder in the Outlook client to the new location where the data lives on SharePoint, even displaying the SharePoint page directly in Outlook. Once you have the software installed and the appropriate permissions where they need to be, the migration wizard steps you through choosing a target Public folder (calendar, folder, or folder tree) and a destination. There are options regarding how you want to handle the permissions and whether you want this to be a recurring schedule that keeps updating the SharePoint site when items are added to the Outlook side or if you simply want to delete the public folder for Outlook altogether.

Moving to SharePoint gives you an easier tool to administer, you can probably use existing team and project sites, and frees up some space on your mailstores: they always have a knack for running out of space, don't they?

In addition I am hoping to add more content shortly; I have compiled a list of items I want to blog about so look for those over the next few days.

I am excited to see in the logs I am getting a lot of hits for searches on errors messages and issues and hopefully my posts are helping you out. Feel free to hit the comment button on a post and leave your feedback.

I recently did a WSS2.0 to MOSS2007 database migration. The new server had MOSS installed well before the migration and it was used as a dev instance before moving the production databases over to it.

Here is the problem: after moving the prod DBs over and renaming the new server with it's PROD name all the My Links still pointed to sites using the dev url. Even new sites I added myself to would not show up under My Links.

Event Type: Information
Event Source: Application Popup
Event ID: 26

Description:
Application popup: IEXPLORE.EXE - Application Error : The instruction at "0x30cb0d78" referenced memory at "0x00000000". The memory could not be "written".

Thanks to visitor Kevin, I'm slightly modifying my solution:

At the following path: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\

You will see one of the two possibilities:

1: office10 and office11 folders
2: office 11 and office12 folders

Copy the owssupp.dll file from the lower numbered office folder and paste it to the upper numbered folder e.g. copy the file from office11 and paste it to office12. Office12 will also have this file, just back up that file before the above procedure and save it somewhere on the disk, instead of overwriting it with the office11 file.

Now
1. Go to Start Menu
2. Run
3. Type regsvr32 "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\OWSSUPP.DLL"
4. Click ok to the error message.

This worked for me instantly.

Use the SQL script below to find your SMS sites service pack version level for SMS 2.0 or SMS 2003 sites.

SQL Query:

Select
SiteCode,
SiteServer,
SiteName,

'Version' = Case
When Version between '2.00.1239.0000' And '2.00.1239.0999'
Then 'SMS Version 2.0 RTM'
When Version between '2.00.1380.1000' And '2.00.1380.1999'
Then 'SMS Version 2.0 Service Pack 1'
When Version between '2.00.1493.2000' And '2.00.1493.2999'
Then 'SMS Version 2.0 Service Pack 2'
When Version between '2.00.1493.3000' And '2.00.1493.3999'
Then 'SMS Version 2.0 Service Pack 3'
When Version between '2.00.1493.4000' And '2.00.1493.4999'
Then 'SMS Version 2.0 Service Pack 4'
When Version between '2.00.1493.5000' And '2.00.1493.5999'
Then 'SMS Version 2.0 Service Pack 5'
When Version = '2.50.2726.0018'
Then 'SMS 2003 RTM'
When Version = '2.50.3174.1018'
Then 'SMS 2003 SP 1'
When Version = '2.50.4160.2000'
Then 'SMS 2003 SP 2'
Else 'Unable To Determine Service Pack!'
End

From Sites

For SQL Server 2000 and up, run the below query (2000 - open Query Analyzer, 2005 - right-click a DB and select New Query):

SELECT 'SQL Server '
+ CAST(SERVERPROPERTY('productversion') AS VARCHAR) + ' - '
+ CAST(SERVERPROPERTY('productlevel') AS VARCHAR) + ' ('
+ CAST(SERVERPROPERTY('edition') AS VARCHAR) + ')'

This will return your version. You can see the build charts for more detailed information:

SQL Server 2000 Build Chart
SQL Server 2005 Build Chart

Since the "shrink database" command within SQL 2000 Enterprise Manager doesn't always seem to do what you'd expect, here is the command to run in Query Analyzer.

backup log db_name_here with truncate_only
dbcc shrinkfile(db_log_filename_here,truncateonly)

You could script this to run on a regular basis or just as a one-off while doing manual maintenance on your dbs.

1) Need .NET framework 3.0
2) Need ASP .NET 2.0 enabled in IIS > Web Service Extensions

So I downloaded .NET Framework 3.0 from Microsoft's website and installed it. I started digging around for the ASP .NET and found the below:

If you installed IIS before .NET 3.0 (or any other version for that matter), you will need to register ASP.NET with IIS using the following command

C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\aspnet_regiis.exe -i

At this point you can now go into IIS and enable ASP .NET web service extensions.

It's great to hear my posts are helping and I promise I am going to be adding more content soon (I've been saving up some odds and ends for posting, but haven't gotten around to it).

One thing I hate is getting a specific error and not being able to find a solution on it, but finally you'll find something where a person paraphased the error message, etc. I always try my best to describe the situation and include specific errors. So hopefully this blog will help more in the future.

Stand by.

If the new server has a new name, you will need to remove the old server as a Namespace Server for each domain-based DFS namespace it is a member of. In addition, you will have to remove and re-point each folder target to the new path.

In my scenario we were doing an in-place upgrade and the server would keep the same name. But since the upgrade results in the machine having a new SID in AD there is some work that needs to be done. I found in this situation you only need to remove the server as a Namespace Server and re-add it once the new server is in place so the new SID is used in AD's DFS configuration. All the DFS folder targets can be left alone as SID is not used here, just the path.

We are not using DFS-R on these folders, but I believe if you were, you would need to redo the replication partners as DFS-R relies on the SID information stored in Active Directory.

- On the current server, navigate to \HKLM\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\lanmanserver\Shares

- Export this into a reg file and copy the file to the new server

- Ensure the drives use the same drive letters when presented to the new server

- Import the reg file on the new server

- Restart the server service

It's a quick and easy process that will save you from resharing all your shares and eliminates the human errors associated with that.

Server Error in '/' Application.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This type of page is not served.
Description: The type of page you have requested is not served because it has been explicitly forbidden. The extension '.mdb' may be incorrect. Please review the URL below and make sure that it is spelled correctly.

Requested Url: /directory/file_requested.mdb

So reading this error you can assume there is a place where you explicitly forbid different file extensions from being served from your IIS sites. So I started Googling this since I did not know where these settings were. 9 out of 10 results suggested zipping the mdb up and having the user download the zip. Of course that is always a work around, but not what I was looking for.

- Launch the IIS Management console
- Right click your application or the root of your website(s)
- Go to the Home Directory Tab and click "Configuration"
- Go to the Mapping tab and delete the association of the file type MDB

You do however need to keep the MDB extension as an allowable MIME type on win2003, so you do not need to make any setting changes there as this would result in a 404 error.

File Commander (shareware) - This utility came in very handy when needing to compare the files on our backup server after users were failed over to it and then failed back to production. This utility will scan 2 directories and come back with a color-coded report of which files are different in the directories and allows you to do one and two-way syncs of that data. There are lots of little features that come along with it as well and it proved to be a powerful and useful little tool.

OpenedFilesView (freeware) - I came across this utility when users were reporting the following error when trying to delete or modify files on a file server:

Cannot delete [filename]: It is being used by another person or program. Close any programs that might be using the file and try again

Using the built-in Windows Computer Management console and viewing open files will only show the files opened by users via shares. The files in question were not showing up as being opened by any user, but a quick run of this utility showed me these files were opened by mcshield.exe, killing the process freed the files for the users. (The problem with McAfee Virus Scan is out of scope for this post, but was another problem that needed to be dealt with)

MMC cannot open the file [drive]:\SMS\bin\i386\sms.msc
This may be because the file does not exist, is not an MMC console, or was created by a later version of MMC. This may also be because you do not have sufficient rights to the file.

Since I had run a repair of the OS, my worst case was this somehow messed up my SMS install which would not have been pleasant. But I was able to open the admin console on other PCs so I did some research and found that the error is profile related. I read that is usually caused when you have a terminal session open with the SMS Admin console open and the session is killed.

The resolution is to rename the "sms" file in C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\Application Data\Microsoft\MMC\SMS to something else and then start up the SMS Admin console again for it to be recreated.

This fixed it for me and worth noting because the error message does not even hint at the actual problem.

The shares these users needed were always shared out as "MAC Shares" so when we recently upgraded our server from 2000 to 2003-R2. I coordinated with them to see if they still needed the shares shared out as MAC.

One user told me he no longer needed the shares shared out for MACs and that with OS X he is able to connect to the shares using smb://server/shareName so after the hardware migration he had no issues at all and I did not share out as MAC shares. Of course then the 2nd guy said he could not connect to the shares. Here are a couple of issues I ran into:

From time to time I need to update a Sharepoint site's "owner". This is one of those things that is not included on the web-based admin page and can only be accomplished by running the stsadm tool via a command prompt. And then of course running stsadm.exe /? does not give us the syntax for most of the operations, one of which being the "siteowner" operation. So here it is:

stsadm.exe -o siteowner -url http://full_site_url -ownerlogin YOUR_DOMAIN\username_of_new_owner

The user must already be a member of the site on which you are attempting to make the user owner.

*Note: stsadm.exe is located at C:\program files\common files\microsoft shared\web server
extensions\60\bin by default. I have added the aforementioned path to the PATH system variable for ease of use.

This gets a bit messy when it comes time to add a new user to a Sharepoint site (even more when that user is not on our network and needs to be set up with remote access, but that is out of scope here).

The process includes creating a new local user account and then adding that local account as a user to the Sharepoint site. There are several headaches that come with the creation of a local user account mainly stemming from the fact that working with local Windows accounts is not as manageable as users in ADUC.

An issue I have seen a few times now is also possible in an AD environment, but probably isn't seen as often as the conditions causing the problem are less likely.

Issue - When you try to add a user to a 2003 Portal Server or WSS site, you receive the following error message:

Can not add the user because a user with that name already exists

Click on image for fullsize

In addition to the dashboard view, you can drill down each area to get more information.

Another cool piece (not free) is the Spotlight on SQL addin which shows you an overview of your SQL server(s). It can show you status of replication if you are using SQL replication, it shows how many current connections, which databases haven't been backed up in a while (using SQL native backup), and other handy stats.

I used to spend a bit of time each morning RDPing into my critical servers to check disks, etc but now with this tool I can get an overview of what is going on in one dashboard.

http://media-convert.com/

Multiple inputs and outputs to choose from. Coolest feature is being able to convert a URL to PDF/JPG/etc.