Thursday, October 28, 2010

[Transcript] Q&A with the SharePoint MVP Experts Chat October 27, 2010

Here is the transcript of SharePoint MVP expert chat.sharepoint-2010-logo_225

Please note: Portions of this transcript have been edited for clarity.

Introduction:

Chat experts : Bert Johnson [MCM], Darrin Bishop MVP, Matthew McDermott, Mirjam [MCM MVP], Paul Stork MVP, Randy Drisgill MVP, Robert Bogue MVP, Scott Jamison [MCM], Todd Baginski MVP, Tom Resing MCM, Eli Van Eenwyk [MCM], Spence [MCM], Serge Tremblay (Expert)

Related Web Site : Microsoft SharePoint 

Melissa Travers MSFT (Moderator): Hi everyone- welcome to the SharePoint MVP Expert Chat. I am your host this evening. My name is Melissa Travers and I am the MVP Lead for the SharePoint MVPs in the US. Welcome to our special edition SharePoint MVP Expert Chat. In addition to our MVP Experts we are excited to have some Microsoft Certified Masters (MCMs) who have joined this month’s chat as our special guests! Two of our Experts are both MVPs and MCMs. SP2007Logo

Your questions, comments and feedback are welcome. We will begin shortly…before doing so; I would like to begin by posting our chat rules and instructions for guests.

Melissa Travers MSFT (Moderator): 1. This chat will last for one hour. During this hour, our Experts will respond to as many questions as they can. Please understand that there are some questions we cannot respond to due to lack of information or because the information is not yet public
2. We encourage you to submit questions for our Experts. To do so, type your questions in the send box, check the “ask the experts” check box and click SEND. Questions sent directly to the Guest Chat room will not be answered by the Experts, but we encourage other community members to assist.

3. We ask that you stay on topic for the duration of the chat. This helps the Guests and Experts follow the conversation more easily. We invite you to ask off topic questions after this chat is over, but not during.
4. Please only submit your question once. Submitting your question more than once is against the Chat Code of Conduct.
5. Please abide by the Chat Code of Conduct.

Melissa Travers MSFT (Moderator): Now it’s time to meet our MVP and MCM Experts who have joined us for today’s chat. Let’s have our Experts introduce themselves now and then we’ll get started…

Bert Johnson [MCM] (Expert): Hi everybody. My name is Bert Johnson and I'm a SharePoint Architect with West Monroe Partners in Chicago. I'm a SharePoint 2010 MCM and am co-authoring a SharePoint 2010 book on developer certifications which will be available this Spring (http://www.amazon.com/SharePoint-2010-Developers-Certification-Toolkit/dp/0470912340). You can find me on Twitter: @SPBert.

Darrin Bishop MVP (Expert): Darrin Bishop has been working on SharePoint since the Tahoe days; lately I has been doing way too much Silverlight and SharePoint development. I have authored chapters in “Real World SharePoint 2010: Indispensable Experiences from 23 SharePoint MVPs” and “Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Administrator's Pocket Consultant” While these are excellent books, sadly neither of them have made Oprah’s Book Club list. Darrin is a founding member of Aptillon. Contact Darrin at www.aptillon.com or his blog www.darrinbishop.com/blog. Follow him on Twitter @BishopD

Matthew McDermott (Expert): Hello everyone! My name is Matthew McDermott. I am a Principal Consultant for AbleBlue in Austin, TX and have been an MVP for 4 years. You can find me through my blog (http://www.ableblue.com/blog) and on Twitter (http://twitter.com/MatthewMcD. You can see me in person at the upcoming SharePoint Connections event in Las Vegas in November ( http://www.devconnections.com/shows/FALL2010SP).

Mirjam [MCM MVP] (Expert): I'm a SharePoint Architect in the Information Worker Solutions department of Macaw in the Netherlands. I'm a Microsoft Certified Master for SharePoint 2007 and for SharePoint 2010.
I'm a co-organizer of the Dutch Information Worker User Group (DIWUG) and you can find my blog at http://sharepointchick.com. In January of 2010 I became an MVP.

Paul Stork MVP (Expert): Hi, my name is Paul Stork, and I've been an MVP for three years. I'm Chief SharePoint Architect for ShareSquared, Inc. working out of Cleveland, OH. I straddle the fence between IT-Pro and Developer working on architecture, custom development, and branding. You can find my Blog at http://dontpapanic.com/blog and I'm @PStork on Twitter.

Randy Drisgill MVP (Expert): My name is Randy Drisgill, I work for SharePoint911 as the Branding and Design Lead and I've been a SharePoint Server MVP for about a year and a half. I'm focused primarily on the user interface aspects of SharePoint. You can find me on Twitter as @Drisgill and at my blog - http://blog.drisgill.com.

Robert Bogue MVP (Expert): I'm Rob Bogue, a SharePoint MVP. I run a consulting organization, Thor Projects out of Indianapolis, IN. I'm also the Author of The SharePoint Shepherd's Guide for End Users: 2010 - you can learn more at http://www.sharepointshepherd.com or you can check my blog at http://www.thorprojects.com/blog

Scott Jamison [MCM] (Expert): Hi everyone! This is Scott Jamison. I'm a Certified Master and help to teach the master class in Redmond. I'm a managing parter and CEO at Jornata (www.jornata.com), a leading SharePoint consulting firm based in Boston, MA. I'm also co-author of Essential SharePoint 2010 and Essential SharePoint 2007. You can follow me on twitter at @sjam and visit my blog at www.scottjamison.com.

Todd Baginski - MVP (Expert): Hello everyone, I'm an independent consultant specializing in SharePoint for the last 9 years. I'm also the content author and presenter for the BDC portion of the SharePoint MCM program. Some notable projects I have worked on lately include creating the http://sharepoint.microsoft.com web site on SharePoint Server 2007 and later migrating it to SharePoint Server 2010. I was also key member in the team which researched and developed the Microsoft Patterns & Practices SharePoint 2010 Guidance. I enjoy spending time with my wife, my son, and our dogs, playing and coaching lacrosse, playing hockey, riding my bike in the Rocky Mountains, and skiing every chance I get. My blog can be found at http://www.toddbaginski.com and you can contact me on Twitter @toddbaginski.

Tom Resing MCM (Expert): Hi! I'm a Microsoft Certified Master in SharePoint 2007 and a Principle Software Engineer at Applied Information Sciences (AIS) http://www.appliedis.com in San Antonio, Texas. I contribute to the community through leadership of the San Antonio SharePoint User Group http://sasug.net, presenting and writing at http://tomresing.com/blog

Eli Van Eenwyk [MCM] (Expert): Hi, my name is Eli Van Eenwyk. Based out of Buffalo NY, I'm a Microsoft Certified Master and Senior SharePoint Consultant for Inergex, Inc. As a consultant, I enjoy working with all aspects of SharePoint, including architecture, administration and development. Twitter: evaneenwyk | Blog: http://www.inergex.com/blogs/sharepoint

Spence [MCM] (Expert): Spencer Harbar, is a MCM for SharePoint 2007 and 2010, and a SharePoint MVP. Based in Edinburgh, Scotland, he is an enterprise architect who helps organizations implement and drive value from solutions based upon Microsoft SharePoint. Spencer can be found blogging at www.harbar.net and is on Twitter as @harbars.

Serge Tremblay (Expert): Hello everyone, my name is Serge Tremblay. I am a Senior Consultant for Victrix a Microsoft Gold Partner based out of Montréal, Canada. I’ve been an MVP for 2 years, I am running the SharePointQuebec usergroup in Montréal (www.SharePointQuébec.org  http://www.SharePointQuébec.org. My blog is in French at www.sharepointquebec.org/blog http://www.sharepointquebec.org/blog, you can find me on twitter @SergePoint. I also post the odd English article at http://sergetremblay.spaces.live.com/default.aspx  .

Melissa Travers MSFT (Moderator): Thanks to our Experts for their introduction. Feel free to begin asking questions. Please remember to check the “ask the experts” box before sending to ensure that your question is properly queued up for our experts.

 Start of chat:

Randy Drisgill MVP (Expert):

Q: [1] This is a test question

A: yes

Spence [MCM] (Expert):

Q: [2] HI Does anyone know if there are plans to release major changes to the Muilt Tenacy feature in SharePoint 2010 in the near future? Something I should wait on b4 implementation?

A: Hi Colin, unfortunately we can't talk about any future releases of SharePoint 2010. Is there some issue/blocker in particular you are interested in that is blocking you? All of the infrastructure plumbing is the there today, and of course can be extended with custom code.

Matthew McDermott (Expert):

Q: [3] I got a question about how to limit the [body] field of the xsltview webpart(sharepoint post blog webpart) to only display say 300 char.

A: You can use a SubString function to trim the content like this: <xsl:value-of select="substring(@Body, 0, 300)" disable-output-escaping="yes" /> or you can write a function to remove the HTML mark-up first like "PureText". Or you can use CSS to set the display limit.

Randy Drisgill MVP (Expert):

Q: [3] I got a question about how to limit the [body] field of the xsltview webpart(sharepoint post blog webpart) to only display say 300 char.

A: I think I understand what you are asking. Essentially the slots in the CQWP make it so that you don't have to export the .webpart file and add the commonview fields in order to get custom columns to show up. The slots allows you to target any output from the XSL to any column. But if you want to change the way the output you still need to edit the XSL

Randy Drisgill MVP (Expert):

Q: [4] Randy: when do we expect to have your branding book on Amazon? And are you teaching branding class? Thanks.

A: Yeah, the date was moving a lot there but now its supposedly "in stone" to be released at the end of November, it should show up on Amazon shortly after.

Randy Drisgill MVP (Expert):

Q: [4] Randy: when do we expect to have your branding book on Amazon? And are you teaching branding class? Thanks.

A: Following up on the training part: I dont have anything planned yet for official training but I will be speaking at some events like SPSaturday in South Florida and SPTechCon in San Fran.

Melissa Travers MSFT (Moderator): If anyone has questions about becoming a Microsoft Certified Master, please feel free to ask our MCM guests.

Tom Resing MCM (Expert):

Q: [5] Hello experts. My question is related to SP2010 and SP2007. We develop Ajax enabled web parts. So we use Ajax 3.5. Since we need to do some modifications in web.config to enable ajax we are using SPWebConfigModification to add the entries. We add entries s

A: Please add more detail. It looks like your question got cut off.

Randy Drisgill MVP (Expert):

Q: [6] Hi, I've got a question about the CQWP. Microsoft introduce slots in CQWP but we still need to customize it because when you add "Body" for example you still get the html like <DIV> ... But it's maybe me the "problem" ;-)

A: Adding some info to see if the chat will close this answer out.

Paul Stork MVP (Expert):

Q: [7] I ran into situation where I accidentally run psconfig -cmd configdb -disconnect . Does it mean that I need to build a new farm? I don't know how to reconnect it to the farm now. Thanks.

A: If that was the last server in your farm you will need to build a new farm. If not, you should be able to just re-run PSconfig and join back into the farm.

Scott Jamison [MCM] (Expert):

Q: [7] I ran into situation where I accidentally run psconfig -cmd configdb -disconnect . Does it mean that I need to build a new farm? I don't know how to reconnect it to the farm now. Thanks.

A: Is this a SharePoint 2007 or SharePoint 2010 farm?

Robert Bogue MVP (Expert):

Q: [8] I have a stand alone set up with 2010. It's non-production, but I'm getting lots of pressure to get it to production. I ran into some kind of security issue where there are weird login problems. I can't log in from my desktop (part of the domain) I can log in from my laptop (not part of the domain). When I use firefox, I can log into the page, but it won't except my credentials to edit documents. And the fact that it's asking for login credentials is new. Here's my question: is there a way to start over with the AD syncronization without blowing sharepoint away?

A: This is likely not a synchronization issue. Without knowing more I'd guess that your authentication is set to Kerberos and your laptop isn't able to get a ticket.

Spence [MCM] (Expert):

Q: [9] How do I know when to implement Kerberos. I've been having mixed feedback. Thanks.

A: Your requirements for Kerberos are around functionality. There is no easy answer here. Some people will choose to implement Kerberos for performance or security reasons, especially in resource/user domain scenarios. In additional some features that require delegation will need Kerberos.

Darrin Bishop MVP (Expert):

Q: [9] How do I know when to implement Kerberos. I've been having mixed feedback. Thanks.

A: Kerberos is required when you need to do a double hop from the SP server to another server, for example if you need to go off box for a data source as the logged in users more than likely you are going to need Keberos to access the data store.

Spence [MCM] (Expert):

Q: [10] How can I programmatically set the "Sending to Another Site"/"Allow cross site routing" flag on the Content Organizer (DocumentRouting) feature?

A: this cannot be done simply by setting some properties, there is other work involved. There is a white paper in progress around this topic. Watch out for it on MSDN soon.

Robert Bogue MVP (Expert):

Q: [11] We have an issues using MOSS 2007 and Smart Card authentication. We don't see the request for authentication when we try to open some of our client based apps like InfoPath or MS Word etc...

A: When you say that you're not seeing the requests, how are you doing your Smart Card authentication? The Office client applications do not know how to follow redirects for forms based authentication.

Spence [MCM] (Expert):

Q: [12] I used Powershell to install SharePoint 2010 on my farm. The only database that I am not able to customize its name is Performance Point service. Please advise. Thanks.

A: 1. Create the PPS SA with the name you want. 2. BackUp the created DB. 3. Restore with the name you want. 4. Use Set-SPPerformancePointServiceApplication

Randy Drisgill MVP (Expert):

Q: [13] @Tom Resing we add entries specific to ajax 3.5. What if the end user is using some other web part from some other vendor which makes use of Ajax 2.0? Can both versions exist in same site? I'm getting scriptmanager ambiguity issue.

A: Rob Foster says: needs to be two different web apps

Matthew McDermott (Expert):

Q: [14] Is there any documentation on how to add a page to the MYsite? i.e. My Site | My Newsfeed My Content| My Profile | My additional page

A: I have not seen anything specifically. But the Tabs reference the Quick Launch navigation and the Top Menu is the Main Navigation. Edit the My Site Host navigation to add the link in the location you prefer.

Mirjam [MCM MVP] (Expert):

Q: [15] Which suggestions do you give me to customiza sites to not look at all like templates? (Add views from other sites, add User information, etc). Summarizing, create a whole different layout

A: IYou can create a custom web template (using the new WebTemplate feature element), you can add features to that to create custom lists and views and you can add your own master page, page layout and CSS to change the visual design and you can add your own features as well. A good resource on web template creation is this post from Vesa: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vesku/archive/2010/10/14/sharepoint-2010-and-web-templates.aspx

Paul Stork MVP (Expert):

Q: [17] I'm trying to make it easy for end users to add an image in an announcement without first going to a picture library to upload, then copy url, etc. Is there an easy way with in the enhanced rich text editor to do that?

A: I don't know of a way to do this more easily in SharePoint 2007, but in 2010 there is a dropdown on the Insert > Picture button in the ribbon that lets you choose an image file from your local computer and upload it while embedding it on the page.

Randy Drisgill MVP (Expert):

Q: [18] Will both versions of ajax work with same web application?

A: Different web apps required... waiting on Rob for other answers

Matthew McDermott (Expert):

Q: [19] Matthew: Can i do that from SPD2010? I've tried exactly that before but doesn't find how to do it in 2010.

A: There is no reason i 2010 for it not to work. I am currently using that code on my 2010 blog. Does it display the @Body field?

Scott Jamison [MCM] (Expert):

Q: [20] @Scott:I ran psconfig -cmd configdb -disconnect on a SharePoint 2010 Farm. Thanks.

A: Have you tried using psconfig.exe -cmd configdb -connect -server <servername> -database <name of configdb> -user <farmaccount> -password

Robert Bogue MVP (Expert):

Q: [21] We have users in Domain but we need to show them their client information from Siebel CRM. What is the best way to manage account mappings between domain accounts and Siebel and show this data in SP2010?

A: Secure Store Service

Matthew McDermott (Expert):

Q: [22] How can i allow the Tags page for anonymous access?

A: If you mean the "Tag Profile Page". I am going to go out on a limb and say you cannot. I have not tested it, but the page uses Search and Security Trimming so I think you would not be able to use it in an anonymous environment. You could write a control that impersonated an account.

Spence [MCM] (Expert):

Q: [22] How can i allow the Tags page for anonymous access?

A: Yeah, neither Tags nor Ratings support anonymous out of the box

Matthew McDermott (Expert):

Q: [23] I would like to have a recommendation on "tab" page for my team site (I'm a SPD user). I would like to utilize the tab feature like the "Search" center has. That means it allows site admin to create page and attach to a tab in the browser. Please advise.

A: Have you tried the Meeting site with tabs Site Template? It has that structure. The tabs are a control on the Search center that are wired to 2 lists. You could also use JavaScript to achieve the same effect.

Darrin Bishop MVP (Expert):

Q: [24] How do we add AJAX (or some other control) to make people/group columns show choices from AD as people type rather than having to use the Browse button?

A: We think this would require a custom control and or Field Control depending on where you plan to do this. No ootb way of accomplishing this.

Randy Drisgill MVP (Expert):

Q: [25] ok I've got my answer [Q6]. Thank you Randy clip_image001[6]

A: Cool... the chat thing is acting up today

Spence [MCM] (Expert):

Q: [27] Part 2: My question is this..What is a clean way to "disable" the Web Front End boxes so that they don't go into a panic state when the database is offline? I am working remotely, so I cannot easily power down and power up the machines physically. What ser

A: If you take the database "offline" within Manage Content Databases before performing maintanence on the Database Server, you will avoid this situation, but remember you will need to do this for each content db.

Randy Drisgill MVP (Expert):

Q: [28] Consider two application pages page1.aspx and page2.aspx. I want to use an ajax 2.0 control in page1 and ajax 3.5 control in page2. Is it possible? How should i configure web.config to make it work with both versions?

A: I forwarded this to SharePoint MVP Rob Foster who says, you would need two different web applications. You can bind to one or the other but not both.

Matthew McDermott (Expert):

Q: [29] Mattew: No it doesn't display the @body field

A: Then you have a different issue. You have to be sure that Body is one of the fields included in your Query.

Paul Stork MVP (Expert):

Q: [31] How we can create an other document library to store publishing pages?

A: Publishing is hard coded to only use the Pages document library. In 2010 you can use folders in a pages library to seperate page files.

Darrin Bishop MVP (Expert):

Q: [31] How we can create an other document library to store publishing pages?

A: Publishing only supports 1 publishing library, you cannot add a second publishing library. In SP 2010 you can create folders inside the publishing library.

Robert Bogue MVP (Expert):

Q: [32] [11] Danny Del, help me out here to answer this... Danny is our sever guy and he might be able to shed some light. I am not sure how it's all setup, but we have Smart Cards for every client and we run MOSS 2007 in HTTPS. We can connect to the server no problem, but when we try to open InfoPath in form view (client view) our server guy's say it's not requesting authentication.

A: That doesn't really make much sense. It should be getting an auth error generating a 401 and the client should retry. There would be more information necessary about what the sequence of events are.

Randy Drisgill MVP (Expert):

Q: [33] How do i remove the Home - Title from a SharePoint site?

A: Are you talking about the HTML title at the top of the browser window? Pages can override the value from pages or page layouts from the PlaceHolderPageTitle content placeholder

Spence [MCM] (Expert):

Q: [34] I would like to know if anyone has experience integrating SharePoint with Live. Please provide direction/documentation/advice. Thanks.

A: check out the documentation for LiveID at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff973117.aspx

Spence [MCM] (Expert):

Q: [34] I would like to know if anyone has experience integrating SharePoint with Live. Please provide direction/documentation/advice. Thanks.

A: Also, check out Wictor Willen's three part guide which starts at http://www.wictorwilen.se/Post/Visual-guide-to-Windows-Live-ID-authentication-with-SharePoint-2010-part-1.aspx

Paul Stork MVP (Expert):

Q: [35] @Randy Drisgrill - We develop products for SharePoint 2007. We want to make it compatible with 2010. Is it possible to use single visual studio solution to create build for both 2007 and 2010? How can we detect the sharepoint version and change the css sty

A: If you are building your solutions from scratch you can make the solutions very similar, but they won't be exactly the same. So you may be able to build one solution with two projects for packaging the components for 2007 vs. 2010.

Scott Jamison [MCM] (Expert):

Q: [36] Have an issue that cropped up recently - users used to be able to modify SP lists in the Datasheet view and export to spreadsheet. Now no one can do this - error (message at bottom of screen) "You have errors. Resolve." but won't allow edits to finalize.

A: Did you change Office versions? What version of Office are you on? Was Active X disabled?

Paul Stork MVP (Expert):

Q: [37] What are the best practices to deploy sites and other stuff i.e. Workflows etc.. developed/customized in SPD on production?

A: It depends on what you are trying to deploy. Master pages can be exported and wrapped in a Feature/Solution for deployment. Publishing page layouts can be treated similarly. SPD workflows must be created in place and can't be re-deployed.

Darrin Bishop MVP (Expert):

Q: [38] How to show data for specific user from external app(Siebel CRM) that- is it better to import it to some list and than synchronize or fetch it in real time?

A: If you are using SharePoint 2010 consider BCS. BCS will allow you read/write live data to and from the external systems. Once you have the data available via BCS you can expose the data in Web Parts, custom Web Parts or as External lists.

David Mann-MVP (Expert):

Q: [39] Guys, I am using SharePoint 2007. I need some guidance in deployment... What is the best way to move entire Development site (e.g. http://moss:81) which has branding changes (includes images/css/master pages/pagelayouts/webparts/easypart) from one server to another?

A: Are you using Features and Solutions for your customizations?

Mirjam [MCM MVP] (Expert):

Q: [40] We use same dll that is shared by more than one application or web part. If we uninstall one it is deleting the shared dll. Why? how to resolve this?

A: TThis is standard SharePoint solution behaviour. You will have to create a different solution for stuff that is shared and call it for instance Framework. You will then be able to delete individual solutions without it causing problems and you know not to delete the framework solution.

Matthew McDermott (Expert):

Q: [41] Mathhew: About anonymous access to Tags page.. I thought so clip_image002

A: It's a special page, the security trimming would be a challenge. If you really need THAT page, I would open the system anonymously and do the crawl to see if it works AFTER the crawl.

Matthew McDermott (Expert):

Q: [42] @Mathew McDermott: Thank you very much. I do appreciate if you can point me to a "how-to" or directions to accomplish the tab page. I really need this in order to get point for becoming a full-time employee. Thank you in advance.

A: Have you looked at the Tab Site Template? As for the JavaScript solution, just Bing JavaScript Tabs, there are tons of solutions, including some alternatives in JQuery.

Scott Jamison [MCM] (Expert):

Q: [43] Could you please give me more info on how to create my own Master Page? (Skills required, sites to get info about this). Thanks a lot for your help

A: Check out http://startermasterpages.codeplex.com/

Mirjam [MCM MVP] (Expert):

Q: [44] We are releasing products for SP 2007 and 2010. Can we create one build/install to target SP 2007 and SP 2010?

A: It actually depends on what you are building and what part of the object model you are targeting. However, chances of this not working are so big, I would suggest you create different versions for SharePoint 2007 and SharePoint 2010. That will be the safe option.

Melissa Travers MSFT (Moderator): For those of you who are seeing your questions cut off, there is a 256 character limit including spaces. We apologize and ask that you resubmit part 2 if necessary clip_image002[4]In the future we will see if we can have this extended.

Spence [MCM] (Expert):

Spence [MCM] (Expert):

Q: [45] I would like recommendation on solutions for SP Antivirus software. So far, we've been experiencing issue with either Symantec or Forefront (slow performance). Thanks.

A: Any A/V solution for SharePoint will impact performance. You can tweak the threads value to lower the impact, but you need to factor A/V into the farm design is it not transparent. Also consider scanning on upload only if you are working with known vrus free content dbs

Bert Johnson [MCM] (Expert):

Q: [45] I would like recommendation on solutions for SP Antivirus software. So far, we've been experiencing issue with either Symantec or Forefront (slow performance). Thanks.

A: I've had good experience with ForeFront and haven't seen much performance impact. ForeFront has a good head-start over similar products and integrates with SharePoint as deeply as any. Most AV solutions are processor-bound, so make sure CPU isn't a bottleneck in general. Feel free to post more details about the performance issues and we can dig in deeper.

Spence [MCM] (Expert):

Q: [46] I'm trying to setup SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services in SharePoint Integrated Mode for a MOSS 2007 farm in an organization that requires us to setup IIS to require client certificates to access websites. I cannot successfully run reports when IIS is set

A: Reporting Services 2008 Report Server does not support client certificates - sorry - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms345223.aspx

Bert Johnson [MCM] (Expert):

Q: [47] Matthew: In SPD when connecting to the 201§0 Blog Site, i got only one xsl:value-of looking like this:

<xsl:value-of select="$thisNode/@*[name()=current()/@Name]" disable-output-escaping="yes">

A: Depending on where in the XSL you're looking, you should see fields for @Body, @Title, etc..
To add to Matt's input before, you should be able to add the XPath function substring() around any value. As an example, you could do <xsl:value-of select="substring($thisNode/@*[name()=current()/@Name], 300)" />. Marc Anderson also has a great template for outputting the first X words instead of characters: http://sympmarc.com/2009/01/20/displaying-the-first-n-words-of-a-long-text-column-with-xsl/

Mirjam [MCM MVP] (Expert):

Q: [48] [27] - I'll still be able to access the "Manage Content Databases" even after I am done with maintenance? I shouldn't mess with shutting down IIS or anything like that?

A: Yeah, just use Central Administration to manage SharePoint and don't fiddle with IIS directly, that will get you into trouble. The only thing you can do in IIS that will usually help SharePoint is doing an IISRESET.

Tom Resing MCM (Expert):

Q: [49] @Randy - Regarding Ajax - But SharePoint end users can purchase web parts from different vendors who use different versions of Ajax and they may use it within same application. So what's up with that?

A: From Rob Windsor MVP "setup Web.config to include the appropriate entries for the 3.5 AJAX references, handlers, modules, etc" and "You only setup the AJAX entries for 3.5" "you additionally need to add the binding redirects" "The binding redirects are additional entries that tell the .NET Framework to load the 3.5 assemblies when requests are made for the 2.0 assemblies"

Q: [50] Multi Tenancy again . I want to set a tenacy for vendors (sites) but I want internal user to have access. So when I configure UPS to a specific customer OU as suggested, will I be able to permission other users in other OUs ( general user populat

A: Yes. Remember that the Tenant OU setting (Set-SPSiteSubscriptionProfileConfig) is only to dictate which user profiles are imported for a tenant. It does *not* impact which users can logon to the site.

Serge Tremblay (Expert):

Q: [51] Which is the best way to add/upgrade a site created and running on a SharePoint 2007 infraestructure to a new URL on a different and New SharePoint 2010 Infraestructure?

A: Make sure you have SP2 on your SP2007, run stsadm preupgradecheck, backup your content Db with SQL, Restore your content db to new server create your new webapp on sp2010 with your new url and new db, run powershell test-spcontentdatabase, if there is no error connect your db to your new webapp. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263299.aspx

Tom Resing MCM (Expert):

Q: [52] @Rob Windsor - But we use third party dll (Telerik)l which relies on Ajax 3.5. It makes use of specific features of 3.5. WIll assembly redirect work here?

A: If I understand correctly, the redirects are only for the 2.0 assemblies. The 3.5 assemblies run as normal in this configuration.

Paul Stork MVP (Expert):

Q: [53] We need periodically import price data from Excel file that has not a unified format in every row and show this in some SharePoint page. Q: What is the best way to import data from Excel? Should we use different SP lists since data is not unified like 1 table or custom page should be used ?

A: You might want to try exporting form Excel to an XML format and then base the page display on the XML file. Then when you need to update the page simply replace the XML file with a similarly named and formatted XML.

Mirjam [MCM MVP] (Expert):

Q: [54] Questions on UPS: how to restrict users from uploading their pictures to their profile. Thanks.

A: You can chance the settings of each individual user profile property from the user profile service application. Just go into User Profile Properties, select the Profile Picture property and chance the settings to whatever you want it to be.

Tom Resing MCM (Expert):

Q: [54] Questions on UPS: how to restrict users from uploading their pictures to their profile. Thanks.

A: Use Central Administration to Manage the User Profile and change the policy. It's under Application Management, Manage Service Applications, then select your User Profile Service Application, Manage User Profiles then edit picture and toggle the Edit Settings Radio to do not allow.

David Mann-MVP (Expert):

Q: [55] @David Mann Q39 continued... Only easytab is used as a solution. Rest all are manually applied for now. What do you recommend?

A: Well, the "proper" way is Features and Solutions, but if that's not an option...you'd have to do a DB move, if that's an option

Darrin Bishop MVP (Expert):

Q: [56] How do you prevent uninstall deleting shared dll?

A: Not really a SharePoint Question, but I think the answer is, you cannot stop it

Matthew McDermott (Expert):

Q: [57] @Mathew McDermott: Tab site template: do you mean the meeting workspace? Thanks.

A: In 2007 there was a Meeting Workspace with Tabs, I'd have to look, but I think it's still there in 2010. One sec.

Scott Jamison [MCM] (Expert):

Q: [58] @Scott Jamison - Office 2007, no recent changes. I inherited the environment recently. checking Active x....

A: Two other suggestions:
1. Make sure the site URL is in your Intranet zone within IE
2. On your client machine, run “Microsoft Office Diagnostics”

Paul Stork MVP (Expert):

Q: [61] Additional to Q53 - we need also user ability to modify values of imported excel files - just XML is not working.

A: If you are on 2010 then I suggest you look at converting to an Access table and linking that to SharePoint. If you are in 2007 I suspect you'll need to do custom programming.

Scott Jamison [MCM] (Expert):

Q: [62] @Scott Jamison – Active x all enabled (or prompt for unsigned)....

A: Does the user have Access 2007 installed? If not, try this: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?familyid=d9ae78d9-9dc6-4b38-9fa6-2c745a175aed&displaylang=en

Randy Drisgill MVP (Expert):

Q: [63] @Rob - so we dont need 1.0.61025 entries at all in web.config. Just setting up entries for 3.5 is fine?

A: Rob has said in the other chat that 3.5 is ok

Matthew McDermott (Expert):

Q: [64] Matthew: Yes, the HTML title at the top of the browser windows. Which file on the server do i modify that? Tried editing the page directly but that didn't work. Also got this working locally on the server but not from remote access?

A: The Tab site is called the Miltipage Meeting Workspace.

Darrin Bishop MVP (Expert):

Q: [65] Are there any way to subscribe to View creation? Once new View is created for Library we need to catch this and invoke custom code. I did not find any event connected to View creation.

A: Nope, views don't have any events that can be captured. What are you trying to accomplish?

Todd Baginski - MVP (Expert):

Q: [66] @Rob thanks for response. Really appreciate it. I've one more generic question. How do you really unit test your SharePoint solutions? any common methodologies/framework/tools?

A: Take a look at the MS SharePoint Patterns and Practices Guidance - it includes reference implementations which show how to unit test SharePoint solutions. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff770300.aspx

Matthew McDermott (Expert):

Q: [68] @matthew: tried to add <xsl:value-of select="substring(@Body, 0, 300)" disable-output-escaping="yes" /> to the <xsl:value-of- select tag but that gives me an error

A: Right, you need to be sure there is a reference to the @Body like the other fields.

David Mann-MVP (Expert):

Q: [69] Should we release separate builds for X86 and X64?

A: Is this for SP 2010? If so, it is x64 only

David Mann-MVP (Expert):

Q: [69] Should we release separate builds for X86 and X64?

A: You could compile for "Any CPU"

Scott Jamison [MCM] (Expert):

Q: [70] @Scott Jamison - Done both of those. This happened for multiple users (all that I have spoken with) at (apparently) the same time.

A: So it sounds like a data issue in the list. By any chance, are you using totals in your view?

Bert Johnson [MCM] (Expert):

Q: [71] How can we create retention policy for a list/library programmatically in SP2010? Is there any API available for that?

A: I recommend first creating a content type and planning the policy around that instead of an individual list or library. Once that's set up, each site collection has a "PolicyCollection" class that maps policies to content types. Using that, there's a method called "CreatePolicy()" for establishing a relationship between the two.
This forum post from Steve Curran has a good example: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sharepointdevelopment/thread/36e1b9cb-ed80-428a-8bba-9c8c939d176d/
Here's
some additional background on Managing Information Management Policy: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms499244.aspx

Darrin Bishop MVP (Expert):

Q: [72] Okie @All clip_image002[8]- How can i really unit test SharePoint solutions?

A: Yes Pex and Moles is one way of doing unit test.... http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/pex/documentation.aspx

David Mann-MVP (Expert):

Q: [72] Okie @All clip_image002[10]- How can i really unit test SharePoint solutions?

A: You could also use TypeMock Isolator (www.typemock.com) but it is not free. Pex/Moles is used in the SPG reference implementations for 2010 (www.microsoft.com/spg) if you want to see some examples.

Spence [MCM] (Expert):

Q: [73] Does anyone have any experience setting up DocumentRouting (the content organizer) in code? I can activate the feature easily enough, but I've had no luck finding any information about setting properties of it in code. (Navigating to each site that we want

A: Check out the sample at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff521595.aspx - more coming soon on Content Organizer on MSDN

Todd Baginski - MVP (Expert):

Q: [74] I'm trying to figure out how to basically flip the results in a CQWP but I can't figure out how to modify the xsl. What I would like is for the result to appear like what I show below. Any recommendations?

                    Task1     Task2     Task3
ListName            Status   Status   Status
ListName2           Status   Status   Status

<Code Sample>

A: You can use SPD to modify the Web Part in the visual designer. Then you can export the Web Part and use a feature to deploy it to other SharePoint sites.

Matthew McDermott (Expert):

Q: [75] @matthew: There's no @body field at all(had one in 2007 but not in 2010)?

A: Are you talking about an OOB Blog list? It must have the Body field.

Mirjam [MCM MVP] (Expert):

Q: [76] Question on UPS synchronization: do I need to keep sp_farm as local admin for the sync to work? Thanks.

A: Nope, it only needs to be local admin while you're starting the service. It will need log on locally permission though. Check out Spence's article: http://www.harbar.net/articles/sp2010ups.aspx

Scott Jamison [MCM] (Expert):

Q: [77] @Scott Jamison - Yes, Access installed. Users were all able to accomplish these tasks last month, but cannot this month, and AFAIK no changes were made to (all of) the end users' systems (other than the usual MS patches.

A: Actually, some of the Office patches can cause this to happen. For reference, this is the control: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms416795.aspx

Matthew McDermott (Expert):

Q: [78] @matthew: Yes OOTB 2010 Blog site, can't find an @body field in the code

A: Look for the other tags in the query and add Body, it should be there.

Mirjam [MCM MVP] (Expert):

Q: [79] PowerShell question: which command should I run to bring back the sites of which a user is a member? Thanks.

A: I'm pretty sure there isn't a single cmdlet to do that. You will probably have to iterate through sites, just like you'd have to do if you would want to achieve that using the object model. Be aware that iterating through all sites can cause a heavy burden on your farm though.

Todd Baginski - MVP (Expert):

Q: [79] PowerShell question: which command should I run to bring back the sites of which a user is a member? Thanks.

A: Gary Lapointe has a sample which does this on his blog. http://stsadm.blogspot.com/2010/04/discovering-who-has-access-to.html

Darrin Bishop MVP (Expert):

Q: [80] @Darrin Bishop - link is broken

A: This is the link I have: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/pex/documentation.aspx or bing SharePoint Pex Moles

Mirjam [MCM MVP] (Expert):

Q: [81] When using the SQL syntax for search queries, are we able to use "not null" in 2010? In 2007 it seems like it accepted the syntax but didn't behave as you'd expect.

A: The SQL syntax for search queries (FullTextSqlQuery) didn't change in SharePoint 2010. The behaviour and a warning on performance are documented here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms458229(office.12).aspx

Scott Jamison [MCM] (Expert):

Q: [82] @Scott Jamison - no totals in views. Nothing has changed on the lists per se (views etc), and it is happening (or rather *not* happening) on all lists.

A: Were any changes made on the server (master pages, site templates, etc), specifically to core.js or ows.js? Any other server changes?

Spence [MCM] (Expert):

Q: [83] I'm trying to synchronize pictures added on SharePoint 2010 to AD, but I'm having an error raised in the synchronization that only this tasks fail. This is related to SharePoint or AD restrictions?

A: You require specific permissions on the AD attribute if you are wishing to store the binary image data (as opposed to the image URL). There are a number of known issues with writing back the profile picture to AD which are currently being investigated.

Paul Stork MVP (Expert):

Q: [84] Question on managed metadata navigation: i would like to use managed metadata for my document library and incorporate it into Tab view for ease of navigation. Please advise or provide instructions. Thanks.

A: The managed metadata navigation in a library is implemented as a web part. I don't think you can incorporate it into a Tabbed view without building your own custom code.

Randy Drisgill MVP (Expert):

Q: [85] @Randy - great. thank you

A: no prob

Matthew McDermott (Expert):

Q: [86] @matthew: Sorry, i have tried everything and i haven't find a way of limiting the @body field in the OOTB Blog Site. This is what i have done: Opened the BLOG site in SPD 2010 > Edit site home page > Advanced Mode > Marked the xsl:value-of select tag in sp

A: Look in the code, do you see:
<FieldRef Name="Body"/>

Darrin Bishop MVP (Expert):

Q: [87] dear experts what is the best practice to split projects in sp solution -> depending on item types (list instances separate project, workflows separate project, webparts e.t.c) or depending on business cases (businescase0 project with it's own lists, webpart

A: Deciding when to break out a WSPs is an art and a science and there is no one right answer. It gets more interesting when you start having dependencies between features. I like to create solutions for each piece of major functionality, this way the you add or remove a complete piece of functionality.

Spence [MCM] (Expert):

Q: [89] Question on IIS 7.0 Performance: tips and tricks for improving it in SPS 2010 environment. Thanks.

A: You should check out the dynamic compression feature of IIS7 which can be useful to improve performance especially with Publishing sites.

Darrin Bishop MVP (Expert):

Q: [90] @Darrin Bishop - Thank you. Chat is having some problem rendering links

A: No problem, the Bing search query found the results for you?

Spence [MCM] (Expert):

Q: [91] @Spence I can create a rule for the Content Organizer too, the problem is that I want to redirect documents to different sites, and to do that I need to set a flag to true in the Content Organizer Settings. I've tried setting the flag in an onet.xml file a

<Property  Key="_routerenablecrosssiterouting" Value="true"/>

<Code Sample>

A: this cannot be done simply by setting some properties, there is other work involved. There is a white paper in progress around this topic. Watch out for it on MSDN soon.

Darrin Bishop MVP (Expert)

Q: [92] @Darrin Bishop [65] -We need to make modification the created view, add some controls for new view automatically.

A: It cannot be done with a custom View Form?

Matthew McDermott (Expert):

Q: [95] Search topic: I would like to know if anyone has experience in integrating Google Search Appliance in SharePoint 2010 environment. We're trying to make it works. Please advise. Thanks.

A: What issues are you having? Once you decide on the authorization account it should crawl the site like any other. Though GSA will not crawl SharePoint content as well as SharePoint does. Particularly crawling People Data.

Paul Stork MVP (Expert):

Q: [97] I was wondering whether we can make use of same visual studio project to create web parts for both SP 2007 and SP 2010. Or do we really need to have two separate projects? But maintenance becomes tedious in that case.

A: You will be able re-use a lot of the code, but the project templates and WSP files will be different so you'll need seperate projects.

Spence [MCM] (Expert):

Q: [98] Muilt Tenancy. Is the Muilt Tenancy setup and destrustion of the Subscription Settings Service Application & Proxy independent to a standard deployment . I mean if I deploy a farm with the typical servies and applications can I then introduce Muilti Tenancy s

A: You can introduce multi-tenancy at any time by deploying the SubscriptionSettings SA and service instance, and creating site subscriptions, but remember partitioned SAs are also needed if you really want to take advantage of this feature. Generally you use a different proxy group for the partitioned SAs and the regular ones.

Bert Johnson [MCM] (Expert):

Q: [101] How to align radio buttons of choice type horizontally in Survey?

A: Unfortunately, it's not possible through CSS because the choice type injects its own HTML table with rows and columns.
If you have access, you can open the survey in SharePoint Designer and adjust the formatting there.

Randy Drisgill MVP (Expert):

Q: [102] I'm using SharePoint Designer 2007 to edit DataView Web Parts and hundreds of empty lines keep getting added to the page which eventually causes SPD to lock up. Any ideas what causes this or how to prevent it?

A: Yeah, I've seen this behavior as well. I guess it's not a great answer, but one option would be to copy and paste the code into Notepad++ and remove all the empty lines

Matthew McDermott (Expert):

Q: [103] @mathew: I would like to get in touch with you after this chat for further discussion on the tag page. Thank you in advance.

A: OK, hit the contact page on my blog.

Paul Stork MVP (Expert):

Q: [104] @Paul stork - Hmm. Guess will be tedious to maintain the code base.

A: That's what happens with updated object models. Often the way you've done things in 2007 aren't the most efficient ways to do them in 2010. So the code should change. The new project templates for 2010 can also make things more efficient.

Matthew McDermott (Expert):

Q: [105] @Mathew: GSA only displays results in firefox, it returns a blank screen in IE. Thanks.

A: Wierd? SharePoint works in all browsers! clip_image001[12]

Darrin Bishop MVP (Expert):

Q: [106] Is it possible to call a Web Service from a Visual Studio Project of type Class Library?

A: Yes

Scott Jamison [MCM] (Expert):

Q: [107] Can I re-use/ export data view web part customized in SharePoint Designer? Any guideline please.

A: Yes. You can export the web part and then import the web part in another site. http://www.wictorwilen.se/Post/How-to-export-and-reuse-the-Data-View-Web-Part.aspx

Spence [MCM] (Expert):

Q: [108] @Spence I can't find a copy of the folder mentioned in that article (C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\SharePoint 2010\Samples) - What is it installed as part of? How can I get a copy?

A: This sample is installed when you download and install the SPS SDK - http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=f0c9daf3-4c54-45ed-9bde-7b4d83a8f26f&displaylang=en

Todd Baginski - MVP (Expert):

Q: [110] dear experts we need implement quite complicated domain model and right now deciding where to store data-> separate database or sharepoint list . in case we choose sharepoint lists question is in performance issues . Could you describe SPList limitation :

A: We covered this topic in depth in the MS SharePoint Patterns and Practices documentation in the Data Models section. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff798364.aspx

Matthew McDermott (Expert):

Q: [112] @Matthew: Yes i see the <FieldRef Name="Body"/>

A: and what do you see when you use <xsl:value-of select="@Body"/>?

Spence [MCM] (Expert):

Q: [113] @Spencer Thank you for the tip as you can tell it has saved me alot of time and congratulations on the "Rational" series.

A: Glad the article series is useful, last part coming next week!

Paul Stork MVP (Expert):

Q: [114] @Experts - If i want to store custom data which has to be available through out the farm which is the best place to save it?

A: It depends on the data, but if you have a multiple site collection environment or the data needs to be stored relationally then your best choice would be to store it in an external SQL database and access it via BCS or a dataview web part.

Scott Jamison [MCM] (Expert):

Q: [115] Project Server 2010. In your experience, does it require extra attention when it comes to CU or service pack patching? Any gotcha to avoid. Thanks.

A: Yes. Just like for any application that sits atop SharePoint, you should be extra careful when applying patches. Always apply your patches in a test environment first and then 'smoke test' your representative applications. There is nothing in particular that I'm aware of for SP2010/PS2010 (yet) clip_image002[12].

Spence [MCM] (Expert):

Q: [115] Project Server 2010. In your experience, does it require extra attention when it comes to CU or service pack patching? Any gotcha to avoid. Thanks.

A: In addition to Scot's points, we have a separate CU download for Project Server

Spence [MCM] (Expert):

Q: [116] How to inject scripts in all page of a web application in SP 2010? I guess there is an easier way than relying on delegate control. Ain't i right?

A: Delegate controls are a sensible choice, javascript injection can also be used but is considered a serious security issue.

Spence [MCM] (Expert):

Q: [117] Other than limitations around have a single AD domain, are there any scalability issues with SharePoint 2010 Server Standard FIS?

A: No, there are no additional restrictions other than a single domain name.

Spence [MCM] (Expert):

Q: [118] @Spence - I read that there is a supported way (and easy way) to add scripts/css to all the pages other than delegate control in SP 2010. And, delegate controls are not guaranteed to exist in custom master pages. So we really can't rely on that.

A: CSS is easy with alternateCSS, adding javascipt is another matter due to the security considerations

Darrin Bishop MVP (Expert):

Q: [119] When I bind a URL type column of a list to SPGridView column in Web part, It displays both URL and URL's description. Why is it? How to resolve it.

A: URL fields store the link and the description of the link in one field generally separated by a comma and space. You will need to split the field and retrieve the part you are interested in.

Matthew McDermott (Expert):

Q: [120] @Matthew: should i enter that directly in the page or in the xsl properties?

A: Looking at your page, the Body is rendering content, so it has to be on the page. You just need to find the tag, strip the HTML and then truncate it with a substring command. If you don't strip the HTML you run the risk of emitting invalid HTML and the browser will die.

Spence [MCM] (Expert):

Q: [121] Are you aware of any issues around caching (other than BLOB caching) whilst using host-named site collections?

A: There are no other caching issues with HNSC, SharePoint Caching are a site collection based features.

Paul Stork MVP (Expert):

Q: [122] @Paul stork - Can't i make use of lists rather than external database? i'm going to access data programmatically.

A: You can make use of lists. Your issues will be that lists are flat files (not good if you need to store normalized relational data) and you'll also have trouble accessing the data across a site collection boundary because of "double hops" when impersonating security.

Todd Baginski - MVP (Expert):

Q: [123] Does caml query builder from u2u work with SP2010? In my environment it breaks. Any idea?

A: I've successfully used it several times with 2010 sites. Are you running the tool on the SharePoint server, or on another machine? I always run it on the server and select the option to connect via the APIs, not the web services.

Darrin Bishop MVP (Expert):

Q: [123] Does caml query builder from u2u work with SP2010? In my environment it breaks. Any idea?

A: To add to Todd's I have had issues with the tool when Fast is running and SP Search is not running. Took me awhile to figure it out but the tool will not work with FAST. The Demo Hyper V image from MS runs fast on the Web App and not SharePoint search.

Matthew McDermott (Expert):

Q: [124] @Mathew: Thank you for your time. I will contact you later. Take care.

A: Sure, hope it helped.

Matthew McDermott (Expert):

Q: [125] @matthew: Thanks a lot for your help!

A: Sure, shoot me an e-mail if you don't get it worked out.

Randy Drisgill MVP (Expert):

Q: [126] @Randy -hope i've asked this already. I'm using IE7 and default master page of SharePoint. There is no doctype specified. How can i get position:fixed working?

A: I know things certainly behave strangely in quirks mode. For my master pages I try to at least have html 4.01 transitional doctype declared. You could try making a copy of default.master and adding this

Randy Drisgill MVP (Expert):

Q: [127] How can I add some JavaScript in Content Editor Web part's HTML source in SharePoint Designer as I can do in Browser?

A: If you detach from the page layout (if its a publishing page) you can edit everything including the HTML that is in the web part in SPD. Its not exactly the prettiest experience though. Its probably better to edit JavaScript somewhere else and paste into the web part or even point the web part to a .js file

Randy Drisgill MVP (Expert):

Q: [128] I guess i cant add doctype at runtime too.

A: Hmm, i don't think this would work but I've never tried

Darrin Bishop MVP (Expert):

Q: [130] Is it possible to have Foundation do an intra/extranet? Or does that default to an SPS licensing?

A: Licensing needs to be deferred to your MS rep, check on this link for some information. Since we don't know your situation exactly we cant answer the question. http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/

Randy Drisgill MVP (Expert):

Q: [132] @RANDY - But ours i just an addon. End users are going to add in their page. Cant ask them to use our masterpage.

A: In my previous answer, I would expect you to apply that master page to the site for them to use. I'm not sure if there is a work around to position: fixed.

Spence [MCM] (Expert):

Q: [133] @Spencer: Thank you very much for your help. Do we see you next month? clip_image002[14]

A: I hope to be able to join next month if time allows.

Randy Drisgill MVP (Expert):

Q: [136] @RANDY - sorry for spelling your name wrongly! clip_image002[18]

A: no worries

Darrin Bishop MVP (Expert):

Q: [137] @Darrin Bishop [38] Does BCS support per user credentials when accessing other systems? I mean that we do not have admin account for Siebel to get there all values for all users. User can enter in his settings his Siebel credentials.

A: That depends, there are a few ways to set this up, You can use the Secure Store account, Individual users or a "trusted" account. You might consider the SecureStore where users can manage their accounts for BCS->external app.

Randy Drisgill MVP (Expert):

Q: [138] @Randy: I really need some advice in regard to branding in SharePoint 2010. May I contact you after this chat session? Thanks.

A: I will be on next months chat, or you can hit me up on twitter

Melissa Travers MSFT (Moderator): That about wraps things up for our SharePoint Experts chat today. We will try to make the answers available in the chat transcript in about 3 weeks. Today’s chat transcript when posted will be available online in the SharePoint Development folder: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/events/gg130833.aspx 

Melissa Travers MSFT (Moderator): You can find out more information about our next chat on November 17th on the MVP Award Program blog http://blogs.msdn.com/mvpawardprogram where you can also find original articles written by the MVPs every Monday. As well as the MSDN Events page on the Chats tab with an Add to Calendar reminder http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/events/default.aspx. To find out more about the MVP Award Program, please go to the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional site http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/ 

Melissa Travers MSFT (Moderator): A big round of applause to our MVPs and MCMs for sharing their time and expertise with us today. To learn more about what it takes to become a Microsoft Certified Master, and Microsoft’s advanced training programs http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/certification/master.aspx Here you can also view the Master’s Directory and read the Master Blog http://blogs.technet.com/b/themasterblog

Melissa Travers MSFT (Moderator): And thank you to all our guests for joining us and asking so many great questions. Have a good day everyone and we’ll see you next month!

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Error occurred in deployment step 'Retract Solution': Cannot start service SPUserCodeV4 on computer ‘ServerName’.

While building sandbox solutions for SharePoint 2010 using Visual Studio 2010, if you find an error in deployment “Error occurred in deployment step 'Retract Solution': Cannot start service SPUserCodeV4 on computer ‘servername’, start “Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Sandboxed Code Service”.

123

To start this service, open Central Administration, go to Application Management and click “Manage services on server”.

Manage Services

Servicestop

ServiceStarted

After successful start of this service, solution deployment goes well.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Error : The Web application at [URL] could not be found. Verify that you have typed the URL correctly.

While developing console applications for SharePoint 2010 in Visual Studio 2010, I face FileNotFoundException when I use SPSite object i.e. using(SPSite site = new SPSite(url)).

System.IO.FileNotFoundException was unhandled
  Message=The Web application at http://intranet.maarktech.com could not be found. Verify that you have typed the URL correctly. If the URL should be serving existing content, the system administrator may need to add a new request URL mapping to the intended application.
  Source=Microsoft.SharePoint.

Error

This is because in my Project Properties, Build target platform was set as x86.

ProjectSetting 

When I changed my target platform back to Any CPU, it starts running well.

ApplicationRunning

Friday, October 15, 2010

Reference files via relative path in C# using Visual Studio 2010

While building solutions in Visual Studio especially writing console applications, we come across a situation where we need to refer other files in our code. Reading and writing in XML files are the most common example of such actions. And obviously we do not want to set absolute path in our code for these files. So how we can do this in Visual Studio 2010. For example, in my C# code, I am referring a XML file “UserProfileProperties.xml” which is placed on the same level where “Program.cs” is located.

XMLFileLoad

When I run this code, it gives me FileNotFoundException.

XMLError

To solve this issue, I select this xml file and change value of “Copy to Output Directory” from Do not copy to Copy always. After this change, above C# code starts working.

XMLFile

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Error : File Not Found. While accessing Site Permissions in SharePoint

We encounter a problem sometimes while accessing site permissions page in SharePoint and an error page comes showing “Error : File Not Found”.

SitePermission Page not found error

This error comes when we use “localhost” instead of using server name or Alternate Access Mapping / Host Header for our web application. If we change “localhost” with server name or Host Header, it works fine.

I was using http://localhost/Netto/NettoGermany/_layouts/user.aspx and it was giving me error screen. When I changed it http://flhsrv102/Netto/NettoGermany/_layouts/user.aspx, it started working perfectly.

SitePermission Page not found error1

Saturday, October 2, 2010

[Transcript] Q&A with the SharePoint MVP Experts Chat September 29, 2010

Here is the transcript of SharePoint MVP expert chat.sharepoint-2010-logo_225

Please note: Portions of this transcript have been edited for clarity.

Introduction:

Chat experts : Becky Bertram, Clayton Cobb, Dan Attis, Jason Medero, Saifullah Shafiq, mossJeremy Thake, Mike Oryszak, Mike Smith, Paul Stork, Randy Drisgill, Sean Wallbridge, Shane Young, Wictor Wilén, Rob Foster, Ivan Sanders.

Related Web Site : Microsoft SharePoint

Melissa Travers MSFT (Moderator): Hi everyone- welcome to the SharePoint MVP Expert Chat. I am your host this evening. My name is Melissa Travers and I am the MVP Lead for the SharePoint MVPs in the US. Your questions, comments and feedback are welcome. We will begin shortly…before doing so; I would like to begin by posting our chat rules and instructions for guests.

Melissa Travers MSFT (Moderator): 1. This chat will last for one hour. During this hour, our Experts will respond to as many questions as they can. Please understand that there are some questions we cannot respond to due to lack of information or because the information is not yet public
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Melissa Travers MSFT (Moderator): Now it’s time to meet the SharePoint MVPs who have joined us for this evening’s chat. Let’s have our Experts introduce themselves now and then we’ll get started…

Becky Bertram [MVP] (Expert): Hi there. My name is Becky Bertram and I am a self-employed SharePoint architect and developer living in St. Louis, Missouri. I've been building Microsoft Web Content Management solutions for the last decade. I'm currently authoring an upcoming Wrox Six-in-One book on SharePoint 2010 and I'll be speaking at the upcoming SharePoint Saturday Chicago. You can view my blog at http://blog.beckybertram.com

Clayton Cobb (Expert): Clayton Cobb is a SharePoint Architect and InfoPath MVP who specializes in building codeless solutions that utilize out-of-the-box capabilities combined with the tools that are built to enhance SharePoint, such as the Office suite and SharePoint Designer. Clayton works for Planet Technologies, a 100% Microsoft-focused consulting firm, and runs the Western Region based out of Denver. Clayton's blog is http://claytoncobb.wordpress.com, and he is the Tech Editor for the upcoming SharePoint Designer 2010 Unleashed.

Dan Attis (Expert): My name is Dan Attis. I am a SharePoint consultant for B&R Business Solutions and have been a SharePoint MVP for 3 years. I have really been looking forward to today’s chat, should prove to include some great conversations. My blog is located at http://www.wssguy.com and I can be found on Twitter via @jdattis.

Jason Medero (Expert): Hello everyone….. My name is Jason Medero and I am a systems architect with a concentration in SharePoint Products and Technologies. I have been working with SharePoint since 2003 and have been a SharePoint MVP for 6 years now. My expertise within SharePoint is on the architecture and infrastructure side of things with extensive experience with upgrades and migrations. Feel free to contact me with any help or questions at jmedero@gmail.com

Jeremy Thake (Expert): G'day, I am Jeremy Thake, based in Perth, Western Australia (yes it's midnight here). I am a SharePoint Solution Architect working for CSG and have been an MVP since July. My blog is located at http://wss.made4the.net/ , http://www.twitter.com/jthake and I also founded the http://SharePointDevWiki.com in Dec '08 focused on development.

Mike Oryszak (Expert): Hello, my name is Mike Oryszak. I'm a SharePoint Server MVP and Principal Consultant with Intellinet in the Information Worker Solution practice. I have been delivering solutions with SharePoint since 2002. I'm a frequent contributor on the MSDN SharePoint Forums (http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Profile/en-US/?user=Mike%20Oryszak&referrer=http%3a%2f%2fsocial.msdn.microsoft.com%2fForums%2fen-US%2fcategory%2fsharepoint%2f%3fprof%3drequired&rh=6FjNneJPwWK81T3u22PgRD2YtHC24y7%2fl3PYFs2L22M%3d&sp=forums) and I can also be found on twitter at http://twitter.com/next_connect. My blog is at http://nextconnect.blogspot.com.

Mike Smith (Expert): Hi! I'm a Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) and an MVP specializing in SharePoint, .Net, SQL Server and related technologies. Computer professional (computer nut), trainer and writer since 1980 and currently a Senior Instructor for MAX Technical Training (Cincinnati area). I train and write for SharePoint administrators, developers and site owners.

Paul Stork MVP (Expert): Hi, my name is Paul Stork, and I've been an MVP for three years. I'm Chief SharePoint Architect for ShareSquared, Inc. working out of Cleveland, OH. I straddle the fence between IT-Pro and Developer working on SharePoint architecture, custom development, and branding. You can find my Blog at http://dontpapanic.com/blog and I'm @PStork on Twitter.

Randy Drisgill MVP (Expert): My name is Randy Drisgill, I work for SharePoint911 as the Branding and Design Lead and I've been a SharePoint Server MVP for about a year and a half. I'm focused primarily on the user interface aspects of SharePoint. You can find me on Twitter as @Drisgill and at my blog - http://blog.drisgill.com.

Saifullah Shafiq MVP (Expert): Hi. My name is Saifullah Shafiq. I am a SharePoint consultant, author, and blogger. My web site is http://walisystems.com. My book's web site is http://sharepoint2007tips.com. You can read my blog at http://vspug.com/ssa. My facebook profile is available at http://facebook.com/saifullah.shafiq and my twitter id is @sshafiq. Feel free to connect with me!

Sean Wallbridge (Expert): Hi Folks, I'm Sean Wallbridge, a SharePoint Server MVP based out of Victoria, BC. I own a company called itgroove and we focus on Microsoft Solutions for the SMB, with a strong emphasis on SharePoint solutions. You can catch me online at http://blog.brainlitter.com and I occasionally (begrudgingly) add to the noise of twitter @itgroove. Nice to meet you.

Shane Young MVP (Expert): Hi my name is Shane Young and I have been a SharePoint MVP for 5 glorious years. I, unlike most of these other guys, am an IT Pro. That makes me way cooler than the rest of these jokers. I am the owner of http://www.sharepoint911.com and I just completed my 900 page SharePoint 2010 administrator’s book. http://tinyurl.com/2010adminbook and you can hit me up on Twitter @shanescows or shane@sharepoint911.com.

Wictor Wilén (Expert): Hi Wictor Wilén here. I’m a SharePoint Architect at Connecta in Sweden with more than 12 years experience in the web content management and portal industry. I am an active SharePoint community participant, writer, tutor, frequent speaker and author of the book SharePoint 2010 Web Parts in Action. I’m actively blogging at http://www.wictorwilen.se

Rob Foster (Expert): Hello, I'm late joining, but my name is Rob Foster and I am a lead SharePoint architect in Nashville, TN. I am also an author and co-host of the SharePoint Pod Show http://www.sharepointpodshow.com

Ivan Sanders MVP (Expert): Hi I’m a SharePoint Architect from SoCal and I am very fortunate to be a part of this group of folks and I hope everyone will get a chance to check out SoCal Code Camp http://www.socalcodecamp.com/ 10/23 - 10/24 its free and I will be presenting on InfoPath 2010 and Visual Studio 2010...

Start of chat:

Randy Drisgill MVP (Expert):

Clayton Cobb (Expert):

Q: [1] sp2007 - using announcement list to hold subject/body of email used in SPD WF email. Hyperlinks in the Body look right in browser, but when sent in email, the links in the email are relative URL's. The domain portion is dropped. Anyway to prevent that?

A: Bri, when creating the hyperlink inside the body of the announcement, are you using the hyperlink tool in the rich text editor or just manually typing the URL? You may want to type it instead of using the wizard to select it.

Q: [2] sp2010 - What is the best way to remove unwanted styles from the "Format Text>Styles>Styles", "Format Text>Markup>Markup Styles", "Table Design>Table Styles>Styles" dropdowns when I edit a page? I can add new styles or override the existing styles in CSS,

A: I have only played around briefly with removing items, I'm not sure if this is supported officially, but I was able to remove items from the rich text editor from SharePoint Designer 2010 by editing: /style library/en-us/Themable/Core Styles/controls.css

For instance if I remove:

H1.ms-rteElement-H1

{

-ms-name:"Heading 1";

}

.ms-rteElement-H1

{

font-size:2em;

font-weight:normal;

}

Then the Heading 1 option is removed from the Markup Styles

Sean Wallbridge (Expert):

Q: [3] sp2010 - How do I customize alert emails? I'm trying to remove fields, which should be possible by adding fieldnames to the appropriate section in the xml file.

I've tried the stsadm -o updatealerttemplates command, but it doesn't seem to work.

A: Hi Nick. Have you looked through the "alerts in SharePoint Foundation" section on MDSN? http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb897925.aspx. You may also want to browse the schema information here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb802961(office.14).aspx. That said, you may want to consider creating a workflow instead, to perform your alerts. This gives you full control over who an alert would go to, what conditions need to be met for the alert to be sent (alerts have limited 'scenarios' for when an alert is sent) and any other actions you might want/need to perform. If you aren't familiar with SharePoint Designer 2010, be sure to grab it at http://www.microsoft.com/spd and take a look at your options there.

Sean Wallbridge (Expert):

Q: [4] hi... is there a way to configure user profile synchronization on a stand-alone setup...

A: Hi there. If this is a production install/environment, you should be avoiding doing a standalone installation. I'm fairly certain I read somewhere that User Profile Sync was either unsupported in standalone (or difficulties lay ahead) so you may want to avoid it altogether. I would suggest instead that you install your SQL Server first (or SQL Server 2008 R2 Express if this is for evaluation/testing) and then create a "complete" farm. This way you get the clearest path to success (proper Farm) and have something you can support fully. Also, reference Spencer Harbar's "Rational Guide to Implementing SharePoint Server 2010 User Profile Synchronization" - you can find it here: http://www.harbar.net/articles/sp2010ups.aspx

Jason Medero (Expert):

Q: [5] I just used stsadm -o enumsites on a web app and got a list of site collections. One of the sites is listed 3-4 times. Not sure why that is? any thoughts?

A: Hi Lynn, Does the one site collection have the same URL listed when you run enumsites?

Dan Attis (Expert):

Q: [5] I just used stsadm -o enumsites on a web app and got a list of site collections. One of the sites is listed 3-4 times. Not sure why that is? any thoughts?

A: http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/en-us/Pages/Feedback.aspx seems to be an appropriate spot for that type of feedback.

Dan Attis (Expert):

Q: [7] sp2010 - How much javascript does sharepoint allow? A little seems to be fine, but not jQuery...

A: jQuery works fine, make sure you have deployed the appropriate libraries and referenced them correctly in your code.

Sean Wallbridge (Expert):

Q: [8] sp2007 - using Url Rewrite 2.0 (on IIS 7.0) to rewrite an Url to an image url (i.e internet/moss/sitecollectionimages/myimage.jpg - this image was existing in my site) it can not rewrite to this image. But If I rewrite to pages/default.aspx It can do it. Why do I not rewrite to image url in MOSS?

A: Hi hquang. I'm not an authority on URL rewrites, but I do know that the general guidance is that doing so is not recommended nor supported. Have a look at this link here as it discussed in more detail. http://blogs.microlinkllc.com/tresing/archive/2010/04/16/url-rewrite-+-sharepoint-=-no-support.aspx

Shane Young MVP (Expert):

Q: [9] Is there any way to avoid the "Double hop" issue connecting Reporting Services or other SQL databases to SharePoint without installing Kerberos?

A: No. In order to accomplish double hop you will have to move to Kerberos. It is fun but once you get it worked out it runs great.

Shane Young MVP (Expert):

Dan Attis (Expert):

Q: [10] Is there a way to suggest/request SP 2010 features, and to see which features MSFT might be adding to new versions (e.g., Dell's Ideastorm)?

A: http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/en-us/Pages/Feedback.aspx

Q: [11] I'm using a separate WebApp for MySites. Both websites are using Claim and FBA as Authentication method. My problem is... When users already authenticated on Website using FBA are trying to connect on their Profile, they are prompted again... Is there anyt

A: Are they two separate web applications? Your FBA token for web app A isn't valid for web app B so it has to reauthenticate you.

Shane Young MVP (Expert):

Q: [12] Is it possible to migrate the SSP User Profiles from 2007 to 2010? If yes, what's the degree of difficulty?

A: It is possible. I am not a huge fan. Do you have custom info in the profile database? If it is just the info you imported from AD start over in 2010 an reimport. The user profile sync service is a giant pain in the butt and adding upgrade to it only makes it more fun.

Paul Stork MVP (Expert):

Q: [13] how to deploy multiple versions sharepoint 2007 workflow with visual studio 2008 without losing existing workflow history.

A: Each workflow version created in Visual Studio will end up being a new managed code assembly in the GAC. You will need to make sure to choose the same workflow history list when you instantiate the new version.

Saifullah Shafiq MVP (Expert):

Q: [14] What are search scopes and how many types of scopes can we create in SP 2010?

A: A search scope provides a way to group items logically within the index based on common elements. There are two types: Authored and Contextual.

Saifullah Shafiq MVP (Expert):

Q: [15] Could someone define taxonomy for me? I hear this buzz word so often but don't know what it means.

A: Taxonomy is technique of classifying information.

Mike Oryszak (Expert):

Q: [16] If I have a list and create multiple DVWP forms for each different content type, how to I set the content type automatically?

A: Are you looking to switch between multiple DVWPs or are you looking to filter one down by Content Type? You should be able to filter down the nodeset by Content Type by using jQuery.

Jeremy Thake (Expert):

Q: [17] Hello. We have built our own custom 2007 deployment solutions (API calls from batch files) to ensure the sequence of items previously in a manifest.xml is guaranteed - some content needs to be created before the rest... Have you come across this?

A: I would recommend grouping Artefacts in Features within a Solution Package. So for instance, if you had Site Columns (<Fields> and Content Types (<ContentTypes) that a List is dependent on that you group them in separate Features and activate in order. In SP2010, you actually can set depencies on Features.

Jason Medero (Expert):

Q: [18] Jason. Yes. the url is the same for each site, and so are all the other columns of info.

A: Have you tried to navigate to these other sites? And are they working sites with the same URL? My guess is that you can't actually browse to the sites and you may have an orphaned site. If this is the case you can use Stsadm -o databaserepair parameter to see if you have any orphaned objects for a specific content databases. You will want to run that command on the content database where this problematic site collection lives. From there you can clean up the objects by using the command and additional parameters to the command.

Hope this helps.

Clayton Cobb (Expert):

Q: [19] Is there any way to create InfoPath Add, edit, display forms for Libraries? Not DIPs, but entry forms? Customizing in SharePoint Designer 2010 seems much harder now.

A: No, this is not available for document library forms in 2010. What do you consider to be harder with SPD2010? It is much more flexible and robust. What were you doing before that no longer works?

Becky Bertram [MVP] (Expert):

Q: [20] @Saifullah Thanks! so my next question would be what is folsonomy?

A: Folksonomy is when end users tag items with tags that make sense to them. Taxonomy = top down (i.e. administrators or someone determines terms ahead of time) while Folksonomy = bottom up (i.e. end users get to determine which tags and keywords are helpful for themselves.)

Saifullah Shafiq MVP (Expert):

Q: [20] @Saifullah Thanks! so my next question would be what is folsonomy?

A: Folksonomy! Users can now tag information with keywords. This allows users to create classifications and this user contributed metadata is known as folksonomy.

Paul Stork MVP (Expert):

Q: [21] Is there a way to create BCS Actions that fire javascript instead of linking to a URL?

A: The only way I know of to do that would be to create a custom page that will autoload the javascript, then point to the URL of the page. But I don't have a VM with BCS loaded at the moment to double check on custom actions. I thought javascript was one of the three potential custom action possibilities.

Woody Windischman (Expert):

Q: [22] After implementing Harbar's Rational Guide, resets cause the services to fail to start. We haven't been successful in restarting the services since. Any way to get around this issue, or a best-practice for restarting the server to know about?

A: Although there are a few possible causes, you should install the cumulative update package, as this will address the most common ones.

Paul Stork MVP (Expert):

Q: [23] I need 10 different URLs to point to the same WebApp, AAM is limited to 5, thoughts on a work around?

A: Adding a web URL to DNS and binding it to the IIS site as a host header entry will get you to a SharePoint site without adding an AAM. However, when you connect the URL in the address bar will change to the default zone address. Would that be sufficient?

Becky Bertram [MVP] (Expert):

Q: [24] I am trying to build a Custom Web Service that retreives data from a SPList, when i deploy the web service do to a non sharepoint server i get could not load Microsoft.SharePoint.Library.dll any ideas how to get this to work

A: Is your Web Service itself installed on the SharePoint server and you're accessing your Web Service from some other server? Or are you trying to add your Web Service to another server? Anytime you use the server object model, your code needs to be running on a server that has SharePoint installed.

Shane Young MVP (Expert):

Q: [25] I'd like to replicate Prod farm to a lab with same domain name and host name. Can I just image (using tool to backup the whole server like P2V) the Prod server and port over? I know I can't do that if the domain name and host names are different.

A: I am guessing you are going to have more headaches with that then it will be worth. The servers are part of your prod domain so they will get mad when you try to bring them up on the domain. But you will have to or your service accounts would not work. I would build dev/test clean.

Rob Foster (Expert):

Q: [26] What are the classes I need to know to create my own custom workflow (Sequential)?

A: Hey June, please refer to the MSDN documentation here to determine what the best class is to use: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee534966.aspx

Saifullah Shafiq MVP (Expert):

Q: [27] Ok another question, What are document sets? Collection of documents? What is their significance?

A: Document sets enable documents to be grouped into a version capable or distributable group. Distributable group can be packaged and distributed in its entirety.

Wictor Wilén (Expert):

Q: [27] Ok another question, What are document sets? Collection of documents? What is their significance?

A: Document Sets are a collection of documents that can share metadata and most importantly (IMHO) are versioned together (even though the documents inside the doc set also are versioned)

Jeremy Thake (Expert):

Q: [28] I've read that Lookups on a library or list should be limited to no more than 8. Is that 8 lookup column that return one item of data only, or 8 lookup columns that can return related data from the same lookup list?

A: There are some recommended limits with SharePoint 2010 around Lookup Columns on a list. This is really because SharePoint is not designed to be a complex relational data model. The link on Technet describes these limits in more detail: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262787.aspx. In summary the thresholds kick in at 8 per view. There is also some guidance around the number of Lookup Columns in total on a list which is 16, although there are blog posts out there that vary this number down to 13.

Jason Medero (Expert):

Q: [29] Jason. Yes, the one that gets repeated is the main url of our sharepoint site. i.e. http://site.company.com so we know it works.

A: Gotcha so it looks like you may have some orphaned objects in your content database. I would check out this command found here http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263282%28office.12%29.aspx

Good luck!

Shane Young MVP (Expert):

Q: [30] Besides resorting to a commercial entity, is there a good guide/reference to speed-optimizing a Sharepoint 2010 install for increased end-user usability? (in addition to optimizing the CSS and HTML, what about web.config edits, Central Admin tweaks, etc?)

A: I don't know if there is a good guide yet to optimize perf on 2010. I also don't know of a 3rd party tool to help with it. What type of issues are you having? What perf do you want to increase?

Becky Bertram [MVP] (Expert):

Q: [31] @Becky Bertram Q24. I am trying to deploy my webservice on a server that is not Sharepoint. The web service is used to retrieve list items. basically we are trying to integrate SP and Lotus Notes but LN doesn't like the WSDL created by lists.asmx

A: That won't work. If you want to access the SharePoint server from a remote location you need to use the Client Object Model or access SharePoint using the SharePoint Web Services.

Shane Young MVP (Expert):

Q: [32] @Shane... My lab has a separate domain (but with the same domain name)...

A: The machine and user SIDs would not match so it would still be broke. Sorry.

Shane Young MVP (Expert):

Q: [33] Will it possible to port the server images over?

A: You are going to be better of to rebuild. Sorry.

Saifullah Shafiq MVP (Expert):

Q: [34] What are content types?

A: Content types encapsulate settings and metadata for a particular type of content in a template that can be reused and is independent of any particular list or library.

Clayton Cobb (Expert):

Q: [35] Clayton: I have done both and same result either way. If the url is something outside of my domain ( ex: www.cnn.com ) the URL remains whole. Only truncates if URL is on my domain. This seems to be happening with CEWP as well.

A: Yes, SharePoint does that automatically. I'm not aware of a way to keep it from doing that. It's actually a good thing usually, but for your method, it causes issues as you know. I'm going to try something in my test environment here.

Clayton Cobb (Expert)

Q: [35] Clayton: I have done both and same result either way. If the url is something outside of my doemain ( ex: www.cnn.com ) the URL remains whole. Only truncates if URL is on my domain. This seems to be happening wiht CEWP as well.

A: Bri, I just ran a test in my environment, and the URL came through just fine in the body of my SPD email when it existed in the body of the announcement. However, my test environment is 2010. Is yours 2007?

Randy Drisgill MVP (Expert):

Q: [37] @Randy That suggests that it may be possible by editing one of the css files in the 14 hive. Which one though? I'm pretty sure I've tried the obvious candidates. (We don't use Designer)

A: I'm thinking that editing one of these might be what you want: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\1033\STYLES\Controls.css or C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\TEMPLATE\FEATURES\PublishingLayouts\en-us\Controls.css

Paul Stork MVP (Expert):

Q: [38] @Paul Each URL would need to be maintained...

A: The only way I can think to have 10 differnet URLs for a SharePoint site, where all the URLs are maintained would be to extend the web applicaiton to a new zone for the second set of 5 base URLs as AAMs

Becky Bertram [MVP] (Expert):

Q: [39] @BeckyBertram Q24 : sorry this is for sp 2007, does that change anything?

A: In SharePoint 2007 you don't have the client object model, so you need to use the SharePoint Web Services.

Saifullah Shafiq MVP (Expert):

Q: [40] Is pre-upgrade checker tool useful?

A: It scans your current environment for problems that could prevent the upgrade process. You can use the output for gathering information about your farm.

Saifullah Shafiq MVP (Expert):

Q: [41] Is document management and collaboration same thing?

A: No, document management might be part of collaboration but it is not required. Collaboration is the process of two or more people working on the same document. Document can be managed manually by a single person or automatically through a workflow process.

Shane Young MVP (Expert):

Q: [42] Is there any good guide yet for installing and configuring all the various Service Applications in SP 2010 Enterprise? This has been a painful process if you don't do all the right things in the right order.

A: Not that I have seen. Technet has some decent info. The good news is the order actually doesn't matter to much. Are you having a specific issue we can help with?

Shane Young MVP (Expert):

Q: [43] @Shane Young: Well, general page load time is an issue for many users (machines are older, but not very old) and typically require ~30+ seconds to load. Our theme is not large, but many SharePoint Javascript files seem to load multiple times

A: Sounds like your custom branding is doing something crazy... Create a web app with an out of the box team site and see what performance is for that. Are all of the users local?

Paul Stork MVP (Expert):

Q: [44] Are any recommendation out there for migrating custom workflow from MOSS 2007 to SP2010?

A: If the workflow is built in SharePoint Designer 2007, then the only way would be to upgrade the SharePoint site in place. If the workflow is written in VS 2008 you should be able to open the project in 2010 and update any necessary API calls.

Saifullah Shafiq MVP (Expert):

Q: [45] Thanks. Another question: What is difference between document and record? Sorry I am still learning SharePoint.

A: Document can be declared as record which means document has reached a stage where it has a legal requirement. SharePoint allows management of records so that companies can meet compliance requirements.

Sean Wallbridge (Expert):

Q: [46] @Sean The information from the first link is new to me, but at a preliminary scan doesn't seem particularly helpful. The second link is one that I've pored over before. The workflows and actions for alerts are fine at the moment, we just want to customise the content of the emails so they don't include some fields.

A: Hi Nick. Mmm I personally haven't had the need to remove fields from an alert so I can't speak from experience, but here's two more links to throw you at (WSS/MOSS, but should still prove relevant in this scenario), with hope it helps: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sharepointdeveloperdocs/archive/2007/12/07/customizing-alert-notifications-and-alert-templates-in-windows-sharepoint-services-3-0.aspx and http://blogs.msdn.com/b/anolan/archive/2008/01/07/is-it-possible-to-modify-sharepoint-email-notifications.aspx. I have referred to these in the past

Rob Foster (Expert):

Q: [48] I'm using a separate WebApp for MySites. Both websites are using Claim and FBA as Authentication method. My problem is... When users already authenticated on Website using FBA are trying to connect on their Profile, they are prompted again... Is there anything.

A: Unless you use claims on both, context switching between claims and FBA will always prompt you.

Becky Bertram [MVP] (Expert):

Q: [49] @BeckyBertram Q24 " In SharePoint 2007 you don't have the client object model, so you need to use the SharePoint Web Services." I agree, so I am creating a custom WS. However the issue i am having is deploying it. Just to clarify your response, I must have

A: You cannot use the server-side object model (i.e. anything that uses a SharePoint assembly) on a box that does not have SharePoint installed.

Mike Oryszak (Expert):

Q: [49] @BeckyBertram Q24 " In SharePoint 2007 you don't have the client object model, so you need to use the SharePoint Web Services." I agree, so I am creating a custom WS. However the issue i am having is deploying it. Just to clarify your response, I must have

A: Separate web apps will mean separate authentication. This isn't normally a big deal with Windows Auth, but when using FBA it will request login when the user jumps to the other web app.

Mike Oryszak (Expert):

Q: [49] @BeckyBertram Q24 " In SharePoint 2007 you don't have the client object model, so you need to use the SharePoint Web Services." I agree, so I am creating a custom WS. However the issue i am having is deploying it. Just to clarify your response, I must have

A: You cannot reference SharePoint Objects in your custom web service if you deploy the web service to a computer not in the farm.

Jason Medero (Expert):

Q: [50] My Company is planning on setting up SharePoint Enterprise in 2 locations both in the U.S. Both with about 300 users per location. There is a decent connection between the 2 locations. We were thinking about having a Physical database server in both locations and then a Virtual host running the application and web frontend both on Separate VM's. Is it possible for the Application / Web server in each location to use the local database server (in that location) or is there only 1 "primary" database server with the secondary one being a failover?

A: You can use multiple database servers for your SharePoint farms. The general guidance is that the database server must be in the same location as the WFE and App servers. Does that answer your question?

Jason Medero (Expert):

Q: [50] My Company is planning on setting up SharePoint Enterprise in 2 locations both in the U.S. Both with about 300 users per location. There is a decent connection between the 2 locations. We were thinking about having a Physical database server in both locations and then a Virtual host running the application and web frontend both on Separate VM's. Is it possible for the Application / Web server in each location to use the local database server (in that location) or is there only 1 "primary" database server with the secondary one being a failover?

A: Also with the setup that you mentioned you are looking at two different farm. One in each location

Shane Young MVP (Expert):

Q: [51] @Shane, regarding installing Service Apps, using the Secure Store, setting up Performance Point (code block errors), User Profile Service updating prevents people from changing their e-mail address

A: The userprofile is normal behavior. I would just have to see your other errors for PPS and Secure Store. They are both very straight forward to create and I don't think the creation is your issue.

Saifullah Shafiq MVP (Expert):

Q: [52] How to add a custom property in user profile store using PowerShell? Any direction please.

A: you can create new user profile properties. Using UI, it's easy. Go to User Profile Service Application page in Central Admin. Within the Manage Profile Service page, click Manage User properties and the click New Property. With powershell I don't remember the exact command. This article shows how to edit it. http://get-spscripts.com/2010/07/modify-single-value-user-profile.html

Dan Attis (Expert):

Q: [53] Is there a way to set the welcome page within a different site collection without having a custom redirection page? I want to avoid a multiple redirections, rather point it directly to another welcome page within a different site collection.

A: Simply setting the WelcomePage property of the PublishingWeb to the absolute url should suffice.

Dan Attis (Expert):

Q: [53] Is there a way to set the welcome page within a different site collection without having a custom redirection page? I want to avoid a multiple redirections, rather point it directly to another welcome page within a different site collection.

A: @Opee Is this a publishing site?

Shane Young MVP (Expert):

Q: [54] @Shane - Local and remote; we noticed this w/ the standard theme (in Beta), too... do you know what the general page (OOTB) page size should be? (Thanks!)

A: @Randy is the branding guy

Randy Drisgill MVP (Expert):

Q: [54] @Shane - Local and remote; we noticed this w/ the standard theme (in Beta), too... do you know what the general page (OOTB) page size should be? (Thanks!)

A: Shane asked me to chime in. The OOTB page size is large (due to lots of Javascript). Though the server caches a lot of this. I haven't seen an updated post for 2010 but some of these tips may help you:

http://www.sharepointnutsandbolts.com/2009/06/my-checklist-for-optimizing-sharepoint.html

Clayton Cobb (Expert):

Q: [56] Any plans on MSFT's part to introduce updated MOSS 2007's Top 40 Templates ported for SharePoint 2010 use? (e.g., helpdesk etc)

A: Microsoft announced that they will not be doing the Fab40 templates for 2010.

Woody Windischman (Expert):

Q: [57] If you have Internet Content and Intranet Content, I assume separate Search Applications would be best to ensure isolation?

A: Assuming that the Internet and Intranet content are easily separable (such as in different web applications), then yes, a separate search application will guarantee that there are no common results. If they are intermingled, you need to rely on the fact that search is security trimmed to make sure Internet users don't see the Intranet content.

Jeremy Thake (Expert):

Q: [58] moss2007 - using url rewrite 2.0 (IIS 7.0) to rewrite an url to an image url (i.e internet/moss/sitecollectionimages/myimages.jpg) in MOSS, it does not rewrite but if I rewrite to pages/default.aspx it can do it. Why can I not rewrite url to image url in MOSS?

A: In general it is best to avoid rewrites because SharePoint has HttpHandlers that intercept the url on first request to do things such as grab /_layouts/settings.aspx at any level. You have to be extremely careful when writing your own Rewrite Rules. There is a great post on how to do this though in IIS7.5 by Robin here http://community.zevenseas.com/Blogs/Robin/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?List=0ef532c7%2D89cb%2D4e57%2Db0ae%2Ddf0c5f5c4448&ID=132&Web=3d83ae3f%2D6f2f%2D4d3b%2D854f%2Dc2250e1f7cd1

Mike Oryszak (Expert):

Q: [59] @MikeOryszak Q49 The computer is on the farm.

A: In the original question, #24, you said that it was being deployed to a non-SharePoint server.

Rob Foster (Expert):

Q: [60] Is "Aptimize" still the recommend solution provider for optimizing for speed in SharePoint 2010?

A: It's an option, yes. We covered some other options in Episode 50 of the SharePoint Pod Show that we used to optimize things for my company. Here's a link to the show: http://www.sharepointpodshow.com/archive/2010/09/09/sharepoint-performance-tuning-episode-50.aspx

Paul Stork MVP (Expert)

Q: [61] I'd like to replicate Prod farm to a lab environment (different domain but with same domain name and host name). Can I just image (using tool to backup the whole server like P2V) the Prod server and port over? I know I can't do that if the domain name and

A: You can create a full image using SharePoint Backup and then restore it to you lab environment. Imaging the machine won't get all the content in the database.

Dan Attis (Expert):

Q: [63] @Dan: Yes, this is a publishing site.

A: I am assuming you have read this:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.sharepoint.publishing.publishingweb.defaultpage.aspx

Rob Foster (Expert):

Q: [64] What editor do you all recommend to develop XSLT? (I'm a newbie to it, but need to customize CQWP displays)

A: I use Visual Studio or Notepad (if needed).

Jason Medero (Expert):

Q: [65] @Jason So they can both be on the same farm (same content in both locations) but with different "primary" database servers, and the database servers doing some sort of replication/mirroring? Are there any guides / white papers on this?

A: There is currently no great solutions for geo-replication across SharePoint farms. In plain English currently you cannot replicate content from one location to another that is running SharePoint. There are some 3rd parties which provide half baked solutions but usually there are more problems that come along with attempting to do this than its worth. My advice to you is to either have two separate SharePoint farms at each location or have one centralized SharePoint farm that can be accessed from both locations. As long as your connection between locations is solid enough I would go with the centralized approach.

Paul Stork MVP (Expert):

Q: [66] @Paul Stork Q44 - Thanks for your resp. Our WFs were build using SPD, do you know of any third-party software that can accomplish this?

A: SharePoint Designer Workflows are not transportable. I am aware of no 3rd party tool that would allow this either. In place upgrade is about the only way.

Rob Foster (Expert):

Q: [67] @Rob - Thanks for the suggestion! Is there anything that helps w/ code validation on the fly? (Maybe VS?)

A: Yeah, Visual Studio will help you validate AND debug the code on the fly. There are a lot of 3rd party tools available, but they simply put a prettier interface on top of the capabilities offered by Visual Studio. If you own Visual Studio, you've got more than enough.

Saifullah Shafiq MVP (Expert):

Q: [68] How do we manage SSL in SharePoint 2010?

A: SharePoint Server 2010 does not manage SSL but it must be configured to use SSL. To implement SSL, you must manage each web application individually on every web server in the farm.

Dan Attis (Expert):

Q: [69] @Dan: Thanks for the response. It didn't accept absolute URL, I think the first site its hitting, is not publishing site. The site I want to redirect to, is a publishing site though.

A: @Opee I think that first site must be publishing as well. See Gary Lapointes post here as well for more info. http://stsadm.blogspot.com/2008/01/set-welcome-page-for-web.html

Paul Stork MVP (Expert):

Q: [70] @Paul on Q61, I only will image the WFE and indexer servers and will restore the DB to another server... will it work?

A: Yes, that should work.

Rob Foster (Expert):

Q: [71] @Rob - Thanks!

A: You're welcome!

Shane Young MVP (Expert):

Q: [72] Thoughts on having each Web App use a different IP address? Thinking for SSL options later...

A: That would be fine but you would have to manually to set it in IIS. If I have multiple SSL web apps I like to use wildcard cets to save my self the pain.

Saifullah Shafiq MVP (Expert):

Q: [73] What are extra features of user profile service in sharepoint 2010?

A: User profile service is a shared service in SP 2010. It allows the management of various features and capabilities related to information about users in the farm. It is used to manage user profile properties, audiences, profile synchronization and My Site settings. For more information, please visit this link: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee721050.aspx

Dan Attis (Expert):

Q: [74] I am running into an issue when I create a new publishing sub-site. Here are my steps... 1. Go to Site Actions > Create Site, 2. Fill out the information to create a new site, 3. The sub site starts to get provisioned, but I get an error "Folders are not allowed for this list template. I get the following error message in the ULS log file "Event log message was: 'Failed to create the 'Documents' library.'. Exception was: 'Microsoft.SharePoint.SPException: Folders are not allowed for this list template. at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPList.set_EnableFolderCreation(Boolean value) at Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.Internal.AreaProvisioner.CreateDocumentsDocumentLibrary(SPList approvalTaskList)". Has anyone ever seen this error message before?

A: Have you modified any of the out of the box files in the SharePoint root folder?

Mike Oryszak (Expert):

Q: [75] Hi. Is there a best practices document on which services should be running on dedicated application servers for SharePoint 2010 and what all should run on the WFEs?

A: Here is the TechNet Deployment Information: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee667264.aspx.  Each environment can be configured in a different way to meet the needs of the specific implementation. In most cases Indexing should be on one or more dedicated servers, if the BI tools are used, they typically need their own servers.

Saifullah Shafiq MVP (Expert):

Q: [76] Can we add our own properties to the user profile?

A: I just answered a similar question a few mins ago. Yes, you can create new user profile properties. Go to User Profile Service Application page in Central Admin. Within the Manage Profile Service page, click Manage User properties and the click New Property.

Woody Windischman (Expert):

Q: [77] @MikeOryszak Q59 : Let me start again. I have a SharePoint server A that has data that i need in Lotus Notes. I have created a Web Service that will get the list items and do some manipulation to it. I need to deploy my custom Web Service to a server th

A: When you build your custom web service, make sure that you aren't including any references to the server-side object model in your project (that's where the .dll reference error you originally mentioned is coming from). You will only be able to use the SharePoint web services unless you deploy your web service on a SharePoint server (i.e. in layouts, or your web application's bin folder). In addition, on a separate box, unless you have implemented Kerberos, you my run into double-hop authentication issues unless your web service has a hard-coded impersonation account.

Paul Stork MVP (Expert):

Q: [78] I have ECTS (External Collaboration Toolkit for SharePoint) to manage external users management) in 2007 environment. How ECTS fit in 2010? Do I have to use different solution since I don't see any new version for ECTS for SP2010? How to port the current e

A: Is this the package from SharePoint Solutions? I saw a 2010 version available on their web site last week. You would need to check with them about how to port that environment from 2007 to 2010.

Ivan Sanders MVP (Expert):

Q: [79] Any expert out there used Netscaler to load balance SharePoint 2010 WFEs? If so, have you used the NetScaler AppExpert Application Templates?

A: I have used the AppExpert templates with SP2007 but not with SP2010, the templates make it very easy to configure the Netscaler devices

Melissa Travers MSFT (Moderator):

Q: [80] What are the steps to becoming an MVP?

A: To find out more about the MVP Award Program, please go to the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional site http://mvp.support.microsoft.com; You can also submit nominations for award from that site. Thank you!

Sean Wallbridge (Expert):

Q: [81] I am going to migrate the SQL server from 64bits SQL 2005 to SQL 2008 R2. Do I have to worry about the custom developed code compatibilities with SQL 2008 R2? These code are working fine with 32 bits WFE with 64 bit SQL...I know I will have to test the cod

A: Hi Bo, this should not be a problem. As always test, but you should be alright. If you can be more specific about your code, others may have more input for you. But generally, if you are backing up and restoring/migration your databases from one version to the other, you should be alright.

Saifullah Shafiq MVP (Expert):

Q: [82] Can we disable social tagging in sites?

A: Yes. Reference: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee721064.aspx

Paul Stork MVP (Expert):

Q: [83] @Paul Q78..No. ECTS is developed by MS and is in CodePlex now.. not from SharePoint solutions..

A: Different product. For that one you'll either need to get the code from CodePlex and do your own update or wait for an updated CodePlex Project.

Saifullah Shafiq MVP (Expert):

Q: [84] I cannot find MySite in the newly installed SharePoint 2010 server. Please help.

A: You can configure settings for My Sites in the My Site Host location for each user profile service application. The following link has in-depth information: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee624362.aspx

Dan Attis (Expert):

Q: [85] How can we find out what's coming in the next major SharePoint update? Specifically, is new functionality (e.g., user functionality) on the way? Refinements to existing functionality?

A: Unfortunately it is still very early in the cycle to know. Msft is soliciting feedback from customers as well as making plenty of bug fixes. In so far as exact features, that information will likely be posted as soon as it becomes publicly available. In short, still too early to know.

Sean Wallbridge (Expert):

Q: [86] @Sean I've been trying the exact method to customize mentioned in second of those two links (in fact I think it was my primary source) with stsadm. Should it work?

A: It worked for me. Can you be more specific about where/how it is failing for you?

Clayton Cobb (Expert):

Q: [87] @Clayton, on the SP Designer entry forms, when I create a new "Add" form, enter an item and click Save, it just sits there. Never returns to the all items view. I've had this happen several times on different lists forms. When I move fields to a different line, they just disappear, I have to copy and paste instead.

A: Kate, I haven't experienced any of that. Can you explain the steps you're using to create the form and associate it? It shouldn't entail much, but I want to make sure. Also, are you not using 2010 Enterprise? If you are, have you tried customizing the list forms with InfoPath?

Wictor Wilén (Expert):

Q: [88] How can we convert SP2010 VHD files provided by Microsoft to VMware? I dont have windows 2008 and hyper-v. I have vmware. I hear that we can convert SP2010 VHD files to vmware but I dont know how to do it. I actually saw a blog post sometime ago on this topic but I have lost that link. Could someone point me to a relevant link on this topic?

A: StarWind software has a free VHD to VMDK converter that I use to for that. Check out: http://www.starwindsoftware.com/converter

Randy Drisgill MVP (Expert):

Q: [89] I would like to modify the master page for a teamsite in SharePoint 2010 - move the logo around and change the colors, etc. Then created a template out of it. What is the best way to do that?

A: Probably the best way to tackle this is to work in a local VM or dev environment and use SharePoint Designer 2010 to make a copy of v4.master and make changes as needed. Then when you are happy with the results you can add the new master page and CSS to a solution package WSP and deploy it to the server. Another option for saving customizations to a Team sites would be to make the new master page and apply it and then save the site as a site template. Note, this doesn't work as nicely with publishing sites though.

Paul Stork MVP (Expert):

Q: [90] I will migrate SQL to 2008 R2 to different host name AND instance name, MSDN said it's not supported for different instance name .. but some blogs said it is fine.. What is your experience? I plan to use SQL alias too..

A: There are certain features in SharePoint that don't work with SQL instance names. The normal workaround for that is to define SQL aliases for the SQL instances and use the alias in SharePoint.

Dan Attis (Expert):

Q: [91] @DanAttis, I have some custom list definitions. Would this cause the problem. Also, I noticed this issue occurs when I try to activate the Publishing feature.

A: Absolutely. you likely have the AlllowFolders (not sure of the exact name right now) element of the list definition set to False in one of them. That would cause that exception. Also, make sure your list defs work independently of the Site Definition you created before adding them to it.

Ivan Sanders MVP (Expert):

Q: [92] Thank you Ivan. Are there any known issues or Gottchas with using the App Expert templates for the netscaler? Is it a good idea to use it for SharePoint optimization?

A: I haven't seen any.. Its a great place to start with optimization but don’t forget to optimize SQL most of the performance issues I see are SQL related, like using NAS instead of SAN… The guidance by Bill Baer and Russ Houberg is invaluable and should be treated as the gospel with regard to SQL performance …

Dan Attis (Expert):

Q: [93] @Dan - Thanks!

A: you are welcome.

Shane Young MVP (Expert):

Q: [94] I don't have SQL alias configured. I am migrating the SQL to different server. Can I use SQL alias to point to the new server using the old sql server's host name (which is a DNS entry) while old SQL is still up? As far as I know, SQL alias won't conflict

A: Setting up a SQL alias should work fine.

Paul Stork MVP (Expert):

Q: [94] I don't have SQL alias configured. I am migrating the SQL to different server. Can I use SQL alias to point to the new server using the old sql server's host name (which is a DNS entry) while old SQL is still up? As far as I know, SQL alias won't conflict

A: I don't think that will work since there will be a conflict with the old SQL server. However, you can backup and restore the databases to the new SQL server, create an alias, and then re-configure SharePoint to point at the new alias of the new server.

Clayton Cobb (Expert):

Q: [95] Anyone found any work around for including a Managed Metadata or BCS field in an InfoPath form?

A: Kate, unfortunately, we cannot use managed metadata fields in InfoPath - it was a big blow to the product team, because they knew it was important, but it wasn't doable in this iteration. You can consume BCS fields by using the External Item Picker or by creating an external list and creating a data connection to the external list. I do the latter all the time so that my forms can interact with my back-end data sources through BCS.

Saifullah Shafiq MVP (Expert):

Q: [96] I attended an event last week where they were talking about the sandboxed solutions. They mentioned that sandboxed solution can be blocked. I am curious. Can someone provide more information on this topic?

A: Technet has a very detailed page on this topic. Yes, that is true you may want to block a solution, for example, if it poses a security risk. See this link for more information: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff535782.aspx

Saifullah Shafiq MVP (Expert):

Q: [97] Does Microsoft have any official page that lists SharePoint demos?

A: Try this one: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262880.aspx

Sean Wallbridge (Expert)

Q: [97] Does Microsoft have any official page that lists SharePoint demos?

A: Hi Stevie. There are many demo's for the many aspects for SharePoint. www.sharepoint.com is the first place to start and is itself a SharePoint site. This page on that site has a number of demos/videos you can check out (http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/en-us/Pages/Videos.aspx?VideoID=23). As well, there are countless videos on www.YouTube.com and being added all the time. www.wssdemo.com is another reference that serves as a good place to find various templates, add-ons and kits that exist that you can try yourself. You can also download a copy of a complete SharePoint environment as a virtual machine from here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=751fa0d1-356c-4002-9c60-d539896c66ce&displaylang=en

Wictor Wilén (Expert):

Q: [98] What is a Content Type Hub? Is it common to setup from get go?

A: A Content Type Hub is a "hub" where you can deploy and configure Content Types and then let other Site Collections subscribe to those Content Types. Compared to previous SP versions you had to deploy, update, configure etc the Content Types in each Site Collection. So the CTH is a great addition in SharePoint 2010.

Jason Medero (Expert):

Q: [99] Where is the user profile crawl log stored? And where can I configure how long the log should be retained?(2007 version)

A: In SharePoint 2007 all of the profile data is stored in the SSP database. All profile information that is crawled is in the crawl index and to the best of my knowledge there is not a configurable log in 2007.

Saifullah Shafiq MVP (Expert):

Q: [100] Can we enable anon. access for a site collection? I don't know how to do it. Please help.

A: Yes. Browse to the site collection. Select Site Actions > Site Settings. In Uses and Permissions grouping, select Site Permission. On the management ribbon, click Anonymous Access. Select the scope. Remember anonymous users have limited access to the site collection content.

Sean Wallbridge (Expert):

Q: [101] @Sean It just doesn't seem to have any effect. I modify the alerttemplates.xml and alerttemplates_sms.xml, apply them to my site using the stsadm -o updatealerttemplates command, reset iis, create an alert on the page, modify the page, and then get an email with the modified page content that doesn't have any of the changes that I made to the templates.

A: Any chance you are working in a migrated/upgraded environment that still has a /12 path and you missed the change to /14 for the new version? (i.e. that old path will still be there, not cleaned up after an in place upgrade, but will be ignored). Otherwise, I'd expect you'd be seeing some errors about your syntax, etc.

Clayton Cobb (Expert):

Q: [102] @Clayton, if I insert a row in a table to add a visual "separator" (like a colored cell) to separate groups of fields (columns), then I click a field and drag it down to the new row, it just disappears from the screen. Can't use InfoPath for library forms.

A: Kate, so you are still just talking about doc lib forms. Why do you need so much customization to doc lib forms when the document is the main piece of data? What is your scenario? We may be able to think of a better approach. The visual separator you described is something I do a lot, too, but I don't ever have cause to do it with doc lib property pages, so I haven't tried that exact thing yet in 2010.

Dan Attis (Expert):

Q: [103] @DanAttis Thanks, this should be me a good place to start looking. I will check my list defs as well as the OOTB Documents list def.

A: You are welcome, good luck!

Randy Drisgill MVP (Expert):

Q: [104] @Randy - is there a howto on SharePoint designer as fars as how to make those kind of changes to the master page? Is creating or modifying a master page complicated and requires developer knowledge?

A: I'd say its more difficult that standard web design, but not as difficult as full on c# development. The key is to understand how master pages work in ASP.net and then how they work in SharePoint. I have an MSDN article that talks about the entire process for 2007: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee354191.aspx The 2010 version has been written and submitted to Microsoft and is waiting to be published. Also, I have a book coming out shortly on the topic: http://amzn.to/bHau4J

Saifullah Shafiq MVP (Expert):

Q: [105] Will my antivirus for asp sites work with SharePoint?

A: You must install a SharePoint server 2010-aware antivirus program that runs at the web service level to intercept and scan files. Ordinary antivirus apps do not scan items in SP databases.

Wictor Wilén (Expert):

Q: [106] What is the best tool for Moss to manage user permission? Any suggestions on any tool for migration to 2010?

A: There are 3rd party apps but the SharePoint Administration Toolkit 4.0 released for MOSS 2007 contains a permissions reporting solution that many of my customers have found very useful. Read more here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sharepoint/archive/2009/08/27/announcing-the-fourth-release-of-the-microsoft-sharepoint-administration-toolkit.aspx

Ivan Sanders MVP (Expert):

Q: [107] @Ivan - thank you. Do you have a link for that guidance by Bill Baer and Russ Houberg?

A: Wow that was fun...

Bill baer

Database Maintenance for Microsoft® SharePoint® Products and Technologies http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=111531&clcid=0x409 ;

Bill baer on MSDN Blogs http://blogs.technet.com/b/wbaer/ 

Russ Houberg

Architecting for Scale SP2010 http://www.houberg.net/sessioncontent/Architecting_for_Scale_in_SharePoint_2010.pptx

Scaling SharePoint 2007: Storage Architecture http://www.knowledgelake.com/resources/Documents/Whitepapers/Scaling%20SharePoint%202007%20-%20Storage%20Architecture.pdf

Woody Windischman (Expert):

Q: [108] Any harm in letting my Internet Search Application and Intranet Search Application share the same App Pool, as long as I have separate Content Access Accounts for each Search SA?

A: That should be fine. Keeping the application pools separate is more important for preventing one rogue process from causing issues with others. The content access account is what determines the site resources the application can read.

Clayton Cobb (Expert)

Q: [109] IP2007 - loadbalanced environemnt - I call the userprofileservice.asmx to get the current user info - works great in standalone test env. - prod throws error "LogID:5566". only happens in browser mode not when using IP client. any suggestions? Running on win server 2008

A: Bri, this is a known issue, because with a browser form, the server itself makes the call for the user. When the WFEs are load balanced, then the server has to make the call back through the load balancer. What you want to do is make the WFEs browse themselves instead of browsing back through the load balancer. To do this, you add a host file entry to each WFE that points to its own IP. That way, all browser form calls to SharePoint web services will be made to the current machine that invoked the form.

Saifullah Shafiq MVP (Expert):

Q: [110] I saw a capacity planning document on SharePoint 2010. Is there a similar document on InfoPath 2010? I don't seem to find the link on the net.

A: Go to this link: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=fd1eac86-ad47-4865-9378-80040d08ac55&displaylang=en  and download "InfoPath2010CapacityPlanningDoc.docx" (size 211 kb). Don't be confused by the heading on the download page which says "SharePoint Server 2010 performance and capacity test results and recommendations".

Paul Stork MVP (Expert):

Q: [111] If I want a sub-site to not inherit a different Master Page when I click "apply to all sub-sites", do I have to give it its own site collection? Is there an alternative?

A: After you have applied the Master Page to the entire hierarchy then you will need to go to that specific sub site and reset the master page to the specific one you want. As long as you don't re-click the check box in the top level site it will retain the master page.

Saifullah Shafiq MVP (Expert):

Q: [112] What is RBS? I am astonished at the number of buzz words that have been introduced with SP 2010. First it was MMS now RBS!

A: RBS stands for Remote Blob Storage. You can use SharePoint with RBS to optimize database storage resources. RBS is a library API set that is incorporated as an add-on feature pack for MS SQL Server.

Mike Oryszak (Expert):

Q: [113] Is there any way to filter the results of an RSS feed on a list in SharePoint 2007 OOTB?

A: You can modify the xsl to filter down the results as needed.

Woody Windischman (Expert):

Q: [114] @ Clayton, picky users who want color and other customizations is why I need custom Lib forms.

A: Drag and dropping columns for data views in SPD 2010 is a bit touchy. If you drop to the wrong spot, the column does just vanish without any error. You might get better response by setting your text cursor where you want the column to appear, then click the column on the task pane, and select the insert mode you want from the action menu at the top of the task pane.

Saifullah Shafiq MVP (Expert)

Q: [115] Thanks @Saifullah. Is RBS supported in SQL server 2005?

A: No, RBS is not supported for Microsoft SQL Server 2005.

Sean Wallbridge (Expert):

Q: [116] @Sean No, it's a clean 2010 install. I wondered if stsadm only worked wrt 2007, but yeah... No messages, everything looks like it should have worked.

A: hmm, I haven't customized any alerts in 2010 to date but it is true, STSADM is being deprecated somewhat. that said, this article relating to removing fields is on SP2010 and still references using STSADM - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2404173

Saifullah Shafiq MVP (Expert):

Q: [117] What is governance in SharePoint?

A: Governance is the set of policies, roles, responsibilities, and processes that guide, direct, and control how an organization's business divisions and IT team cooperate to achieve business goals.

Saifullah Shafiq MVP (Expert):

Q: [118] I have multiple excel files in folders in document libraries that all contain a single table that I would like to compile into a master table. How would I go about doing this in such a way that adding new sub-tables does not cause a lot headaches for user

A: Will users open Excel files in SharePoint? Because if Excel has one table or multiple tables, how does it affect SharePoint? Are you trying to use Excel services? because that's where I see how SharePoint is involved.

Mike Oryszak (Expert):

Q: [119] If I have two SSP, which SSP the "My Site" will get the user profile properties from? Some configurations for "My Site" SSP? Should I schedule two SSP profile imports in different time schedule,does it matter?

A: When you create the SSP you map web applications to the SSP. If you have multiple SSPs, it will pull the profile properties from the SSP associated with the web they are using.

Saifullah Shafiq MVP (Expert):

Q: [122] Do we still have time to ask? Are there any restrictions on the assembly that runs in sandboxed solution. I mean to say what are the things that the component cannot do when deployed in sandbox.

A: The most common things that an assembly that will run in a sandbox cannot do are as following: 1) Connect to resources that are not located on the local server 2) Access a db 3) change the threading model 4) call unmanaged code 5) write to disk 6) access resources in a different site collection.

Darrin Bishop MVP (Expert):

Q: [122] Do we still have time to ask? Are there any restrictions on the assembly that runs in sandboxed solution. I mean to say what are the things that the component cannot do when deployed in sandbox.

A: The sandbox does not allow access outside of the site collection or the current user's rights. You cannot easily get out of the sandbox without a full trust proxy.

Darrin Bishop MVP (Expert):

Q: [122] Do we still have time to ask? Are there any restrictions on the assembly that runs in sandboxed solution. I mean to say what are the things that the component cannot do when deployed in sandbox.

A: The sandbox has limitations such as not being able to work with any file on the filesystem or any functionality that could affect other users in other site collections. You cannot access anything outside the site collection or current user's rights. The benefit is that it does run in the sandbox and will not take down the farm and it is easier for a site collection to add functionality the site collection.

Woody Windischman (Expert):

Q: [124] @Randy - I realize you've headed off by now, but changing the files in both of those locations and resetting IIS had no effect on the styles available for use. Back to the drawing board I think.

A: There is a way to control the styles listed in the rich editor for publishing by defining your own "htmleditorstyles.css" to override the defaults. Just ensure that you load that file in your layout. Here is some info for 2007, but it is essentially similar for 2010. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint-designer-help/create-html-editor-styles-HA010174140.aspx

Darrin Bishop MVP (Expert):

Q: [125] @Sean: I'm an engineer, not an IT professional, so I'm trying to avoid using Visual Studio if I don't have to. Outside of SharePoint this is easy, but I guess my question basically is, "Can I set up relationships between excel files in SharePoint document

A: It sounds like you are working with large amounts of data in Excel. We think that this is probably better handled in Excel and not SharePoint. There will be an Excel chat that will be posted to day where they might be able to help you with a no code solution.

Darrin Bishop MVP (Expert):

Q: [126] @Ivan - thanks again!! However, except for the first link - the rest are no good.

A: I just checked the links that Ivan provided and I was able to get to the documents and the sites. You might try to Bing Russ and Bill's name.

Melissa Travers MSFT (Moderator): Well that concludes our chat for today. You can find out more information about our next SharePoint chat on October 27th on the MVP Award Program blog http://blogs.msdn.com/mvpawardprogram ; where you can also find original articles written by the MVPs. As well as the MSDN Events page on the Chats tab with an Add to Calendar reminder http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/events/default.aspx ;. We are also having a special joint chat on Windows 7 and Office 2010 on Oct 14th which will be posted later today on the same site. Hope you can join us for that or pass the word on to anyone interested. To find out more about the MVP Award Program, please go to the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional site http://mvp.support.microsoft.com

Melissa Travers MSFT (Moderator): A big thank you to our MVPs for sharing their time and expertise with us today. And thank you to all our guests for joining us and asking so many great questions. Have a good day everyone!