Change password through Remote Desktop Connection

I am using Windows 7 and I wanted to change password of my user account at server running Windows Server 2008 R2 which I access via Remote Desktop Connection. When I pressed Alt+Ctrl+Del, it gave me option to change password for my Windows 7. Then I opened my remote server and clicked

Hit  (Alt + Ctrl + End)

OR

Start –> Windows Security. It brought screen with change password option.

Free SharePoint Tools for download

SharePoint Resource Center has maintained a list of freely available SharePoint tools. These tools are quite useful while working with SharePoint. You can have a look here.

“The form cannot be rendered. This may be due to a misconfiguration of the Microsoft SharePoint Server State Service.”, Error while publishing a page in SharePoint 2010.

        When I tried to submit a publishing page after editing to publish, I got this error, “The form cannot be rendered. This may be due to a misconfiguration of the Microsoft SharePoint Server State Service. For more information, contact your server administrator”.

This was because State Service was not configured in my SharePoint environment.

To configure State Service, I run the following PowerShell script.


Add-PsSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell 
$serviceApp = New-SPStateServiceApplication -Name "State Service" New-SPStateServiceDatabase -Name "StateServiceDatabase" -ServiceApplication 
$serviceApp New-SPStateServiceApplicationProxy -Name "State Service" -ServiceApplication $serviceApp –DefaultProxyGroup


I added this script in a text file and saved it as script.ps1 on my C drive. Then I opened command prompt and ran this command.

C:\>Powershell C:\script.ps1

After running this script, my State Service was configured and I published my page successfully.

Error occurred in deployment step 'Recycle IIS Application Pool': Cannot connect to the SharePoint site. Error occurs while deploying SharePoint solution.

In Visual Studio 2010 while deploying SharePoint solutions, sometime we see this error

“Error occurred in deployment step 'Recycle IIS Application Pool': Cannot connect to the SharePoint site. If you moved this project to a new computer or if the URL of the SharePoint site has changed since you created the project, update the Site URL property of the project.”

This is because we forgot to mention the Site URL where we are going to deploy this solution. After specifying site URL, deployment went well.

Site URL will be your SharePoint site i.e. http://spdev:2000.

List of Content Types’ IDs in SharePoint 2010

This list provides an overview of Content Types in SharePoint 2010 with their IDs. Content Type ID is essential for maintaining inheritance of Content Types.

Content Type Name	ID
Administrative Task	0x010802
Announcement	0x0104
Approval Workflow Task (en-US)	0x01080100C9C9515DE4E24001905074F980F93160003A15057E2AF34B67B32E14B94EB70409
Article Page	0x010100C568DB52D9D0A14D9B2FDCC96666E9F2007948130EC3DB064584E219954237AF3900242457EFB8B24247815D688C526CD44D
Audio	0x0101009148F5A04DDD49CBA7127AADA5FB792B006973ACD696DC4858A76371B2FB2F439A
Basic Page	0x010109
Circulation	0x01000F389E14C9CE4CE486270B9D4713A5D6
Collect Feedback Workflow Task (en-US)	0x01080100C9C9515DE4E24001905074F980F93160000EEA96BE7C83464C9211129CD27F0409
Collect Signatures Workflow Task (en-US)	0x01080100C9C9515DE4E24001905074F980F93160002E9DB43AC527439AB853AE4FC8360409
Comment	0x0111
Contact	0x0106
Discussion	0x012002
Document	0x0101
Document Collection Folder	0x0120D5
DomainGroup	0x010C
Dublin Core Columns	0x01010B
East Asia Contact	0x0116
Enterprise Wiki Page	0x010100C568DB52D9D0A14D9B2FDCC96666E9F2007948130EC3DB064584E219954237AF39004C1F8B46085B4D22B1CDC3DE08CFFB9C
Event	0x0102
Folder	0x0120
Form	0x010101
Health Analyzer Report	0x0100F95DB3A97E8046B58C6A54FB31F2BD46
Health Analyzer Rule Definition	0x01003A8AA7A4F53046158C5ABD98036A01D5
Holiday	0x01009BE2AB5291BF4C1A986910BD278E4F18
Image	0x0101009148F5A04DDD49CBA7127AADA5FB792B00AADE34325A8B49CDA8BB4DB53328F214
Issue	0x0103
Item	0x01
Link	0x0105
Link to a Document	0x01010A
List View Style	0x010100734778F2B7DF462491FC91844AE431CF
Master Page	0x010105
Message	0x0107
New Word	0x010018F21907ED4E401CB4F14422ABC65304
Office Data Connection File	0x010100629D00608F814DD6AC8A86903AEE72AA
Official Notice	0x01007CE30DD1206047728BAFD1C39A850120
Page	0x010100C568DB52D9D0A14D9B2FDCC96666E9F2007948130EC3DB064584E219954237AF39
Page Layout	0x01010007FF3E057FA8AB4AA42FCB67B453FFC100E214EEE741181F4E9F7ACC43278EE811
Page Output Cache	0x010087D89D279834C94E98E5E1B4A913C67E
Person	0x010A
Phone Call Memo	0x0100807FBAC5EB8A4653B8D24775195B5463
Picture	0x010102
Post	0x0110
Project Page	0x010100C568DB52D9D0A14D9B2FDCC96666E9F2007948130EC3DB064584E219954237AF39004C1F8B46085B4D22B1CDC3DE08CFFB9C 0055EF50AAFF2E4BADA437E4BAE09A30F8
Published Link	0x01004613D6562E4C41A7B9DADDAC1689E00D
Publishing Approval Workflow Task (en-US)	0x01080100C9C9515DE4E24001905074F980F9316000A245BAB39C6543159300E33084BA0409
Publishing Master Page	0x0101000F1C8B9E0EB4BE489F09807B2C53288F0054AD6EF48B9F7B45A142F8173F171BD1
Redirect Page	0x010100C568DB52D9D0A14D9B2FDCC96666E9F2007948130EC3DB064584E219954237AF3900FD0E870BA06948879DBD5F9813CD8799
Report Builder Model	0x010100D8704AF8ED734F4088724751E0F2727D
Report Builder Report	0x010100C3676CDFA2F24E1D949A8BF2B06F6B8B
Report Data Source	0x0101007DFDDF56F8A9492DAA9366B83A95B3A0
Reservations	0x0102004F51EFDEA49C49668EF9C6744C8CF87D
Resource	0x01004C9F4486FBF54864A7B0A33D02AD19B1
Resource Group	0x0100CA13F2F8D61541B180952DFB25E3E8E4
Reusable HTML	0x01002CF74A4DAE39480396EEA7A4BA2BE5FB
Reusable Text	0x01004D5A79BAFA4A4576B79C56FF3D0D662D
Rich Media Asset	0x0101009148F5A04DDD49CBA7127AADA5FB792B
RootOfList	0x012001
Rule	0x0100DC2417D125A4489CA59DCC70E3F152B2
Schedule	0x0102007DBDC1392EAF4EBBBF99E41D8922B264
Schedule and Reservations	0x01020072BB2A38F0DB49C3A96CF4FA85529956
SharePoint Server Workflow Task	0x01080100C9C9515DE4E24001905074F980F93160
SharePointGroup	0x010B
Signatures Workflow Task Deprecated	0x01080100C9C9515DE4E24001905074F980F9316001
Summary Task	0x012004
System	0x
System Master Page	0x0101000F1C8B9E0EB4BE489F09807B2C53288F
System Page	0x010100C568DB52D9D0A14D9B2FDCC96666E9F2
System Page Layout	0x01010007FF3E057FA8AB4AA42FCB67B453FFC1
Task	0x0108
Timecard	0x0100C30DDA8EDB2E434EA22D793D9EE42058
Universal Data Connection File	0x010100B4CBD48E029A4AD8B62CB0E41868F2B0
Unknown Document Type	0x010104
User Workflow Document	0x010107
Users	0x0100FBEEE6F0C500489B99CDA6BB16C398F7
Video	0x0101009148F5A04DDD49CBA7127AADA5FB792B00291D173ECE694D56B19D111489C4369D
Web Part Page	0x01010901
Welcome Page	0x010100C568DB52D9D0A14D9B2FDCC96666E9F2007948130EC3DB064584E219954237AF390064DEA0F50FC8C147B0B6EA0636C4A7D4
Page Layout Content Types	0x0100A2CA87FF01B442AD93F37CD7DD0943EB
Wiki Page	0x010108
Workflow History	0x0109
Workflow Task	0x010801

Check programmatically if List is already exists in SharePoint site

While programming with SharePoint Object Model, sometimes we are in situation where we need to check if a list is already exists in given scope especially or we should create a new list. We can check this by creating a list in a try block and if list already exists it will throw exception which will be handled in catch block. However we can check it by other couple of ways.

• Check if lists exists.

string listName = "Tasks"; SPSite site = (SPSite)properties.Feature.Parent; SPWeb webName = site.RootWeb; bool isListExixts = webName.Lists.TryGetList(listName); if (isListExixts == true)     // List Exists.

• Iterate through collection of lists and match for each list with specified list name. 

string listName = "Tasks"; SPSite site = (SPSite)properties.Feature.Parent; SPWeb webName = site.RootWeb; SPListCollection listCollection = webName.Lists; foreach (SPList tempList in listCollection) {    if (tempList.Title == listName)       return true; }

• Iterate through list of collection using this code.

string listName = "Tasks"; SPSite site = (SPSite)properties.Feature.Parent; SPWeb webName = site.RootWeb; if(webName.Lists.Cast<SPList>().Any(list => list.Title.Equals(listName, StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase))) {    return true; }

In both ways, code looks into List collection and if Task list is already exists it returns true.

Create Web Application, Site Collection and Sub Sites through PowerShell in SharePoint 2010

        This is time to manage SharePoint Server Farms using PowerShell and to say goodbye to STSADM. SharePoint Administrators are learning PowerShell and are writing scripts for their environments. Here is a script for Creating Web Application, Site Collection and multiple sub sites in one go.

1. Create a .ps1 file and add reference for PowerShell and SharePoint Assemblies.

Add-PsSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell
[void][System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName(“Microsoft.SharePoint”)

2. Set variables and create Web Application.

#Create Web Application 
Write-Output " "
Write-Output "Creating Web Application for Intranet Portal."
$AppName = "Intranet Portall"
$AppPool = "IntranetPortalApplicationPool"
$UserAccount = "winsmarts\sp_admin"
$Port = 80
$DBServer = "SPDEV\SQL_SERVER"
$DBName = "IntranetPortalDatabase_80"
New-SPWebApplication -Name $AppName -Port $Port  -ApplicationPool $AppPool
-ApplicationPoolAccount (Get-SPManagedAccount $UserAccount) -databaseserver $DBServer -databasename $DBName 
Write-Output " "
Write-Output "Web Application Created Successfully."

3. Create Site Collection.

Write-Output " "
Write-Output "Creating Top Site Collection"
# Set variables  
$SiteCollectionName = "Test Portal" 
$SiteCollectionURL = "http://SPDEV:80" 
$SiteCollectionTemplate = "STS#0" 
$SiteCollectionLanguage = 1033  
$SiteCollectionOwner = "winsmarts\Administrator" 
# Create a new Sharepoint Site Collection  
New-SPSite -URL $SiteCollectionURL -OwnerAlias $SiteCollectionOwner -Language $SiteCollectionLanguage
-Template $SiteCollectionTemplate -Name $SiteCollectionName 
Write-Output " "
Write-Output "Top Site Collection created successfully."

4. Create sub sites.

#Creating Sub Sites in top site collection.
Write-Output " "
Write-Output "Creating Sub Sites"
$SubSites = @("Central Services", "Knowledge Base", "Service Center", "IT", "HR", "Finance")
for($i=0 ; $i -lt $SubSites.count ; $i++)
{
clear-variable -name siteurl
$SiteUrl = $SiteCollectionURL += "/" 
$SiteUrl = $SiteUrl += $SubSites[$i]
Write-Output " "
#Write-Output "Creating Site for " += $SubSites[$i]
Write-Output " "
New-SPWeb $SiteUrl -Template $SiteCollectionTemplate -Name $SubSites[$i]  -UseParentTopNav
-Language $SiteCollectionLanguage
Write-Output " "
#Write-Output "Site Created for " += $SubSites[$i]
Write-Output " "
}

“There was a problem retrieving data for this field. Updating values in this field is disabled temporarily. You can still update values in other fields.”, Error while editing User Profile in SharePoint 2010.

When I tried to edit my User Profile in SharePoint 2010, I found some properties disabled with this error, “There was a problem retrieving data for this field. Updating values in this field is disabled temporarily. You can still update values in other fields." This is because Managed Metadata Service Application Proxy’s properties were not properly set.

To resolve this issue, I opened Managed Metadata Service Application Proxy’s properties.

And check first two option.

1. This service application is the default storage location for Keywords.

2. This service application is the default storage location for column specific term sets.

After clicking OK, when I again tried to edit my User Profile properties, everything was working fine.

Thanks to my friend Andreas B.Iversen for telling me this tip.

Create custom User Profile properties in SharePoint 2010 reading from XML file

We create custom User Profile properties quite often in SharePoint. User Profile properties are created easily in Central Administration web site however while developing large enterprise solutions, direct access to production servers are not usually available to developers. To achieve such goals, we usually develop console applications which runs during deployment script or develop features which execute code during feature activation. User Profile properties can be created in SharePoint development environment using Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles namespace. A simple XML file containing details of required custom properties can be used as input. Here is sample XML which I created for this example.

<Properties Server="http://flhsrv116" TermStore="Managed Metadata Service Application Proxy">
<Property>
<Name>Audience</Name>
<DisplayName>Audience</DisplayName>
<!-- Collection of Values for Type Node : (big integer | binary | boolean | date | date no year | date time | Email | float | unique identifier | HTML | integer | Person | string | string (Single Value) | string (Multi Value) | Time Zone | URL)  -->

<Type>string (Multi Value)</Type>
<!-- IsMultiValue : Possible Options true | false :  Note = Only true when Type = String (Multi Value) -->
<IsMultiValue>true</IsMultiValue>
<TermStoreGroup>DSG</TermStoreGroup>
<TermSet>Audiences</TermSet>
</Property>

<Property>
<Name>DateofJoining</Name>
<DisplayName>Date of Joining</DisplayName>
<!-- Collection of Values for Type Node : (big integer | binary | boolean | date | date no year | date time | Email | float | unique identifier | HTML | integer | Person | string | string (Single Value) | string (Multi Value) | Time Zone | URL)  -->

<Type>date</Type>
<!-- IsMultiValue : Possible Options true | false -->
<IsMultiValue>false</IsMultiValue>
<TermStoreGroup>null</TermStoreGroup>
<TermSet>null</TermSet>
</Property>
</Properties>

In this simple example, I am creating two properties. One is of date type and second is of term set type. This XML file has a root node with two attributes and two child nodes. Each child node represent a custom property. Property’s name, display name, type and other properties can be configured as mentioned above. At the moment, we have only one custom property of term set type in User Profile store.



To do this, create a console application in Visual Studio 2010.
Add references of System.Xml, Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles, Microsoft.SharePoint and Microsoft.SharePoint.Taxonomy if term set type value is required to create.
Add this code in .cs file.

using System;

using Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles;

using Microsoft.SharePoint;
using Microsoft.SharePoint.Taxonomy;
using System.Xml;
using System.Collections;

namespace UserProfilesOMApp
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
string str = "UserProfileProperties.xml";

// Reading XML document.

XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
doc.Load(str);

// Reading Parent node of document.
XmlNode xmlNode = doc.DocumentElement;
XmlNodeList propertiesxmlnodeList = doc.GetElementsByTagName("Properties");

// Reading Attributes for parent node.
XmlElement xmlElement = (XmlElement)propertiesxmlnodeList.Item(0);

string servername = xmlElement.GetAttribute("Server");
string termstore = xmlElement.GetAttribute("TermStore");

// Reading property node and its Child node lists.
XmlNodeList propertyxmlnodeList = doc.GetElementsByTagName("Property");
XmlNodeList namelist = doc.GetElementsByTagName("Name");
XmlNodeList displaynamelist = doc.GetElementsByTagName("DisplayName");
XmlNodeList typelist = doc.GetElementsByTagName("Type");
XmlNodeList ismultivaluelist = doc.GetElementsByTagName("IsMultiValue");
XmlNodeList termsetlist = doc.GetElementsByTagName("TermSet");
XmlNodeList termstoregrouplist = doc.GetElementsByTagName("TermStoreGroup");


string propertyname = null;
string displayname = null;
string type = null;
string ismultivalue = null;
string termstoregroup = null;
string termset = null;

using (SPSite site = new SPSite(servername))
{

for(int x = 0; x < propertyxmlnodeList.Count; x++)
{

propertyname = namelist.Item(x).InnerText.ToString();
displayname = displaynamelist.Item(x).InnerText.ToString();
type = typelist.Item(x).InnerText.ToString();
ismultivalue = ismultivaluelist.Item(x).InnerText.ToString();
termstoregroup = termstoregrouplist.Item(x).InnerText.ToString();
termset = termsetlist.Item(x).InnerText.ToString();

// Method call for creating a user profile property.
Program.createProfileProperties(site, termstore, propertyname, displayname, type, ismultivalue, termstoregroup, termset);               
}
}
}

static void createProfileProperties(SPSite site, string termstore, string propertyname, string displayname, string type, string ismultivalue, string termstoregroup, string termset)
{

SPServiceContext context = SPServiceContext.GetContext(site);
UserProfileConfigManager upcm = new UserProfileConfigManager(context);

try
{
ProfilePropertyManager ppm = upcm.ProfilePropertyManager;
Console.WriteLine("Creating Propoerty");
// Create core property.
CorePropertyManager cpm = ppm.GetCoreProperties();
CoreProperty coreproperty = cpm.GetPropertyByName(propertyname);

// Check if property already exists.
if (coreproperty != null)
{
Console.WriteLine("Property already exists......");
return;                    
}

CoreProperty cp = cpm.Create(false);
cp.Name = propertyname;
cp.DisplayName = displayname;
//Get Property Type from Enumeration.
PropertyDataTypeCollection pdtc = upcm.GetPropertyDataTypes();
PropertyDataType ptype = null;
IEnumerator enumType = pdtc.GetEnumerator();
while (enumType.MoveNext())
{
ptype = (PropertyDataType)enumType.Current;
if (ptype.Name.ToString().ToLower().Equals(type.ToString().ToLower())) break;
}

cp.Type = ptype.Name;

if(type.ToLower() == "string (Multi Value)".ToLower())
{
cp.IsMultivalued = Convert.ToBoolean(ismultivalue);
if (ismultivalue.ToLower() == "true".ToLower())
{
cp.Separator = MultiValueSeparator.Semicolon;
}

// Set the TermSet.
TaxonomySession taxonomySession = new TaxonomySession(site);
TermStore termStore = taxonomySession.TermStores[termstore];
Group group = termStore.Groups[termstoregroup];
TermSet termSet = group.TermSets[termset];

cp.TermSet = termSet;
}

cpm.Add(cp);

// Create profile type property.
ProfileTypePropertyManager ptpm = ppm.GetProfileTypeProperties(ProfileType.User);
ProfileTypeProperty ptp = ptpm.Create(cp);
ptp.IsVisibleOnViewer = true;
ptp.IsVisibleOnEditor = true;

ptpm.Add(ptp);

// Create profile subtype property.
ProfileSubtypeManager psm = ProfileSubtypeManager.Get(context);
ProfileSubtype ps = psm.GetProfileSubtype(ProfileSubtypeManager.GetDefaultProfileName(ProfileType.User));

ProfileSubtypePropertyManager pspm = ps.Properties;        

ProfileSubtypeProperty psp = pspm.Create(ptp);

psp.PrivacyPolicy = PrivacyPolicy.OptIn;
psp.DefaultPrivacy = Privacy.NotSet;


pspm.Add(psp);

Console.WriteLine("\nuser profile property "+ displayname + " created successfully.\n");
Console.ReadKey();
}
catch (DuplicateEntryException e)
{
Console.WriteLine(e.Message);
Console.Read();
}
catch (System.Exception e2)
{
Console.WriteLine(e2.Message);
Console.Read();
}
}
}
}

After running this code, this output will come.



Now, in User Profile store, two custom properties has been added.


Download project solution as zip file.

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

Here is the transcript of SharePoint MVP expert chat.

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.

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

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

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 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 - 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 - 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!

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) .

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?

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!

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!