SharePoint (2003 thru Online): 2016

Wednesday, November 2, 2016

PDF Files Issue in SharePoint 2010

In SharePoint 2010 document libraries, the PDF’s that have been uploaded do not show the correct icon and only give you the option to save instead of opening them.



The below PowerShell script downloads a icon GIF image from Adobe named pdficon_small.gif, places it in the images folder under the 14 hive, associates it in the DOCICON.XML file, sets Browser File Handling to Permissive, and then runs IISReset.
                                           The pdf icon was downloaded to the IMAGES folder.

             The PDF Key was added to the DocIcon.XML with this PDF GIF image icon file.

Browser File Handling to "Permissive" will enable the PDF’s to be opened instead of only saved. 

PDF docs now have the correct icon and are allowed to be opened.

Microsoft KB Article related to PDF Issue in SharePoint.
________________________________________________________________________

We can also enable opening PDF files is by adding the pdf extension to the allowed MIME types of the web application.

VIEW
$webApp = Get-SPWebApplication "http://sp2010dev/"
$webApp.AllowedInlineDownloadedMimeTypes

ADD
$webApp = Get-SPWebApplication "http://sp2010dev/"
$webApp.AllowedInlineDownloadedMimeTypes.Add("application/pdf")
$webApp.Update()

REMOVE
$webApp = Get-SPWebApplication "http://sp2010dev/"
$webApp.AllowedInlineDownloadedMimeTypes.Remove("application/pdf")
$webApp.Update()

Wednesday, October 5, 2016

SSL Certificate Update


In SharePoint, IIS is the only place where the SSL Certificate needs to be uploaded and attached to the Site in the Site Bindings.

1. Click on the root node in IIS 7 Manager and select the “Server Certificates” icon in the feature pane on the right, you should Import your Cert here.

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2. Enter a name (I’m using company.com in this example) and click OK. You should see your certificate appear in the list of server certificates.

clip_image006

3. Select the IIS site that is running the SharePoint application and click on the “Bindings…” link on the right hand side of the page.

4. To enable SSL click “Add”, select “https” and select the SSL certificate we created earlier:

clip_image007


5. Click OK. At this point we have configured IIS to allow connections to this site over SSL but we need to let SharePoint know to map these requests to the correct web application.

Configure SharePoint to accept requests over HTTPS

6. Navigate to Central Administration > Operations, select “Alternate Access Mappings” and click “Edit Public URL’s”

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7. Select the Alternate Access Mapping Collection for the FBA web application and enter the relevant HTTPS address (e.g. My FBA site is located at http://www.company.com as an example so I would enter https://www.company.com). It is up to you which Zone you put the URL in as this doesn’t affect anything and is just there to help you remember what they are each used for.
clip_image011


Sometimes, even after the SSL Certificate is updated properly and the old Certificates are deleted, it will still be showing the OLD SSL Cert and may cause issues.

We should run the below Commands to make the NEW SSL Cert get updated.

  • 1. Issue an iisreset /stop command
  • 2. Then type net stop http followed by net start http
  • 3. Issue an iisreset /start command


Even though you ran the above Commands sometimes, site will not be accessible. Verify the below option of the specific Web Site and make sure it is set to 'Ignore'. Don't forget to reset IIS, if the below option is modified.



Tuesday, July 26, 2016

RSS Settings and Feeds Link

First, go to Document/Form Library

Go to Settings >> Document/Form Library Settings >> RSS Settings (under Communications)

You can select the fields as shown below.


Update the List and View IDs and the URL should look as shown below.

http://dev.sp2010.com/Infopath/_layouts/listfeed.aspx?List=E5F5F740%2DB5B8%2D440B%2DBA22%2D051127AAA366&View=211E24B2%2D01F9%2D44D1%2DB371%2DED8BD63249D9

You can give the link to users and they have an option to Subscribe to this feed.

Tuesday, May 17, 2016

People Picker Settings - MSFT Bug

$wa=Get-SPWebApplication http://dev.sp2010.com
$wa.PeoplePickerSettings
$wa.PeoplePickerSettings.SearchActiveDirectoryDomains
Syntax:
stsadm -o setproperty -url http://<server:port> -pn peoplepicker-searchadforests -pv "forest:contoso.corp.com, contoso\<account>, <Password>;domain:bar.contoso.corp.com,contoso\<account>,<Password>;forest:abc.corp.com,abc\<account>,<Password>;domain:bar.abc.corp.com,abc\<account>,<Password>"

Example:
stsadm.exe -o setproperty -url http://extranet.osi-systems.com -pn peoplepicker-searchadforests -pv "domain:ap.sp.com,AP\ups,Ff#bc5JD;domain:be.sp.com,BE\ups,SdF5a3m;domain:ip.sp.com,IP\ups,S&athn9w"

NOTE: Don't use $ in you password for the UPS accounts. This is SharePoint bug and it fails to de-crypt the connection to AD and fails to retrieve the users based on your search in the People Picker.

Retrieve People Picker Settings:
$wa=Get-SPWebApplication http://extranet.osi-systems.com
$wa.PeoplePickerSettings.SearchActiveDirectoryDomains
$wa.PeoplePickerSettings

Services running on the Server:
Get-SPServiceInstance

Stop-SPServiceInstance d0f73d70-9aa4-4266-ab26-df033d1df895

Friday, May 13, 2016

How to list all the sub-sites and the Site Collections within a SharePoint Web Application using Powershell


PowerShell script helpful for getting all the sub-sites and the Site Collections within a SharePoint Web Application.

Get-SPWebApplication https://sp2010.spdev.com | Get-SPSite -Limit All | Get-SPWeb -Limit All | Select Title, URL, ID, ParentWebID | Export-CSV E:\InfoAllSites.csv -NoTypeInformation





set-executionpolicy allsigned
set-executionpolicy remotesigned
set-executionpolicy unrestricted

Wednesday, May 4, 2016

SharePoint 2016

Requirements
Hardware requirements for SharePoint Server 2016 won't be different from the preceding product, SharePoint Server 2013. On the software requirements side, organizations will need Windows Server 2012 R2 or Windows Server 2016 in place. They'll also need SQL Server 2014 Service Pack 1 or SQL Server 2016. Catrinescu recommended going with SQL Server 2016, if that's an option.
Upgrading from SharePoint Server 2013 to SharePoint Server 2016 is really fast, Catrinescu said. However, if an organization is using SharePoint Server 2010, then there's no direct upgrade path to SharePoint Server 2016. It will be necessary to upgrade to SharePoint Server 2013 first before making that hop.
Some Limits Removed
SharePoint Server 2016 is removing some limits seen with Microsoft's earlier releases. For instance, there was a list item limit of no more than 5,000 items for SharePoint Server 2010 and SharePoint Server 2013. SharePoint Server 2016 now permits more than 5,000 items in a list, with some caveats. Catrinescu said that the maximum he has seen is 120,000 items in the same list view and he said it works, but it's not fast. The problem isn't with SharePoint, he explained, but with SQL Server, which can lock if you query a list with over 5,000 rows in a table.
Microsoft also increased file sizes used with SharePoint Server 2016. The maximum file size previously was 2GB, but now it's 10GB or greater (which is the recommended limit). Catrinescu said he's tried a file that's 15GB in size and it works. While the file size expansion is a good thing, Catrinescu cautioned IT pros that they should still keep an eye on the growth of their content database sizes.
Site collections per database got a boost with SharePoint Server 2016. The old limit was 5,000 site collections. The new server expands that limit to 100,000 site collections. This slide summarized the increased limits in SharePoint Server 2016:
[Click on image for larger view.] Figure 1. Limits changes with SharePoint 2016. Source: Jan. 21 Crow Canyon Systems Webinar.
Topology Changes
SharePoint Server 2016 will bring a new MinRole topology option, which reflects Microsoft's best-practice approach for server farms. Catrinescu said that earlier SharePoint Server products, such as SharePoint Server 2010, had "traditional topologies" with two server roles, a front-end server and an application server. With this design, there was useless network communication happening to access various services in response to user requests, which generally slowed things down, he explained.
Microsoft came out with "streamlined topologies" with SharePoint Server 2013, consisting of four server roles: a front-end server, a distributed cache server, a batch processing server and a server for specialized workloads. The benefit of this approach is that user requests for services were accessed from the front-end server, so results came back to users faster. This approach stopped wasting inter-server communications time and was a lot better, but it wasn't 100 percent optimized, he said. The streamlined topologies approach wasn't hard coded in the product, but was just based on Microsoft's guidance.
The new MinRole topology requires the use of at least four server roles to make a farm: front-end, distributed cache, application and search. IT pros specify the server role when adding a server to a server farm. User requests come from the front-end server. Distributed caching happens on the distributed cache server. Scheduled tasks come from the application server. The custom server role runs anything you want. SharePoint Server 2016's MinRole approach is shown in this slide:
Figure 2. MinRole in SharePoint Server 2016. Source: Jan. 21 Crow Canyon Systems Webinar.
It's possible to have a single server topology with SharePoint Server 2016, but it doesn't include SQL Express anymore, so organizations have to install SQL Server separately if going this route. However, it's not possible to have a custom server and a single server in the same SharePoint farm, Catrinescu said. If an organization doesn't have four servers to spare, they can go with the custom server option.
Microsoft essentially hardcoded the streamlined topology approach with MinRole. "MinRole is actually [SharePoint Server] 2013 guidance from the streamlined topology, but in code," Catrinescu said. In general, MinRole, derived from Microsoft's cloud approach, requires less testing and promises more simplified deployments than the older approach. Catrinescu showed the following slide, which contrasts the MinRole approach in SharePoint Server 2016 with the streamlined topologies approach in SharePoint Server 2013:
Figure 3. MinRole vs. streamlined topologies comparison. Source: Jan. 21 Crow Canyon Systems Webinar.
Highly available topologies with SharePoint Server 2016 using the MinRole approach, and including a custom server plus Office Online Server (formerly known as "Office Web Apps Server"), will require having 14 servers in place, Catrinescu said. It's still possible to have high availability with just two servers, but you'd have to go the custom role route, he explained.
Later during the talk, Catrinescu said that Office Online Server is something that IT pros maintaining SharePoint farms likely will have to install since so many SharePoint features will depend on it. Office Online Server is currently at the preview stage, and Microsoft hasn't indicated a product availability milestone for it yet.
New Features
Catrinescu blitzed through some of SharePoint Server 2016's new features. Hybrid support is a big theme with SharePoint Server 2016. Catrinescu said that using the SharePoint hybrid configuration wizard is really easy now.
There's support for hybrid Team Sites. Microsoft added a profile redirection capability that shows information in Delve, which is Microsoft's Office 365 solution that surfaces organizational and contact information. Documents tracked by Delve will show up in a SharePoint intranet sites. Hybrid search will show the best results in a single page.
The zero downtime patching claim for SharePoint Server 2016 is "not a myth," Catrinescu said. It works, but organizations will need to use the MinRole topology with high availability to have that capability. He explained that to patch SharePoint Server, there are two required steps. The update needs to be installed first and then the PSConfig program needs to be run. With SharePoint Server 2016, the schema update process doesn't cause server downtime, but MinRole with high availability will be needed to get that benefit.
Another new feature is the ability to create durable links, where URL links don't break when files get moved. That's an issue today with SharePoint Server 2010. However, Catrinescu noted that to use the durable links feature with SharePoint Server 2016, organizations likely will need to install Office Online Server. The Office Online Server also brings benefits for business intelligence and search capabilities, he added.
Microsoft has enabled a Fast Site Collection Creation feature for SharePoint Server 2016. It copies a template at the database level to speed up the site collection process.
Microsoft has integrated Project Server, which now functions as a service application in SharePoint Server 2016. This feature eliminates having to oversee two separate patching activities.
SharePoint Server 2016 also is bringing the ability to use SMTP ports other than the default one (Port 25). Other ports now can be used to send e-mails.
Data loss prevention (DLP) also arrives with SharePoint Server 2016. It's used to find sensitive info before it gets leaked in e-mails. It'll flag things like credit card numbers, Social Security numbers and bank account numbers, protecting against disclosure, and also advising the end user about the issue. It works with Microsoft's E-Discovery Center, which has a query capability to find sensitive documents.
Deprecated Solutions
Microsoft plans to deprecate some of its software used with SharePoint Server 2016. The deprecated software won't get further development by Microsoft. Catrinescu has actively tracked those deprecation changes in his blog.
He said that SharePoint Foundation goes away with SharePoint Server 2016. Excel Services is gone, too, but if an organization has Office Online Server in place, they'll still have some of those Excel Services capabilities.
Forefront Identity Manager 2010 R2 is replaced by Microsoft Identity Manager 2016. Catrinescu commented that Microsoft Identity Manager 2016 wasn't built in SharePoint Server. It's a fully separate product now. He explained that the old Forefront Identity Manager 2010 code just didn't mesh with Microsoft's best practices for the new SharePoint Server. Moreover, Forefront Identity Manager 2010 didn't work with Windows Server 2016. Microsoft Identity Manager 2016 is a more "modernized platform" that has the capability for hybrid Active Directory deployments. On SharePoint Server 2016 farms, using Microsoft Identity Manager 2016 can require using an extra server and is "a lot harder to set up." However, it also can be installed on SharePoint's application server, which is a Microsoft supported approach and it's what most organizations will do, Catrinescu said.
SharePoint Designer 2013 and InfoPath 2013 are subject to deprecation by Microsoft but they will still work with SharePoint Server 2016. Microsoft announced extended product support for those solutions this week when it rolled out the release candidate of SharePoint Server 2016.
Catrinescu claimed that Microsoft introduced no new features with the release candidate of SharePoint Server 2016 compared with the earlier beta 2 release. Microsoft is just fixing about 250 bug fixes, he said.

Courtesy: Redmondmag.com Article

Tuesday, May 3, 2016

Outgoing Email Settings

There are multiple Places to update Outgoing Email Settings on SharePoint Server.

1. System Settings >> Configure outgoing e-mail settings.



2. Application Management >> Manage Web Applications, select the Web Applications.
    Drop down - General Settings >> Outgoing E-mail

Make sure the Settings were same across all the Web Applications.


You can also specify different From address and Reply-to address based on the purpose of the Web Application.

Also you need to work with your Network Admin to make sure the Static routes are configured correctly on the SharePoint Front End/App Server.

Wednesday, March 9, 2016

Embedding Video On Your SharePoint Site


Have you ever wanted to simply add some video to a landing page in SharePoint? There are a lot of hefty applications out there that do this quite well, utilizing Silverlight and Ajax, but, did you know that you can do this with out of the box SharePoint? It's actually quite simple. Here's how!
  • Upload a media file to a standard SharePoint Document Library
  • Navigate to the site where you want to embed the video
  • Edit the page and select Add a Web Part
  • Under Miscellaneous, insert a Content Editor Web Part
  • From the Web select Open the Tool Pane
  • From Tool Pane, select Source Editor

Copy in the following code (replace http://link to video here with the actual link to the video in the library):

<div align="center">
<embed src="http://link to video here"
autoplay="true"
loop="false"
width="200"
height="200"
</embed>
</div>

Click Apply. Its just a matter of formatting after that!

Friday, February 26, 2016

SharePoint 2010 & 2007 – Clearing the Configuration Cache

There were many common issues that could occur in WSS v3 and MOSS that would require you to clear the configuration cache on your servers. While less common, these issues can still turn up occasionally on SharePoint Server 2010 (And Foundation). While the resolution for these issues might be the same, the steps are a bit different. The main thing to note is that the Configuration Cache is located in a different directory on Windows Server 2008 then it was in Windows Server 2003.

The new path for the Configuration Cache under Windows Server 2008 is: %SystemDrive%\ProgramData\Microsoft\SharePoint\Config\<GUID> The overall steps remain largely the same:

Stop the Timer service. To do this, follow these steps:

Click
Start, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Services.
Right-click SharePoint 2010 Timer, and then click Stop.
Minimise the Services console. 

On the computer that is running Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 and on which the Central Administration site is hosted, click Start, click Run, type explorer, and then press ENTER.
In Windows Explorer, locate and then double-click the following folder:
%SystemDrive%\ProgramData\Microsoft\SharePoint\Config\GUID

Note: The %SystemDrive% system variable specifies the letter of the drive on which Windows is installed. By default, Windows is installed on drive C.
The GUID placeholder specifies the GUID folder. There may be more than one of these.
The ProgramData folder may be hidden. To view the hidden folder, follow these steps:
On the Tools menu, click Folder Options.
Click the View tab.
In the Advanced settings list, click Show hidden files and folders under Hidden files and folders, and then click OK.
You can also simply type this directly in the path if you do not want to show hidden files and folders. 

Back up the Cache.ini file. (Make a copy of it. DO NOT DELETE THIS FILE, Only the XML files in the next step)
Delete all the XML configuration files in the GUID folder (DO NOTE DELETE THE FOLDER). Do this so that you can verify that the GUID folders content is replaced by new XML configuration files when the cache is rebuilt.

Note: When you empty the configuration cache in the GUID folder, make sure that you do NOT delete the GUID folder and the Cache.ini file that is located in the GUID folder.
Double-click the Cache.ini file.
On the Edit menu, click Select All.
On the Edit menu, click Delete.
Type 1, and then click Save on the File menu. (Basically when you are done, the only text in the config.ini file should be the number 1)
On the File menu, click Exit.

Start the Timer service. To do this, follow these steps:

Click Start, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Services.
Right-click SharePoint 2010 Timer, and then click Start.
Close the Services console.

Note: The file system cache is re-created after you perform this procedure. Make sure that you perform this procedure on all servers in the server farm.
Make sure that the Cache.ini file in the GUID folder now contains its previous value. For example, make sure that the value of the Cache.ini file is not 1.

Check in the GUID folder to make sure that the xml files are repopulating. This may take a bit of time.

For the original steps for clearing out the configuration cache in SharePoint 2007, there are many articles that cover the steps, one of them is the following: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/939308

Friday, February 5, 2016

Prompt Users login again and again - [DMZ Servers - Firewall]

Problem: Even though you type in correct username and password, it will prompt the login box again and again. 

Many organizations have DMZ environment to serve External Clients and Vendors. The SharePoint environment is the key to make easy access websites and share. Many cases, internal users also will be having access to these DMZ SharePoint Sites.

Firewall plays the security role to allow authentication between Internal Users and DMZ SharePoint sites. When Firewall is busy or down, it will not authenticated and will not allow Internal Users to access the DMZ SharePoint sites. It behaves the same as like your account was locked.


The Solution is make sure the Firewall is up and running and also make sure, in IIS Manager >> Application Pools, SecurityTokenServiceApplicationPool is started. Also make sure the Account used to run the App Pool is not locked.

If you still see issues, recycle the SecurityTokenServiceApplicationPool

This should fix the issue of Users login Failure or prompt the login box again and again.

There are only few scenarios where users will be unable to login into the site.

1. When User's Account was locked.
2. When Firewall blocks the Authentication request from User.
3. When AD does not respond to authenticate the User Account.

Thursday, January 21, 2016

Solution Package retracting stuck: SharePoint 2007

Problem: We were planning to retract an errored solution and re-deploy for one of our web applications.

However, as we all know we have to first retract the solution from the web application and for that we use the stsadm command line given below, 

stsadm -o retractsolution -name solutionName.wsp –immediate followed by STSADM -o execadmsvcjobs
We have waited for min 20 min, but after refreshing the CA for many times we have seen the solution was stuck in retract state.

Troubleshooting: We checked the status of ‘Windows SharePoint Services Solution Retraction for’ timer job and It was successful for all of the servers we have in the environment.

To check the status of the above Timer Service,
  • Go to Central Administration
  • Navigate to Operations >> Global Configuration >> Timer job status.
  • Look for Jobs name starting with either "Windows SharePoint Services Solution Retraction for".

Resolution: we have tried running ‘execadmsvsjobs’ STSADM command.

STSADM -o execadmsvcjobs ( On all the Servers ).

To all of the servers in the env. And refreshing CA the status of the solution package was ‘not deployed’.

Some other things you can also try to resolve the problems are.
  • Restarting the OWSTIMER Service.
  • Deleting the Job Timer Definition for some reasons resolves it. (this worked for me in both cases - stuck retracting and stuck deploying).
  • Restarting the machine and try one more time.

Friday, January 8, 2016

Search Service Account - MOSS 2007 (Password Reset)

When are reset password for the Search Service Account, you need to make sure you change the password on the Services running with this account on all Servers.

Also you need to verify in Central Administration >> Shared Service Admin >> SSP >> Search Administration, If you are using this account as "Default Content Access Account", you need to click on it and update the new password.

If you have more than one SSP, you  need to perform this activity on all SSPs.

Also verify the Services. Central Admin >> Operations >> Services on Server.
Stop and Start the Services, which requires you to update the new Password.