im.coreyvandyke

Microsoft’s User Research Group is conducting series of studies for SharePoint products and technologies at the Microsoft campus in Redmond, WA, and is looking for participants in the Puget Sound area 

The research team is looking for individuals who use SharePoint at least once a week.

Each participant will receive a gift item they select from a list of some of Microsoft’s most popular hardware and software titles.

If you are interested please email itusable@microsoft.com with your name phone number and insert SharePoint into the subject line.

Ok, so I have heard rumors and I finally confirmed this from my friend JD Wade.  January 13, 2009 Microsoft will no longer support RTM installations of MOSS 2007. 

The information can be found at the following link: http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifesupsps

-cvd

1. On the existing farm Central Administration server (DEV01W2K3) remove the Central Administration website:
2. Run the SP configuration wizard
3. Select: Do not disconnect from the server farm (Warning: Disconnecting from the server farm will result in all your web applications being deleted from IIS. They can be recreated if you reconfigure central administration again and link to the existing configuration DB, but they will be unavailable until that time. That means no web sites available and more down time than necessary!)
4. Select: Yes, I want to remove the website from this machine
5. Select: Ok
6. Note: The configuration wizard will stop IIS and all websites may become unavailable for a few minutes while it steps through the processes. Ensure that you do not delete any databases as you will be hooking the new Central Admin site to the original DB.

   If you check IIS you will see that the Central Administration web application has disappeared leaving only your portal web apps and the OfficeServerApplication
   

7. Run the SP configuration wizard on the new server (DEV02W2K3) and recreate the Central Administration site.
8. Select: Do not disconnect from the configuration database
9. Select: Advanced Settings
10. Select: Use this machine to host the web site
11. Select: Next / Ok
12. Open central administration and check the servers in the farm – you should see Central Administration now hosted on DEV02W2K3:
13. Check all your services are running – search may need restarting and you may need to reset the index role in the Shared Service Provider properties.
14. Check your event logs and work through any issues.

So unless I am missing something this is a problem I am getting very frustrated with.  I have Charter Communications and I have their HD DVR box.  I setup a series to be recorded and I choose to record only the new episodes.  Great, ready to go, wrong.  Because the description doesn’t say that it is a repeat for the rest of the week, it will record the same show everyday it is played again.  Sorry, just frustrated.  It used to not happen

-cvd

I recently experienced a severe crash at a client where the whole farm went down and they discovered they had no backup plan in place other than SQL Server backups.  Which you should know are a complete pain.  Now we did get through it and back live again, but I was a late night to say the least.  So in response to that I have come up with a quick and dirty plan and would love to hear from you to either make it better or just some comments on experience…

Sample Backup/Restore Plan

1.       For document recovery the first option is the 2 stage recycle bin.

2.       The first full backup/restore option should be 3^rd party software such as AvePoint.  This allows for immediate recovery down to the document.

3.       The second line of backup/restore is to do site collection backups and restores:

a.       Stsadm –o backup –url <siteURL> -filename <FileName>

Then at a later date an even a new server you can restore the individual sites to new site collections.

b.      Stsadm –o restore –url <restoreSiteUrl> -filename <filetorestorefrom>

The above commands will backup/restore the site collection, but it will not restore settings from the SSP and we will have to setup the AAM and host headers again as well. If you want to back up the SSP, that will need to be done through Central Administration.

4.       The last resort should then be the SQL backup/restore, which we have already experienced.

Number 3 should be done as often as possible, such as once a day and then only keep 3 copies at a time per site collection.  When a restore is done we will still have to make the proper changes to the web.config and if it is restored to a new server we will have to install any solutions and/or features that were needed.  I would also recommend making a nightly backup of the 12 hive and the inetpub folder.  A script can be written to automate the stsadm backup or it can be done manually.

We will also need to have detailed lists and files of:

a.       Features installed

b.      License keys

c.       Custom dll’s

d.      And web.config changes

Please note that you can use a script to do step 3 and here is an example script:

Backup Script:
E:

cd backup
md %DATE:~10,4%%DATE:~4,2%%DATE:~7,2% 

C:

cd \

cd program files\common files\microsoft shared\web server extensions\12\bin
stsadm -o backup -url “http://intranetdev/” -filename “E:\backup\%DATE:~10,4%%DATE:~4,2%%DATE:~7,2%\backup.dat”

Restore Script:
echo ” Hello”

set p=%CD%

set fullpath= %p%\backup.bat

C:

cd \

cd program files\common files\microsoft shared\web server extensions\12\bin

stsadm -o restore -url “http://intranetdev/” -filename  %fullpath% -overwrite

As far out as Mark Cuban can be sometimes, he created a great blog post I highly recommend:

http://blogmaverick.com/2008/10/04/how-to-get-rich/

For anyone who has been a consultant working on a MOSS project, you know that planning is extremely important.  I found this post and thought it was invaluble.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262451.aspx

You got to check this out.  Pretty entertaining.  Especially if your a Mac guy; which I am not at the moment.

http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/10/14/microsoft-announces-1.html

Ok, so this blog is going to go in a little bit of a new direction.  I am going to start talking about everything I have an opinion on.  I will still have a heavy load of technology, but I will also post some of my conservative views as well as talk a little bit about other things in the news.  Time to have some fun…

-cvd

So I am tired of going to my office and downloading music or a podcast from there and then having to redownload them at home.  I got to thinking and I used Live Mesh to solve a different problem and the product can be used to solve this problem as well.

So I have the Zune software installed on my home machine, my office machine, and my laptop.  I went to www.mesh.com and installed the software.  After that I went to the folder my zune software downloads to and when I right click on it I can add it to my mesh folders.  Then I go and install Live Mesh on my other PC’s and add the folder to the desk top or where ever.  I then go into my zune software and change the download folder to the mesh folder I added.  Now my music is synced automatically. 

Now I have access to my music everywhere.  Give it a try and let me know…

-cvd