Dom Cosgrove Blog

This is a neat solution to a limitation of SharePoint document libraries. OOTB SharePoint document libraries do not support linking to files in network file shares. It does however support linking to documents stored in other document libraries, via the “Link to Document” content type. The solution builds on this mechanism.

The problem with the OOTB “Link to Document” content type is that it validates that the link points to a document stored in SharePoint on creation. The way the content type works is that it redirects the user to an application page called “NewLink.aspx”, which is stored in the _Layouts directory. The application page builds an .aspx page dynamically, which is stored in the SharePoint Document Library. The newly created page contains the code to redirect the user to the document referenced in the URL field of the content type.

As modifying the NewLink.aspx page is NOT supported by MS, as any updates to SharePoint may overwrite the changes. The solution to this is to create a copy of the NewLink.aspx page in a custom directory in the _Layouts directory. The validation code is modified in the new file as follows:

function HasValidUrlPrefix_Override(url)

{

    var urlLower=url.toLowerCase();

    if (-1==urlLower.search(“^http://”) &&

        -1==urlLower.search(“^https://”) && -1==urlLower.search(“^file://”))

        return false;

        return true;

}

A copy of the “Link to Document” Content type is created and the definition is modified as follows:

<ContentType ID=”
0x01010A00B891CB0B16E1174F9DFEF504DDF2B3FE”

Name=”Link to Network Share Document”

Group=”CUSTOM GROUP”

Description=”Links to document stored on Network share using a UNC address”

Version=”0″>

<FieldRefs>

<RemoveFieldRef ID=”{fa564e0f-0c70-4ab9-b863-0177e6ddd247}” Name=”Title” />

<FieldRef ID=”{c29e077d-f466-4d8e-8bbe-72b66c5f205c}” Name=”URL” Required=”TRUE”/> <!– URL –>

</FieldRefs>

<DocumentTemplate TargetName=”/_layouts/CUSTOM_DIR/NewLink.aspx” />

</ContentType>

The new application and content type can then be packages into a feature and deployed as a solution. The feature can then be activated on the sites where it is required.

Notes

• The newly created content type should be based off the OOTB “link to Document” Content Type. i.e. the new content type ID should start with 0x01010A;
• This solution does not check for permissions on the Network file share. The ACL of the file will dictate the permissions. If the user does not have permissions an error message will be displayed;
• Standard SharePoint Document library security will be honoured. If the user does not have permissions to the list item they will not see the link to the network file share;
• UNC address should have the flowing format: file://[filepath]/[fileName].[extension]. There is no validation of the UNC address format;
• This method does not provide any browse to functionality for the end user. They will need to be trained on how to locate the correct UNC address.

You can use the following syntax to get the fully qualified URL to a Form for a SharePoint List / Library.

SPList list = SPContext.Current.List;

SPListItem item = list[0];

item.Web.Url + "/" + item.ParentList.Forms[PAGETYPE.PAGE_DISPLAYFORM].Url + "?ID=" + item.ID

PAGETYPE is an enumeration of the SharePoint Forms:

Visual Studio 2005 for Software Testers (VSST) allows you to create custom Counter Sets, which are a set of performance counters that can be applied to a computer in the test farm. VSST comes with some Counter Sets out-of-the-box (OOTB) for the Load Test, Controller and Agent amongst others:

Invariably when creating performance tests, you’ll develop them on a computer, which is not in the SharePoint Server Farm. This computer will most probably not have a number of the performance counters that you want to monitor. For instance SharePoint uses the w3wp (IIS) worker process, which unless you have IIS installed on your local machine, you will not be able to add the counters. To add the counters you need to specify a computer that has the counters that you require.

Typically I create a counter set for each of the server roles in the farm. This allows me to monitor different counters for different roles. For instance the Web Front End (WFE) servers counters are very different to the Back End SQL server. Joel Oleson has publish a good list of counters that the SharePoint Performance Team use.

Creating Custom Counter Set
1. Open or create a new Load Test in VSST;
2. Right mouse click on the Counter Set node and select Add Custom Counter Set;

3. In the properties pane give the newly created Counter Set a useful name e.g. SharePoint WFE, SharePoint DB, SharePoint Search e.t.c
4. Right mouse click the newly created Counter Set and select Add Counters;

5. Enter the name of the computer that you are going to collect the counters from e.g. SharePoint WFE or SQL Database server. The List of Performance Categories will be refreshed for the categories available on that server. If you select Process for instance, the list of instances will be different for the WFE and the DB servers. Select the required counters.

Note:
If you work in an environment where least privileges are employed you may not have sufficient right to add performance counters from a remote computer. You may encounter a message such as “Cant read performance counter categories for computer xxx”.

To be able to access the performance counters you need your system administrators to add you (or the account you are running the test under) to the following server roles:

• Performance Log Users – Members of this group have remote access to schedule logging of performance counters on this computer
• Performance Monitor Users – Members of this group have remote access to monitor this computer

Using Custom Counter Set
1. Open the Load Test where you created your custom counter set;
2. Right mouse click on Counter Set Mappings and Select Manage Counter Sets…;

3. In the Manage Counter Sets dialog box select Add Computer. Select the newly created Custom Counter Set and click OK;
�

References:

• How to configure Stress Test Project For MOSS 2007 using VS2008 Team Suite for System Testers
• Working with Load Tests

The Global SharePoint User Group is having it’s first meeting on the 1st December 2009 @ 7pm ET. This will be the first virtualised SharePoint User Group, and will be presented via LiveMeeting.

If you can’t actually attend the user group meeting then they will be recorded so that you can watch them at your leisure.

They also have a survey to establish what topics / subject areas people want discussed. Make sure you take the time to complete this as this will be key to getting the right content out there.

http://www.gspug.org/

If you need to browse your SharePoint site or for that matter any site, hosted on your VPC while you are not connected to a network, read on. If you are not connected to a network the VPC does not get an IP address issued hence why you cannot browse hosted sites. The solution to this is the MS Loopback Adapter. The following shows you how to set up your loopback adapter.

Add Loopback adapter

1. Click Start, and then click Control Panel. Then click Add Hardware:
   
2. Select Yes, I have already connected the hardware:
   
3. From the list of devices select Add a new hardware device:
   
4. Select Install the hardware that I manually select from list (Advanced):
   
5. From the list of hardware types select Network Adapter:
   
6. From the list of Manufactures select Microsoft and from the list of Network Adapters select Microsoft Loopback Adapter:
   
7. Click Finish once the adapter is installed.
8. The Loopback Adapter will now appear in you list of Network Connections:
   

Configure Loopback Adapter

1. In the Network Connections right mouse click on the newly created Loopback Adapter and select Properties;
2. From the Properties select Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) and click Properties:
   
3. In the Properties add the IP address as follows:
    
4. Click OK to commit the changes.

Configure VPC Network Adapter

1. On Virtual PC (VPC) Console click Settings;
   
2. On the settings dialog box select Networking and then select Microsoft Loopback Adapter as the 1st Adapter. Click OK;
   
3. On the VPC click the Network icon in the task bar or navigate to the Network Connections through the control panel. The network icon may display a warning message “Limited or no connectivity”. Don’t worry about this at the moment;
   
4. On the Network Connections window, right mouse click on the Local Area Connection and click Properties;
   
5. On the TCP/IP settings for the Network adapter enter the following details. Click OK;
6. You will notice that the network icon on the desktop task bar no-longer displays the warning message;
7. On the VPC, launch the Command Prompt and type IPConfig you should see that the VPC now has the IP address, subnet and gateway that you just entered;
   
8. From the VPC Command prompt ping 192.168.5.10 to confirm connectivity to the host;
    
9. Ensure that you don’t have any network connectivity on your host computer, then from the Command Prompt ping the VPC 192.168.5.11 to confirm connectivity to the VPC;

Configure Host File

If your SharePoint (or website) uses Host Headers then you’ll need to edit your Host file:

1.   Open your Host file C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc\host;
   
2. In the host file put the IP address of your VPC 192.168.5.11 and set the host in my case that is scratch;
    
3. You should now be able to browse your SharePoint (Web Site) hosted on a VPC even if you do not have connection to a network;
    

While working at an large utility organisation that has an Enterprise deployment of MOSS; they had their MySite Functionality turned off for all users. Now while I agree that there is a considerable amount of resource required to implement and manage the MySite functionality in SharePoint, it does have it’s benefits:

• Aids SharePoint adoption as uses have Site Owner rights to their MySite, which means they can create Lists, Add Web Parts, Upload Documents e.t.c. giving them a full flavour of what SharePoint can do, in an isolated environment;
• It can replace the user drive (U:\ drive or equivalent);
• It can promote Sharing of information with colleges, rather than having silos of information on Shared Drives;
• It can allow you to target information to particular sets of users;
• It helps finding people by skills, roles, department, corporate structure e.t.c.

One approach I find useful is to phase / incrementally deployment of MySites across the Enterprise. The following will show how you can achieve this:

1. Within the Active Directory (AD) create a new group called “SharePoint MySite Users” or something similar, this should be created as per your corporate policy;

2. Add the users that you plan to initially grant access to MySites to the newly created Group. You can also add existing AD Groups to this groups; for instance if you wanted to add the IT department you could add a AD Group that contains all members of that Department;

3. Launch your Central Administration console and select the Shared Services associated the SharePoint Site. From the Shared Services Home page select Personalization services permissions;

4. This will launch the a permissions page where you can grant rights to various personalisation services. You will notice that by default the NT AUTHORITY\Authenticated Users have been granted Personal Features and Personal Site rights. We are interested in the Personal Site rights. We need to remove these rights from the Authenticated Users groups. To do this select the Authenticated Users, and click Modify Permissions of Selected Users;

5. On the Modify Permissions page deselect Create Personal Site and click Save;

6. From the Manage Permissions page select Add Users / Groups. On the Add Users / Groups page enter the group that you created in steps 1 & 2. You can use the people picker functionality to help find the group. Check the box next to Create Personal Site and click Save;

7. You will now see that the SharePoint MySite Users group has the rights to create personal sites;

8. To verify this log in to the Portal with an account that is a member of the SharePoint MySite Users group. You will see the link to the My Site in the top right corner of the standard SharePoint site template;

9. Now log in with a user who is not a member and you will notice that the My Site link no longer appears;

Using this approach you can safely deploy My Sites functionality across and enterprise in a controlled fashion. This will allow you to ensure quota’s, content database, site deletion e.t.c are provisioned as per the requirements (governance) of your organisation.

Microsoft opened SharePoint 2010 up to the public today at the SharePoint Conference 2009. With the announcement of the public beta being available in November 2009, they have made some resources available in preparation. The  SharePoint Team Site offer the following resources:

- SharePoint 2010 Website – to view SharePoint 2010 in action

- SharePoint 2010 forum- for SharePoint 2010 questions

- SharePoint 2010 PressPass- for the SPC 2009 keynote video, a Q&A with Jeff Teper…

- SharePoint 2010 Developer Centre – for developer info

- http://www.mssharepointitpro.com – for IT Pro info

- http://www.microsoft.com/sharepoint – for more SharePoint information

I’m sure there will be a plethora of information around 2010 over the next couple of weeks as the MVP community privileged to get a early beta copy, tear up the NDA which, has been keeping them silent and are let loose publish all their findings. Personally I can’t wait!

The guys from the SharePoint Pod Show have recently launched a Q&A site called SharePoint Overflow which will not only allow the community to help solve SharePoint Dev, Admin, users Issues, but will also help provide content for their show. Well done guys!

http://www.sharepointoverflow.com/

p.s. PinkPetrol I’m liking the suggestion for the logo.

Ok, so there are loads of these sort of blogs already out there, but hey thought I’d let you know the suite of tools that I’ve added to my arsenal. All these tools should help make your SharePoint life allot easier… they definitely save me a load of headaches over the years. Thanks to all the community folks for developing these tools, with out them our lives would be a lot harder.

While assisting a client in moving content from one environment to another for testing purposes, it was noticed that the site of the stsadm backup file was considerably larger than the Content Database size as defined in the stsadm enumsites report.

As can be seen in the from the out put of the enumsites, the StorageUsedMB for the HRTemp site collection is reported to be 158.4 MB. However the size of the backup file is 3.1 GB.

<Sites Count="5">  <Site Url=http://portal Owner="domain\spadmin" ContentDatabase="WSS_Content"StorageUsedMB="1.7" StorageWarningMB="0" StorageMaxMB="0" />  <Site Url="http://portal/teamsite/hr" Owner="domain\spadmin"  ContentDatabase="WSS_Content_HR2" StorageUsedMB="3171.1" StorageWarningMB="0" StorageMaxMB="0" />  <Site Url="http://portal/teamsite/HRTemp" Owner="domain\spadmin"  ContentDatabase="WSS_Content_Temp" StorageUsedMB="158.4" StorageWarningMB="0" StorageMaxMB="0" />  <Site Url="http://portal/teamsite/it" Owner="domain\spadmin" ContentDatabase="WSS_Content_IT" StorageUsedMB="8840.7" StorageWarningMB="0" StorageMaxMB="0" />  <Site Url="http://portal/teamsite/research" Owner="domain\spadmin" ContentDatabase="WSS_Content_Research" StorageUsedMB="14.5" StorageWarningMB="0" StorageMaxMB="0" /></Sites>

Once the files were removed from the site collection recycle bin the backup file was reduced to the expected size.

It is therefore important to ensure that files are deleted and removed from the recycle bin properly before executing a stsadm backup as files in the recycle bin for the site collection will also be backed up and this will not be reflected in the enumsites report.

Note: You can disable the recycle bin thus purging the recycle bin using the setproperty method of the stsadm command. Beware that this property is for the Web Application and not the site collection, and will as a result empty (delete) the recycle bins for all site collections in the web application. This is OK for testing purposes, but not recommended in production environments.