The address could not be found

Today while working with one client, I came across these errors in their Sharepoint (SPS) 2003 Search gatherer logs. Here are their explanations and resolutions:

1. To resolve " The address could not be found, ( 0x80041201 - The Object was not found )" error

Follow the steps given in the artilce published in MS Support site

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/909505

2. To resolve "The address could not be found, (0x80041205 - Access is denied. Check that the Default Content Access Account in SharePoint Central Administration is correct, or follow the "Exclude and Include Content" link to add a rule to specify the proper crawling account to access this URL. ) " error

Follow the steps given in the article published in MS Support site

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/891538

3. Error "The address could not be found, (0x80042404 - A document IFilter cannot be initialized. The document or IFilter may contain errors."
Office documents that are protected with a password are not included in the content index, and a "A document IFilter cannot be initialized' error message is logged in the gatherer log, it happens after you install SharePoint Portal Server 2003 SP2, the properties of Microsoft Office documents that are protected with a password are not included in the content index. When you perform an update of the content index, the error message mentioned above is logged in the gatherer log.
Therefore, when users search the portal site for Office documents, Office documents that are protected with a password are not returned in the search results.

Hope this helps.

Access is denied. Check that the Default Content Access Account has access to this

After upgrade from SharePoint [SPS] 2003 to SharePoint 2007 [MOSS 2007] the search doesn't work and gives this error:

"Access is denied. Check that the Default Content Access Account has access to this
content, or add a crawl rule to crawl this content. (This item was deleted because
it was either not found or the crawler was denied access to it.)"

We decided that default content access account have had access to SharePoint sites, but when index service crawled these sites in IIS log appended 401 error for this account.
Steps of solution:
• Login on SharePoint Server as default content access account
• Turn off automatic proxy server detection in IE settings
• Provide valid proxy server’s address and port number
• Check “Bypass proxy server for local addresses”
• Start full indexing again

FileMaxSize property

How to increase FileMaxSize property of a Content Deployment Job?

There is no easy or out of the box way of updating this property, one way though is to do it using custom code using SDK. Here is a quick code snippet which does that.

ContentDeploymentConfiguration config = ContentDeploymentConfiguration.GetInstance();
config.FileMaxSize = 30;
config.Update();

Once changed this should affect all content deployment jobs.

SharePoint Content management Video

A nice video on Content management by EMC.

Event ID 6482 in Office SharePoint Server log files

You get the Event ID 6482 in your logfiles, the error is related to Office SharePoint Server. The fix for this error is included in Service pack 1 for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SP 1. The KB article for this is KB 936988.

Download Service pack 1 for WSS 3.0

Site Collection output cache error

One of our client today faced this issue where they were unable to access portal -> site actions -> Site Settings -> Modify all site settings -> Site Collection output cache settings in their site collection.

Solution:
The solution is to de-activate and re-activate the publishing feature of the site collection. I have tested on the staging server and it seemed to work.

1. Click Site Actions--Modify Site Settings, click Site Collection Features
2. Click Deactivate for "Office SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure", click Deactivate this feature on the next page
3. Click Activate for "Office SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure".

The probable cause may be, Since the "cache profiles" list is generated by the system when the publishing site is provisioned, it is possible there are some problems during the site provisioning
and it causes the error.

Microsoft has released the User Guide, Samples and Walkthroughs for the Visual Studio 2005 extensions for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, v1.1

Microsoft has released the User Guide, Samples and Walkthroughs for the Visual Studio 2005 extensions for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, v1.1. The extensions that this user guide relates to was released on Feb 11th 2008 and a version for Visual Studio 2008 is planned to release in June 2008.

The user guide is downloadable here and represents approx 200 pages of documentation applicable to both the current and applicable to the forthcoming Visual Studio 2008 extensions for Windows SharePoint Services.

This user guide is a part of a dedicated campaign that lots of people are working on to drive more professional developers to work on SharePoint, to fill the gap in this audience required for SharePoint deployments and to improve the satisfaction of those developers. These are some of the other activities going on presently, many of which are launching at TechEd Developers 2008:

· New Introductory SharePoint Developer landing page for .NET Developers with free introductory online training
· Print Datasheet of Positioning and Value Prop of SharePoint Development for .NET Developers
· Advertising of the new SharePoint Developer landing page on www.asp.net and at TechEd Developers USA
· Web casting and an in-person Firestarter event for the new training material
· A major new introductory SharePoint developer article in the MSDN Library aimed at .NET developers
· More improvements coming on the Visual Studio extensions for SharePoint for SharePoint “12”. The next is a release that works with Visual Studio 2008 coming in June 2008
· The Silverlight Blueprint for SharePoint published in Feb 2008
· Third party paid additions to the WSS and MOSS SDK in collaboration with Office UA – 100 new API SDK pages completed so far
· Dedicated support for the SharePoint Developer and Programming MSDN Forum which has increased the answer rate from 17% to 58%
· Translation of the VSeWSS user guide to Japanese
· SPDisposeCheck – A tool to aid SharePoint Developers in following best practices for use and disposing of SharePoint objects

Hope MS will keep up the good work of promoting SharePoint and making the lives of hundreds of thousands of developers easy.

Microsoft SharePoint Administration Toolkit 1.0

Microsoft has released Administration Toolkit for SharePoint.

The Administration Toolkit Contained:
o Batch Site Manager
o Alert Fixer
· WhitePaper: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=117212&clcid=0x409
· Download Link:
o x86: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=263CD480-F6EB-4FA3-9F2E-2D47618505F2&displaylang=en
o x64: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=F8EEA8F0-FA30-4C10-ABC9-217EEACEC9CE&displaylang=en

Anti Virus and MOSS 2007

Today, I was having this issue with a client, who has Forefront Real time client installed on their MOSS 2007 Server and were having issues with the replication. During working on this issue I found following information, which can be helpful as general guidelines for using Anti Virus with MOSS 2007.

The generic consideration will be given in the context of a MOSS 2007 platform is installed.
As MOSS 2007 installation requires pre-requisites software, the document will describe as well exclusions for those software.

Windows server 2003
· The %systemroot% is normally the C:\WINDOWS or C:\WINNT directory depending on your OS
· %systemroot%\System32\Spool (and all the sub-folders and files)
· %systemroot%\SoftwareDistribution\Datastore
· Any Network Drives that are mapped

Refer to the following article for information:
KB822158 - Virus scanning recommendations for computers that are running Windows Server 2003, Windows 2000, or Windows XP http://support.microsoft.com/kb/822158

Internet Information Server
· The IIS compression directory (default compression directory is %systemroot%\IIS Temporary Compressed Files)
· %systemroot%\system32\inetsrv folder
· Files that have the .log extension

Refer to the following knowledge base articles for reference:
KB817442 - IIS 6.0: Antivirus Scanning of IIS Compression Directory May Result in 0-Byte File http://support.microsoft.com/kb/817442
KB821749 - Antivirus software may cause IIS to stop unexpectedly http://support.microsoft.com/kb/821749

SQL Server
· Exclude .MDF, .LDF, .NDF, .TRN, .BAK and .SLS
· Exclude sqlmangr.exe and sqlservr.exe
· SQL folder and databases files (or database file types) from scanning for performance reasons:

KB309422 - Guidelines for choosing antivirus software to run on the computers that are running SQL Server http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309422

WSS3.0 / MOSS 2007
· Drive:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Servers\12.0
· Drive:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12
· Drive:\DOCUME~1\ALLUSE~1\APPLICATION DATA\MICROSOFT\FIREWALL CLIENT\*
· Drive:\WINDOWS\Temp\WebTempDir\*
· Drive:\DOCUMENTS AND SETTINGS\\LOCAL SETTINGS\APPLICATION DATA\*
· Drive:\Documents and Settings\\\Local Settings\Temp\*
· Drive:\WINDOWS\system32\LogFiles
· W3wp.exe, cbd.exe, cidaemon.exe, owstimer.exe (WSS)
(where Drive: is the drive letter where you installed SharePoint Portal Server)

Also, ‘c:\windows\temp\contentdeployment’ to temporarily store deployment files (.cab). This should perhaps be excluded as well.

MOM
· Drive:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Microsoft Operations Manager
· Drive:\Program Files\Microsoft Operations Manager 2005
where Drive: is the drive letter where profiles are located

Trend Micro
Trend Micro(TM) PortalProtect(TM) 1.7 for Microsoft(TM) SharePoint(TM) 2007
http://www.trendmicro.com/ftp/documentation/readme/PP_1.7_b1027_README.txt
· Temp folder: C:\Program Files\Trend Micro\PortalProtect\temp
· Quarantine folder, whose default location is:
Drive:\Program Files\Trend Micro\PortalProtect\Quarantine
· Backup folder, whose default location is:
Drive:\Program Files\Trend Micro\PortalProtect\Backup

Just to make you aware that there is a SharePoint version of Forefront Security available from Microsoft. To know more about Forefront for Sharepoint please visit:
http://www.microsoft.com/forefront/sharepoint/en/us/default.aspx
Hope this helps. Any comments welcome.

External Collaboration Toolkit for SharePoint

Do your customers need tools to more easily and securely collaborate with others across the Internet?
Every day, your customers collaborate on key projects with partners, suppliers, and others across the Internet. To be successful, project teams must regularly share important documents with these outsiders—documents that often contain intellectual property or other non-public information.
But according to a recent study commissioned by Microsoft, more than half of these teams use communication methods that are not secure, like e-mail and instant messaging, as their primary collaboration tools. Organizations that use more secure methods find that setting them up can be difficult, time-consuming, and costly—and that managing them can be a big administrative burden.
Your customers need a way to easily collaborate and share documents with others across the Internet. They need a solution that’s simple to set up and that lets project teams manage collaboration sites on their own. They need the External Collaboration Toolkit for SharePoint.
Here’s your chance to help your customers more easily and securely collaborate with others across the Internet. Invite them to learn more about the External Collaboration Toolkit for SharePoint.

The External Collaboration Toolkit for SharePoint:
The External Collaboration Toolkit for SharePoint provides authoritative guidance and tools to deploy a customizable solution built on Microsoft® Windows® SharePoint® Services 3.0 that teams can use to collaborate with partners outside the firewall. Once it is deployed, the toolkit’s familiar desktop interface makes the solution easy for project teams to understand and use.
Using this free toolkit, users can be up and running with a SharePoint-based collaboration site in minutes. They can easily create new sites, and invite external users to share documents that are centrally located on a SharePoint site—inside the firewall. Site owners can easily customize the site, and provide access rights for team members.
IT Pros can stay in control by requiring administrative approval for these activities. Or they can allow end users to set up and manage collaboration sites on their own—freeing up scarce IT resources for higher-value activities.
The External Collaboration Toolkit for SharePoint helps boost security by creating each collaboration site as a SharePoint site collection. This ensures that teams using one collaboration site will not be able to view documents on another collaboration site, unless they are explicitly given access.
In addition, the toolkit puts all external users in Active Directory Application Mode (ADAM)—the Microsoft lightweight directory service—rather than in the organization’s primary internal directory—further reducing your customers’ security risks.

The benefits for your customers include:
Boosts security. Provides an additional layer of security on top of the security features that are built into SharePoint.
Easy to deploy. Customers can install and configure the toolkit in just a couple of hours. Automated tools included with the toolkit help speed deployment.
Easy to use. The toolkit uses a familiar desktop interface that makes it simple for team members to collaborate with each other.
Reduces IT costs. Team members can manage most functions on their own, freeing up scarce IT resources to focus on higher-return activities.
Thoroughly tested. The toolkit is extensively tested in our labs, and verified by customers and partners under real-world conditions.
Free. The toolkit is freely available from Microsoft TechNet.

Other collaboration solutions:
The External Collaboration Toolkit for SharePoint is just one of a suite of SharePoint -based Solution Accelerators that help customers collaborate more effectively. Other solutions in the collaboration suite include:
SharePoint Capacity Planning Tool
The SharePoint Capacity Planning Tool gives customers a head start on planning new SharePoint installations by helping them answer questions about necessary hardware and user capacity.
SharePoint Monitoring Toolkit
The SharePoint Monitoring Toolkit enables customers to quickly and easily take advantage of powerful new management and monitoring features in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.
Upgrade Toolkit for Windows SharePoint Services Sites and Templates
Customers who have created sites based on the Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 application templates can use this toolkit to upgrade them to work on Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.
SharePoint Cross-site Configurator
This Solution Accelerator helps customers centralize and automate the deployment of configuration settings in SharePoint across multiple Web Farms.

SharePoint Capacity Planning Tool 1.0 Released

Are you planning a SharePoint installation for a customer? Chances are, you have a lot of questions.

• What is the necessary hardware investment?
• What kind of topology is needed to meet organizational requirements for availability and
performance?
• How will additional users from a recent merger affect deployment?

When planning a new SharePoint deployment, you will need a way to quickly characterize the general topology and minimum hardware requirements to support expected usage loads with adequate performance. You will need a way to explore plausible scenarios and get pointed in the right direction. The SharePoint Capacity Planning Tool gives you a quick way to draft topology and equipment sizing for your particular scenario and usage profile.

This solution reduces “SharePoint sizing” estimation efforts from a matter of days to a matter of hours.

Description of the Tool:

Imagine a tool that you could use to input a few key facts about users, user needs, business requirements, and organizational resources in order to:

• Build a topology model based on this input
• Run simulations that show the impact of this topology
• Generate a summary report that will help you evaluate alternatives
The SharePoint Capacity Planning Tool consists of System Center Capacity Planner 2007 (SCCP) models for:
• Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS)
• Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (WSS)

The tool can be used in pre-sales and feasibility studies of a deployment project to give you a rough estimate of hardware requirements. The tool can generate estimated performance metrics based on a simulation and provide useful Visio schematics of the proposed deployment to be included in documents and proposals.

Download it here:

You can obtain the SharePoint Capacity Planning Tool on Microsoft Download. For a short introduction to the tool and its usage, please go to this TechNet overview page: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=93030

This Solution Accelerator needs SCCP 2007 to be installed first.
For details and download information for SCCP, please see Additional Resources.

This Solution Accelerator is being included in Microsoft Services readiness material for SharePoint architecture and planning.

Additional resources:

SharePoint Capacity Planning Tool on Microsoft Download Center

System Center Capacity Planner

Solution Accelerators on TechNet