Monthly Archives: November 2009

SQL Query to identify Kerberos or NTLM connection (by Marc Valk)

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 I found myself looking for this query for the second time now and finally decided to post it on my blog [8-|]

This query enables you to find out if your connections towards your SQL server are using Kerberos instead of NTLM. This may help in your troubleshooting or confirmation for your Kerberos implementation on SharePoint.

 If found it back this time on the blog of Marc Valk (http://www.marcvalk.net/2009/04/sql-query-to-identify-kerberos-or-ntlm-connection/)

 SELECT
    s.session_id,
    c.connect_time,
    s.login_time,
    s.login_name,
    c.protocol_type,
    c.auth_scheme,
    s.HOST_NAME,
    s.program_name
FROM sys.dm_exec_sessions s
JOIN sys.dm_exec_connections c
ON s.session_id = c.session_id

Find out which language packs are installed and the build version

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I was asked this question yesterday and I remember having tried to find out how to do it. Finally I took some time to search around on the net and found a post by Patrick Heyde.

http://blogs.technet.com/patrick_heyde/archive/2009/09/30/sharepoint-blow-up-in-daily-business-and-nobody-writes-important-stuff-to-the-farm-documentation.aspx

 

which says the following:

3. Which SharePoint language packs were installed?

Answer: check registry

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0\WSS\InstalledLanguages\<LCID>

here you will see something like this:

LCID – Reg_SZ – {language pack build level}

1033 – Reg_SZ – 12.0.4518.1000

1031 – Reg_SZ – 12.0.4518.1000

…

or

LCID – Reg_SZ – {language pack build level}

1033 – Reg_SZ – 12.0.6219.1000

1031 – Reg_SZ – 12.0.6219.1000

…

Note: It’s important to have all language packs on the same build level!

To get an overview about all Microsoft LCIDs you can use this article: Local ID (LCID) chart

Thanks Patrick, in my case the build version was set to 12.0.6425.1000 which turns out to be SP2

My upgrade experience to SharePoint Foundation 2010

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I thought I’d share with you guys what I had experienced during the upgrade from my WSS 3.0 server to SharePoint Foundation 2010 beta.

First of all, my WSS 3.0 is quite small. There’s only One site collection in there of any significance en some other site collections for testing purposes. So with this in mind I thought this would be a piece of cake.

After having made a stsadm backup of every site collection and a backup of all my SharePoint databases, I was ready to start. After having read though the deployment docs, I found out that if you are running SQL 2008, that it needs to be at least SP1. I was already running that build so I was good to go for that. I must admit that the prerequisite installer runs smoothly. It does detect your missing prerquisite software and goes out to the interent to download the missing bits. The installation of SharePoint Foundation went flawlessly. I was quickly able to start up the Products and Configuration wizard.

The upgrade wizard quickly failed, telling me that I need to install the Dutch Language Pack as it is also installed for WSS 3.0. A quick look on the web showed me that there isn’t one yet available. Hmm.. problem number 1. I had to uninstall the Dutch language Pack before I could continue. Since all my site collections are also created in Dutch, I needed to convert them to an Englich version, so I decided to do some unsupported stuff and change the  language of my site using the following SQL command on my content database:

UPDATE dbo.webs set language = 1033

Sure enough, my sites are now back in English. I ran the uninstall for the dutch WSS Language Pack and again I was good to go.

My next attempt for running teh upgrade failed as well, complaining about an incorrect SQL version. What the h***? Hadn’t I checked that already before? As it turns out you do not only need SQL 2008 SP1, but it also needs the Cumulative Update 2 for SP1 installed. So I got to download those bits, install them and voila, we are back in business.

The final attempt for the upgrade succeeded. The upgrade process ran successfully, giving no errors and I was soon presented  with the new Central Admin site.I quickly checked the look of my sites, which was as expected still the same, although if you go through to Site Settings, you immediately notice that something has changed. It isn’t quite the old version anymore.

 So all I needed to do is play aroud  with the Visual Upgrade Preview and fin out how my sites will look in their SharePoint 2010 version.

so that’s it for my first upgrade experience.

Well actually it isn’t, because after all my sites had been upgraded I decided to take a backup of my new site collections using stsadm and remove everything. I uninstalled SharePoint Foundation 2010, WSS 3.0, deleted all my SQL databases and started a clean install of SharePoint Foundation 2010. After that I restored the site collections and there I was again: up and running. I don’t like running some hybrid versions with both WSS and Foundation installed and prefer a clean install [:D]

 

STSADM has survived in SharePoint 2010

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I am going through some of the SharePoint Conference 2009 Videos I recently got from a colleague of mine that was lucky enough to be there, and I am pleased to have learned that STSADM will not be gone in SharePoint 2010. Simon Skaria confirmed this in his IT Pro Overview session.

Great. Now I don’t need to look for a new subtitle for my blog. [:D]

But I Simon Skaria also encourages everyone to move on to Powershell because of its auto-complete capabilities.

SharePoint 2010 Evolution Conference – London

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Yes, finally, I have found the time and means to attend a conference again. This time I did not have much difficulty convincing my boss, being selfemployed and all…[:D]. I just had to check with my COO that I married today, eight years ago. Congratulations to you too my dear [G]

So if you haven’t heard, you can register for the SharePoint 2010 Evolution Conference in London starting April 19th for a 3-day conference.

Find out all about it at http://www.sharepointevolutionconference.com/

My registration is complete and confirmed, so if you guys are out there as well, then print a large copy of my picture, carry it with you at all time and say “Hi” if you bump into me. I’ll buy you a free drink at the conference [B]

Saving Document to SharePoint using Office 2003 resets choice metadata fields to default values

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I was recently facing an issue as described in http://stackoverflow.com/questions/809179/saving-a-document-to-sharepoint-brings-up-web-file-properties-dialog-with-incor

Recap from original post:

Situation:

  • A custom “Master Document” content type inherits from Document
  • The “Master Document” content type has five additional choice fields
  • There are five custom “Document Template” content types that inherit from the “Master Document” content type
  • Each of the “Document Template” content types uses a different Word document template (.dot) file
  • Each of the “Document Template” content types have been added to a document library

Problem:

  1. I click on a document in the library
  2. Document opens up in Word 2003 for me to edit
  3. I make some changes and save
  4. A box pops up called “Web File Properties”. The window contains all of my custom metadata properties and the ContentType field. The ContentType field is set correctly to the current content type. The other fields are reset to their default values. This same window can apparently be opened by going to File -> Properties

This window by itself would be fine except for two reasons:

  • It includes the ContentType column
  • All of my custom metadata properties are visible but are reset to their default values instead of whatever values were previously selected. This means, every time the user wants to save the document, they have to remember what properties were tagged and set them back.

Question:

  1. Can I disable this Web File Properties box?
  2. If no… can I get the fields that show up to be populated to their correct values?
  3. If no… is there a way to disable my fields from displaying in this window?
  4. If no… is this a SharePoint page that I can modify?

***Edit with some more information***

It looks like this only happens in Office 2003 and looks like it affects Choice fields. If I create the same column as a Lookup field, it seems to work.

Edit again

Looks like if the lookup field is a multi-select field then it will not show up in the Web File Properties box at all (single select lookups still work).

edit 10/14/2009

Link to the KB Article mentioned below by Brenda: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/971500/

My Solution:

Of Course the suggested hotfix, which in fact is the June Cumulative Update for WSS did not fix my issue, but I did find a solution at the end.

What really happens when you call the Web File Properties box is that your client will download 3 javascript files from the server:  bform.js, core.js and init.js. You can check this by by opening up the document library causing the issue and clearing your temporary internet files at that time. When you now call the Web File Properties in Word 2003 through File –> Properties, you will notice these 3 script files being downloadin in your temprary internet files folder.

On the SharePoint front-end servers, you can find these files in the 12-hive\Template\Layouts\<LCID> folders, where you have  to replace <LCID> with your language codes installed (1033, English; 1043, Dutch; …. you get the picture, right?)

So the problem is most likely caused by one of those javascript files. Now we have had the issue since we had installed SP2 and the June Cumulative Update. So I decided to restore these 3 script files and play aroun with these files for a while.

As it happens, my problem went away by replacing the bform.js file with a pre-SP2 version and clearing my

So if your issue does not get resolved by the suggested method of Microsoft, which is installing the latest Cumulative Update, then try restoring a previous version of this file and remember that you will need to clear this file from your client’s Temporary Internet Folder to force a download of the latest version from the server.