Mike H. - Another Geek In Need...

Where have you been - MOSStastic and Blogging for MOSS

Michael J. Hamilton, Sr. — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 15:21:42 GMT

I have been more than busy and apologize for not being as active in the blog community as I'd like to be.

Also, I'm moving my blogs to www.msftliveblogs.com/mhamilton - and hopefully I'll be able to keep up.

I'm still working on the MOSS and WSS sandbox demos for the Agency - which we hope to launch frist quarter' 08

Adding a network printer to a Vista workstation / desktop / notebook - The specified print monitor is unknown.

Michael J. Hamilton, Sr. — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 18:46:20 GMT

As a developer, one of the first things I did to my notebook (running Vista) is disable the UAC - I can't stand it - it keeps me from installing things like Virtual Server (which is not supported on Vista - but works perfectly fine), and is basically something I'm not worried about.

Until I want to add a printer that is a network resource on my LAN. I get the error that the printer cannot be added - "The specified print monitor is unknown."

Very informative - I know.

Well, believe it or not - this occurred because I set the value for the UAC to zero - or basically disabled it. The issue pops up because the network printer resource MUST install a driver on your local workstation - and if UAC is turned off, by default - MSFT has written into this - DO NOT install any foreign device - period.

To resolve - I open the registry HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System and set EnableLUA to a value of ONE "1" - reboot - and the printer adds just fine.

The question I'm sure you're asking yourself... "Do I have to leave UAC enabled???" - NO NO NO - and that's the nice part.

So, re-enable UAC - add the printer - disable UAC - and enjoy.

Hopefully this helps some other unsuspecting Vista lover...

How to recover domain when the primary domain controller failes and there are member domain controllers

Michael J. Hamilton, Sr. — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 16:05:22 GMT

Many of us have probably dabbled in setting up our own domain and forest for development purposes. For me - a domain is a must - I have my development environment that is heavily used to model development projects for clents - and I have my family - me, my wife, and 7 children with their own computers.

So, we have a fairly detailed setup on the home front - but the following applies to ANY environment in which your primary domain controller gives up the ghost - and you do not have an image backup of the PDC.

Foremost - clarity: In an Active Directory forest, where you have several domain controllers, but one primary domain controller (PDC) - you may think that you must RESTORE or recover this PDC to salvage the domain. In other words, if the PDC fails - is all lost? Nope, not at all. Unless you do not have backup domain controllers. If you do not - then reading the rest of this is moot - but if you do, then read on.

When you promote additional servers on your domain, and make them member DC's in the same forest, then your domain details are available to you - and you simply need to transfer the Operation Master role to another DC - but before doing that - there are the FSMO's - yea, something hardly anyone knows about: FSMO = Flexible Single Master Operation - something your PDC or master of operations - manages. If a PDC - and Global Catalog for that matter - goes offline, a backup DC will generally pickup and juggle traffic for the PDC. But what happens if the PDC crashes altogether, and you need to basically assign a member backup DC the PDC role?

FSMO must be transferred to a backup DC before that DC can assume the Master of Operations role. This is done at the command-line level, and you must be careful before you make this call - ONLY do this if you are sure you cannot recover the original PDC because once you do this - you cannot laterr recover the PDC and bring it online. It cannot be added back into the forest at all.

So, the FSMO roles and how we transfer these. In a word, you cannot simply transfer the FSMO roles because the PDC is off line and not available to authorize the transfer. However, you 'can' SEIZE the FSMO roles from the original PDC - even with the machine offl line.

Caution: Using the Ntdsutil utility incorrectly may result in partial or complete loss of Active Directory functionality.

Open a CMD prompt on the backup DC you want to perform this on. At the command-line prompt, type Ntdsutil and press <Enter>.

C:\WINDOWS>ntdsutil
ntdsutil:

At this prompt, type roles and press <Enter>:

ntdsutil: roles
fsmo maintenance:

Now type connections and press <Enter>:

fsmo maintenance: connections
server connections:

Now type connect to servername <serverName> where <serverName> is the name of the backup DC you are working on, and press <Enter>:

server connections: connect to servername hamddc02

Connected to hamdc02 using credentials of locally logged on user.
server connections:

At the server connections prompt type q and press <Enter>:

server connections: q
fsmo maintenance:

Now we are going to SEIZE the FSMO roles we want. NOTE: Out of the 5 FSMO roles, we are NOT going to seize the Infrastructure Master. We do not want to put the Infrastructure Master (IM) role on the same domain controller as the Global Catalog server. If the Infrastructure Master runs on a GC server it will stop updating object information because it does not contain any references to objects that it does not hold. This is because a GC server holds a partial replica of every object in the forest. For now, we'll seize the following:

Seize domain naming master
Seize PDC
Seize RID master
Seize schema master

We do this by typig the line shown above. For example, to seize the domain naming master, type seize domain naming master and press <Enter>

You will receive a Windows dialog prompting to confirm this move - click <Yes> and then you'll see the attempt to safely transfer the FSMO role, a failure message, and then it will seize the role, assigning it to the backup DC you specified when you connected to the server above.

Once you have completed this for the 4 roles, type Quit to exit the utility, then Exit to return to Windows.

From the Start menu, select Run and enter dsa.msc and press <Enter>.

On the domain that is displayed, right click and select Operations Masters. You should now see that this backup domain controller (HAMDC02 in this case) is not the Operations master.

From here you simply re-create the failed domain controller, and promote it - joining it to this existing forest.

Hopefully others will find this useful.

Memories of Another Day - A long time forgotten

Michael J. Hamilton, Sr. — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 19:17:00 GMT

I remember the book by Harold Robbins very well, but it was when I was reading this book that I was introduced to country music and a life that I'll never forget - notwithstanding my career in technology.

Long before I was a coder I was a countruction worker by day and guitar player at night. Mostly I favored the folk songs of the '60's and '70's - but about the time I entered technology - I also ran into a group of guys that will forever be family.

In my early to mid 20's I was picked to play in a band that was then a fill-in in the CMA - basically union players that traveled the circuit in the SE United States (or wherever they were called to) - and I remember my first gig with Gary Morris. I was humbled to be called and facinated with the opportunity to be able to open and play behind a great musician. I had no idea that the next several years of my life would bring me close to legends like Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, the Ole Possum - and many more 'old' folks (as I called them) that I had a blast listening to and playing behind.

Recently I had the opportunity to go and visit much of the old band - what's left of the crew anyway. They're well retired, in their 70's, and I had not picked with any of them in over 14 years. My trip down memory lane - and 3 hours of picking in northern Alabama 2 weeks ago - made me take the pause to reflect on memories of another day - perhaps not a long time forgotten just yet.

I had to make the trip south for personal reasons and simply made it a point to visit the ol' boys - and my time with them really made me take pause and reflect on what I have today.

My mentor in the CMA - Pappy to those close to him - RBJ otherwise, served our country in the Army Security Agency - after doing a term in the US Navy. He was stationed in the Aleutians - on Shemya - for the better part of 18 months. You would have to researh this island and our history from WWII to really appreciate where Pappy has been. My brief visit with my old friend was a time of reflection for me because of personal tragedy in my life - and a time of reflection for Pappy too. I had no idea really where he'd been or what he'd done outside of our music career together. And it was facinating to hear some of this history.

I came away from this trip with a resounding reminder that no matter how tough things seem in my life - they're a lot tougher for others - I guess it just depends on which way the pendulum is swinging :)

As a picker in the 70's/80's - there was no Internet to distract me, or perhaps remind me - of history. Life was 9-5 during the day and a blast at night.

In today's technologically driven as well as challenged life style - there is a whisper of history to be found at your finger tips - on the Net - and a recounting of days, years, and lives past that is simply incredible - if only I take the journey.

Nope... this was not intended to be a Geek post that would provide you with some really enlightening step-by-step that you are fervently searching to find. It is simply a tribute to a friend - Pappy - that needed to be paid. Thank you my friend, and God bless...

System.Data.OracleClient vs. Oracle ODP - Not all things .Net

Michael J. Hamilton, Sr. — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 16:10:00 GMT

I recently had the not-so-great-or-fun pleasure of a pure .Net to Oracle application show-down :) And yes, I say that with some pun.

In summary, keeping to proper form, I developed a DataProviderFactory that provided the following:

SQL Server native client API
Oracle
BDC to SQL Server
BDC to Oracle

Now, BDC = Business Data Catalog - a new service provider native to MOSS (Micrsoft Office SharePoint Server) 2007. And trust me - the BDC ROCKS!!!

Back to providers.

My provider factory basically provided classes for base types and class bases - the lowest level. In the solution I coded specific classes for the given provider (Oracle, SQL, etc) and within the Assembly.cs for that class - I'd reference the appropriate base class. All run-of-the-mill best practice stuff. Right? Well, almost.

After several hours of seeing varrying results from the Oracle database, I began to get a little suspicious - and sure enough - the provider with .Net is not all things .Net - at least not for Oracle.

If you are coding for a Oracle specific application - check out this link for specifics on the Oracle Data Provider for .Net - or the ODP. The API is 'similar' - but only SIMILAR - it is not the same. I invariably tore out the .Net System.Data.OracleClient and replaced it with the Oracle .Net provider and all came together - but this was not obvious or intuitive.

HTH's another weary developer struggling to sort out why - for lack of a better way to say it - when dealing with Oracle - it's not all things .Net.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 - Configuration / Setup - Login failed for user ''. The user is not associated with a trusted SQL Server configuration.

Michael J. Hamilton, Sr. — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 15:45:00 GMT

After installing MOSS and launching the SharePoint Configuration Wizard (psconfig.exe) - you are ready to begin the last leg of your MOSS installation/setup.

Here you provide the setup with the particualars for your server. Often you are installing MOSS with SQL Server being remote from MOSS, and you will be using a domain-level service account for the installation. The following is an example of the data you might enter during this step:

(if the pic does not show - click here)

Here you have a named instance of SQL Server - HAMPDOCNC running on a machine named HAMDC02.

You have a service account - $ervice_MossSa - that is a domain-level account running on the HAMILTON domain.

You click NEXT and you get the following:

(if the pic doesn't show - click here)

There are a number of reasons you can get this message. In short, if you review the 3rd to last ERR entry in the PCSDiagnostics (latest one) in \Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\LOGS - you'll see the above titled error - followed by a slew of other highly technical dump mumbo jumbo.

The gist is - the account is not getting passed to SQL Server. Why?

When you Google and otherwise research this error - it more often is associated with trying to connect to SQL Server from a ASP.Net application - but this is not the case here.

Here are a couple of obvious things to check if you receive this message:

Ensure that the Surface Area Configuration for SQL Server has been run on the host SQL Server - and that remote connections are allowed and that the transport of both TCP/IP and Named Pipes has been set.
Ensure that Enable Network DTC has been configured on both the SQL Server and any/all MOSS host servers.

Finally, be sure you reboot the MOSS host after setting up the Enable Network DTC

HTH's...

InfoPath 2007 - MOSS 2007 - The form cannot be displayed because session state is not available.

Michael J. Hamilton, Sr. — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 15:14:00 GMT

Whether you are working with forms in custom workflows - or simply trying to publish a form to a form library in MOSS so you can collect information from the user, you may encounter this error.

Initially if you Google the error - you may find comments that state that you need to uncomment the following line in the web.config for the web application:

DO NOT uncomment this field. Many do this and the forms may work - and this appears to be the solution - but it is not the best practice and it is not recommended by MSFT.

You probably have not created a Shared Service Provider and associated the web application in question with the SSP.

MOSS uses the Shared Service Provider to allow / manage session state for a Farm - and specifically for the associated web applications under that SSP.

CREATING THE SHARE SERVICE PROVIDER

When you installed MOSS - the first thing you began to get familiar with is the Central Administration tool. Take a look at the following snapshot:

Click here for a snapshot

Notice on the left side - under Shared Services Administration, there are 2 SSP's - SSP Administration and SSP Services. These were created after the farm was deployed (a farm is used relatively here - in essence, after MOSS was deployed).

When you first setup MOSS - there are no SSP's out of the box deployed for you. You must manually create them.

The first SSP you create will contain the SSP/Admin site - and you will also receive a warning that you should not create things like My Sites or Search services scopes within this SSP. It is a best practice to first create an initial SSP - like the example above - name is SSP Administration - and then create a 2nd or successive SSP's for shared services (like Forms, Search, Excel, My Sites, etc).

Finally, when creating a SSP - you will notice that the SSP site will default to an existing web application. See the snapshot below:

Click here for a snapshot

Under the Basic Sites in this example, you would click the Create a new Web Application - the objective is to place the SSP in its own web application and not an existing one. Once that web application is provisioned - you will be returned to this screen and you'll be able to select the appropriate web application for the SSP.

Ping me if you have any questions - hope this is helpful...

Developing with Visual Studio on a Vista Workstation

Michael J. Hamilton, Sr. — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 00:34:00 GMT

As Vista gains momentum, and many of us get our hands on it - we're quickly faced with a question that not many seem able to answer. More disconcerting - there is nothing solid out there to provide direction.

If I am a ASP.Net developer - I want IIS available for my development pleasure.

More important, I will probably be using Visual Studio to crank out my applications.

There is a lot of effort in the launch of Vista and the new Office products - but what about the development community? Especially if we're not one of the few that can afford to travel the globe and partake of the special developer launches sponsored by MSFT?

A good start is here for the latest developments regarding Visual Studio and Vista. Pay special attention to that one line about VS .Net 2002 and 2003 not being supported on Vista! This is very important to many in the development community.

Be sure to get up to speed on the Visual Studio SP1 release. A touted 70+ enhancements, including:

New processor support (e.g., Core Duo) for code generation and profiling

Performance and scale improvements in Team Foundation Server

Team Foundation Server integration with Excel 2007 and Project 2007

Tool support for occasionally connected devices and SQL Server Compact Edition

Additional support for project file based Web applications

Windows Embedded 6.0 platform and tools support

Yes, MSFT announced a SP1 for Vista, covered pretty decent here but you should know that this release is beta. The official release will not appear until RTM Vista is launched in January/February this year.

Planning automated deployments of Visual Studio on Vista workstations? Be sure to review this blog on some issues identified early on. The honeymoon is over!

Be sure to check out the latest pod casts that highlight the latest Visual Studio tools / technologies / direction.

As I ramp up to start doing all of my development on Vista - I'll keep you posted on the pitfalls and niceties - if they're to be found!

Microsoft SharePoint Office Server (MOSS) 2007 B2TR and RTM - Deprecated TopNavFlyouts master page and other deprecated components that break your master page after applying these upgrades

Michael J. Hamilton, Sr. — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 22:37:00 GMT

Between beta 2 and beta 2 TR/RTM - a number of things changed in the MOSS master pages/CSS - and the odds are that if you have custom master pages in B2, and especially if you customized the TopNavFlyouts or LeftNavFlyouts master pages - after applying TR or RTM - you'll find that your master page is broke - and the site will not come up. Do not despair - help is close at hand!!! A number of things changed in B2TR and followed into RTM. We can make some minor customizations to your current master page (TopNavFlyouts in this example) that will get it back up and running.

After applying the upgrade - ensure that you have a updated copy of the SharePoint Designer (SPD). Open your site, and fetch the master page in question (TopNavFlyouts in this example).

Get there where we can render the page...

First, search for <PublishingNavigation:PortalSiteMapDataSource> - the control with id=DataMapDS. Once you find this, replace the TrimNonCurrentHeadings="true" property with TrimNonCurrentTypes="Heading".

Second, search for and replace

<SharePoint:ScriptLink language="javascript" name="core.js" runat="server"/>

<SharePoint:ScriptLink language="javascript" name="ows.js" runat="server" />

with

<SharePoint:ScriptLink language="javascript" name="init.js" runat="server"/>

If you try saving right now? You might see:

If this does not render - it is a prompt stating that you need to add a new placeholder for the Robots meta tag - go ahead and click Yes.

Third, You can click Yes above, or add the following just after the <meta> tags in your master page - <SharePoint:RobotsMetaTag runat="server"></SharePoint:RobotsMetaTag>

NOTE: This must be added after the <meta> tags, and before the </head> end tag.

There is a snafu now - which you would notice if you tried rendering now - with the toolbar rendering where we want it. Do the following:

Fouth, locate the class="mainContainer" line. Add id="MSO_ContentDiv" runat="server" in this line. The corrected line should look like:

<div class="mainContainer" id="MSO_ContentDiv" runat="server">

Fifth, search for the following in your master page:

<div class="search">
<asp:ContentPlaceHolder id="PlaceHolderSearchArea" runat="server">
<SPSWC:RightBodySectionSearchBox id="SearchBox" TextBeforeDropDown="" TextBeforeTextBox="<%$Resources:cms,masterpages_searchbox_label%>" TextBoxWidth="100" GoImageUrl="<% $SPUrl:~sitecollection/Style Library/Images/Search_Arrow.jpg %>"
GoImageUrlRTL="<% $SPUrl:~sitecollection/Style Library/Images/Search_Arrow_RTL.jpg %>" SearchResultPageURL="<% $SPUrl:~sitecollection/SearchResults.aspx %>" DropDownMode = HideScopeDD FrameType="None" runat="server" WebPart="true" __WebPartId="{7872FDA4-AEF7-4DB0-8C99-648EE4441DC8}"/>
</asp:ContentPlaceHolder>
</div>

We want to replace the <SPSWC... /> area with the following:

<SPSWC:SearchBoxEx id="SearchBox" RegisterStyles="false" TextBeforeDropDown="" TextBeforeTextBox="<%$Resources:cms,masterpages_searchbox_label%>" TextBoxWidth="100"
GoImageUrl="<% $SPUrl:~sitecollection/Style Library/Images/Search_Arrow.jpg %>"
GoImageUrlRTL="<% $SPUrl:~sitecollection/Style Library/Images/Search_Arrow_RTL.jpg %>"
GoImageActiveUrl="<% SPUrl:~sitecollection/Style Library/Images/Search_Arrow.jpg %>"
GoImageActiveUrlRTL="<% SPUrl:~sitecollection/Style Library/Images/Search_Arrow_RTL.jpg %>" UseSiteDefaults="true" DropDownMode = "HideScopeDD" SuppressWebPartChrome="true" runat="server" />

The finished line should match:

<div class="search">
<asp:ContentPlaceHolder id="PlaceHolderSearchArea" runat="server">
<SPSWC:SearchBoxEx id="SearchBox" RegisterStyles="false" TextBeforeDropDown="" TextBeforeTextBox="<%$Resources:cms,masterpages_searchbox_label%>" TextBoxWidth="100"
GoImageUrl="<% $SPUrl:~sitecollection/Style Library/Images/Search_Arrow.jpg %>"
GoImageUrlRTL="<% $SPUrl:~sitecollection/Style Library/Images/Search_Arrow_RTL.jpg %>"
GoImageActiveUrl="<% SPUrl:~sitecollection/Style Library/Images/Search_Arrow.jpg %>"
GoImageActiveUrlRTL="<% SPUrl:~sitecollection/Style Library/Images/Search_Arrow_RTL.jpg %>" UseSiteDefaults="true" DropDownMode = "HideScopeDD" SuppressWebPartChrome="true" runat="server" />
</asp:ContentPlaceHolder>
</div>

Almost done..

Sixth, we need to make some changes to your CSS. In our case, we often override the TopNavFlyouts.css object with one of our own. Whichever the case is for you, you'll need to make the following replacements in your primary CSS for the search control:

.search
{
margin:6px 2px 20px 2px;
}
.search .ms-sbcell .ms-sbplain
{
margin-right:2px;
margin-left:2px;
border:1px #555555 solid;
height:14px;
}
.search .ms-sbcell
{
border:none;
font-weight:normal;
font-size:8pt;
color: #3A4663;
padding:0px;
}
.search .ms-sbgo
{
background:none;
}

This involves adding the 'margin: 6px, etc.' line to your existing .Search class, and adding the other 3 new classes.

Now - one more thing. The TopNavFlyouts.master is a given master page in the Internet Presence Web Site site definition - but it has been deprecated. With that said, we need to make a couple more changes - so our Publishing Portal (or other custom) site definition can see the master page.

1) Browse the site in question that you have the TopNavFlyouts master page in.

2) Site Actions-->Manage Content and Structure

3) Select the Master Page Gallery on the left.

4) Locate your TopNavFlyouts.master on the right side

5) Hover over and get your drop down menu - click and Check Out the master page - if it is not already

6) Hover over again, click and Edit Properties

7) On the Edit Item - Master Page Gallery: TopNavFlyouts screen, notice the Content Type is set to Master Page. Drop this down and change it to Publishing Master Page.

8) Notice now that a Hidden Page attribute/property just appeared at the bottom of the properties screen. Un-check that - we do not want it hidden.

9) Click OK

10) Publish the new page.

That's it!!!

You may have other modifications to make - but this should get your page to where it renders and is compliant with new MOSS controls.

Enjoy :)

The resource object with key 'open_menu' was not found - Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 - TR Upgrade Issue

Michael J. Hamilton, Sr. — Sat, 30 Dec 2006 20:25:00 GMT

There is a detailed step-by-step path to follow when applying the B2TR to a B2 MOSS installation.

This particular error shows itself when you are upgrading a stand-alone beta 2 installation, and you did not delete the registry keys specified for the Search Service. Interestingly, if you follow the steps - and be sure to delete the registry keys outlined in a stand-alone B2 installation - upgrade, the error does not surface.

Googling the error does not return any real support - and MSFT has shared only that this error can show up when a B2TR upgrade did not complete.

I have performed dozens of B2TR upgrades, and I can reproduce this error consistently when I fail to delete the HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0\WSS\Services\Microsoft.SharePoint.Search.Administration.SPSearchService, and the HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0\WSS\Services\Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration.SearchService

entries.

As you weed through the error entries that come before this specific error - it looks like the service account used to execute the MOSS services actually fails to launch the site. Then there is a parse failure error - followed by this error.

What is not clear is how this is related specifically to the registry key that should be deleted BEFORE the psconfig executes for the TR upgrade. It would appear that failing to delete the key - on a stand-alone installation - causes a failure during step 8 of 9 of the upgrade - even though no failure is logged in the event logs or in the Upgrade.log file. Each time I have seen this error I have noticed a slew of timer job entries at the end of the Upgrade.Log file - and then a final entry stating that the job returned a code of 0 - and then no other entries.

Take care of perform your upgrade - step-by-step following the instructions on TechNet.

MOSS 2007 / WSS v3. - A Marriage and Chemistry that Deserves Attention!!!

Michael J. Hamilton, Sr. — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 03:05:00 GMT

Just when you think you have seen it all - I must share one you have NOT seen yet. Emphasis on YET???

As we forge ahead and architect these awesome solutions using MOSS - I suspect it is fairly easy to become enamored of some basics - you know, the little details that are the life-blood of your solution. :) Like I said - basics.

Basic 1) WSS is a life-blood underpinning of MOSS.

Basic 2) Without basic 1, there will be no basic 2 !!!

Today I experienced absolute bliss - from a MOSS perspective :)

I am working on an RTM upgrade. The basics are: I have a staging server - beta bits. I create a web application here, then restore a content database in SQL, and add that content database to the newly created web application. Finally, I'll upgrade this to RTM.

After a few days of tedious work - I'm flying along and everything is grand. Almost.

This morning I create a new web application. I open Central Admin, Application Management --> Create, etc. etc. etc. It creates the web app and returns to the screen where I can create the site collection. Here I navigate back to the Application Management --> Content Databases and I add my existing content database. I noticed something string... The content database added fine - but had zero sites in it. MMmmm I've seen this before. Usually you will notice this if you try to add a content database from 1) a different version of SQL Server, and sometimes 2) when you restore a content database ad add it to a web application with a different name than the original web application. But neither was the case here.

I worked through this exercise 4 or 5 times - thinking surely something simple is being overlooked.

Finally, I fire up another staging server - completely different setup - and start to work on this virtual machine. I see the same exact behavior!!!

Time for a coffee refill. Definitely weird. I had already built out 4 virtual machines and worked through this exercise for 3 days - nothing at all was different. Or so I thought.

Coming back from my cafine fix - I fire up Central Admin and notice right away something strange next to the serverName on the Home tab - there was no WSS service running. MMmmm - I built this out from scratch, setup MOSS, Central Admin site, services, etc. - and saved the staged image - simply to re-use several times. How did the WSS get stopped? Well, that is another issue - but when I started the WSS service - all worked perfectly - just like it should.

As an exercise - I stopped the WSS and stepped through the same things I was doing earlier - and sure enough, you can create a web application - and it does not log an iota of an issue - and all appears to be fine - except it never gets created.The really frustrating part is that no error gets logged stating something like, 'Hey dummy, you might want to start WSS before you try this', or 'ID10T to the max' - you know what I mean.

Application Server Admnistration job failed for service instance Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration.SearchServiceInstance - The device is not ready.

Michael J. Hamilton, Sr. — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 15:03:00 GMT

After successfully upgrading MOSS B2TR to RTM (or thinking all was successful) - I started to see this error in the Application Event Log - every 60 seconds. It was preceded by:

The Execute method of job definition Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration.IndexingScheduleJobDefinition - threw an exception. More information is included below.

The device is not ready.

Like many of you before me - and very likely after me, I Googled to my heart's content - and suffice to say my heart was never satisified.

I'd kept a collective 94MB document of each painfully executed step of the upgrade.

The B2TR deployment was pretty much out of the box (OOB)
A single SSP (shared service provider) had been created, leaving the default name SharedServices1 in place, and 2 search scopes created.
I drilled on this for quite some time - invariably finding that a) I was on my own, and b) strangely enough, the RTM upgrade went very well - but hosed the permissions of my search scope? Not entirely - just the permissions of the service account!!! Very interesting.

The error is representative of not being able to create a search index because the scope it is looking for - it cannot get to, or more specifically, it thinks is busy and so it keeps coming back trying to get at it.

Solution / or not? Not finding any meat/potatoes online, I tried the following:

stsadm -o osearch -action stop
1. Warning: The Office SharePoint Server Search service that was enabled on this server will uninstall and all index files for all SSPs will be deleted. Are you sure you want to permanently delete all data in the index for all SSPs? [y/n]
NOTE: Only do this if you have not crawled / indexed content that cannot be re-indexed. If this is the case, then you open a support ticket with MSFT and work through it. Otherwise, hit Y
Now issue: stsadm -o osearch -action start -role index
1. You may receive the errror 'start' action failed. Additional information: the handle is invalid. Wait 30-60 secs and re-issue the command. It should go through fine.
Open Central Admin - select your SSP
Check / validate your search service configuration.

After all of this - and all looking fine, normal, just dandy! I continued to see errors regarding the 'device' that was not ready for a search indexing service run. Interesting.

Finding nothing else online and getting no immediate feedback - I took the plunge.

1) Within the Central Admin - I stopped both search service/server processes.

2) I re-created these - basically using the same service account as before.

3) When to the event log and validated that all is now operating normally.

Invariably, what I found is that my service account simply did not have permission to run the job any longer. I did not have to re-create a service account - I simply stopped (essentially terminating and deleting existing indexes in my search database), and re-created the search database.

Please feel free to share your experience in this area - if / when you hit it.

The application-specific permission settings do not grant Local Activation permission for the COM Server application with CLSID - MOSS / SharePoint 2007 Server Issues Revisited

Michael J. Hamilton, Sr. — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 11:47:00 GMT

You may see this error - more than once - when working with your Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 deployment. This animal / error generally shows itself after you have applied an upgrade to an existing deployment. For example, when upgrading from B2 MOSS to B2TR MOSS - or when applying a special service pack from MSFT - you may begin to see a lot of these errors pop up in the SYSTEM event log.

The error CLSID is followed by a class ID for the DCOM+ application that the service account trying to activate that application - does NOT have permission to activate.

For example, let's say I installed MOSS on a server, and used the account mossService as the service account (a least privileged, user account you created to run the MOSS service(s))., when I get this error, I could very well see an error like the following:

The application-specific permission settings do not grant Local Activation permission for the COM Server application with CLSID

{61738644-F196-11D0-9953-00C04FD919C1}

to the user <serverName>\mossService SID (S-1-5-21-<serviceSID>). This security permission can be modified using the Component Services administrative tool.

Copy the GUID following the CLSID above, and Start-->Run-->regedit

With the registry editor open, ensure that your cursor is on the computer at the beginning of the tree (make sure you are not in the middle of some previous edit session in the registry editor).

Edit-->Find and paste in the GUID. It'll stop at the application entry - and you will want to note the application name on the right side pane. In this example, it was the IIS WAMREG admin service that popped up.

Now, open Component Services (typically, from the server - Start-->Administrative Tools-->Component Services), expand Component Services, Computers, My Computer, DCOM Config. Scroll down and find the application (IIS WAMREG in this case). Right-Click-->Properties and select the Security tab. You'll have some options here - the first block Launch and Activation Permissions - ensure that the Customize radio button is selected, and click Edit. Now, add your service account - giving it launch and activate - and in some requirements - remote launch / activate permission.

Restart IIS and continue on.

NOTE: This is not applicable to MOSS setups only - and hopefully this will help someone else that sees these annoying DCOM errors in their SYSTEM event log.

Regards...

A failure was encountered while launching the process serving application pool 'SharePoint Central Administration v3'. The application pool has been disabled. - SharePoint Server 2007 Setup

Michael J. Hamilton, Sr. — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 11:24:00 GMT

Just an FYI...

As you forge ahead into the world of MOSS and deploying / configuring MOSS sites with actual service accounts - you may very well run into this error. The PRIMARY cause of this error has to do with the service account. When you created the service account, you set a password for it. Did you document that with your client? If you did not, it is very possible that someone in IT at the client site will change it to something THEY know and want to manage. Alas, all things SharePoint begin to fail - at least for those application pools that were using the service account.

NOTE: Service account - a least privileged user account you created to run the MOSS Central Admin and varying AppPools.

HTH's...

Black Lists / SPAM Filters / How To Block Annoying Emails

Michael J. Hamilton, Sr. — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 19:16:00 GMT

I have been working with Plesk Control panel for a few years to provision web, FTP and email sites.

Over the years, and because I personally have a lot of older email addresses that I simply do not want to change - I have noticed an increase in the number of obvious garbage / SPAM messages I get each day.

I have reviewed the Plesk SPAM Filter for Black List items - and I have entered a number of email wildcards to filter here - but that's all it actually does is filter. I thought Black Lists blocked mails? Can anyone share more about this?

Finally, using a 3rd party product like Plesk, and given that these are POP accounts - is there any effective server product that can BLOCK unwanted domains or better yet, IP address ranges? This seems the best approach - but I am not familiar with anything.

Thank you in advance for any replies / feedback.