SharePoint list or site templates too large for import / export... use STSADM

I love MOSS! But there are some workarounds that you always need to look into if you want your portal to be happy!

Imagine you spent hours on customizing a site that you want to reuse as a template to create new sites. But you hit a dead-end.

Issue 1:
The maximum DEFAULT size permitted by SharePoint for a list or site to be saved as a template is 10MB. Even though I have received the message unexpectedly on sites as small as 5MB or 6MB.

Anyways the fix for this is to increase the maximum permitted property "max-template-document-size" using STSADM. See command below:

stsadm -o setproperty -propertyname max-template-document-size -propertyvalue 50000000
[Ref: http://blogs.provoke.co.nz/Ari/archive/2007/05/24/increasing-the-maximum-size-of-list-templates.aspx]

You should now be able to export your site template and save it to a local drive on your MOSS box.

Issue 2:
Now it's time to use the newly exported site template just incase you need to create a root site collection (you will need to add it to the available Site Collection templates). Simply use the STSADM command below:

stsadm –o addtemplate –filename c:\exercise.stp –title exercise
[Ref: http://mindsharpblogs.com/kathy/archive/2007/04/10/1685.aspx]

Cheers!

Securing SharePoint application pages (such as AllItems.aspx, etc.) from members within you organization

When "ViewFormPagesLockdown" won't work for you and you still want your AllItems.aspx and other forms secured then you have to write some code.

Let me save you some steps, here is the code for a simple control that you can put at the top of a new master page which is a copy of default.master or any other customized master page you created.

This code will by default redirect anonymous users away from the page and will also only allow specified member groups (that you specify) to access the page.


public class SecureItem: WebControl {
private string mGrantGroups = "";

public string GrantGroups {
get {
return mGrantGroups;
}
set {
mGrantGroups = value;
}
}

private string mRedirPage = "/";

public string RedirPage {
get {
return mRedirPage;
}
set {
mRedirPage = value;
}
}
protected override void OnLoad(EventArgs e) {
string name = Context.User.Identity.Name;
if (name.Trim() == "") Page.Response.Redirect(RedirPage, true);

if (GrantGroups.Trim() == "") return;
string[] grps = GrantGroups.Split(",".ToCharArray());
bool doredir = true;
try {
for (int i = 0; i < grps.Length; i++)
if (grps[i].Trim() != "" && SPContext.Current.Web.IsCurrentUserMemberOfGroup(SPContext.Current.Web.Groups[grps[i].Trim()].ID)) doredir = false;

} catch (Exception ee) {
Page.Response.Write(ee.ToString());
doredir = false;
}
if (doredir) Page.Response.Redirect(RedirPage, true); // has to be outside of try catch
}
}

Your pages are secure now!

Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 - SP2 out now!

Microsoft have recently released (Apr 28, 2009) Service Pack 2 for Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, available for download through the Microsoft Download Center.

Highlights of SP2

• It is an all inclusive (SP1 + new SP2) that contains several enhancements targetted to improve server-farm performance, availability and stability.
• A new stsadm operation has been added to help customers prepare for the upgrade to the next version of SharePoint.
• Reliability improvements in Indexing and Index Corpus
• Security Improvements
• New STSADM Commands including some to fix corruption and relationships (orphaning)

It is highly recommend to install the new service pack for its variety of benefits, including improved performance and availability, improved interoperability, broader support for browsers (apart from MS) and preparation for the next version of SharePoint.

For a detailed explanation on SP2 and its benefits, go to: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=148551

Full details on SP2, including upgrade guides, KB articles, downloads and install steps can be found at the link below (MS SharePoint Team Blog):
http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2009/04/28/announcing-service-pack-2-for-office-sharepoint-server-2007-and-windows-sharepoint-services-3-0.aspx

Microsoft SharePoint Administration Toolkit v3.0 x86 - Facts & Features!

The SharePoint Administration Toolkit available as a downloadable .exe from MS contains functionality to help administrate and manage MOSS and WSS 3.0 servers.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=412A9EF1-3358-4420-B820-0CA3F4641651&displaylang=en

The toolkit contains functionality to diagnose performance issues, perform bulk operations on site collections, an Stsadm operation to update alert e-mails after the URL for a Web application has been changed, and a User Profile Replication Engine tool.

For MOSS'ers since 1820 :) here are the new features:
The SharePoint Diagnostics tool provides administrators with a unified interface for troubleshooting SharePoint Server performance issues. Use the tool to collect data from performance counters, ULS log files, IIS log files, event logs, and WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation), and then display and analyze the data in snapshots and custom reports.

The setup program is updated to work gracefully with User Access Control
ps: You no longer need to manually run as administrator :)

MOSS SP1 Update / Installation crashes IIS mmc or it does not appear!

All MOSS'ers! Did you recently face this issue following an installation/update of MOSS 2007 with SP1: "The IIS manager or well known as the inetmgr mmc does not show up or is blank". This issue might have occured if you have recently patched up the MOSS WF, APP with updates or can occur abrubtly. You may also notice that it takes a fairly longer time for the IIS administration to show up - but it's blank!

Investigation:
Upon investigation, you may see a repeated error in the Application log event viewer on the SharePoint WF servers. These errors usually include one of the following three events:
- Event ID 6398
- Event ID 6482
- Event ID 7076

Resolution:
From the word go, you can start rectifying the issue by stopping and restarting the OWSTimer ["Windows SharePoint Timer Service"] that runs on any of your servers in the farm or on your single server installation. You do not necessarily need to restart your server or any other service if you need to do this. I will post more on this issue if needed.

However, Microsoft now has a hotfix to rectify this problem! You can click here to download it...
Though you wouldn't be much impressed with it!

Let me know if it worked for you?