SharePoint 2010 Beta download - now available!

Hoooray! Finally, the long awaited SP 2010 beta download for the non-MSDN subscribers in available online....

Download Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Beta
SharePoint 2010 provides a robust development platform to rapidly build solutions using familiar tools like Visual Studio 2010 and SharePoint Designer 2010. Developers gain access to a rich set of out-of-the-box features such as Business Connectivity Services for read/write integration between application data, the web and Office 2010 client.

SP 2010 Beta download page on the MSDN evaluation center:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/ee390819.aspx

SharePoint Server 2010 Beta comes in two versions:

SharePoint Server 2010 (Enterprise Client Access License features)
For organizations looking to expand their business collaboration platform to enable advanced scenarios. Use the Enterprise capabilities of SharePoint to fully interoperate with external line-of-business applications, web services, and Microsoft Office client applications; make better decisions with rich data visualization, dashboards, and advanced analytics; and build robust forms and workflow-based solutions.

SharePoint Server 2010 for Internet Sites, Enterprise
For organizations looking to create customer-facing public internet sites and private extranets using the full enterprise capabilities of SharePoint. This provides full SharePoint Enterprise functionality and no other technical limits.

Other links:

• Download page for SP 2010 Beta - This is a Beta version of SharePoint Server 2010, the business collaboration platform for the Enterprise and the Web.
• SCOM Management pack for SharePoint 2010 - A Microsoft System Center Operations Manager Management Pack is available for Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products Beta (which includes SharePoint Server 2010 Beta and Project Server 2010 Beta)

Enjoy, Sharepointers!

SharePoint 2010 learning courses and videos now on Channel9 MSDN

SharePoint 2010 provides the business collaboration platform for developers to rapidly build solutions using familiar tools while leveraging a rich set of out of the box features. Visual Studio 2010 and SharePoint Designer 2010 make developers more productive and Visual Studio Team Foundation Server delivers support for application lifecycle management. Developers can integrate Line of Business data in SharePoint 2010 with read/write capability delivered by Business Connectivity Services. Sandboxed Solutions can be deployed to a shared hosting environment to limit the impact of unpredictable code to the other applications in use.

Visit the Channel9 MSDN learning courses for SharePoint 2010

Windows 7 & Windows Server 2008 R2 can now securely connect clients to the corporate network without going through a VPN using the DirectAccess feat!

"From an IT standpoint, one of the great new capabilities of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 is the ability to securely connect clients to the corporate network without going through a VPN. This capability, called DirectAccess , establishes bi-directional connectivity with a user's enterprise network every time a user's DirectAccess-enabled portable computer connects to the Internet, even before the user logs on. You can now download the Infrastructure Planning and Design (IPD) Guide for DirectAccess to help you design a DirectAccess infrastructure." *

* The above excerpt has been copied from an MS Technet newsletter.

It reads...
"The Windows® 7 and Windows Server® 2008 R2 operating systems introduce DirectAccess, which allows remote users to securely access enterprise shares, Web sites, and applications without connecting to a virtual private network (VPN). DirectAccess establishes bi-directional connectivity with a user’s enterprise network every time a user’s DirectAccess-enabled portable computer connects to the Internet, even before the user logs on. Users never have to think about connecting to the enterprise network and IT administrators can manage remote computers outside the office, even when the computers are not connected to the VPN."

SharePoint 2010: Getting Started with Development on SharePoint 2010 Hands-on Labs in C# and Visual Basic

Awaiting the SP 2010 Beta to be officially launched amongst the developer community, for those who want to dirty their hands with hands-on lab manuals for SharePoint 2010 to get started learning SharePoint 2010 development:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=C010FC68-B47F-4DB6-B8A8-AD4BA33A35C5&displaylang=en

The package includes:

HOL01 - Developing a Visual Web Part in Visual Studio 2010
This hands-on lab introduces the Visual Studio 2010 SharePoint development environment. It shows how to build a Visual Web Part using LINQ to SharePoint, and how to connect one Web Part to another Web Part on the page.

HOL02 - Developing a List Definition and Event Receiver in Visual Studio 2010
This hands-on lab walks you through building a list definition for SharePoint 2010 in Visual Studio 2010. It also shows how to build an event receiver for the list in Visual Studio 2010 and deploy it to SharePoint. After the list and event receiver are deployed, you can use the developer dashboard to evaluate the performance of the event receiver.

HOL03 - Developing Advanced Web Parts for SharePoint 2010 with Visual Studio 2010
This hands-on lab shows how to build a Web Part using several SharePoint-specific controls in Visual Studio 2010. Investigate advanced built-in Web Parts, including the Data View Web Part.

HOL04 - Developing with LINQ to SharePoint in Visual Studio 2010
This hands-on lab explores a variety of LINQ queries on SharePoint 2010, going into more depth than the introductory hands-on lab. It also walks you through an exercise of creating a custom content type in Visual Studio 2010.

HOL05 - Developing for SharePoint 2010 with the Client OM and REST in Visual Studio 2010
This hands-on lab introduces the Client object model for use in calling SharePoint 2010 APIs from a client machine. It also shows the use of ADO.NET Data Services to call REST services in SharePoint 2010.

HOL06 - Developing a BCS External Content Type with Visual Studio 2010
This hands-on lab walks you through building an external content type for Business Connectivity Services using Visual Studio 2010. It also builds a form for Microsoft Outlook and shows the data being edited offline in Outlook.

HOL07 - Developing a SharePoint 2010 Workflow with Initiation Form in Visual Studio 2010
This hands-on lab walks you through building a workflow in Visual Studio 2010 for SharePoint 2010. You add an initiation form to the workflow and use an external data exchange activity in the workflow.

HOL08 - Developing SharePoint 2010 User Interface with Silverlight in Visual Studio 2010
This hands-on lab walks you through building Microsoft Silverlight applications for use in SharePoint 2010. You will access SharePoint 2010 data in Silverlight using the Client object model.

HOL09 - Developing SharePoint 2010 Sandboxed Solutions in Visual Studio 2010
This hands-on lab walks you through building a Sandboxed Solution Web Part for SharePoint 2010. It will also add code to the Web Part that overloads the limits placed by the sandboxed solution, and you will review how the solution is shut down.

HOL10 - Developing SharePoint 2010 User Interface Ribbon and Dialog Customizations
This hands-on lab walks you through adding a custom action to the SharePoint 2010 ribbon, and creating a Web Part that uses the Dialog Framework.

The above content is from Microsoft.
Let's get started! :)

Fourth and final release of the MS SharePoint Administration Toolkit

Microsoft announces the fourth (and final) release of the Microsoft SharePoint Administration Toolkit for SharePoint 2007

Why? SharePoint 2010 has some great "features on steriods" in the good old Central Administration. Can't wait to share, check back soon... preparing a complete deployment, screen-shot installation and upgrade to SharePoint 2010!

SK

Maintain scroll position in your custom ASP.NET pages developed for SharePoint

Hello :)

I can recall more than a few instances where I might have developed custom pages to support corporate SharePoint integrated deployments with or without Dynamic Integration (specifically for long scrolling dashboard pages that are customized). And there have been quite a few cases that my friends have discussed with me on the page scrolling annoyance after a postback has occured!

This is a very common behaviour and a very simple issue to resolve since we talk about ASP.NET pages. Obvious, they all have their Page Directives, ain't it?

Include the following tag into your page directive:

<%@ Page ... MaintainScrollPositionOnPostback="true" %>

Simple! Try it...

SharePoint Meeting Workspace error in Meeting Minutes - 'g_instanceID' is not defined

What a fine morning! A happy client, a happy portal... navigate to the meeting workspace and boom! The left navigation that lists meeting dates are not clickable any more... huh?

This problem started occuring when I switched the portal master page to inherit a custom one that looked really nice :) Following the change, all meeting workspace sites would pop-up an annoying javascript error: 'g_instanceID' is not defined

A few verification moves concluded that all meeting workspaces in SharePoint inherit a master page called "mwsdefault.master" that is located in the 12 hive template\global directory. This default meeting workspace master page is static in all meeting workspaces and includes code that is missing in the custom master pages that I built. Error!

To fix this issue:

• Open you custom master page in SharePoint Designer
• Copy the missing code from 'mwsdefault.master' into your custom master page at the top along with other register tags. The register Microsoft.SharePoint.Meetings tag prefix that has been copied from my mwsdefault.master is same as yours. So you can copy the one below:

<%@ Register Tagprefix="Meetings" Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.Meetings" Assembly="Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" %>

• After completing the above, copy the Meetings:PropertyBag control into your custom master page. Copy the one below and paste it right after the Body tag.

Save your custom master page, check-in, approve and go live!

Changing SharePoint file upload limit

The default file upload max. limit set by SharePoint during installation is 50MB. Consideribly, this limit should just fit into your agenda unless you want larger files being exchanged on your network. Note that this could affect the performance and availability of network bandwidth to other applications!

I would consider a case when you plan to use SharePoint as your DMS or ECM solution. This could demand for larger files to be uploaded to your portal. In that case, let's have a look at how we can modify this limit:

1. Navigate to your portal Central Administration > Shared Services Administration.
2. You will see a list of Web Application associated with your SSP. Click the required web application that needs the modification to its upload limit.
3. You will navigate to the Web Application General Settings Page. Scroll to the section "Maximum Upload Size" and modify the limit as per your requirement (see screenshot below).

Note: The value for maximum upload size should not exceed 2047 MB

Displaying attachment link in a SharePoint custom list form - "DispForm.aspx" modified

A recent experience of mine while working with SharePoint lists where we required to customize the out-of-the-box list item display form "DispForm.aspx" to present a design-frenzy item view format.

During the modification process, we never assumed that the list item attachments would abruptly dissapear from the display form. All we were looking to do was to display the list item in a good looking format by modifying the XSLT, but the attachments were gone!

Lesson Learnt: Never modify the out-of-the-box list item display form "DispForm.aspx". Create a new one if you need to and call it "DispForm_WhateverYouCallIt.aspx"

Now the attachments that were gone seemed quite easy to be brought back on the page. It needed a SharePoint control AttachmentsField that went missing from the picture. Below is the code that you need to add into the XSLT template dvt_1.rowview (into your custom form) that constructs theDataFormWebPart that SharePoint Designer creates for you when you insert a Custom List Form:

Was that easy? The attachments are now showing in the custom form that you just created. Happy Coding!

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