| |  Todd O. Klindt | 6/12/2013 5:24 PM | SharePoint 2010 | 2 | | Last year I started down the exciting, and pothole-ridden road of self publishing a book. I published Free Advice, a book of SharePoint 2010 blog posts two weeks to the day before the SharePoint 2013 Beta was public. Perfect timing!  While I’ll never get rich self publishing books it was a good experience and I learned a lot doing it. I decided a month or two ago it was time to release Free Advice to the wild for free. So for the last few weeks I’ve been refunding any purchases so people wouldn’t be mad that the book they just overpaid for was now being given away for free. That’s adding insult to injury. Starting today you can go to my store at http://www.toddklindt.com and download Free Advice without having to raid your kids’ college funds. So go ahead and download it and add it to the PDF files on your computer that you’ll never read. I would like to say “thank you” to all the people that have bought the book. It means a lot. I learned a lot in this process and I will definitely be self publishing another book. For now though, you can buy my latest book, Professional SharePoint 2013 Administration to tide you over until my next self pub comes out. tk ShortURL: http://www.toddklindt.com/FreeAdviceisFree | | | Todd O. Klindt | 6/10/2013 3:02 PM | PowerShell | 3 | | I had a blast last week at TechEd but because of scheduling conflicts, and me sleeping in the Resource Center I missed some of the sessions I wanted to see. Fortunately this morning my Twitter and blog feed has been sprouting ways do download the scripts like the dandelions sprout in my yard in the spring. I found one I liked on Github that downloaded all of the videos in MP4 format, but it didn’t download the accompanying PPTX files. I tweaked their script some so it would get the MP4s and the PPTXs. It will also check locally for them before it downloads them, so you can run it more than once. As a speaker, I know I don’t always get my PPTXs turned in like I’m supposed to, so some of those might be popping up over the next few days.
Here’s the script I used:
# Originally published at https://gist.github.com/nzthiago/5736907
# I took that script and added the PPTX pieces, and a few comments
# If you like it, leave me a comment
# If you don't like it, complain to Github. :)
[Environment]::CurrentDirectory=(Get-Location -PSProvider FileSystem).ProviderPath
$rss = (new-object net.webclient)
# Grab the RSS feed for the MP4 downloads
$a = ([xml]$rss.downloadstring("http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2013/RSS/mp4high"))
# Walk through each item in the feed
$a.rss.channel.item | foreach{
$code = $_.comments.split("/") | select -last 1
# Grab the URL for the MP4 file
$url = New-Object System.Uri($_.enclosure.url)
# Create the PPTX URL from the MP4 URL
$urlpptx = ($_.enclosure.url).replace(".mp4",".pptx")
# Create the local file name for the MP4 download
$file = $code + "-" + $_.creator + "-" + $_.title.Replace(":", "-").Replace("?", "").Replace("/", "-").Replace("<", "") + ".mp4"
# Create the local file name for the PPTX download
$filepptx = $code + "-" + $_.creator + "-" + $_.title.Replace(":", "-").Replace("?", "").Replace("/", "-").Replace("<", "") + ".pptx"
# Make sure the PPTX file doesn't already exist
if (!(test-path $filepptx))
{
# Echo out the file that's being downloaded
$filepptx
$wc = (New-Object System.Net.WebClient)
# Download the PPTX file
$wc.DownloadFile($urlpptx, $filepptx)
}
# Make sure the MP4 file doesn't already exist
if (!(test-path $file))
{
# Echo out the file that's being downloaded
$file
# Download the MP4 file
$wc.DownloadFile($url, $file)
}
}
Sorry for the crappy PowerShell formatting. You can download the full script here. All the usual warnings apply. This script will dull the knives in your kitchen, and leave soap scum in the shower. Be careful when you run that, it downloaded about 65 GB of stuff when I ran it last.
tk
ShortURL: http://www.toddklindt.com/TechEd2013Downloads | | | Todd O. Klindt | 6/1/2013 12:40 PM | Netcast | 0 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 5/30/2013 11:54 AM | | 0 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 5/29/2013 2:59 PM | | 0 | | In three short days I fly down to New Orleans for TechEd North America. Hopefully a few of my faithful blog readers will be down there too. If you’re going to be a TechEd North America, here are a list of the ways you can find me (or avoid me, I guess) while I’m there. In this session Todd and Shane help you build out your SharePoint 2013 farm from scratch. This is no wizard-based, one-account-for-everything install. This is a real world, multi-server, least privilege install the same way they do for customers around the world. Even more exciting? Todd and Shane hate PowerPoint slides as much as you do so the whole day is a live demo of building a working farm using Microsoft SharePoint Enterprise Server 2013 with Microsoft SQL Server 2012 running on Windows Server 2012. Topics covered - Installing SharePoint 2013
- Configuring the farm so there are no GUID or long database names
- Least privilege, minimal service accounts
- Creating service applications with PowerShell
- Installing the Workflow server
- Everything is done as you would do for a production farm
Files can be download here. Monday June 4th, 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM – Windows Weekly Tweetup The Avenue Pub (1732 St. Charles Ave) Join the Windows Weekly crew (Paul Thurrott and Mary Jo Foley) at The Avenue Pub for beers and complaining about Windows 8. I’ll be there too, trying to act like a big deal since I was a guest on Windows Weekly once. Just show up, no need to RSVP or anything. Tuesday, June 4th, 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM – Ask the Experts Level 1, Hall GH, NOMCC Microsoft was really hurting for experts, so they let me join the Ask The Experts event. I’ll be at the SharePoint Upgrade table. Swing by and say hi. Wednesday June 5th, 12:30 PM – PowerShell Meet and Great the Community Resource Zone (CRZ) at the Scripting Guys booth Stop by The Scripting Guy booth and say howdy. Ed Wilson and I will be chatting with each other and answering your PowerShell questions. Pictures and hugs will be available. The Book Store Shane and I will be at the TechEd Book Store signing books and generally being butts. If you have a copy of the book bring it by and we’ll write mean things about each other in it. Room New Orleans Theater C – SES-B232 In this session we cover what's new in SharePoint 2013. First, we cover installing SharePoint 2013 and configuring your new farm. This session provides what you need to start planning your new SharePoint 2013 farm and dovetails nicely into Part 2, which covers changes in SharePoint 2013 the SharePoint administrator should know about. We cover changes to how you’ll plan your farm topology. We also cover the changes to the Search service application and how that impacts scale. Finally, we spend some time talking about everyone’s favorite part of SharePoint Server, the User Profile Service. Watch online now. If you do find yourself at TechEd, please do find me at say “hi.” I’m a pretty friendly guy.  tk ShortURL: http://www.toddklindt.com/TechEdNA2013 Edited 6/7/2013 to a link to the session online and precon files. | | | Todd O. Klindt | 5/24/2013 8:56 PM | Netcast | 0 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 5/21/2013 10:02 PM | SharePoint 2010; SharePoint 2013 | 2 | | When I published my first blog post on SkyDrive Pro, you guys asked me a lot of questions. Some of them I even knew the answer to! When I wrote that article the only way I knew of to get the SkyDrive Pro client was with the Office 2013 installation. One of my astute readers asked if there was a way to get the SkyDrive Pro client if you didn’t have Office 2013. At the time there wasn’t. I’m happy to report that those dark days are behind us. This week Microsoft released a standalone SkyDrive Pro client installer. Our prayers have been answered. This can be installed along side Office 2007 or Office 2010, and it can be used to sync with SharePoint 2010, SharePoint 2013, and Office 365. Is there anything this can’t do? So get on out there and install that SkyDrive Pro client and start syncing with your SharePoint libraries. All the cool kids are doing it. tk ShortURL: http://www.toddklindt.com/DownloadSkyDrivePro2013 | | | Todd O. Klindt | 5/19/2013 8:50 PM | Netcast | 0 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 5/1/2013 10:18 PM | Netcast | 0 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 4/28/2013 10:38 PM | Netcast | 0 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 4/23/2013 10:24 PM | SharePoint 2013 | 14 | | I thought this day would never come, mainly because I’ve told myself “I’ll never write another book!” at least four times. But here it is, my next book, Professional SharePoint 2013 Administration is out! 
Isn’t it sexy? How can you get one of these of your very own? You have a lot of options, let’s look at them. Buy a signed copy from me I got some requests for this when my last SharePoint 2010 book came out, so this time I’m offering it. If you’re in the continental United States and you want to buy a signed copy of the book from me, you’re in luck! Click the this link and you’ll be taken to a page where you can order the book. The price will be the cover price of $49.99. I know that’s more than some of the bookstores. I’m doing this all myself so I’m paying for the packaging and the shipping myself. Shipping 3 lbs. books isn’t cheap. If you bought my ebook, “Free Advice” I’ll refund the $4.99 you paid from the price. If you bought it directly from me at http://store.toddklindt.com I’ll refund the $4.99 automatically. If you bought it from Amazon forward me the receipt. Buy it from Amazon Of course you’ll be able to buy both the paper version and the Kindle version at Amazon. If you use this link I’ll get a kickback. It’s not huge, a buck or two, but it all adds up. Thanks in advance. Buy it from Wrox If you want an ebook version for something besides a Kindle, you can buy them directly from Wrox using this link. These ebooks do not have DRM, so they should work on just about anything. Please don’t put them on P2P sites, okay? If you have any questions, you can hit me up on Twitter @toddklindt, or leave a message below. Thanks, tk ShortURL: http://www.toddklindt.com/ProSP2013Admin | | | Todd O. Klindt | 4/21/2013 1:18 PM | SharePoint 2013 | 0 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 4/20/2013 9:02 PM | Netcast | 0 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 4/15/2013 11:51 AM | PowerShell; SharePoint 2013 | 11 | | It’s an age old problem, our SharePoint app pools recycle every night, or they get cranky. But because they recycle every night the first person to hit SharePoint each morning has to wait for the app pools to warm back up, which makes them cranky. All that crankiness makes me cranky. Over the years a variety of startup scripts have been written to address this, and they all work to varying degrees. SharePoint 2013 requires PowerShell v3, and it comes with a bunch of new cmdlets. One of them jumped out at me, Invoke-WebRequest. This cmdlet can be used to download files from web sites, like WGET or CURL. The beauty of Invoke-WebRequest is that it’s built in to every SharePoint 2013 server. While it was built to download files, it can also be used to make general web requests, like to SharePoint sites. You know, to warm up their app pools.  Since it’s PowerShell, it scripts like a dream. The following script will request the default page of the root site collection of each web application in your farm: Get-SPWebApplication | ForEach-Object { Invoke-WebRequest $_.url -UseDefaultCredentials -UseBasicParsing } The –UseDefaultCredentials parameter tells Invoke-WebRequest to log in to the web site as the person that PowerShell is running as. –UseBasicParsing tells Invoke-WebRequest to use basic parsing of the web page. We really don’t care about the web page, we just want to wake SharePoint up to send it to us. If you have multiple WFEs you’ll need to run this on each server. Also, different SharePoint web templates have different assemblies in the background. If the root site collection of a web application is based a Publishing Template any Team sites in that web app will still need to be warmed up. If you wanted to warm up one of each type you could send Invoke-WebRequest a list of site collection URLs instead of web applications, like above. Once you get it all figured out, you can schedule your PowerShell script to run every morning before the work day starts. Scheduling PowerShell is a little tricky. You can use this blog post to create the scheduled task to warm up your app pools for you. You’ll probably need to modify this for your environment, but hopefully it will get you started. tk ShortURL: http://www.toddklindt.com/PoshWarmUp | | | Todd O. Klindt | 4/8/2013 10:51 PM | SharePoint 2013 | 2 | | Now that the March 2013 PU is out we have a patch to play with. And this isn’t a normal patch. This patch is important. It will have to be installed in order to install any future patches. You should consider this the base version of SharePoint 2013, especially for new farms. One of the first things I wanted to test was slipstreaming the patch. The news was good, it’s the same process we used with SharePoint 2010. Just extract the update files into the Updates directory before you install SharePoint 2013. Nothing to it. Let’s see how it looked when I did it. Here is what my directory structure looked like: 
I copied the files from the SharePoint 2013 ISO into a folder in C:\Install. On a production system you would put this on a non C drive. After I copied the files over I peeked into the updates folder to see what’s in there. This is what I found: 
That sounds delightful, let’s drop a patch in there and see what happens. Extracting SharePoint 2013 patches follows the same process as SharePoint 2010, which you can find outlined in this brilliant blog post. Those are the instructions I used when writing this blog post. First I verified the March 2013 PU supported this. 
Looks like it does. Let’s go ahead and extract it to our updates folder. After we accept the license terms our updates folder gets full of patch files. 
Then install SharePoint 2013 the same way you normally would. Let me know if you have any problems. tk ShortURL: http://www.toddklindt.com/sp2013slipstream | | | Todd O. Klindt | 4/8/2013 8:16 PM | Netcast | 0 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 3/28/2013 11:34 AM | Netcast | 0 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 3/26/2013 4:06 PM | SharePoint 2010; SharePoint 2013; PowerShell | 0 | | First, let me be clear, do NOT do this on a production server. Repeat after me, “I will NOT do this on a production server, or Todd will rip all the tags off of my mattresses.” Okay, now that we have that out of the way, let’s get down to it. A couple of times in the last week I’ve seen a question about culling a huge WSS_Logging database in a test VM environment. When you start considering snapshots and thin provisioned drives, a 3 GB WSS_Logging DB can be a real bummer, with almost no benefit to most people. The WSS_Logging DB is created with the Usage and Health Analysis Service Application and logs all kinds of usage information. Unless you’re testing that directly, it probably doesn’t do much good. However, having it around is probably good, in case anything you are testing uses it. I suggest a happy medium; leave it enabled, but reduce its overhead. That’s what this blog post will tell you how to do. By default the WSS_Logging keeps 14 days’ worth of information. That results in a big database. 3 days’ worth of logging is probably sufficient for most test VMs. Here’s how mine looked this morning: 
The WSS_Logging DB’s MDF and LDF are taking 2.2 GB with 14% of the MDF free and 60% of the transaction log free. Since the transaction log is 6 MB, I didn’t care about that. Since this is a test VM, I shrunk the DB, to see what that would get me. I got the 14% back. That shrunk it down to 1.7 GB. 
We can do better.  The next thing I did was change the Usage retention from 14 days to 3 days. I do that with PowerShell. Here’s how I did it: 
Get-SPUsageDefinition shows me all the things that are retained, and for how long. I want to set them all to 3 days from 14. I use the following PowerShell to do that: Get-SPUsageDefinition | ForEach-Object { Set-SPUsageDefinition $_ –DaysRetained 3} The next time the Usage Log File timer jobs run it’ll clean out everything more than 3 days old. If we want to manually trigger those jobs we can use this PowerShell: Get-SPTimerJob | Where-Object { $_.title -like "*usage data*" } | Start-SPTimerJob The second Timer Job failed because I haven’t enabled it on my farm. You may or may not get that same error. Now let’s check in with SQL Server Management Studio and see how our database looks: 
The MDF file is still 1.7 GB, but it’s got a lot of unallocated space. We can shrink the database to get that back: 
Then 
Normally shrinking a database is the Devil’s work, but since this is a test VM, and since we don’t anticipate the database growing it’s less demonic. Once that’s all finished we can see our database is taking about 300 MB on disk: 
That’s much better. Again, you only want to do this in a test environment. Don’t do it in production. tk ShortURL: http://www.toddklindt.com/ShrinkWSSLogging | | | Todd O. Klindt | 3/21/2013 2:37 PM | Netcast | 0 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 3/17/2013 1:42 PM | SharePoint 2013 | 15 | | On Tuesday March 12, 2013 Microsoft released the first update for SharePoint 2013. It, along with the patches for Workflow Manager and the Office Web Apps are a pretty significant upgrade to the SharePoint 2013 platform. As always, you can find all the patch information at http://www.toddklindt.com/sp2013builds. Here are the patches, their links, and some notes on each. SharePoint 2013 Patch Build 15.0.4481.1005 SharePoint Foundation - KB2768000 - Download SharePoint Server - KB2767999 - Download Project Server - KB2768001 - Download You only need to install the patch for the product you have, you don’t need to install the patches for the lower packages. So if you have SharePoint Server, you don’t need to install the Foundation patch first. These patches also have these three notes at the beginning: - This cumulative update package includes all the server component packages. Additionally, this cumulative update package updates only those components that are installed on the system.
- A change in the package configuration was introduced after SharePoint Server 2013 was released. You must install this public update before you install later SharePoint updates.
- Important When you install the cumulative update on a single-server SharePoint farm or on SharePoint servers that include Search Service Application topology roles, you must follow the steps that are mentioned on the following Microsoft website: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=279911
The first note reiterates that you only need to install one patch. The second note says you have to install this patch to install and later patches. Unlike the guidance I normally give, you should install this patch as soon as you’ve tested it and determined it doesn’t break anything. The third note says you should read this blog post before installing the patch to get some guidance on how to handle Search during the upgrade. I’ve installed this patch on a couple of servers and its been fine. Office Web Apps 2013 Patch It’s not part of SharePoint anymore, but the Office Web Apps are an important party of your SharePoint 2013 farm. They got some patch love as well. Here are the links: Office Web Apps - KB2760445 – Download The patching process for the OWAs is different than the regular SharePoint patching process. SharePoint MCM Wictor Wilén has an excellent blog, Patching your WAC farm with no downtime, that you should read before you attempt the patching process. While you’re reading that, read Wictor’s next blog post, Enabling PDF Previews with Office Web Apps 2013 march 2013 update, to see how to add PDF support to the OWAs after you patch it. While this KB article is about a previous patch, it covers some of the new functionality that is introduced. I have seen some reports of the new version of OWA causing some issues, so be sure to test in your test environment first. Workflow Manager Patch Build 1.0.30207.2 Service Bus – KB2799752 – Download Workflow Manager – KB2799754 – Download You’ll need to install the Service Manager patch before the Workflow Manager patch. If either of them fail, reboot and try again. A couple of times that I’ve installed them they’ve been fussy, but a reboot always cheered them up. There you go, there are all the patches I know about now. Let me know if you have any problems. tk ShortURL: http://www.toddklindt.com/March2013patches | | | Todd O. Klindt | 3/15/2013 7:49 PM | Netcast | 0 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 3/12/2013 8:53 PM | Netcast | 0 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 3/9/2013 7:02 PM | Netcast | 0 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 3/7/2013 9:34 PM | Netcast | 2 | | I was very fortunate this week to be able to guest host on Leo Laporte’s Windows Weekly, episode 302. This was particularly fun because Leo’s netcasts are a big part of what inspired me to do my own Netcast. Here are a couple of screenshots. 
And one on my own: 
Thanks to my friends Drewman for the pictures. I hope you guys enjoy it. Let me know what you think. tk ShortURL: http://www.toddklindt.com/WW302 | | | Todd O. Klindt | 2/25/2013 3:45 PM | Netcast | 0 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 2/16/2013 8:39 PM | Netcast | 0 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 2/15/2013 5:08 PM | SharePoint 2013 | 11 | | Now that SharePoint 2013 is out, I’ve gotten a few questions about what service accounts I recommend for a new SharePoint 2013 farm. Here are my suggestions. They are not hard guidelines, just a good place to start. | Account name | Role | Domain rights | Local SharePoint Server rights needed | SQL rights needed | | sp_install | Used to install SharePoint binaries. | Domain User | Local administrator on all SharePoint boxes | public, dbcreator, and securityadmin SQL roles. Need to be SysAdmin on SQL when installing the Workflow Manager | | sp_farm | Farm account. Used for Windows Timer Service, Central Admin and User Profile service | Domain User | Local Admin during UPS provisioning, log on locally right | None | | sp_webapp | App pool id for content web apps | Domain User | None | None | | sp_serviceapps | Service app pool id | Domain User | None | None | | sp_content | Default account used by Search Service Application to crawl content | Domain User | None | None | | sp_userprofile1 | Account used by the User Profile services to access Active Directory | Must have Replicating Change permissions to AD. Must be given in BOTH ADUC and ADSIEDIT. If domain is Windows 2003 or early, must also be a member of the "Pre-Windows 2000" built-in group. | None | None | | sp_superuser2 | Cache account | Domain User | Web application Policy Full Control Web application super account setting | None | | sp_superreader2 | Cache account | Domain User | Web application Policy Full read Web application super reader account setting | None | | sql_server | Account the SQL Instance is running as. | Domain User | None | Will be given necessary permissions when SQL Server is installed by a local administrator on the SQL box | 1) See http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee721049.aspx and http://www.harbar.net/articles/sp2010ups.aspx 2) http://www.sharepointchick.com/archive/2010/10/06/resolving-the-super-user-account-utilized-by-the-cache-is.aspx Those are the accounts needed for a base install of a SharePoint 2013 farm. However, there are other optional features that require their own accounts too. Here’s a list of accounts to use if you install the optional components. | Account name | Role | Domain rights | Local SharePoint Server rights needed | SQL rights needed | | sql_ssas | Account that we run the SQL Server Analysis Service services as | Domain User | None | db_datareader on databases | | sp_excel | Excel services unattended account. | Domain User | None | None | | sp_pps | PerformancePoint Unattended account | Domain User | None | None | | sp_accsvc | Access Services. Used to create all Access databases in SQL and the service account running the service app pool for the Access Service Application | Domain User | None | db_owner, public, and securityadmin | | sp_workflow3 | The RunAs account for the Workflow Manager service | Domain User | None | None | 3) Further Workflow Manager requirements are outline here, http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj193451.aspx These are just suggestions, they are not written in stone, just guidelines. For instance, every SharePoint farm should have its own set of accounts. Production SharePoint 2013 should be a different accounts than a dev SharePoint 2013 farm. And a production SharePoint 2013 farm should have different set of accounts than the production SharePoint 2010 farm that’s being upgraded. You don’t want any cross-contamination. You don’t want an errant dev process jumping the stream and breaking production. Also, make sure to keep your account names to 20 characters or shorter. Some places in SharePoint use the Pre-Windows 2000 version of the account name, and that can only be 20 characters. If your account name is longer than 20 characters you’ll get weird “account doesn’t exist” message when you know damned well it does. While you’re creating accounts, you should also create an admin account or two so you aren’t tempted to log in as sp_farm. Bad! Bad! tk ShortURL: http://www.toddklindt.com/SP2013ServiceAccounts Edited 2/17/2013: Added Public role to sp_install and fixed some account names. Edited 2/20/2013: Fixed a type in sql_ssas account description. | | | Todd O. Klindt | 2/12/2013 9:31 PM | SharePoint 2010 | 0 | | Back in December there started to be some rumblings about a regression introduced in the August 2012 CU (14.0.6126). I first saw it as a question on Stack Exchange. It was reported to me by a couple of other people, so I added it to the August 2012 CU Regressions page. Today a hotfix (also called “Critical On Demand”) patch was released to fix it. Before I tell you how to get it or install it, here are a few things you must know: It’s based on the December 2012 CU. Install that before you install the COD. Also, DO NOT install the February 2013 CU on top of it. If you think things were bad with just the August 2012 CU installed, you ain’t seen nothing. Installing the February 2013 on top of this will break the crap out of your SharePoint farm. You have been warned. The download page might show two downloads. Sadly, it’s two versions of the same patch.  Make sure you download the 14.0.6134.5003 version. It was modified 2/12/2013 at 2:21:26 AM. Also, promise to read this entire blog post from Joerg Sinemus before you install the hotfix. Promise! You’ll be glad you did. Okay, now that we’re through all that. You can download the patch here. Here is my full page on it. Be careful with this patch. Only install it if you’re suffering from the NavNode issue. Being a COD patch it hasn’t been tested as thoroughly as it could be. Let me know if you have any problems with this. tk ShortURL: http://www.toddklindt.com/SP2010Feb13CUPost | | | Todd O. Klindt | 2/11/2013 5:12 PM | Netcast | 0 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 2/9/2013 10:18 PM | SharePoint 2013; SkyDriveInsider | 27 | | One of the exciting new features of SharePoint 2013 is a feature called “SkyDrive Pro.” This new feature has probably created as much confusion as excitement. In this blog post I hope to clear up what SkyDrive Pro is, and what, if anything, it has to do with the other Microsoft product, SkyDrive.
Let’s start with the “Too long, didn’t read” part. Then we’ll get to the gritty details and pretty pictures. SkyDrive Pro has absolutely nothing to do with SkyDrive, Microsoft’s cloud storage system. The “SkyDrive” part of SkyDrive Pro is simply a marketing term, nothing else. The idea they were trying to relay was that SkyDrive Pro was a way to store files, in the cloud, on a server, like SkyDrive, but it’s not on Microsoft’s servers, it is on your own. It’s for Professionals. SkyDrive Pro is just a fancy name for the Documents library in your MySite. That’s the short story, SkyDrive Pro just a marketing name, nothing more.
Now, let’s look at where SkyDrive Pro shows up in SharePoint 2013. If you’re using SharePoint Server (as opposed to Foundation) and the User Profile Service is installed, configured, and working (that can be a stretch sometimes) you’ll see a link to SkyDrive Pro at the top of the ribbon, like this:
This is a screenshot from an on-premises SharePoint 2013 installation. For maximum confusion, the link to SkyDrive Pro is in the upper right is SkyDrive ,no Pro. Grrr! If you click the SkyDrive link, it doesn’t take you to SkyDrive, but it takes you to Documents library in your MySite, as that’s all SkyDrive Pro is.
We’ve covered (three times now) that SkyDrive Pro is just a fancy name for your MySites Documents folder. Like SkyDrive you can sync the contents to your local file system. If you have the Office 2013 clients installed you’ll see a “Sync” button underneath your name in the upper right. When you click it the sync process is started. SkyDrive Pro, while being your MySite Documents library, is also the name of the technology that syncs SharePoint 2013 to your desktop. You’ll see this when it asks you to verify which library you want to sync.
You can tell if it’s working by looking for the SkyDrive Pro icon in the System Tray, like below.
If you look under your Favorites in Explorer, you should see a SkyDrive Pro shortcut with all your files.
Since it’s a true sync, if you create or drag a file over to the SkyDrive Pro folder, it will be synced up to SharePoint, to your MySite Document library. Here’s how it looks all synced up.
That’s all pretty cool, but we don’t always keep a lot of documents in our MySite Docs, err, I mean SkyDrive Pro. Wouldn’t it be great if we could sync every library in SharePoint?
We can!!!
The SkyDrive Pro sync technology works for all (at least all the ones I’ve tested) libraries in SharePoint 2013. If you have a compatible client on your system, the Sync button will appear and it will work the same as it did with SkyDrive Pro. The non-SkyDrive Pro locations show up under Favorites under the SharePoint heading, like this:
You can edit files from Explorer just like you can in SharePoint. Use whichever way is easiest for you. The SkyDrive Pro technology will keep them all synced in the background. If you delete a file via Explorer it appears to actually Delete the file instead of Recycle it, so it will skip the 1st stage of the Recycle Bin and jump right to the 2nd Stage, or Site Collection Admin Recycle Bin.
When I was working on this blog post I was asked if you can sync to both SkyDrive Pro and SkyDrive on the same machine. Indeed you can. Here is photographic proof:
Again, the vein of maximum confusion, the SkyDrive and SkyDrive Pro icons are the same.
Hopefully this has demystified SkyDrive, SkyDrive Pro, and why we should wash our hands before we eat. If I missed anything, leave me a comment below and let me know.
tk
FAQs
Q) What file types can I sync?
A) You can sync any file types that you can upload to SharePoint. You can sync a DOCX file, but you cannot sync an .EXE file unless your SharePoint administrator has foolishly allowed it. In that case you should upload "You should be fired immediately.EXE." You also cannot upload any files that are larger than the maximum upload size for the web app you're syncing to. Finally, you cannot sync files to a document library you don't have access to. That would be cheating, wouldn't it?
Q) When I sync to multiple locations I get weird names like "SkyDrive Pro @ Contoso" and "SkyDrive Pro @ YourMama" and I don't like them. Short of using White Out on my screen, how can I rename them?
A) If you click the offending name in the Favorites list and push the F2 key you can rename the shortcut to whatever you want. I recommend, "SkyDrive Pro Rocks" or "Todd is my hero."
Q) I have the worst luck. I broke a mirror a couple of years ago and now I'm stuck with SharePoint 2010. I don't know when I'll be able to enjoy the glory that is SharePoint 2013. Can I still use SkyDrive Pro? Pretty please? A) Your luck is starting to turn around. SkyDrive Pro will sync with SharePoint 2010 libraries as well as it does SharePoint 2013.
Q) I have bad luck too, even worse than that last guy. Not only am I not using SharePoint 2013, but I don't even have Office 2013. I'm stuck with Office 2010. Can I still use SkyDrive Pro?
A) You sure can. You can download the SkyDrive Pro client separately and it will run along side Office 2007 or Office 2010. It's truly magic.
ShortURL: http://www.toddklindt.com/SkyDriveProSP2013
Edit 5/21/2013: Added FAQs from the comments. | | | Todd O. Klindt | 1/30/2013 8:15 PM | Netcast; SkyDriveInsider | 4 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 1/23/2013 9:17 PM | Netcast | 5 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 1/17/2013 8:49 AM | Netcast | 0 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 1/3/2013 2:33 PM | SharePoint 2013; User Profile Service | 7 | | (See the solution for this issue at the end of this blog post)
Don’t you hate it when a hero lets you down? Like when Nicolas Cage decided to star in Ghost Rider. Twice! That’s how it goes sometimes. Unfortunately that’s how it went with the December 2012 Hotfix for SharePoint 2013. After you install this patch on SharePoint Server 2013 users can no longer create MySites. Existing MySites still work, but no more can be created. When users try to create a MySite you’ll find an error like this in your ULS logs:
01/03/2013 00:32:34.59 OWSTIMER.EXE (0x05F0) 0x0C1C SharePoint Portal Server Administration 5187 Critical My Site creation failure for user 'CONTOSO\user1'for site url 'http://my.contoso.com/personal/user1'. The exception was: System.MissingMethodException: Method not found: 'Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSite Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSite.SelfServiceCreateSite(System.String, System.String, System.String, UInt32, Int32, Int32, System.String, System.String, System.String, System.String, System.String, System.String, System.String, System.String, Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSiteSubscription)'. at Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.UserProfile.<>c__DisplayClass2.<CreateSite>b__0() at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSecurity.<>c__DisplayClass5.<RunWithElevatedPrivileges>b__3() at Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities.SecurityContext.RunAsProcess(CodeToRunElevated secureCode) at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges(WaitCallback secureCode, Object param) at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges(CodeToRunElevated secureCode) at Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.UserProfile.CreateSite(String strRequestUrl, Boolean bCollision, Int32 overrideCompatLevel, Int32 lcid). 2611f19b-b123-1001-13a4-5ae2bd6a86be
The key to the problem is highlighted, the User Profile Service is trying to create the MySite with a method that doesn’t exist. It looks like regular Self Service Site Creation still works. Full notes on this patch can be found on my SharePoint 2013 Builds wiki.
There’s no way to uninstall SharePoint patches, so if you’ve installed this patch you’re stuck with it. Hopefully this will be fixed in the next CU or Hotfix.
You can keep up with all the SharePoint 2013 Patches by visiting my SharePoint 2013 Builds page and following SharePoint2013Patches on Twitter.
I’d like to thank Ali Salih and Jason Himmelstein Blog | Twitter) for bringing this to my attention and Trevor Seward (Blog | Twitter) for helping me reproduce and troubleshoot it.
Edited to add:
This problem can be fixed with the installation of another December 2012 Hotfix, KB2752001.
tk
ShortURL: http://www.toddklindt.com/SP2013December2012HotfixRegression
Edited 1/25/2013 | | | Todd O. Klindt | 1/1/2013 12:09 AM | | 4 | | I try not to blog too many non SharePoint blog posts, but this one snuck through. Inspired a bit by my friend Paul Randal I made an effort to read more books this year. Here are all the books I read this year. I didn’t count my own books, like Free Advice, and I didn’t count three or four books I read about self-publishing. They were pretty short. 1) How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie  While this books was written with salesmen in mind, it’s full of good advice that we can all use when dealing with people, both at work and at home.
2) A Dance with Dragons: A Song of Ice and Fire: Book Five By: George R.R. Martin   Probably the longest book I read in 2012. It’s the fifth book in the A Song of Ice and Fire books, also known as the Game of Thrones books.
3) Inside Apple: How America's Most Admired--and Secretive--Company Really Works By: Adam Lashinsky   This books gives an interesting look into how Apple does business. While I don’t have any Apple product myself, there’s no denying they’re doing something right. This book helps some of those things.
4) EntreLeadership By: Dave Ramsey   This is another book I read about business. I’ve read Dave Ramsey’s personal finance book, so it made sense to read his business book too.
5) The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo By: Stieg Larsson   I’ve had the pleasure of going to Sweden several times and it’s a wonderful place with wonderful people. I was excited when something as distinctly Swedish as the Millennium series took the world by storm. This book is the first of three.
6) The Girl Who Played with Fire By: Stieg Larsson   Book two of the Millennium series.
7) The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest By: Stieg Larsson   Book three of the Millennium series.
8) Revenge (A Travis Mays Novel) By: Mark Young   I self-published a book in 2012 and it opened my eyes to a lot of the independent authors out there. I ended up picking up several of their books this year. This is the first one of them that I read.
9) 'Scuse Me While I Kill This Guy By: Leslie Langtry   This is another indie book I read.
10) Rich Dad Poor Dad By: Robert T. Kiyosaki   Robert Kiyosaki is a well-known author in the area of personal finance. It was able time I’d read one of his books.
11) Operation Desolation: A Short Story By: Mark Russinovich   Mark Russinovich is a fellow computer nerd and I’ve had the pleasure of meeting him a few times. Turns out he writes a damned fine fiction book too. Mark published his first fiction book, Zero Day and I really liked it. This book is a short story that bridges between Zero Day and his next book, Trojan Horse.
12 ) Timeline: A Novel By: Michael Crichton   I heard Paul Thurott and Leo Laporte talking about this book on Windows Weekly so I picked it up. It was a good read. I’m glad I did.
13) Daemon By: Daniel Suarez   This was another recommendation from Windows Weekly. I had never heard of him. Before the year was out, I’d read all his books.
14) Trojan Horse: A Novel By: Mark Russinovich   This is the follow-up to Zero Day. A great book. I can’t wait until the next one.
15) Frozen Heat By: Richard Castle   As a fan of Firefly, I had to watch Castle. In Castle, Nathan Fillion plays Rick Castle, a fiction novelist. In one of the most brilliant marketing moves ever, ABC actually publishes the books that the character Castle writes in the TV show. They’re quick, fun reads and if you watch Castle, I recommend them.
16) Freedom (TM) By: Daniel Suarez   This book is the sequel to Suarez’s book, Daemon. Together they are a great story.
17) Outliers By: Malcolm Gladwell   This book takes a look at very successful people and tries to figure out why they are successful. It’s very interesting.
18) Ready Player One By: Ernest Cline   This book was recommended by a friend. It’s great. The story is complicated, but the book is chock full of pop culture references from the 80s. If you were a child of the 80’s, you’ll probably love this book.
19) Ender's Game By: Orson Scott Card   This is a classic science fiction book and one that I really should have read much earlier.
20) Kill Decision By: Daniel Suarez   Another great book from Daniel Suarez. This one is about military drones and the trouble they can cause.
21) Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World's Most Wanted Hacker By: Kevin Mitnick   The title says it all. Kevin Mitnick was the world’s most famous hacker. This book is his version of what happened. A very insightful read.
22) Mustaine: A Heavy Metal Memoir By: Dave Mustaine   As a metalhead, this book was a great book. It was great to get Dave’s background on the heavy metal scene. He didn’t mention the time he yelled at me backstage in 1997. It must have been pulled out by the editors.
23) Soul Identity By: Dennis Batchelder   The last book of 2012. This was another science fiction book about what happens to our souls when we die.
I hope you got some good ideas of books to read in 2013. Of course you should also add Professional SharePoint 2013 Administration to your “must read” list of 2013. Happy New Year!! tk ShortURL: http://www.toddklindt.com/2012books | | | Todd O. Klindt | 12/21/2012 4:31 PM | Netcast | 0 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 12/12/2012 10:05 PM | Netcast | 0 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 12/10/2012 9:44 AM | Netcast | 0 | | The hosts at PowerScripting Live have graciously asked me to join them for their December 13th broadcast. Of course I jumped at the chance before they came to their senses. Their format is similar to mine in that it airs live and there’s a chatroom where the audience can mock me in real time. What could be more fun? Since there’s a professional running the show I expect it will be much better than my regular Monday netcasts. It would be great if I had a good showing of people in the chatroom so that the PowerScripting Live folks don’t’ regreat asking me to join them. The broadcast is live Thursday December 13th, 2012 at 9:30 EST (8:30 CST), the same time as my Monday Netcast. The URL to log in to is http://powerscriptinglive.blogspot.com/. Be there a few minutes early so that you can get a good seat. Thanks again to the PowerScripting Live folks for taking a chance on me. tk ShortURL: http://www.toddklindt.com/PowerScriptingLive | | | Todd O. Klindt | 12/6/2012 10:40 AM | Netcast | 1 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 12/4/2012 10:18 PM | SharePoint 2013; PowerShell | 13 | | I’ve been doing a lot of SharePoint 2013 install webinars lately. Since SharePoint 2010 I’ve been on a personal mission to eradicate nasty GUIDs from all SharePoint databases. When I’m doing my webinars I demonstrate creating the Search service application with PowerShell instead Central Admin. Not because I have anything against Central Admin, it’s a fine web site. But if you create a Search service application in Central Admin you don’t get to specify databases names. And what happens in SharePoint if you don’t specify a database name, SharePoint puts a damned GUID at the end! Grrrrr. So I use PowerShell to create Search, which allows me to specify a database name, and feel a bit better about myself in the process. It’s a win-win! Here is the script that I use. Notice that it is almost completely stolen from my friend Spence Harbar. I grabbed it from this blog post here. If you find this script helpful, buy Spence a drink the next time you see him. Here it is:
# Based on scripts at http://www.harbar.net/articles/sp2013mt.aspx
# Thanks Spence!
# Get App Pool
$saAppPoolName = "Default SharePoint Service App Pool"
# Search Specifics, we are single server farm
$searchServerName = (Get-ChildItem env:computername).value
$serviceAppName = "Search Service Application"
$searchDBName = "SearchService_DB"
# Grab the Appplication Pool for Service Application Endpoint
$saAppPool = Get-SPServiceApplicationPool $saAppPoolName
# Start Search Service Instances
Write-Host "Starting Search Service Instances..."
Start-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceInstance $searchServerName
Start-SPEnterpriseSearchQueryAndSiteSettingsServiceInstance $searchServerName
# Create the Search Service Application and Proxy
Write-Host "Creating Search Service Application and Proxy..."
$searchServiceApp = New-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication -Name $serviceAppName -ApplicationPool $saAppPoolName -DatabaseName $searchDBName
$searchProxy = New-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplicationProxy -Name "$serviceAppName Proxy" -SearchApplication $searchServiceApp
# Clone the default Topology (which is empty) and create a new one and then activate it
Write-Host "Configuring Search Component Topology..."
$clone = $searchServiceApp.ActiveTopology.Clone()
$searchServiceInstance = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceInstance
New-SPEnterpriseSearchAdminComponent –SearchTopology $clone -SearchServiceInstance $searchServiceInstance
New-SPEnterpriseSearchContentProcessingComponent –SearchTopology $clone -SearchServiceInstance $searchServiceInstance
New-SPEnterpriseSearchAnalyticsProcessingComponent –SearchTopology $clone -SearchServiceInstance $searchServiceInstance
New-SPEnterpriseSearchCrawlComponent –SearchTopology $clone -SearchServiceInstance $searchServiceInstance
New-SPEnterpriseSearchIndexComponent –SearchTopology $clone -SearchServiceInstance $searchServiceInstance
New-SPEnterpriseSearchQueryProcessingComponent –SearchTopology $clone -SearchServiceInstance $searchServiceInstance
$clone.Activate()
Write-Host "Search Done!"
If you don’t want to copy and paste it, you can download it here. The script assumes your farm has a Service App app pool named "Default SharePoint Service App Pool." It also doesn’t do a couple of things. You’ll need to change the default content crawl account. By default Search uses the Farm account, which is a really bad idea. Worse than wearing white after labor day. If you follow my service account guidelines you'll change this to sp_content. You should also specify a default Search Center.
After your Search service application is created you should run a full crawl, even if you don't have any content in your farm yet. This will let you know that everything is configured correctly.
Enjoy,
tk
ShortURL: http://www.toddklindt.com/createsearch2013 | | | Todd O. Klindt | 11/28/2012 2:06 PM | Netcast | 3 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 11/24/2012 9:25 AM | Netcast | 0 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 11/8/2012 11:08 AM | Netcast | 2 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 11/2/2012 8:35 PM | Netcast | 0 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 10/29/2012 2:18 PM | SharePoint 2013; SharePoint 2013 Preview | 4 | | Like most SharePoint nerds I’ve spent the last week furiously building new VMs with the SharePoint 2013 RTM bits. What a wonderful time to be alive! To keep on the cutting edge I’ve been building everything on Windows Server 2012. Unless you’ve been living under a rock you’ve probably heard that Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 are a touch different than their predecessors. This has lead to some frustrating moments as I struggle to figure out how to do in Windows Server 2012 things I’ve been doing forever. I persevere though, because in order to be fully certified in SharePoint 2013 I’m going to have to be certified in Windows Server 2012. That motivation helps me keep fighting the good fight. Anyway, enough story part, on to the fun tech stuff. I’m currently building a shiny new SharePoint 2013 VM and I want the much beloved MSDN ULS Log Viewer on the Start Screen for all users. It is a must have utility for all SharePoint servers in the world. With the Start Menu out, and the Start Screen in, that is a little more complicated than it used to be. Another niggling issue I had been having is the issue of User Access Control (UAC). In SharePoint 2010 (on Windows 2008 and 2008 R2) I always pinned the SharePoint Management Console to the Start Menu and changed its shortcut so it always “ran as administrator” with UAC. It’s not much good without that. For the life of me I couldn’t figure out how to bake that into the Start Screen shortcut. You can rightclick and choose “run as Administrator” but like putting the seat down on the toilet, I always forget. I found both solutions in one fell swoop today. Monday’s aren’t so bad after all. The phrase that pays is “C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs” That’s the location for the common Start Screen. By default not all users can create shortcuts there. You can tell if that’s the case by right-clicking in the folder and clicking New in the flyout menu. If the only option is “Folder” then you don’t have permission. You’ll have to go up one level and give yourself write permission and try again. If you try to drag a program in with Explorer to create a shortcut you might also get a message about how shortcuts can’t be created there, and asking you if you’d like to create it on the Desktop instead. Don’t fall for its lies, give yourself permission to the folder and you’ll be fine. While you’re in there creating your shortcut you can open up its properties and click the “Run as Administrator” box. For the ULS Log Viewer that is a must. I hope this helps some folks out there. Windows Server 2012 is pretty cool, but sometimes it’s a little high maintenance. Don’t worry though, we’re all in it together.  tk ShortURL: http://www.toddklindt.com/2012StartScreen | | | Todd O. Klindt | 10/9/2012 10:30 PM | SharePoint 2013; SharePoint 2013 Preview; PowerShell | 4 | | As a SharePoint consultant I get asked all the time if there’s a way to rename (really repath) site collections. As SharePoint installations age, information architecture issues creep in. One of the ways this happens is that URL paths that were once correct no longer are. If the erroneous path is a web’s path, that’s easy enough to fix. You can use “stsadm –o renameweb” or Site Actions > Site Settings > Title, Description, and Logo. If you need to repath a site collection, well, that gets a little hairier. Okay, a lot hairier. There’s no way easy way to do it with out of the box tools. Before you say, “But, but, what about ‘stsadm –o rename’?” keep in mind that only works with hostname based site collections, and most site collections are path based. Yours are, I checked. Since there’s no silver bullet we were reduced to workarounds. Normally that workaround looked like this: - Backup site collection
- Delete site collection
- Restore site collection to new URL
- Pray, pray, pray
Not only was that process vulnerable to data loss from a bad backup or restore, it was very manual. As a general rule, I’m lazy and risk averse, so this process was bad for me. I don’t know about you, but after the kids go to bed at night, I like to turn the lights down, pop some popcorn, put on some music, and cruise around in SharePoint 2013 looking for new PowerShell cmdlets to exploit. Friday nights at the Klindt household are cra-zy! One of the many, many new cmdlets I’ve recently fallen in love with is Copy-SPSite. Much like it sounds, it copies site collections. As we know, the only difference between a copy and a move is the delete at the end. Here’s the PowerShell I used to repath a site collection at http://portal.contoso.com/sites/blog to http://portal.contoso.com/sites/oldblog 
As you can see, there’s nothing to moving the site collection, and even better there is no risk of losing data. You have the opportunity to check the copy is good before you delete the original site collection. I’ve done a little testing and Copy-SPSite seems to work great if the source and destination are in the same web application. If I try to copy a site collection to a different web application I get a weird error. That might be a limitation of the cmdlet. If so, it’s pretty easy to deal with. When you’re using Copy-SPSite you can specify a DestinationDatabase. You could copy the site collection to its own database, then move that database to a different web application. While repathing site collections probably wasn’t the intended purpose of Copy-SPSite, it is one good use for it. tk ShortURL: http://www.toddklindt.com/copyspsite | | | Todd O. Klindt | 10/9/2012 3:15 PM | Netcast | 2 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 10/2/2012 11:02 PM | Netcast | 2 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 9/24/2012 10:07 PM | Netcast | 0 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 9/23/2012 10:38 PM | PowerShell | 1 | | The year 2012 is turning out to be a pretty big one for Microsoft software releases. Windows Server 2012 is just one of the many exciting products that has come out so far this year. As with any new release, there are some changes and some opportunities to stretch our wings and learn new stuff. In this blog post I’ll tell you about how Windows Server 2012 no longer has DCPROMO (Booooo!) and how I replaced it with PowerShell (Yay!!).
I was setting up a new SharePoint 2013 VM the other day (mainly because Shane was having trouble, and I needed to demonstrate once again that I’m smarter than he is) and when I was creating the domain I discovered that Windows 2012 no longer includes DCPROMO.EXE, the tool that creates domains. There is a pretty straight forward way to do this in the UI, but that’s no fun. You know what’s fun? PowerShell! That’s what’s fun. So here’s the code I used to create and configure my Contoso domain:
1 # Add the AD Module
2 Import-module servermanager
3 Add-WindowsFeature AD-Domain-Services
4 # Create a new forest which creates a root domain
5 Install-addsforest -domainname contoso.com -safemodeadministratorpassword (convertto-securestring `
6 "pass@word1" -asplaintext -force) -domainmode win2008r2 -domainnetbiosname contoso -forestmode `
7 win2008r2
8
9 # Add the AD tools to the server
10 Add-windowsfeature rsat-adds -includeallsubfeature
11
12 # Set the domain passwords to not expire
13 Set-ADDefaultDomainPasswordPolicy contoso.com -ComplexityEnabled $false -MaxPasswordAge "3650" `
14 -PasswordHistoryCount 0 -MinPasswordAge 0
The comments in the code document it pretty well. I add the module, create the forest, including the root domain. Then I add the AD management tools. Pretty simple. If you have questions about the options you have with Install-ASDSForest you can use the Get-Help cmdlet to get a full list.
Once the tools are installed you’ll need to right click on them to get the “Run as Administrator” or “Run as different user” options.
Once you have AD installed you can use the PowerShell script I published before to create accounts. It works as well in Windows 2012 as it does Windows 2008 R2.
Enjoy,
tk
ShortURL: http://www.toddklindt.com/PoshDcpromo
Edit: 10/6/2012 to fix the code so it didn’t cause scrolling
Edit: 11/7/2012 to fix some typos. Good lord, it was tragic.
Edit: 11/7/2012 to fix the ShortURL. I am absolutely a mess. | | | Todd O. Klindt | 9/19/2012 10:13 PM | Netcast | 0 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 9/19/2012 9:12 PM | | 0 | | I’ve embraced the Office 2013 clients even though they’re still in beta. I’ve also become a huge fan of Office’s autocorrect functionality. You might recognize it as that helpful little friend that automatically fixes all your “teh”s to “the”s. It’s handy like that. You can seed that autocorrect list with words you commonly misspell. I take it a step farther. I seed it with words I don’t want to spell correctly. For instance, I put an autocorrect entry for “spp” that changes it to “SharePoint.” I have another that changes “spp1” to “SharePoint 2010." I even have one that changes “ss” to “Shane sucks” since I type that so much. It’s a damned handy feature. Unfortunately as I get new machines and start shuffling things I have to rebuild my autocorrect list. Tonight I’d had enough. I put my Jr. Detective hat on, got my magnifying glass and I started looking for where they’re stored. Thankfully they were easy to find.  The autocorrect entries are stored in an ACL or Auto Correct List file. On Windows 7 that file is stored in C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Office. Copy the ACL files from a machine that’s configured to the new Office 2013 install. That’s all there is to it. The next time you open one of the Office clients, you can type “ss” and get the satisfaction of seeing it magically turned into “Shane sucks” right before your eyes. tk ShortURL: http://www.toddklindt.com/Office2013ACL | | | Todd O. Klindt | 9/18/2012 9:16 AM | Netcast | 0 | | Way, way back in the day when movie tickets were a dollar, sodas were 10 cents, and we all thought there would be flying cars by the year 1999, I did my SharePoint Netcast in the morning. It was a simpler time. Then things like “customers” and “work” started getting in the way, so I bumped my Netcast up to 8:30 PM. It’s been that way for a couple of years. Since then I’ve gotten feedback numerous times from some of my European friends that they can’t watch it live at 8:30 PM Central, as that’s 1:30 in the morning UTC. I understand, my netcast is barely worth watching at all, let alone staying up late for. Next week I’ll be gone Tuesday through Friday at SPFest in Chicago. Those of you that download my netcast will recognize those as the days I procrastinate producing my netcast. Since I’ll be busy at SPFest I won’t be able to not produce my netcast. To maximize my procrastinating, and to show my European friends that aren’t missing anything, Netcast 130 will be recorded live at 8:30 Central (13:30 UTC) Monday September 24th. You’ll be able to heckle me live at the same URL I always use, http://stickam.com/toddklindt. This netcast isn’t open to just European heckling. If you’re a heckler from anywhere around the world, including the nerds that usually join me at 8:30 PM you are more than welcome to get your early morning mock on. I haven’t decided on the topics I’ll cover yet. That’s usually decided a few minutes before I go on the air. I hope to see some familiar European faces on. tk ShortURL: http://www.toddklindt.com/EuroNetcast | | | Todd O. Klindt | 9/13/2012 8:55 PM | Netcast | 3 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 9/12/2012 4:27 PM | SharePoint 2010; SharePoint 2013; SharePoint 2013 Preview; PowerShell | 5 | | In some very, very small circles, people ask me for advice using PowerShell. I know, it makes NO sense. Regardless, I like the attention and it pushes me to be a better person. In today’s example of my pathetic PowerShell skills I’ll share the script I use to create Active Directory accounts in my SharePoint test environments. I build a lot of test environments, so it’s handy to be able to crank out lots of users quickly. I’ve used a variety of PowerShell solutions, but this is the first one that hasn’t sucked so much that I’m afraid to share it. It actually does a couple of cool things. Before I share this amazing code with you, let me tell you about a few of its finer features. 1) It checks to see if there’s a problem creating the user, and if there is, reports it. This is handy for two reasons. First, the user you’re running the script as may not have permission to create users. With the error checking in this script you get a message saying “Access Denied” so you know it’s a permissions error. Also, this allows it to gracefully skip users that already exist. This is great because as you need to add new users to your environment you can just add them at the end of the existing users.csv file you use and run the script again. 2) It can handle accounts that have managers and ones that don’t. Being SharePoint admins we all get to experience the User Profile Service. That gives us the fancy employee hierarchy thing, which needs each accounts’ Manager field to be populated. One of things this script gives us is the ability to put our service accounts and our user accounts in the same users.csv file. In previous version of this I had two CSV files and changed the script to not try to add the Manager attribute for service accounts and bosses. In this version I don’t need to do that. 3) It can add user pictures to Active Directory. Regardless of whether the user already exists or not, the script will look in the local directory to see if a file with the name user.jpg exists. If it’s there, the script adds it to the user. Since the creation part gracefully skips existing users, you can gradually drop JPGs into this folder and run the script over and over to add user’s pictures. This part doesn’t have any of the Try-Catch error checking (yet), so if you don’t have permission edit AD users, you might get some angry red text here. Pretty cool, huh? Are you really excited to get your hands on this super-cool script? I thought you would be. Here it is: 1 # Script to create Active Directory accounts
2 # v2 9/12/2012
3 # Todd Klindt
4 # http://www.toddklindt.com
5
6 # Add the Active Directory bits and not complain if they're already there
7 Import-Module ActiveDirectory -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
8
9 # set default password
10 # change pass@word1 to whatever you want the account passwords to be
11 $defpassword = (ConvertTo-SecureString "pass@word1" -AsPlainText -force)
12
13 # Get domain DNS suffix
14 $dnsroot = '@' + (Get-ADDomain).dnsroot
15
16 # Import the file with the users. You can change the filename to reflect your file
17 $users = Import-Csv .\users.csv
18
19 foreach ($user in $users) {
20 if ($user.manager -eq "") # In case it's a service account or a boss
21 {
22 try {
23 New-ADUser -SamAccountName $user.SamAccountName -Name ($user.FirstName + " " + $user.LastName) `
24 -DisplayName ($user.FirstName + " " + $user.LastName) -GivenName $user.FirstName -Surname $user.LastName `
25 -EmailAddress ($user.SamAccountName + $dnsroot) -UserPrincipalName ($user.SamAccountName + $dnsroot) `
26 -Title $user.title -Enabled $true -ChangePasswordAtLogon $false -PasswordNeverExpires $true `
27 -AccountPassword $defpassword -PassThru `
28 }
29 catch [System.Object]
30 {
31 Write-Output "Could not create user $($user.SamAccountName), $_"
32 }
33 }
34 else
35 {
36 try {
37 New-ADUser -SamAccountName $user.SamAccountName -Name ($user.FirstName + " " + $user.LastName) `
38 -DisplayName ($user.FirstName + " " + $user.LastName) -GivenName $user.FirstName -Surname $user.LastName `
39 -EmailAddress ($user.SamAccountName + $dnsroot) -UserPrincipalName ($user.SamAccountName + $dnsroot) `
40 -Title $user.title -manager $user.manager `
41 -Enabled $true -ChangePasswordAtLogon $false -PasswordNeverExpires $true `
42 -AccountPassword $defpassword -PassThru `
43 }
44 catch [System.Object]
45 {
46 Write-Output "Could not create user $($user.SamAccountName), $_"
47 }
48 }
49 # Put picture part here.
50 $filename = "$($user.SamAccountName).jpg"
51 Write-Output $filename
52
53 if (test-path -path $filename)
54 {
55 Write-Output "Found picture for $($user.SamAccountName)"
56
57 $photo = [byte[]](Get-Content $filename -Encoding byte)
58 Set-ADUser $($user.SamAccountName) -Replace @{thumbnailPhoto=$photo}
59 }
60 }
If you’d like to download the code. You can grab it here.
As always, be very, very afraid of any PowerShell you download from the Internet. Especially mine! While this script might very work as is in your test environment, you should really just consider it something to reference when you write your own script. This script might destroy your Active Directory, format your server, and replace your fresh brewed coffee with Folger’s Crystals. You have been warned.
Let me know what you think. Be kind. I cry easily.
tk
ShortURL: http://www.toddklindt.com/PoshMakeUsers | | | Todd O. Klindt | 9/11/2012 4:39 PM | SharePoint 2010; SharePoint 2013; Sharepoint | 0 | | In a two weeks I’ll be on my way to Windy City to take part in SharePoint Fest. Shane (blog | Twitter) and I will be doing a couple of top notch sessions: SIA 105 - SharePoint 2010 Administration Coolness – Infrastructure Review Ok, so cool isn't exactly what you were thinking about when you think about administration but you should. In this session Shane and Todd will help you take a look at your SharePoint 2010 farm and make sure it is running in tip top shape. We do lots of server infrastructure reviews so we will share some of the tips and give you some insight into what we look at. I don’t like Shane. Some key concepts with be the farm patch level, decoding the health analyzer, logging, and more of the common errors we find in a broken SharePoint farm SIA 205 - SharePoint 2010 Administration Coolness – Upgrade For this cool session Shane and Todd will talk to you about what SharePoint upgrades look like. Whether you are looking for version to version (2007 to 2010) or build to build (RTM to Service Pack 1) a lot of the same techniques and troubleshooting information will come into play. Shane is a stinker. The focus will be around version to version but even if you are already on SharePoint 2010 don't be afraid to come for the awesome jokes or the fact that the more you know about how upgrade works the more you understand how patching works. On top of that I’ll be hanging out at the Chicago SharePoint User Group meeting on the 25th. There’s going to be a panel or something going on. I’m really just going for the free food and books. As if that weren’t enough, Michael Blumenthal (blog | Twitter) and I will doing a free form session where we’ll be taking YOUR questions about PowerShell and SharePoint. You bring us an insurmountable task that you’ve run into with SharePoint and we’ll rattle off some impressive-sounding PowerShell that will fix your problem. If you’re going to be at SPFest and you want to increase the chances we’ll pick your question, enter it below in the comment field. The question can be about SharePoint 2010 or SharePoint 2013 and it should be something like, “How can I use PowerShell to shave my cat in SharePoint?” We’ll pick our favorites (which coincidentally will probably be the easy ones) and work through them during our session on the 27th. If you haven’t signed up for SPFest yet, don’t fret, there’s still time. You can use this link to sign up. If you use that link you’ll get a discount and I’ll get $100. Everybody wins! See you in Chicago, tk ShortURL: http://www.toddklindt.com/SPFest2012 | | | Todd O. Klindt | 8/30/2012 3:22 PM | Netcast | 1 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 8/27/2012 5:26 PM | | 0 | | It looks like the fine folks organizing SharePoint Saturday New Hampshire (affectionately referred to as SPSNH from here on out) have had a terrible lapse in judgment and are allowing me to speak there. Here’s the abstract for my session: “Installing SharePoint 2013 without screwing it up (too badly)” Now that the SharePoint 2013 Preview is out, we all want to spin up a shiny new VM and test it for a test drive. In this session Todd will do his darnedest to walk you through some of the sticking spots of the SharePoint 2013, and get a farm built. Hopefully the demos gods will smile down on him. I don’t know what time I’ll be speaking yet. Here are some important details if you want to come to SPSNH: Where: Manchester, New Hampshire When: Saturday September 22nd, 2012 Todd’s favorite snack food: Plain M&Ms Official website: Here Registration link: Here I’ve heard New England is beautiful this time of year. If you love SharePoint and watching leaves change color, this is the event for you!  Hope to see you there, tk ShortURL: http://www.toddklindt.com/SPSNH | | | Todd O. Klindt | 8/25/2012 10:58 AM | Netcast | 0 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 8/22/2012 10:47 PM | SharePoint 2010; SharePoint 2013; SharePoint 2013 Preview; PowerShell | 7 | | Now that SharePoint 2013 is out, you should all be writing PowerShell to take advantage of it. There have been some great improvements to PowerShell in SharePoint 2013. In other cases, the cmdlets you’ve come to know and love in SharePoint 2010 have new names in SharePoint 2013. What’s a PowerSheller to do? You could maintain different scripts for each environment. You could also have one script and when it starts ask the user which version of SharePoint is installed. Or, you could just have PowerShell ask itself.  You can determine which version of SharePoint is installed with this line: (Get-PSSnapin microsoft.sharepoint.powershell).Version.Major The Major version for SharePoint 2010 is 14, and 15 for SharePoint 2013. If you want to get all fancy, you could do something like this: # Check which version of SharePoint is installed # Add the snapin, in case it's not already installed
Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue $ver = (Get-PSSnapin microsoft.sharepoint.powershell).Version.Major
If ($ver -eq "15" )
{
Write-Output "SharePoint 2013 is installed"
}
elseif ($ver -eq "14")
{
Write-Output "SharePoint 2010 is installed"
}
else
{
Write-Output "Could not determine version of SharePoint"
}
This code will tell you which version you have. You can modify it for your own scripts. Enjoy, tk ShortURL: http://www.toddklindt.com/WhichSPVerPosh | | | Todd O. Klindt | 8/11/2012 10:51 PM | SharePoint 2013; SharePoint 2013 Preview; PowerShell | 4 | | This blog post was written about the Preview of SharePoint 2013. This behavior may be different in the RTM version of the product. One of the biggest additions to SharePoint 2013 is the introduction of the App model. I’m not going to go into a lot of detail on it here. It’s essentially a framework for publishing code that extends the functionality of SharePoint. As with anything, it needs to be installed and configured to work correctly. Mirjam van Olst (Blog | Twitter) has a great blog post on how to do this. This post is not designed to replace her post, only augment it. Mirjim’s post walks you through how to configure it all. My blog post will show how to do the same SharePoint tasks in PowerShell. The first thing you need to do is read Mirjam’s blog post to understand what you’re doing. Then go back and do all the steps she outlines in DNS. Create all the zones and records. You can make the DNS changes in native PowerShell, but it’s ugly. It requires some gnarly WMI. Alternatively you can use the DnsShell Codplex project. (thanks, Jonathan) That should take you to the “Configuring SharePoint” section. Here is the PowerShell I used to create those service applications, start their service instances, and configuring the paths you defined in DNS. # Assumes you have a Service App Pool named "Default SharePoint Service App Pool" $apppool = Get-SPServiceApplicationPool "Default SharePoint Service App Pool" $appname = "App Management Service" $dbname = "AppManagement_DB" # Create the App Management service and start its service instance $sa = New-SPAppManagementServiceApplication -ApplicationPool $apppool -Name $appname -DatabaseName $dbname New-SPAppManagementServiceApplicationProxy -ServiceApplication $sa -Name "$appname Proxy" Get-SPServiceInstance | Where-Object { $_.typename -eq "App Management Service" } | Start-SPServiceInstance # Create the Subscription Settings service and start its service instance $sa = New-SPSubscriptionSettingsServiceApplication -ApplicationPool $appPool -Name "Subscription Settings Service" -DatabaseName "Subscription_Settings_Service_DB" New-SPSubscriptionSettingsServiceApplicationProxy -ServiceApplication $sa Get-SPServiceInstance | where{$_.TypeName -eq "Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Subscription Settings Service"} | Start-SPServiceInstance # Configure your app domain and location # assumes path of app.contoso-apps.com Set-spappdomain -appdomain "contoso-apps.com" Set-spappSiteSubscriptionName -Name "app" That should do it. That should get you the same service applications and settings and Mirjam’s post. tk ShortURL: http://www.toddklindt.com/SP2013AppDomainPosh Updated 8/14/2012 with better PowerShell for the App Management service (thanks, Spence) and a link to the DNSShell Codeplex project. | | | Todd O. Klindt | 8/9/2012 9:29 PM | Netcast | 0 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 8/9/2012 9:17 AM | SharePoint 2013; SharePoint 2013 Preview; PowerShell | 5 | | This blog post was written about the Preview of SharePoint 2013. This behavior may be different in the RTM version of the product. One of the new features of SharePoint 2013 is the ability to save your custom navigation in the Managed Metadata Service Application. Some of my coworkers were playing with it and noticed it worked fine on farms set up with the Farm Configuration Wizard (Booooo!) but did not work on Farms where the service applications had been lovingly created by hand. With the help of the very fashionably bearded Randy Drisgill, we were able to find the difference and fix it. I would tell you how now, but I’m building up for the big reveal at the end. Big reveals are the hallmark of great storytelling. We found the problem when going to a site collection with the Publishing Feature enabled and going to Site Settings > Navigation. We tried to enable the Managed Navigation, which stores our custom navigation links in the Managed Metadata service. Here’s what the problem looked like: 
We checked the two boxes to enable Managed Navigation. Since we were turning it on for the first time we didn’t have a term set created to store our navigation in. Clicking the “Create Term Set” button on the bottom resulted in the following error: Failed to create term set. A default managed metadata service connection hasn’t been specified. This message made it sound like the service application wasn’t created (it was) or that it wasn’t in this web application’s proxy group (it was), but that wasn’t the case. Randy discovered there’s a magic checkbox in the Proxy for the Managed Metadata Service application that makes it available for navigation. The Farm Configuration Wizard checks that checkbox. I hadn’t. Here’s how to do it. Go into Central Admin > Manage Service Applications and highlight the Managed Metadata Service Proxy. Then click Properties in the Ribbon. 
In the Properties for the Proxy, check the box next to “This service application is the default storage location for column specific term sets.” 
If you’d prefer to do it with PowerShell (and honestly why wouldn’t you?) you can do it like this: 
and for your copying and pasting pleasure: $saproxy = Get-SPServiceApplicationProxy | Where-Object { $_.typename -like "Managed*" }
$saproxy.Properties.IsDefaultSiteCollectionTaxonomy
False
$saproxy.Properties.IsDefaultSiteCollectionTaxonomy = $true
$saproxy.Update() Regardless of how you change that setting, either through PowerShell or the wimpy way through Central Admin, you should be able to create a Term Set when enabling Managed Navigation. Victory looks something like this: 
Your screen may or may not say “Boom!” on it. tk ShortURL: http://www.toddklindt.com/SP2013ManagedNav | | | Todd O. Klindt | 8/5/2012 11:09 PM | SharePoint 2013; SharePoint 2013 Preview | 7 | | This blog post was written about the Preview of SharePoint 2013. This behavior may be different in the RTM version of the product. Each religion has their own version of the creation story. They vary on the details, but I’m pretty sure they all agree on one point. The day after creation, everyone lamented that there wasn’t a fancy icon next to the PDF files in their SharePoint libraries. It’s been a problem that long. To make matters worse, SharePoint has also never natively indexed PDF files either. We’ve been forced to install Adobe’s free PDF iFilter (which might not be worth what we paid for it) or the much better Foxit iFilter, but it costs money. It was a tough decision that every business had to make, because every business has scads (I think that’s a metric term) of important information in PDF files. In poking around in SharePoint 2013 I noticed both of those problems are finally resolved. I was setting up some search demos and I dropped some PDF files into a document library, just to see what happened. I was pleasantly surprised to see this: 
Keep in mind this is all out of the box functionality, I haven’t installed any software on this machine to deal with PDF files. That fancy icon came out of the box, and the ability to find results in a file came out of the box too. Glory be! tk ShortURL: http://www.toddklindt.com/SP2013PDF | | | Todd O. Klindt | 8/3/2012 11:24 AM | SharePoint 2010; SharePoint 2013; SharePoint 2013 Preview; PowerShell | 4 | | This blog post was written about the Preview of SharePoint 2013. This behavior may be different in the RTM version of the product. It’s been a tough pill to swallow, but like my friend Wictor Wilen put it, Claims is the new black. Keeping that in mind, I’ve decided to embrace Claims and pretend like I’ve liked it all along. I put my newfound love of Claims to the test this week when I was building out a shiny new SharePoint 2013 farm. Since I’ll be doing this a lot I decided that I should use my BFF PowerShell to script as much as I could. This included creating my Web Applications. Wictor’s blog post covers it, but let me recap. In SharePoint 2013 the default authentication provider is Claims. If you create a Web Application in Central Administration you don’t get the option for Claims or Classic like you did in SharePoint 2010. It’s just Claims. If for some reason you do need a Classic Web Application, you can create it in PowerShell with the New-SPWebApplication cmdlet. However, since Claims and I go way back, I wanted to create a Claims web application. Turns out that’s harder to do than I thought it would be. In my head one of the switches of New-SPWebApplication would let me specify that I wanted the fancy new Claims, but alas that was not the case. I also thought that since Claims was the default if I just didn’t specify anything that I’d get a Claims Web Application. I was wrong. That’s twice in one day! I did however get something that I thought would help: 
This gives me a stern talking to and tells me that Classic is deprecated and that I should use Claims. Buddy, I’m already on board! It does give me hope though, it points me to a URL. Of course, quick like a bunny, I pasted that URL into the nearest web browser I could find. Unfortunately that page is just the MSDN documentation for New-SPWebApplication. Like the message above says, it mentions you have to specify an AuthenticationProvider parameter, but it doesn’t tell you which parameter. Curses, foiled again! Back to the drawing board. I did some furious Binging and found out the part I needed. Before I call New-SPWebApplication I need to create a SPAuthenticationProvider object to pass it. If I play my cards right, that object will tell SharePoint to hook me up with that gooey Claimsy goodness. The PowerShell looks like this: 
Here it is in text for your copying and pasting pleasure. $ap = New-SPAuthenticationProvider -UseWindowsIntegratedAuthentication -DisableKerberos
New-SPWebApplication -Name "Shane Stinks" -ApplicationPool "Default SharePoint Web Apps" -HostHeader shanestinks.contoso.com -Port 80 -Url http://shanestinks.contoso.com -AuthenticationMethod NTLM -AuthenticationProvider $ap -DatabaseName "WSS_Content_ShaneStinks" Notice a few things about this. First, creating a new Web Application is now more steps. We have to create the SPAuthenticationProvider object, then we pass that to New-SPWebApplication. New-SPAuthenticationProvider has a few switches, so be sure to do a help New-SPAuthenticationProvider before you use it, so you use the right switches. Second, you’ll notice that even though I’m creating a Claims aware Web Application I still get yelled at about it. Is it never enough for you New-SPWebApplication?? If you doubt yourself you can use this PowerShell to verify your new Web Application is really down with Claims: 
Get-SPWebApplication | select displayname, url, UseClaimsAuthentication You can also verify this in Central Admin. Since we didn’t specify any Claims Providers this will give us the plain Jane Windows Authentication. If you want to create a Web Application that uses a different Claims Provider the steps are different. Fortunately there are a lot of blog posts that cover that, so you’re in good shape. tk ShortURL: http://www.toddklindt.com/CreateClaimsWebApp | | | Todd O. Klindt | 8/1/2012 10:30 PM | Netcast | 2 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 7/30/2012 2:39 PM | SharePoint 2010 | 0 | | After many weeks of slacking on my part it is finally now possible to buy my self-published book, “Free Advice” as a non-DRMed PDF file. This opens it up to non-Kindle devices and to markets that Amazon doesn’t handle. Hurray! If you want to buy the PDF version point your favorite web browser at http://store.toddklindt.com. There you’ll find a very convenient “Buy Now with PayPal” button. Go ahead, click it, it won’t bite. That’ll take you to a PayPal page. You can either put in your PayPal details or use your credit card. Once I get the glorious email that yet another person has bought the book I spring into action! I’ll create you an account and send you the username and password information. Armed with that you can sign in to http://store.toddklindt.com and begin enjoying Free Advice like all your friends are. If you have bought the book at Amazon, first, “Thank you” second if you forward your email receipt to store@toddklindt.com I’ll give you, at no charge, a username and password to http://store.toddklindt.com so you can grab the PDF copy as well. You buy it once, you get it in every format I have available. That’s the Todd Klindt promise!  If you would like a format besides PDF, let me know. I’ll see what I can do. tk ShortURL: http://www.toddklindt.com/FreeAdvicePDF | | | Todd O. Klindt | 7/27/2012 10:56 AM | SharePoint 2013 Preview | 15 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 7/26/2012 2:53 PM | Netcast | 0 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 7/18/2012 6:50 PM | SharePoint 2013; SharePoint 2013 Preview | 10 | | My First SharePoint 2013 Installation We all remember our first time, whatever that means.  In this blog post I want to walk you through your first SharePoint 2013 installation. The public beta has just been announced, and can be downloaded here. There are hoards of rabid SharePoint lovers out there that can’t wait to get their hands on it. Hopefully after this blog post you’ll have a working and functional SharePoint 2013 VM to tear into and start your learning. You can also use it to impress your friends if your TV isn’t as big as theirs. This blog post is not the SharePoint 2013 version of my SharePoint 2010 Install Guidance blog post. It’s much, much too early for that. And SharePoint 2013 is not even finished. This blog post will just hold your hand through the install to get it up and running. After we’ll all played with it for a few months (or years) then we’ll have a better idea what the “do”s and “don’t”s are. This is not a best practices document. The first step is to get your platform ready. In my case that’s a Windows 2008 R2 server with all the patches on it. SharePoint 2013 requires at least SP1 for Windows 2008 R2, so I patched it to the gills. As I expect resources requirements for SharePoint 2013 to be higher I gave this VM 10 GB of RAM. Since it’s a test environment I’m also running SQL 2012 on this box and it’s an Active Directory Domain Controller. You should never do this in production, but I cheated a little for this blog post. For the time being I’m creating the same users as I did for SharePoint 2010. You can find that list in this blog post. I also installed SQL 2012. I installed Enterprise Edition, but any edition should work. Go ahead and make sp_install a local admin (or domain admin if you’re foolish like me and doing it on a DC) on the VM, and like SharePoint 2010, give it the DBCreator and SecurityAdmin Server Roles in SQL. Now that the groundwork is laid it’s time to get to the exciting part and actually install SharePoint 2013. The download is an IMG file and mounts as a virtual optical drive. For my virtualization software to see it I had to rename it to an ISO file. You may need to do some other dance to get it to work. Mount it up and let’s get this party started. As you’re walking through the install you’ll notice that it’s not radically different than the SharePoint 2010 install. You should feel very at home during this process. Like SharePoint 2010 the first step is to run the Prerequisites. 
This process is very similar to the SharePoint 2010 version, though as times have changed, so have the list of the Prerequisites. Here is the list Prerequisites that SharePoint 2013 installs: 
The developers in the audience (I know you’re out there) will love that the .NET Framework 4.5 is there. This will download all the latest versions of the files need to make SharePoint 2013 run. If your server does not have Internet access you can download the files ahead of time and point the Prereq installer at your local copies. You might get to reboot your server after the Prereq installer is finished. Consider this a good time to refill your coffee or see what those crazy cats at I Can Haz Cheezburger are up to. If you do get to reboot, make sure the Prerequisite Installer gives you the “Installation Complete” message. That lets you know it has done its job and you can move on. Added 7/27/2012 After you run the Prerequisite Installer don’t forget to run The Forgotten SharePoint 2013 Prerequisites. After that’s finished go back to the splash screen and click “Install SharePoint Server” You’ll notice these screens are also very familiar. Make sure you pass the SharePoint Installation Intelligence Test and don’t click “Stand-Alone.” If your machine has a D drive, move as many of the installation files off of the C drive as you can. 
If you do everything right, hopefully you’ll see this screen: 
On my VM they weren’t kidding, this did take a few minutes. I passed the time with The Oatmeal this time. When the installation if finished we’re greeted by another familiar screen. 
Under normal situations we would uncheck the “Run the SharePoint Products Configuration Wizard now.” box with extreme prejudice. However, this early in the product cycle, I went ahead and ran it. For those of you just getting your feet wet with SharePoint 2013, this is probably an okay option. Though be completely prepared for a blog post in a couple of months saying how dumb people are that run this wizard. It’s already in draft mode. The steps of install are almost page by page identical to the SharePoint 2010 installation. You need to answer all the same questions you answered three years ago. Once again it’s a best practice to put the Central Administration port on my anniversary date, 1026. Just kidding. The first time I ran through the wizard I got this error: 
(insert sad trombone sound here) Error messages have gotten pretty good lately, and this is another example of that. This error told me that my SQL instance’s “maxdegree of parallelism” (MAXDOP) setting was not compatible with SharePoint 2013’s needs. The default value is 0. In SharePoint 2010 it was suggested that MAXDOP be set to 1. In SharePoint 2013 it’s downright demanded to be 1 or greater. If the account you’re running the wizard as (in my case sp_install) has permission on the SQL instance to change the MAXDOP setting, it will change it and move out smartly. If not, you get the error message I got above. To remedy this, change the setting and rerun the wizard. Unfortunately this error happens after the SharePoint_Config DB is created but before the Admin_Content_Database is created. To make matters worse, when you rerun the wizard, it can’t reuse the existing SharePoint_Config database, so you need to delete it before you rerun the Config Wizard. You’ll probably need to toggle the “Delete backup…” and “Close existing connections” options when you delete the database. 
Besides that little nugget, the wizard looks just like it did in SharePoint 2010. Fill it out with the same values you did before and sit back and enjoy the show. Now’s a good time to discover Hyperbole and A Half. When the first wizard is finished it fires up the new Central Admin for you. We’ll cover those changes in a later blog post. One thing that is the same is its insistence on asking you to report your errors to the Customer Experience Improvement Program. 
For test environments like this and especially with beta products I recommend participating. It’s good to let Microsoft know where the problems are, so they can fix them for you. After you answer “yes” to you’re brought a screen asking if you want to run the Farm Configuration Wizard. Normally we wouldn’t just answer “no” but “heck no!” However, we’re dealing with beta software here. So I swallowed hard and went ahead and ran the wizard. I gave some money to charity afterwards, so my karma all balanced out. 
The Farm Configuration Wizard hasn’t changed a lot from SharePoint 2010. The biggest change is the addition and removal of some service applications. Here are our choices: 
We see some familiar faces as well as some new friends. I’ll cover these changes in later posts. For now, accept the defaults and click “next.” When you click next you’ll get this screen: 
There are two things to note about this screen. First is the friendly message, “Sorry to keep you waiting.” No more stuffy messages for us. Only friendly, apologetic ones. Second, this screen has a bug. It will never go away. Well, eventually it will, but it’ll take a power outage or a server crash. To know when everything has been installed, I watched Task Manager. I kept an eye on the W3WP.exe and OWSTIMER.exe processes. They spun up while things are being created, then finally calmed back down. Once they spun down I killed the Internet Explorer window and opened up a new Central Administration window. Mine probably ran for 10 or 15 minutes. Welcome to your new home: 
It looks a lot like SharePoint 2010, right down to the red bar telling me I’ve screwed something up. That’s the end of the installation post. In later posts we’ll go into the configuration steps and some of the changes that show up in SharePoint 2013. tk ShortURL: http://www.toddklindt.com/sp2013install Edit 7/27/2012 to add the forgotten prerequisites. | | | Todd O. Klindt | 7/18/2012 2:49 PM | SharePoint 2013 | 3 | | Now that the SharePoint 2013 beta is on the streets, it’s time to start keeping track of those glorious build numbers. This blog post will have all the build numbers, their friendly names, how to get them, and what I know about them. Just like my SharePoint 2010 Build Number post, let me know if there are things I can change, or any content I should add.
To see which build your farm is, go to Central Administration > System Settings > Manage servers in your farm (/_admin/FarmServers.aspx)
Or using Windows PowerShell: (get-spfarm).buildversion
To see which build your farm is at with Fiddler, open the site in question and view Inspectors > Headers and under Miscellaneous check the build under MicrosoftSharePointTeamServices header.
To see which build your products are, go to Central Administration > Upgrade and Migration > Check Product and patch installation status. (/_admin/PatchStatus.aspx)
Patch terminology KB article.
Follow SP2013Patches on Twitter for immediate updates when this list changes or I add a regression to a patch.
ShortURL: http://www.toddklindt.com/sp2013builds
Build Number |
Build Name |
Component |
Information Link |
Download Link |
Notes |
| 15.0.4128.1014 |
Beta |
SharePoint Foundation 2013 |
|
Download |
Bugs, Notes, & Regressions |
| 15.0.4128.1014 |
Beta |
SharePoint Server 2013 |
|
Download |
|
| 15.0.4128.1014 |
Beta |
Project Server 2013 |
|
Download |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 15.0.4420.1017 |
RTM |
SharePoint Foundation 2013 |
|
Download |
Bugs, Notes, & Regressions |
| 15.0.4420.1017 |
RTM |
SharePoint Server 2013 |
|
Download |
|
| 15.0.4420.1017 |
RTM |
Project Server 2013 |
|
Download |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 15.0.4433.1506 |
December 2012 Hotfix |
SharePoint Server 2013 |
KB2752058 |
Download |
Bugs, Notes, & Regressions |
| 15.0.4433.1506 |
December 2012 Hotfix |
SharePoint Server 2013 (coreserver) |
KB2752001 |
Download |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 15.0.4481.1005 |
March 2013 Public Update |
SharePoint Foundation 2013 |
KB2768000 |
Download |
Bugs, Notes, & Regressions |
| 15.0.4481.1005 |
March 2013 Public Update |
SharePoint Server 2013 |
KB2767999 |
Download |
|
| 15.0.4481.1005 |
March 2013 Public Update |
Project Server 2013 |
KB2768001 |
Download |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 15.0.4505.1002 |
April 2013 CU |
SharePoint Foundation 2013 |
KB2751999 |
Download |
Bugs, Notes, & Regressions |
| 15.0.4505.1005 |
April 2013 CU |
SharePoint Server 2013 |
KB2726992 |
Download |
|
| 15.0.4505.1005 |
April 2013 CU |
Project Server 2013 |
KB775426 |
Download |
|
tk
| | | Todd O. Klindt | 7/12/2012 9:24 PM | Netcast | 0 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 7/10/2012 2:13 PM | SharePoint 2010; SharePoint 2007 | 2 | | I don’t know about your family, but at our house we look forward with giddy anticipation for Patch Tuesday. The kids get all dressed up in their best patched clothes and we all sit huddled around the laptop feverously hitting F5 on the SharePoint patches page to see if something new comes out. We were not disappointed today. Microsoft patch MS12-050 includes among other things, a critical security patch for SharePoint 2010. This patches an elevation of privilege exploit. This patch is pretty important and you should probably get it on your SharePoint servers as soon as is responsible. Test it if you can in your test environment first. The patch will install automatically as part of Windows Update. So be careful if you just blindly approve patches in WSUS or if you let Windows Update just update your servers. By looking at the build numbers of the files included it looks like it fits after SP1, but before the rerelease of the April 2012 CU. If you have the April 2012 CU or June 2012 CU I don’t believe you need this patch. The fixes are already installed. If you do not have SP1 installed already you’ll need to install it before you can install this patch. After this patch is installed you’ll need to run the Configuration Wizard on all the boxes in your farm to finalize its installation. As always you can look at http://www.toddklindt.com/sp2010builds to see which patch level your farm is at. If you have any questions, let me know. tk shorturl: http://www.toddklindt.com/MS12050 | | | Todd O. Klindt | 7/5/2012 8:36 PM | Netcast | 2 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 7/2/2012 3:01 PM | SharePoint 2010; Sharepoint | 10 | | After many months of procrastination and a little “not knowing what the hell I’m doing,” my self-published eBook “Free Advice” is finally available on the Amazon Kindle. It’s a collection of all my blog posts about SharePoint 2010, but in a convenient ebooky format. As this blog is open to the world, I consider it free advice. And you know what they say about free advice, it's worth every penny you paid for it. The posts are broken down into five parts:
Installation
Battling the User Profile Service
Stuff about SQL
PowerShell Awesomeness
Posts That Didn't Go Anywhere Else
Each post gets its own chapter, its own little moment in the sun. Along with each blog post I provide background on what inspired me to write the post. Then I cover what I’ve learned since I originally published the post. Finally each chapter ends with the comments left about the post on his blog. While not always helpful, sometimes the comments are quite funny.
Since the bulk of this content is already available on the Internet, during the rare moments when my blog is available, I threw in an extra chapter to sweeten the deal. Chapter 44, "Todd’s Top Twelve Troubleshooting Tips" is all new and original for the book. It won't appear on this blog for at least 60 days. This chapter contains 12 techniques I use when trying to ferret out SharePoint problems. Plus the chapter title has alliteration and every man, woman, and child loves alliteration.
For phase 1 the book is only available through Amazon for the Kindle. You can order it from this link. Eventually it’ll be available as unDRMed PDF, MOBI, and any other format I can think of. My plan is that if someone buys it in any format that I’ll give it to them in the rest of the electronic formats. So if you buy the Kindle version now, you’ll be able to download the other versions at no extra charge when I get them ready. If you have any requests for formats, let me know. Also, being in the US my experience with buying things online is very US centric. If you can’t get it in your area, or have any problems or suggestions, let me know. I’ll do whatever I can to make it easy for you to buy it.  If you do buy the book, please do me a favor and leave a review at Amazon. The reviews and ratings there can make or break a book. Anything you can do to help will be greatly appreciated. tk Buy it at Barnes and Noble, too! Buy PDF version directly from me. shorturl: http://www.toddklindt.com/FreeAdvice | | | Todd O. Klindt | 7/1/2012 10:37 AM | Sharepoint; SharePoint 2010 | 7 | | Whew! It’s July 1st, and I can breathe again. I’ve been holding my breath for the last two weeks or so. My MVP renewal date is July 1st, and it’s always an anxiety filled couple of weeks leading up to it. Fortunately I just got the email I was looking for, “Against our better judgment we’re keeping you in the MVP program for another year,” or words to that affect. Whew! You can read more about the MVP program at the official site. In short, it’s a bone Microsoft throws guys like me for being active in the community, and providing free marketing and support for their products. The things I do to maintain my MVP status are things like this blog, my Netcast, running a User Group, and other community things. The thing in common with all that is you guys. If you guys didn’t read my blog in the short bursts while it’s online, suffer through my netcasts, and go to the user group I wouldn’t provide any value. So thank YOU for continuing to make this possible. I really appreciate it. Thanks, tk shorturl: http://www.toddklindt.com/mvp2012 | | | Todd O. Klindt | 6/22/2012 9:59 PM | SharePoint 2010; SQL | 6 | | If you’ve read my blog one or twice or heard me speak at a conference you know how much developers pick on me. It’s like junior high all over again, but I am getting stuffed in fewer trash cans, so that’s nice. This week the vast developer conspiracy found a new way to stick it to me.
I was just minding my own business, installing the SQL 2008 R2 version of SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) for a customer. After I got the bits installed I started configuring SSRS and I got this lovely message:
For the benefit of search engines here’s the text of the message:
The feature: “Using other editions of SQL Server for report data sources and/or report server database” is not supported in this edition of Reporting Services.
I was installing SSRS on a server running SharePoint, and the SQL backend database server was a different machine. This error seems pretty straight forward. The edition of SSRS I’m installing doesn’t support having its databases on another server. This was news to me. I had done this a dozen times (some of them even worked) and it’s supported. Just to be sure I double-checked the version of SQL I had installed from and it was the Enterprise Edition. All should be good. But yet, it wasn’t.
Despite the error being very clear that this was a problem with SSRS, I decided to look at the backend database server I was trying to use. Here was the problem:
The backend server was running the Developer Edition of SQL 2008 R2. The Developer Edition of SQL server is available to MSDN subscribers. It has the same functionality (except SSRS, apparently) as the Enterprise Edition of SQL Server, but it licensed for use by developers in development and test environments. When I was writing my Installing SSRS 2012 without upgrading your database server blog post I encountered the same problem. The VM I was using to test that blog post was also running the Developer Edition of SQL Server and I got similar issues. Could I be having the same problem on this server? On a hunch, I pointed the SSRS install at an instance of SQL server that was running the Enterprise Edition. Surprise, surprise, it worked just fine.
Once again, developers and poor error messages conspire against me. Fortunately I was able to defeat them.
tk
ShortURL: http://www.toddklindt.com/NoSSRSonSQLDE | | | Todd O. Klindt | 6/21/2012 4:54 PM | Netcast | 1 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 6/20/2012 2:27 PM | SharePoint 2010; Sharepoint; SQL; PowerShell | 20 | | SQL 2012 RTMed last month (March 2012) with much fanfare. For us SharePoint types, SQL is a big deal, as SQL is the backbone of SharePoint. SQL 2012 has a few new or updated features that are of interest to SharePoint aficionados, but this blog post is specifically about SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS). SSRS got a major overhaul in SQL 2012. It is finally a SharePoint service application. Anyone that has installed SSRS previous to SQL 2012 can appreciate how big of a deal that is. SSRS 2012 is better than SSRS 2008 R2 in a whole lot more ways, but as an IT Pro, the installation and management improvements take the cake.
But what if you already have SharePoint 2010 in place, and it’s running on a SQL 2008 R2 database backend? Do you get to enjoy all the gloriousness that is SSRS 2012 without upgrading your entire SQL instance to 2012? Of course you can, or else this would be a very, very short blog post. This blog post will walk you through installing the SQL 2012 version of SSRS even though all your databases are a SQL instance that is not 2012.
First, I must take a minute to thank Steve Caravajal. This blog post is all his idea. I overheard him telling someone else about this and I stole his idea. Shhhhh! Don’t tell him. He’s difficult enough to get along with without him getting a big head. Enough about Steve, let’s get back to SSRS.
The TLDR version is this; run the SQL 2012 installer on one of your SharePoint boxes. Only install the SSRS components. Then create an SSRS service app.
Here’s the longwinded version. First you need to acquire the SQL 2012 installation. You need the Standard, BI or Enterprise editions of SQL 2012 to use SSRS. Be careful with the Developer Edition, or evaluation edition. I had some issues with “Edition Mismatch” errors when I used them. It also wouldn’t hurt if you had a SharePoint 2010 farm handy, too. On your SharePoint server run the SQL 2012 installation. Instead of installing the database engine and all the other fun stuff, just install the Reporting Services bits and the SQL Server Management Studio, like this:
That’ll install all the fresh and funky new SSRS bits you want. After the installation is complete start up Central Admin and browse to the Manage Service Applications page. Click New and see what we’ve got there:
Go ahead, click it. It won’t bite. It will walk you through creating a shiny new SSRS service application. Whoopee! Let’s look at the screens:
Give the service app an appropriate name. Put your database server’s name in the server database blocks. This is the important part. That database server does NOT need to be SQL 2012. This TechNet article explains the database backed for SSRS 2012 can be any version of SQL from 2005 to 2012. You’ll also want to remove the evil GUID off of the default Database name.
Then choose the web apps you’ll be using SSRS with. You’ll see this screen:
And then this one:
Hurray! At this point you have SSRS installed, but you still need to configure it. I haven’t done much of that yet, so I’m not going to cover it in this blog post.
I do want to mention that not only do you get a UI for creating and configuring SSRS, you also get a batch of PowerShell cmdlets as well:
Here you can see running Get-SPRSServiceApplication returns back the service application I just created. You can configure SSRS with Central Admin, or if you want to show off, you could finish it up in PowerShell. Go ahead. I dare you.
Here’s another good link to help you get SSRS 2012 running.
I hope this blog post helps you start digging into SSRS 2012 sooner, rather than later.
tk
Edited to add the Standard license | | | Todd O. Klindt | 6/15/2012 11:41 PM | | 2 | | Well, poop. I’ve done it again. Due to a comedy of errors my blog crashed and once again I found myself with not enough backups. Will I ever learn? As of today (6/15/2012) it’s back online. I was able to recover all of the blog posts, but there’s a lot more to do. Right now none of the ShortURLs are working. Also, some of the blog posts that I’ve edited since March (like the build numbers one) are still the old version. I’ll get them updated too. Also, none of my Netcasts are online yet. As you can imagine, they’re taking a really long time to upload. I need an intern. Thanks for your patience. Like I said last time, I’ll be putting more backup processes in place. While it may appear otherwise, I really don’t engine these fire drills every three months. Honest, I don’t. tk | | | Todd O. Klindt | 6/8/2012 11:29 PM | Netcast | 2 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 5/31/2012 11:29 PM | SharePoint 2010 | 1 | | This has been in the works for a few months, and I probably should have blogged it before now. Those of you that suffer through my Netcast have been hearing about this for a while. I have decided to self-publish a collection of my SharePoint 2010 blog posts. The title of the book is “Free Advice (And Worth Every Penny).” It contains 43 of my blog posts on SharePoint. They’re broken down into five sections: - Installation
- Battling the User Profile Service
- Stuff about SQL
- PowerShell Awesomeness
- Posts That Didn’t Go Anywhere Else.
For each chapter I open with what inspired me to write the blog post. That’s followed by the blog post itself. The third part of each chapter is what I’ve learned since that blog post was written. Sadly, that section has a lot stuff in it. Finally I end each chapter with the comments people have left about the post on my blog. There’s some good information in there too. There’s also a fair amount of “you suck,” so you know I didn’t censor it much. As a bonus to you all the buy the book Chapter 44 is an eBook exclusive. It’s a chapter that has never been published on my blog, “Todd’s Top Twelve Troubleshooting Tips.” Catchy, eh? The only way to get that chapter, for at least 30 days, will be to buy the book. After the book’s been out for 30 days I might publish Chapter 44 to my blog, I haven’t decided. My blog posts make fine blog posts (some might argue that) but they needed some cleanup to be good enough for book chapters. I hired an editor to turn them into intelligible English. She did more work than I thought she would have to, but it turned out well. Initially I wasn’t going to have her alter the blog posts at all. After seeing all the problems she found, I’m glad I did. I’m new to this self-publishing stuff, so I’m kind of fumbling my way around. To get through the process I’m publishing it in phases. The first phase will be to the Amazon Kindle Store and to a PDF file downloadable here. Phase 2 will be getting it out to other devices like Nook, iBook, Kobo, Sony, etc. They take a little different formatting that I’ll need to figure out. The price will be $5 USD. That $5 will get you the book in all of the formats. The files will also not have any DRM. I want this to be as easy for people to consume as possible. I’m working out the logistics of it all, but that’s the plan. You pay $5 once and you get access to it on every platform you want. The book will hopefully be ready in a couple of weeks. It’s written and edited. I need to finish the cover, then start working on the formatting. Worried you’ll miss out when it’s published? Don’t, I’ll be spamming all over when it’s out. Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Geocities, and of course, here.  I’m pretty excited about this, and I hope you all are too. I’m curious to hear your feedback about the book once it’s out, and just self-publishing in general. tk | | | Todd O. Klindt | 5/24/2012 11:28 PM | Netcast | 0 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 5/8/2012 11:28 PM | Netcast | 0 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 5/7/2012 11:27 PM | Netcast | 0 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 4/27/2012 11:26 PM | Netcast | 0 | | Tonight's netcast was a long one. After taking last week off I had a lot to cover this week. I started off by telling everyone about the new, and even longer Kerberos white paper. Then, for something completely different, I talk about the improvements a CU made to the User Profile Service. I also talk about a bug I encountered with FAST server and how I fixed it. I talk about a weird service application issue and I encountered. Don't worry, I beat it. Then I cover a couple of migration issues I came across. This one has a lot of great information in it. You might have to listen to it twice to get everything out of it.
MP3 File  WMV File M4V (iPod) File Running Time: 34:19 Links: Kerberos White Paper updated February 2012 CU improvements to the User Profile Service SQL 2012 CU1 
| | | Todd O. Klindt | 4/13/2012 11:26 PM | Netcast | 0 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 4/8/2012 11:25 PM | Netcast | 1 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 4/6/2012 11:22 PM | | 0 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 3/31/2012 11:20 PM | Netcast | 0 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 3/24/2012 11:19 PM | Netcast | 0 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 3/21/2012 11:18 PM | SharePoint 2010; PowerShell; User Profile Service | 1 | | In the last week I’ve been asked for this information a few times, so I decided to go ahead and blog it. I’ve been hesitant to put out an official blog post on this, because I don’t think it’s ready for prime time. But, it keeps coming up, so here it is, the steps I follow when I install SharePoint 2010.
Before we get into the actual steps, let me tell you about a couple of caveats. First, this list is NOT comprehensive. There are a lot of pieces that aren’t in this list. I started this list to keep me from forgetting steps, or from doing steps out of order. Steps that I don’t normally forget, or don’t benefit from being done in a specific order, aren’t on the list. It doesn’t mean they aren’t necessary, they just aren’t on this guy’s list. Second, I link to a lot of PowerShell in these steps. PLEASE, PLEASE look over every single script before you run it on your server. There are some bad scripts in there. Some have passwords and app pools hard coded in them. Really, really bad ideas. They were written for use in my VMs, so I took some shortcuts. Before you run any of these scripts, read them from top to bottom to make sure they’ll work in your environment. I can’t stress that enough, I write some really terrible PowerShell scripts. They’re awful.
Also, I don’t use either of the wizards when I build a farm. Step 7 explains how I build the farm without the Configuration Wizard. Steps 10 – 23 or so cover the tasks the Farm Configuration Wizard would do. If either wizard tries to run, cancel them.
Here’s the list:
- Confirm Service Accounts
- Slipstream SharePoint install up to at least SP1, maybe December 2011 CU
- Install Prereqs
- Install ADO.net patch if necessary
- Install SharePoint 2010
- Start-Transcript
- Create Farm
- Install OWA if they're available
- Install any CUs if they were not slipstreamed in
- Create managed accounts
- Create content web app
- Create mysite web app
- Create Mysite host site collection
- Add SharePoint web apps to Hosts file
- Create State Service
- Create Usage Service app
- Create Managed Metadata Service
- Start MMS service instance
- Create Search Service app
- Add PDF Icon & iFilter
- Run a full crawl to verify everything works
- Create User Profile Service app
- Create other service applications as needed
- Web Analytics
- Secure Store
- Config Blobcache
- Gpupdate /force & reboot
- Run all Health Analyzer rules
As I expect there will be some feedback to this I will probably edit it to refine the steps. If you have questions or suggestions, leave me a comment.
tk
Edit 3/22 to break slipstreaming out as its own step and add the paragraph about the wizards | | | Todd O. Klindt | 3/21/2012 11:16 PM | SharePoint 2010 | 0 | | Are you going to DevConnections next week in Vegas? Do you like free books? Are you willing to put up with me to get one? You’re in luck! Rackspace is sponsoring a book signing at their book on Tuesday. Not only will you get to hear about all of Rackspace’s great products, and get to hang out with me, if you get there soon enough you will even get an autographed copy of Professional SharePoint 2010 Administration. Oh, and Steve will be there too, sorry. The official press release is here, http://www.rackspace.com/blog/visit-rackspace-at-devconnections-meet-sharepoint-mvp-author/ Here’s the important info: When: Tuesday March 27th, 2012, 5:30 to 7:00 PM (while books last) Where: DevConnections, Rackspace booth #107 in the expo hall Who: ME! Oh, and steve See you there. tk | | | Todd O. Klindt | 3/18/2012 11:15 PM | Netcast | 0 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 3/16/2012 11:14 PM | Netcast | 0 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 3/2/2012 9:55 PM | Netcast | 5 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 2/24/2012 2:57 PM | Netcast | 1 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 2/21/2012 10:16 PM | Netcast | 0 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 2/18/2012 1:26 PM | Netcast | 2 | | | | | Todd O. Klindt | 2/16/2012 8:04 AM | | 7 | | Rackspace bought SharePoint911!! You guys have no idea how much this news has been killing me to share. As of this morning, SharePoint911 is owned by Rackspace, and this is huge. I’ve been a huge fan of Rackspace, and more importantly the people at Rackspace, for years now. I’ve had a hosted server from them (though not for this blog, yet) for many years and always been very happy with its performance and the support they’ve given me. Whenever I’m at a conference I always end up hanging out with the Rackspace folks and having a good time. I think working with them is going to be a blast, and I think combining their infrastructure with our SharePoint expertise is going to be an amazing combination. What does this mean? Well, in the short term, not a lot. SharePoint911 will keep on doing the things we’ve always done, whether you’re a Rackspace customer or not. I’ll keep on installing and fixing SharePoint and speaking at every conference that’ll have me. Rackspace will keep on doing what they do best. Over time our consulting services will start to be integrated somehow. I’m not entirely sure how that will all shake out just yet. You can see Rackspace’s official announcement here. If you want to offer congratulations to me, or condolences to Rackspace  feel free to leave a comment. tk |
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