Friday, June 28, 2013

SharePoint 2010 Event ID 6482

***Update: If this doesn't solve your problem, try the following.

We recently started to get the following application event log error:

Because it was a test environment we went ahead and reset the search index and restrated the search application, but the errors kept coming back.
 
The fix was to reset the cache on alll four servers in the farm. Once we did that the errors disappeared. To see directions on resetting the cache, have a look at the directions below, or go to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/939308
 
***Note*** Complete these steps on any server running the SharePoint Timer Service in the farm.
1.Stop the Timer service. To do this, follow these steps:

•Click Start, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Services.

•Right-click Windows SharePoint Services Timer, and then click Stop.

•Close the Services console.

2.On the computer that is running Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and on which the Central Administration site is hosted, click Start, click Run, type explorer, and then press ENTER.

3.In Windows Explorer, locate and then double-click the following folder:

Drive:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\SharePoint\Config\GUID

Notes

◦The Drive placeholder specifies the letter of the drive on which Windows is installed. By default, Windows is installed on drive C.

◦The GUID placeholder specifies the GUID folder.

◦The Application Data folder may be hidden. To view the hidden folder, follow these steps:

1.On the Tools menu, click Folder Options.

2.Click the View tab.

3.In the Advanced settings list, click Show hidden files and folders under Hidden files and folders, and then click OK.

◦In Windows Server 2008, the configuration cache is in the following location:

Drive:\ProgramData\Microsoft\SharePoint\Config\GUID

4.Back up the Cache.ini file.

5.Delete all the XML configuration files in the GUID folder. Do this so that you can verify that the GUID folder is replaced by new XML configuration files when the cache is rebuilt.

Note When you empty the configuration cache in the GUID folder, make sure that you do not delete the GUID folder and the Cache.ini file that is located in the GUID folder.

6.Double-click the Cache.ini file.

7.On the Edit menu, click Select All.

8.On the Edit menu, click Delete.

9.Type 1, and then click Save on the File menu.

10.On the File menu, click Exit.

11.Start the Timer service. To do this, follow these steps:

•Click Start, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Services.

•Right-click Windows SharePoint Services Timer, and then click Start.

•Close the Services console.

Note The file system cache is re-created after you perform this procedure. Make sure that you perform this procedure on all servers in the server farm.

12. Make sure that the Cache.ini file has been updated. For example it should no longer be 1 if the cache has been updated.

13.Click Start, point to Programs, point to Administrative Tools, and then click SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration.

14.Click the Operations tab, and then click Timer job status under Global Configuration.

15.In the list of timer jobs, verify that the status of the Config Refresh entry is Succeeded.

16.On the File menu, click Close.

SharePoint 2010 Event ID 6482 - Part 2

This is a follow up to an earlier blog post we wrote. In that case, clearing the SharePoint cache on all the servers in the farm did the trick. We recently saw the 6482 event log error again and tried clearing the cache, but this time it didn't work.

What else was going on?

  • We had just migrated the SharePoint databases from SQL 2008 to SQL 2012.
  • Looking at the services on the search server, the SharePoint Server Search 14 service would fail starting up.
  • When we tried to do anything in Application Management - Manage Service Applications - Search Service Application (ex: look at content sources, crawl log, crawl rules, etc...) it would generate a SharePoint error with a correlation ID.
How did we fix it?

After scouring the Internet, we found someone who got the search app running again by adding the service account used to run the search application to the local admin group on the server. Once we did that, we were able to start the SharePoint Server Search 14 service through the services interface. Once it was going, we simply removed the account from the admin group.

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Azure Virtual Machine Time Sync

We've built a few domains on Azure to host Active Directory, SharePoint, SQL, etc... After a while we started to notice that the time on the severs would get out of sync. It wasn't a big difference, but enough that we started to see issues with the applications. The source of the problem is load on the Hyper-V hosts that host the VM's. When load gets too high, it causes time issues.The easiest thing to do seems to be to set a time source on all the servers.

Here are the steps we used:

  1. Open a command prompt on your domain controller. To see the current time difference: w32tm /stripchart /computer: time.windows.com /samples:5 /dataonly
  2. Open UDP port 123 for outgoing traffic if needed.
  3. Open UDP port 123 (or a different port you have selected) for incoming NTP traffic.
  4.  Type the following command to configure the PDC emulator and then press ENTER:
     w32tm /config /manualpeerlist: time.windows.com /syncfromflags:manual /reliable:yes /update
  5. The next steps have to be run on the computers in the domain.
  6. Open a Command Prompt and type the following command and then press ENTER:
     w32tm /config /syncfromflags: domhier /update
  7. Type the following command and then press ENTER:
     net stop w32time
  8. Type the following command and then press ENTER:
     net start w32time
Note: You may also use Group Policy to make all the domain clients to sync time with PDC emulator in the domain.

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Windows Azure Infrastructure (IaaS) is Ready for Prime Time!

We just got an alert from Microsoft that Azure virtual machines and networks are generally available. If you're like us you've been testing out the VM capabilities for a while, but it's now production. We just put the finishing touches on a domain and SharePoint server farm all built on Azure VM's. After stumbling through it for a couple of weeks, we now have the process down and can spin up entire environments in a matter of hours. We'll be producing a white paper shortly to show you how it's done.

Here's the announcement with a few interesting links:
Windows Azure Infrastructure Services, Virtual Machines and Virtual Network, now are generally available!
 
Today is a major milestone for Windows Azure and all of our customers and partners. We are excited to announce that Windows Azure Virtual Machines and Windows Azure Virtual Network now are generally available. These new services make it possible for you to move your applications into the cloud as is. We also want to update you on a new price commitment we’ve made.

This announcement is a significant step in our cloud computing strategy, which has been influenced directly by our discussions with customers and partners around the world. One point holds true in every one of our discussions with you - the cloud should be an enabler for innovation, and an extension of your organization’s IT fabric, not just a fancier way to describe cheap infrastructure and application hosting.
This brief video explains what we mean by extension of your organization’s IT fabric.
 
You’ve also told us that you don’t want to have to choose either a low price or good performance; you want a low price and good performance. That’s why today we are also announcing a commitment to match Amazon Web Services prices for commodity services such as compute, storage and bandwidth.  This starts with reducing our GA prices on Virtual Machines and Cloud Services by 21-33%. 
 
You can find the general availability announcement and the price reduction details at Windows Azure Blog.

We have great guidance on scenarios in which you can take advantage of Windows Azure Infrastructure Services. Learn more at our
Infrastructure Services page and get going with a free trial at www.windowsazure.com today.
   



 

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

SharePoint Conference 2012 Keynote is Now Online

If you were unable to make it to Las Vegas for the annual Microsoft SharePoint Conference, you can watch the keynote right here and see what Microsoft is sharing about the future of SharePoint. Speakers include Jared Spataro, Jeff Teper, Scott Guthrie, and David Sacks.

Some highlights:
  • Drag and drop files from your desktop to SharePoint Online (Office 365) document libraries.
  • Deep integration with personal and corporate SkyDrive.
  • Conversations are attached to all sites by default.
  • Aggregation of SharePoint, Exchange, and Project tasks.
  • SharePoint 2013 Windows phone app for version 7 and 8
  • Yammer social capabilities will be integrated into SharePoint to improve communication both internal to your company, and externally with partners and customers. Over 200,000 companies use Yammer including 85% of Fortune 500.
  • Access SharePoint documents from Yammer.
  • Yammer will be free to SharePoint online customers.
  • Cloud, cloud, and more cloud. You can run your own servers, but they recommend cloud.
  • Search - personal re-find links will show when you search for things you've already looked at saving you from going to the search results page. Search results will give links to sections inside a document.
  • You can now create SharePoint content with virtually any designer tool (not limited to SharePoint Designer).
  • eDiscovery uses discovery sets and queries to make you a hero to legal. Works across multiple Microsoft Enterprise apps (ex. Exchange).
  • "Site mailboxes" show data like a document library in your Outlook .
  • 40% better use of bandwidth.
  • 4X image compression.
  • The new Cloud App Model Ecosystem allows developing SharePoint apps for on-premise or SharePoint Online.


Wednesday, October 31, 2012

SharePoint 2013 RTM Available

Just noticed on MSDN that SharePoint Server 2013 is available for download. Office 2013 is there as well. If you don't have volume licensing, you can probably expect to get your hands on it in early December. For preview copies you and other developer tools, you can go here.

This is a little earlier than the November date we'd been hearing fo a while.

Enjoy!


SharePoint Server 2013 on MSDN


Monday, October 22, 2012

SharePoint Farm on Windows Azure

***Update: Microsoft Azure Infrastructure is live (no longer demo) as of April 16th, 2013***

Microsoft recently announced that you can install SharePoint on virtual machines (IaaS) on Azure.

Why would you want to do this? The main motivator is the speed at which you can bring the environment up. If you don't have a robust Hyper-V or VMware environment in house, Azure gives you an easy way to spin up servers with no trips to the data center and no ordering/provisioning hardware. Unlike the Office 365 offering, you have complete control over your SharePoint farm and guaranteed uptime of 99.9%.

What type of SharePoint environment is a candidate for Azure?
  • SharePoint for Internet Sites - Move your external website to Azure and you don't need to deal with DMZ's and firewalls (or your networking co-workers).
  • Developer, Test and Staging - Bring them up and blow them away as needed. With Azure PowerShell this can all be scripted.
  • Hybrid Applications - You can setup a SharePoint environment that pulls or pushes data to applications in your local data center (on-premise).
  • Disaster Recovery - When your local environment takes a hard nap, bring it up in Azure and then blow it away when you get it restored.
To learn all about the offering, check out the following paper from Microsoft:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=34598

You can also find a great article detailing how to setup a basic Azure SharePoint farm with step-by-step instructions and screen shots over at PointBeyond.

You can also watch the following video from Channel 9 presented at TechEd.  

SharePoint 2010 Event ID 7043

We recently noticed the following error in the Application event log on our SharePoint 2010 servers:




A quick Google search turned up the following article on the SharePoint forum: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/sharepoint2010setup/thread/c894d98c-24ab-416c-aca9-ae57644deb5e

It turns out the issue is caused by bad code. Simply do a search for the file called TaxonomyPicker.ascx (C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\TEMPLATE\CONTROLTEMPLATES) and open it up in Notepad. Do a search for the characters “,” and replace it with a “,” (minus the quotation marks in both cases).

From this:


To this:



Thanks to Brian Lala, this can all be accomplished by creating and running the following script:

# Powershell script to implement the fix suggested in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2481844

$TaxonomyPickerControl = "$env:CommonProgramFiles\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\TEMPLATE\CONTROLTEMPLATES\TaxonomyPicker.ascx"
Write-Host " - Making a backup copy of TaxonomyPicker.ascx..."
Copy-Item $TaxonomyPickerControl $TaxonomyPickerControl".bad"
$NewTaxonomyPickerControl = (Get-Content $TaxonomyPickerControl) -replace ',', ","
Write-Host " - Writing out new TaxonomyPicker.ascx..."
Set-Content -Path $TaxonomyPickerControl -Value $NewTaxonomyPickerControl
Write-Host " - Done! Press any key to exit..."
$null = $host.UI.RawUI.ReadKey("NoEcho,IncludeKeyDown")


Microsoft finally release a KB article on the issue which can be found here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2481844

Saturday, October 20, 2012

SharePoint 2013 - Everyting We Know!!!

***Update October 31st - SharePoint 2013 and Office 2013 are now available for download****
http://imperfectit.blogspot.ca/2012/10/sharepoint-2013-rtm-available.html

Microsoft just released a pile of info on the next version of SharePoint. Check the link for everything you need to know:  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc303422(v=office.15)

Download the SharePoint 2013 Server preview
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/hh973397.aspx?wt.mc_id=TEC_121_1_33

Office 2013 training site
http://officepreview.microsoft.com/en-us/support/training-FX101782702.aspx

Download SharePoint Designer 2013
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30346

Download SharePoint 2013 Foundation
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30345

Download SharePoint 2013 Client SDK
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30355

IT Pro training material
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vesku/archive/2012/07/17/sharepoint-2013-it-pro-and-developer-training-materials-released.aspx

Download SharePoint 2013 IT PRO Training material
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30361

Office/SharePoint 2013 store
http://officepreview.microsoft.com/en-us/store/apps-for-sharepoint-FX102804987.aspx

MSDN for Office and SharePoint 2013
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/office/apps

Download SharePoint 2013 technical library compiled
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30382



Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Exchange 2010 Archiving Features

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Why would you want to get rid of .pst files and move the data into Exchange server archive databases?
  • Unmanaged files Generally, .pst files are created by users and reside on their computers or network shares. They aren't managed by your organization. As a result, users can create several .pst files containing the same or different messages and store them in different locations, with no organizational control.
  • Increased discovery costs Lawsuits and some business or regulatory requirements sometimes result in discovery requests. Locating messaging data that resides in .pst files on users' computers can be a costly manual effort. Because tracking unmanaged .pst files can be difficult, .pst data may be undiscoverable in many cases. This could possibly expose your organization to legal and financial risks.
  • Inability to apply messaging retention policies Messaging retention policies can't be applied to messages located in .pst files. As a result, depending on business or applicable regulations, your organization may not be in compliance.
  • Risk of data theft Messaging data stored in .pst files is vulnerable to data theft. For example, .pst files are often stored in portable devices such as laptops, removable hard drives, and portable media such as USB drives, CDs, and DVDs.
  • Fragmented view of messaging data Users who store information in .pst files don't get a uniform view of their data. Messages stored in .pst files are generally available only on the computer where the .pst file resides. As a result, if users access their mailboxes using Outlook Web App or Outlook on another computer, the messages stored in their .pst files are inaccessible.
  • Dispersed Disk Usage Users create .pst files then put them in multiple locations causing laptops and desktops to run out of disk space. Often they make copies of them “to be safe”. This has a negative impact on backups.
Where can you put an archive mailbox?
You can provision a user's personal archive on the same mailbox database as the user's primary mailbox, another mailbox database on the same Mailbox server, or a mailbox database on another Mailbox server in the same Active Directory site. This provides flexibility to use tiered storage architecture and to store archive mailboxes on a different storage subsystem, such as near-line storage. In cross-premises Exchange 2010 deployments, you can also provision a cloud-based archive for mailboxes located on your on-premises Mailbox servers.

What are the client requirements to use archives?
Client
Access to archive mailbox
Outlook 2010, Outlook 2007, and Outlook Web App
Yes. Outlook 2010, Outlook 2007 and Outlook Web App users can copy or move items from their primary mailbox to their archive mailbox, and can also use retention policies to move items to the archive.
Note:
Outlook 2010 and Outlook 2007 users can also copy or move items from .pst files to their archive mailbox. Outlook 2007 users require the Office 2007 Cumulative Update for February 2011. Some differences in archive support exist between Outlook 2010 and Outlook 2007. For more information, see Exchange Team Blog article, see Yes Virginia, there is Exchange 2010 archive support in Outlook 2007.
Outlook 2003 and older clients
No.
Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync
No.

Note:
What do you need as far as licensing?

Personal archives are a premium feature and require an Exchange Enterprise client access license (CAL). For details about licensing Exchange, see Exchange Server Licensing. For details about the versions of Microsoft Outlook required to access an archive mailbox, see License requirements for Personal Archive and retention policies.

Is data from your archive added to the .ost file of Outlook users who are using caching?
Outlook doesn't create a local copy of the archive mailbox on a user's computer, even if it's configured to use Cached Exchange Mode. Users can access an archive mailbox in online mode only.
Do delegates of a mailbox get access to the associated archive data?
Yes
How can users move messages into the archive?
  • Move or copy messages manually Mailbox users can manually move or copy messages from their primary mailbox or a .pst file to their archive mailbox. The archive mailbox appears as another mailbox or .pst file in Outlook and Outlook Web App.
  • Move or copy messages using Inbox rules Mailbox users can create Inbox rules in Outlook or Outlook Web App to automatically move messages to a folder in their archive mailbox. To learn more, see Learn About Inbox Rules.
  • Move messages using retention policies You can use retention policies to automatically move messages to the archive. Users can also apply a personal tag to move messages to the archive. For details about archive and retention policies, see Archive and Retention Policies later in this topic.
Note:
Personal tags are available only in Outlook 2010 and Outlook Web App.
  • Import messages from .pst files In Exchange 2010 SP1, you can use a mailbox import request to import messages from a .pst file to a user's archive or primary mailbox. For details, see Understanding Mailbox Import and Export Requests. Tools used to locate .pst files within an organization are available from Microsoft partners. For a list of Microsoft partners for archiving, see "Archive and Compliance Partners" in Independent Software Vendors.

What are archive and retention policies?
You can apply archive policies to a mailbox to automatically move messages from a user's primary mailbox to the archive mailbox after a specified period. Archive policies are implemented by creating retention tags that use the Move to Archive retention action.
Messages are moved to a folder in the archive mailbox that has the same name as the source folder in the primary mailbox. If a folder with the same name doesn't exist in the archive mailbox, it is created when the Managed Folder Assistant moves a message. Re-creating the same folder hierarchy in the archive mailbox allows users to find messages easily.
Important:
You can't apply a managed folder mailbox policy to mailboxes that have a personal archive. Managed content settings created for managed folders can't use the Move to archive action. To learn more about managed folders, see Understanding Managed Folders.
Exchange Setup creates the default archive and retention policy Default Archive and Retention Policy. This policy contains retention tags that have the Move to Archive action, as shown in the following table.
Default archive and retention policy
Name
Type
Retention age (days)
Retention action
Default 2 years move to archive
DPT
730
Move to Archive
Personal 1 year move to archive
Personal tag
365
Move to Archive
Personal 5 year move to archive
Personal tag
1,825
Move to Archive
Personal never move to archive
Personal tag
Not applicable
Move to Archive
Recoverable Items 14 days move to archive
Recoverable Items folder
14
Move to Archive
1 Week Delete
Personal tag
7
Delete and Allow Recovery
1 Month Delete
Personal tag
30
Delete and Allow Recovery
6 Month Delete
Personal tag
180
Delete and Allow Recovery
1 Year Delete
Personal tag
365
Delete and Allow Recovery
5 Year Delete
Personal tag
1,825
Delete and Allow Recovery
Never Delete
Personal tag
Not applicable
Delete and Allow Recovery

If you enable a personal archive for a mailbox user and the mailbox doesn't already have a retention policy assigned, the default archive and retention policy is automatically assigned. After the Managed Folder Assistant processes the mailbox, these tags become available to the user, who can then tag folders or messages to be moved to the archive mailbox. By default, e-mail messages from the entire mailbox are moved after two years.
Archive policy in Outlook 2010 and Outlook Web App
Before provisioning archive mailboxes for your users, we recommend that you inform them about the archive policies that will be applied to their mailbox and provide subsequent training or documentation to meet their needs. This should include details about the following:
  • Functionality available within the archive, the default archive and retention policies.
  • Information about when messages may be moved automatically to the archive.
  • Information about the folder hierarchy created in the archive mailbox.
  • How to apply personal tags (displayed in the Archive policy menu in Outlook and Outlook Web App).
Note:
If you apply a retention policy to users who have an archive mailbox, the retention policy replaces the default archive and retention policy. You can create one or more retention tags with the Move to Archive action, and then link the tags to the retention policy. You can also add the default Move to Archive tags (which are created by Setup and linked to the Default Archive and Retention Policy) to any retention policies you create.
In Exchange 2010 SP1, the default archive and retention policy contains additional retention tags with the Delete and Allow Recovery action. To learn more, see Understanding Retention Tags and Retention Policies.
Is there a quota on the archive database mailboxes?
Yes, and it’s based on size. You can configure archive mailboxes with an archive warning quota and an archive quota. When an archive mailbox exceeds the specified archive warning quota, a warning event is logged in the Application event log. When an archive mailbox exceeds the specified archive quota, messages are no longer moved to the archive, a warning event is logged in the Application event log, and a quota message is sent to the mailbox user. By default, in Exchange 2010 SP1, the archive warning quota is set to 45 gigabytes (GB) and the archive quota is set to 50 GB.

Source: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd979795.aspx