Craig Lussier

Have you encountered the error: "iexplore.exe – Application Error : The exception unknown software exception (0xc06d007f) occurred in the application at location 0×7c812a5b" while attempting to open an Office document from SharePoint? I have. Until I found the solution, this was quite annoying to say the least.

Essentially, the issue is conflicting versions of the OWSSUPP.DLL file in your Office 11 and Office 12 installations (respectively Office 2003 and 2007) which provides SharePoint client support. When both Office 11 and 12 are installed on the same computer, and if certain conditions are true, the older (Office 11) OWSSUPP.DLL is used by SharePoint and attempts to utilize functionality that is not available (it really wants to use the functionality in the Office 12 OWSSUPP.DLL) hence the IE crash. If the following are true, in the order in which they are presented you will run into this issue:

• You install a Microsoft Office 2003 product on the computer.
• You install one or more 2007 Office system programs on the computer.
• You repair or update the installation of an Office 2003 product.

So for myself, I had Office 2003 Professional installed on my machine. I installed SharePoint Designer 2007. Over time, updated my Office installation as recommended by Microsoft. That certainly fits the conditions. I have found the error to occur not only when attempting to open a document in a SharePoint document library, but at times simply when attemption to open a document library in the first place. I am happy that this hotfix exists, and I am sure I am not alone.

Visit http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938888/ for all the details.

Cheers,

C.

Please be advised that the Microsoft TechNet forums for SharePoint Products and Technologies have been moved to a new location. The specific location for the SharePoint Products and Technologies forums is http://forums.technet.microsoft.com/en-US/tag/sharepoint/forums/. So update your Favorites/Bookmarks!

The general path to the new style TechNet forums is http://forums.technet.microsoft.com/en-US/forums/ where you can find all categories. All forums have not been moved to the new location yet and you can visit the 'old' (but still running) location at http://forums.microsoft.com/technet. For completeness, if you visit the 'old' location and click on a SharePoint forum, you will be redirected to the new area.

C.

The recently formed International SharePoint Professionals Association (ISPA) is an independent, not-for-profit, community-driven organization dedicated to support SharePoint professionals and groups all around the world. The primary mission is to promote the global adoption of Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies by providing support and guidance to the community as a whole – by establishing connections between SharePoint professionals and groups, resources, education and information. For more information about the ISPA, check out their website at http://www.sharepointpros.org/ and for some more insight, read Bob Fox's blog who is a SharePoint MVP and founding board member of the ISPA.

I am excited that the Toronto SharePoint Users Group (TSPUG) is on the map! I've been an active member of TSPUG for a few years now. If you work with SharePoint in any capacity and reside in the Greater Toronto Area, I encourage you to keep an eye on the activities of TSPUG. Although the users group is currently on summer break and will reconvene in September, we have monthly meetings (September – June) that include a meet and greet, Q&A Roundtable and a presentation based on a topic requested by the user group. We also host the Toronto SharePoint Camp which is a free annual one day conference put on by the SharePoint community, for the SharePoint community. The next Toronto SharePoint Camp will be held in the Fall, and I will post details as soon as they are made available.

It is great to see the formation of the ISPA as I know many n the community who have been working hard for quite a while to get this off the ground. Thanks to everyone who was involved in getting the ISPA going, and special thanks to Eli Robillard and Reza Alirezaei for being the ISPA Evangelists for Canada. The Canadian SharePoint community has great leaders, and I look forward to what the future will bring.

Cheers.

A prerequisite for installing SQL Server 2005 on Windows Server 2008 is enabling the Web Server (IIS) role. See "Installing IIS 7.0 on Windows Server 2008" at http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/29/installing-iis7-on-windows-server-2008/ for a walkthrough of installing IIS.

To ensure that SQL Server 2005 installs without IIS Feature Requirement warnings, you need to add the role services as outlined below:
(Note: see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/920201 for details)

I ran into this issue the first time I did this install and just thought I'd share the solution.

I hope this helps. C.

After my post about my home office development environment using Hyper-V, I received comments and some emails regarding requirements, specifications and compatibility with virtual machines from Virtual Server 2005 R2 and Virtual PC 2007. Please note, that my main expertise is development (i.e. I am not a network or hardware guy), so my experience related to using Hyper-V only includes virtualization for development environments. I am going to summarize the high level details one should know about Hyper-V when considering an implementation. I would say that this is more for developers that wish to get up and running with Hyper-V, but this info is applicable to anyone using (or wishing to use) Hyper-V. I am going to write this post as a Q&A.

Q. What is Hyper-V?

A. Hyper-V is a server role within Windows Server 2008. It is a hypervisor-based technology that provides a scalable, reliable, and highly available virtualization platform. Hyper-V is only available on Windows Server 2008 x64 Editions as it requires a 64-bit processor that supports hardware-assisted virtualization and hardware data execution protection.
(parts paraphrased from http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/hyperv-faq.aspx)

Q. What is Windows hypervisor?

A. A core component of Hyper-V, Windows hypervisor is a thin layer of software between the hardware and the OS that allows multiple operating systems to run, unmodified, on a host computer at the same time. It provides simple partitioning functionality and is responsible for maintaining strong isolation between partitions. It has an inherently secure architecture with minimal attack surface, as it does not contain any third-party device drivers.
(copied from http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/hyperv-faq.aspx)

Q. What are the general system prerequisites for Hyper-V (software and hardware)?

A. Hyper-V requires Windows Server 2008 x64 (Datacenter, Enterprise or Standard) and an 64-bit processor that supports hardware-assisted virtualization and hardware data execution protection.

• Software Notes:
• Windows Server 2008 x64 (Datacenter, Enterprise or Standard). The version of Hyper-V included in the RTM version of Windows Server 2008 is not the RTM version of Hyper-V. You'll need to install Update for Windows Server 2008 x64 Edition (KB950050)
• Hyper-V cannot be enabled on systems running inside virtual machines or on x86 versions of Windows Server 2008.
• You can use Hyper-V MMC on Windows Server 2008 x86 editions and on Vista SP1 for remote management of Hyper-V systems.
• Hyper-V Updates (use as appropriate)
• Update for Windows Server 2008 x64 Edition (KB950050)
• Update for Windows Server 2008 (KB950050)
• Update for Windows Vista for x64-based Systems (KB952627) 
• Update for Windows Vista (KB952627) 
• Hyper-V Release notes (at the time of writing, this was published on July 3, 2008)

• Hardware Notes:
• Hyper-V requires an x64-based processor, hardware-assisted virtualization, and hardware data execution protection. Most newer 64-bit processors from Intel and AMD will do the job just fine as they support virtualization (AMD64 or Intel IA-32e/EM64T (x64) processors with hardware-assisted virtualization support), but be sure to look into a processors virtualization support before purchasing.
  (parts of this point copied from http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/hyperv-install.aspx)
• You can download SecurAble to see if your current processor supports hardware-assisted virtualization and hardware data execution.
• As for other hardware items, you can be the judge for your purposes. The more RAM you have the better. The faster your hard drive read/write speeds the better performance you'll get.

Q. How do I enable the Hyper-V within a Windows Server 2008 x64 edition?

A. See http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/hyperv-install.aspx.

Q. Which operating systems can run as a guest in Hyper-V?

A. See http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/hyperv-supported-guest-os.aspx for a listing.

Q. Can I run the Hyper-V role on a Server Core installation?

A. Yes, the Hyper-V can be enabled on a Server Core installation. I have yet to do this personally, but there are some brief notes about this at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/hyperv-install.aspx.

Q. I have many existing virtual machines in Virtual PC 2007 or Virtual Server 2005 R2. Will they work in Hyper-V?

A. Yes. I have converted my virtual machines to work with Hyper-V, however I have not found it to be completely straight forward and there are things you need to know.

First, some gotchas that I found although I have not done exhaustive testing on this:

• The virtual machine additions for Virtual PC and Virtual Server 2005 R2 are not compatible with Hyper-V. You will need to uninstall them before using the VHD in Hyper-V.
• Depending on your version of Windows, you may need to re-activate your Windows OS. I really don't like this but the OS sees hardware changes and I believe this to be the cause. If anyone knows a way around this, I would be grateful.

General Steps to convert a Virtual PC 2007 or Virtual Server 2005 R2 VHD to work in Hyper-V:

1. First, make sure you have the fully up-to-date RTM version of Hyper-V.
2. Second, make sure your guest OS in Virtual PC or Virtual Server are fully patched with the latest service pack.
3. Copy the VHD file to a the location that you'll be running it with Hyper-V.
4. Open the copied VHD file in Virtual PC or Virtual Server.
5. Uninstall the Virtual Machine Additions. These are not compatible with Hyper-V and will cause problems.
6. You may be prompted to Activate windows again. Select ask again later as we will do this when it is running in Hyper-V.
7. Save the changes to the virtual machine and close Virtual PC or Virtual Server.
8. Fire up Hyper-V. Create a new virtual machine and attach the existing hard disk.
9. Install the Integration Components (these have been renamed as they used to be called Virtual Machine Additions)
10. Reboot the virtual machine in Hyper-V. When it comes back up, all should be well. I've noticed that networking doesn't work until a reboot when Integration Components are installed. 
11. Re-activate windows if necessary.

Q. I have my virtual machines running in Hyper-V, but my laptop, which I need to use sometimes for client presentations, has a 32-bit processor. What can I do?

A. To be honest, I have not tried converting a Hyper-V VHD for use in Virtual PC 2007 or Virtual Server 2005 R2 (will be doing so soon and will update this post with my findings) but I suspect if it is possible you'll have to uninstall the integration components first (similar to converting a VHD for use in Hyper-V from Virtual PC or Virtual Server – see above question). Another thing, that if this does work, it will only work with 32-bit operating systems as Virtual PC 2007 and Virtual Server 2005 R2 only support 32-bit guest operating systems. If anyone has done this, I would be grateful if you could please share your experiences as I need an answer myself. More on this soon when I do the research…

Q. Does the virtualization team at Microsoft have a blog?

A. Yes. http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/

Q. Where can I get more information about Hyper-V?

A.

• Hyper-V on TechNet - http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/servermanager/virtualization.mspx.
• Hyper-V TechNet forum - http://forums.technet.microsoft.com/en-US/winserverhyperv/threads/. (Note: There is a sticky post indicating that "We are currently migrating this forum. Therefore we have disabled posting new threads and messages. Please be patient with us during this process. When migration is complete, this url will redirect to its new location."). So this can be used as a reference, but for the time being, not to ask questions.
• There are some webcasts available.
• Search the Internet. There are more and more blog articles written all the time about Hyper-V.

I recently purchased a new computer for my home office that has a 2.66 Intel Core 2 Quad processor, 8GB of dual channel DDR2 RAM and 1TB of hard drive space. I also have an external 500GB hard drive making a total of 1.5TB of hard drive space in my environment which really comes in handy.

When I was shopping around for a new computer that would fit my requirements, I got the sense that many home computers on the market targeted to home users are simply way overpowered for what the average user would ever utilize. No average user would ever push the machine I purchased anywhere near its capacity in terms of processing power not to mention that most software does not use 2 cores never mind 4 cores. With that said, I knew I'd be able to push this hardware to the limit as a developer.

So my machine came bundled with Vista Home Premium x64. This wasn't good enough for what I wanted to do so I quickly upgraded it to Vista Ultimate x64. I happen to like Vista as my home OS (for fun and gaming), but I needed something more powerful with a bigger bag of tricks for a development environment. Enter Windows Server 2008 x64 Enterprise Edition into the picture. My first impression of this server is it is awesome! I would not consider myselft to be a network or server guy, but I easily setup my machine to have a dual boot configuration with Vista Ultimate x64 and Server 2008 Enterprise x64. I am very pleased that Hyper-V is a native part of Server 2008 (x64 editions), and it just what I needed for a great single machine development environment.

I have many virtual machines for different scenarios, but at most times I have the following guests running:

• XP Professional (x86) with Visual Studio Team Suite 2005 & 2008
• Vista Ultimate (x64) with Visual Studio Team Suite 2005 & 2008
• Server 2008 Enterprise x64 running Office SharePoint Server 2007 (for a great discussion on setting this up see Eli Robillard's blog post on setting up a SharePoint development machine. Its targeted at Windows Server 2003 R2 but it will certainly help)
• Server 2008 Enterprise x64 running Visual Studio Team Foundation Server
• Server 2008 Enterprise x64 running SQL Server 2005 Enterprise

In the past I've tried Virtual PC or Virtual Server 2005 R2 but I wasn't overly satisfied with performance and at this point I can't use them for my purposes anyway as I wanted to try all the x64 atchitectures and both products don't support x64 guests. The Hyper-V role in Server 2008 makes all the difference as it supports hardware virtualization for both x86 and x64 guests. You need to make sure that your processor supports virtualization (most new processors on the market do). Also, you'll need to modify your BIOS to enable virtualization as this is generally disabled by default before installing the Hyper-V role in Server 2008.

I setup my host Server 2008 as a domain controller so I have a very basic domain, active directory and dns server setup. This makes my environment feel more like a real network as all virtual machines are on this domain. A big shout out and many thanks the network guys at my workplace for guiding me through setting up my domain and making it work 'right'.

After running this setup for a little while, the only perceived issues I have are hard drive read/write speeds and RAM allocation. My motherboard supports 8GB and all slots are full. This is not to say that these are really issues at all for my purposes, but it would run even better on a production server class machine.

I am excited and pleased with this setup and honestly for a techie like me, with all things considered, it is close to a dream come true for a single machine home office development environment.

So has anyone pushed Hyper-V for their development environments? I'd like to hear from you if you have experiences to share. If you have not and have an opportunity to try it, I'd highly recommend it.

Cheers,

C.

Download my Presentation (Notice: Although this is my own work, I am posting this presentation with permission from my employer)

Attached to this post is a PDF copy (in a zip file) of my PowerPoint Slides from my presentation at the Toronto SharePoint Users Group. I am currently employed by Torys LLP, a law firm based in Toronto and New York. My presentation based on some of our experiences related to governance, architecture and taxonomy within our SharePoint project. I've been working with SharePoint for years, and I am happy that I have had the opportunity to share my experience with SharePoint within the context of my workplace, and am pleased that my employer was completely on board and supportive throughout the presentation process.

I will be expanding on this presentation and will have the opportunity to present it again in the future. I will post a notice when/where this will take place. Also, I'll be writing a white paper on Governance in SharePoint covering the aspects of governing business process through to the supporting governance features available in SharePoint. This will take a while and will post it when I am satisfied it is complete. Stay tuned!

C.

I have done many investigations into the best ways of getting supplementary profile data sources (i.e. from sources other than Active Directory) and the following are some considerations one should review before constructing a solution.

SharePoint can connect the enterprise, and user profile data is no exception. The most common approach is to use an Active Directory implementation as the master source for user profile data. Another option for a master data source is to use LDAP. But what do you do when you wish to have data from other systems 'integrated' with your user profiles in SharePoint 2007? Well, the real answer is… It depends…

First, here are the options for including supplementary sources in user profiles:

• Business Data Catalog (BDC)
• Databases

Problem with the BDC and User Profiles:
The first gotcha surrounds multivalued columns. It is great that SharePoint User Profiles now support the concept of multivalued columns, however you should carefully consider what I view as a major problem with using the BDC for supplemantry data when one or more mapped column is multivalued. According to a Microsoft TechNet article on Map[ping] User Profile Properties discussing the BDC: "Multivalued properties can be mapped …, but only the first value is imported." This is disappointing and an issue I hope Microsoft addresses in the near future. I would have used the BDC completely for supplementary profile data, but this one limitation meant that could not use the BDC as multivalue columns would be incomplete and therefore unacceptable.

-Does SharePoint really care about the original user profile data location?
-A changing world – Wrapping up the sources

I attended DevConnections in Las Vegas this year (Nov 5-8, 2007) and one of my favorite sessions was titled "PowerShell for SharePoint Developers" presented by Neil Iversen who is a regular presenter at the Minnesota SharePoint User Group. I was intrigued by this topic as up to this point did not have a chance to dive into PowerShell, let alone see what it can do with SharePoint. Personally, I felt that this session delivered a fantastic overview of the types of things you can do with PowerShell.

How many times have you said to yourself "I can achieve [x] by writing some code using the SharePoint Object Model"? That number is too high for me to predict personally… Now you can enter PowerShell into your bag of tricks as anything you can do with the SharePoint Object Model you can do in PowerShell without having to create a project in Visual Studio to do it. PowerShell is a great utility and I see a lot of work being done in the PowerShell space for SharePoint in the future.

Here is a link to Neil's blog post on PowerShell for SharePoint Developers. There are many postings online about PowerShell and SharePoint, but Neil's work is a great starting point for those new to PowerShell. I hope you find it useful. Cheers. C.