10/25/12

SharePoint, Office 2013 RTM - MSDN

Microsoft has just added SharePoint 2013, Office 2013, Visio 2013, Project 2013 and Exchange 2013 to MSDN for subscribers to download.


8/23/12

Microsoft MSDN .img file



Microsoft seems to have switched file formats from .iso to .img for some of the software available on MSDN.

What is an .img file? At first I thought I had to use Nero to burn the image to a disk and then install, but I noticed that in Windows 8 you can natively mount .iso and .img formats.

Since I don't plan on installing these .img files on Windows 8 or Server 2012 yet, you can simply rename the file from .img to .iso and then use the file as you would normally use an .iso


8/22/12

Sharepoint 2013 Preview


Sharepoint 2013 is just around the corner, full of new features to take the platform to the next level




Here are some of the new features


  • Visual Experience
    • Metro Interface
    • To brand a SharePoint site, designers just create a site design as they typically would, by implementing HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Designers can create these files by using their design tool of choice, whether that is Adobe Dreamweaver, Microsoft Expression Web, or some other HTML editor. You don't have to use SharePoint Designer or Visual Studio 2013 to brand a SharePoint site
  • App Store
    • Everything in Sharepoint 2013 is an App, lists, workflow, site pages, remote web apps, etc.
    • Make your apps available to everyone to try and buy through the public Store or only available to your employees through the corporate catalog
  • Social Networking
    • The introduction of Community Sites offers a forum experience to categorize discussions around subject areas, and connect users who have knowledge or seek knowledge about subject areas
    • My Sites for micro-blogging, allows likes, hash tags and news feed functionality following content, people and sites.
  • Integration
    • Organize all your projects and tasks to get visibility into upcoming deliverables across SharePoint, Outlook and Microsoft Project
    • Sync your content in SharePoint to your desktop with SkyDrive Pro
  • Development
    • Based on common web standards like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Furthermore, implementation relies on established protocols like the Open Data protocol (OData), and OAuth
    • Support for the newly developed web-based tool "Napa" Office 365 Development Tools for developing apps
    • Visual Studio 2012 now includes a new app project template in the Apps folder named Apps for SharePoint 2013
    •  In addition to the use of Representational State Transfer (REST) endpoints for web services, there is a broad new API for both server and client development. Remote event receivers and now supported in addition to client-side rendering
  • Cloud
    •  Improved and enhanced to support the new cloud-based architecture and app-driven development framework
    • Full support for development against the Windows Azure Workflow platform
  • Content
    • Many new features for videos and using videos on pages. A new video content type is added, and the video upload process is improved for content authors
    • Content authors can insert an iframe element into an HTML field on a page. This lets content authors embed dynamic content from other sites, such as videos or map directions
    •  Support for image renditions. Image renditions let you display different sized versions of an image on different pages
    • Cross-site publishing lets you store and maintain content in one or more authoring site collections, and display this content in one or more publishing site collections
    • Designate any library or list as a catalog. After the Cross-Site Collection Publishing feature is enabled for a site collection, you can designate any library or list within that site collection as a catalog so that content can be reused on publishing site collections
  • Localization
    • Built in integrated translation service that lets content authors select content for export for human translation or specify content for machine translation.



These are only a subset of all of the new and improved features and functionality in the Sharepoint 2013 Preview, for more information check out Microsoft's official Sharepoint 2013 sites at

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc303422(v=office.15)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj162979(v=office.15)


Download the preview at:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/evalcenter/hh973397

8/15/12

Microsoft System Center Service Manager 2012 Gotchas


I have attempted to install SCSM 2012 unsuccessfully multiple times and learned a few things that I'll share that will hopefully save someone hours of time hunting down solutions for these issues.

The first issue I ran into was during the SCSM Data warehouse management server installation, during this install you will be asked for multiple database names, rather than selecting the default names, I chose to append '2012' to all the database names. The install will fail with 2012 in the database names, I tried this in three separate environments and it failed in all three.

The next issue was the SQL instance name, if you create a new instance besides the default MSSQL and include 'MSSQL' in the name of the new instance, the installation will fail. Tried this in a couple of different environments and always a failed installation.

The last issue is during an upgrade from SCSM 2010 to SCSM 2012, about three quarters of the way through the installation it will attempt to make changes to the SSRS server, if there is a web folder on the site with the name 'Data Sources' the installation will fail. This failure will be a catastrophic failure and require a disaster recovery scenario to rebuild/reinstall. The horrible thing about this issue is that if you have been creating reporting solutions using the SQL Business Intelligence Development Studio, when you publish your projects to the SSRS server I believe it will automatically create the Data Sources Folder. For the upgrade, rename this folder, run the upgrade and the change the name back after it succeeds.


SQL 2008 Native Client Installation Error





I recently worked on a Microsoft System Center Service Manager 2012 upgrade project and on both of the management servers during the prerequisite installation the SQL Server 2008 Native Client installation would fail. After searching around through what seemed like hundreds of sites, I found a solution that works consistently.

Error Message - An error occurred during the installation of assembly 'Microsoft.VC80.CRT...




Export and delete the following registry keys...

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\SideBySide\Winners\x86_policy.8.0.microsoft.vc80 & vc90 entries…

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\COMPONENTS\DerivedData\Components\x86_policy.8.0.microsoft.vc80 & vc90 entries

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\COMPONENTS\WINNER\Components\x86_policy.8.0.microsoft.vc80 & vc90 entries.


Note: On my 2008 R2 Server the third set of keys was not present

Then run services.msc and set the "Windows Module Installer" to automatic and Reboot.
The installation will now complete successfully.

6/18/12

Cannot resolve the collation conflict between “SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS” and “Latin1_General_100_CI_AS” in the equal to operation

Working in a Microsoft System Center Service Manager 2010 database I had added a couple of new tables for doing Business Hour Calculations ( see SQL Calculate Business Hours post). I added the tables calendar and holiday for the business hour calculations and when I attempted to execute my SQL function for doing the business hour calculation between date ranges I received the error.

After searching and searching I found a simple solution. First a useful query to determine what the collation is for a columns in a table. In my case I performed the query on the calendar table and day_name and day_number were both set incorrectly.


SELECT
    col.name, col.collation_name
FROM 
    sys.columns col
WHERE
    object_id = OBJECT_ID('YourTableName')




This query will return the collation for each column specified, for me it instantly helped my identify the collation conflict and I was able to execute the following query to correct the issue.


ALTER TABLE YourTableName
  ALTER COLUMN OffendingColumn
    VARCHAR(100) COLLATE Latin1_General_CI_AS NOT NULL


After I ran the alter statement, I tried the business hour function again and sure enough it worked perfectly.



5/31/12

SQL Server 2008 - No Administrator Access



In the past I've experienced issues with SQL Server where the domain account or group that I designated for administrator access loses the ability to perform any administrative actions. Strange behavior because it will let the accounts log in to the server but anytime a domain user attempts an action that requires elevated permissions an error is thrown.

One quick solution is to logon to the machine as the local administrator rather than any domain account and use this account to re-add any domain user or group permissions. By default this account is given administrative access on the SQL server.