More on Sharepoint Resources

Here are some more Sharepoint resources that you can use for learning about WSS 3.0 or MOSS 2007:

1. http://www.sharepointshowcase.com/default.aspx : This has the 40 sample applications provided by MSFT - you can create an account and play with those to get a feel of what they offer.
2. http://www.microsoft.com/office/greattips/on-demandlist.mspx : MSFT Sharepoint Web-casts.
3. http://www.msd2d.com/WebSeminar/default_5.aspx : A great resource for Web Seminars on the topic.
4. http://feeds.feedburner.com/SharepointSolutionsBlog : Sharepoint Solutions Blog - an excellent resource.
5. http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms550086.aspx: “How do I…” series from MSFT on Sharepoint topics.
6. http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms561082.aspx: MSFT guide to MOSS 2007 features.
7. http://www.codeplex.com/Project/ProjectDirectory.aspx?TagName=Sharepoint: Codeplex has a lot of good articles on this topic.

You can also look into the Sharepoint category to see other URLs and information that we had posted about WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007. In the future posts, we will walk through a generic Inventory Management application that can be built using MOSS 2007 using an external database as the data store.

More content for the WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007 users

Here are some more links for the users of WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007:

TechNet Virtual labs: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/traincert/virtuallab/sharepoint.mspx

Different Application Templates for WSS 3.0: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsserver/sharepoint/wssapps/templates/default.mspx

You can use these templates as a starting point for building up your own custom applications. Instead of using the generic tables for data storage that some of these templates use, you should define your own schema if you intend to have a concurrent load and high volume.

WSS 3.0 and Reporting Services Integration

Here is a link for an excellent blog post on how to integrate WSS and Reporting Services (SQL 2005 SP2). The post is very detailed and gives a step by step guide which is very helpful in doing the integration.

And if you need to know what all those WSS tables are and how they are used, here is another excellent link that goes over those details.  Understanding how the internal data storage works is definitely very helpful to understand how the whole implementation works so spend some time to familiarize yourself with these tables if you work with WSS.

WSS 3.0 and SQL Server Embedded Edition

If you have installed WSS 3.0 in a standalone configuration, the install also sets up an instance for SQL Server Embedded Edition. This is the instance where it creates it’s content management and search databases. However, when you un-install WSS 3.0 from the system, it does not automatically remove this instance. Here is how you can remove that instance manually:

1) Using regedit, locate this registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall

2) Search under this for “Embedded”. In the left side, click the GUID that it found via the search. Then, copy the value under the key named: “UninstallString”.

3) Go to the command prompt and then paste the copied string. Now, write this up after that text : ” CALLERID=OCSETUP.EXE”. Press Enter.

4) This will ask for confirmation to remove this installation.

Once the un-install has been done, please do remember to re-boot for the changes to take place. However, even after you do this, though this takes care of removing the services, it still leaves the database files in the %windir%\SYSMSI\SSEE folder. Search for those mdf/ldf files and you can delete them manually.

This is also covered under a MSFT technet post. After opening up the link, search for: “Uninstalling WSUS 3.0 does not uninstall the database instance”.

If you want WSS to use some other Edition of SQL Server, you have to install it in the web farm mode and not in the standalone mode. Then, you will get the option of choosing a different SQL Server Edition Instance when you are configuring WSS 3.0.

WSS or MOSS?

Should I go with Windows Sharepoint Services or should I go with Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server 2007? This was one of the questions that was posed to us at one of the client sites. We did not have much experience with version 2007 and from our past experience with version 2003, we weren’t all that impressed but had been reading about all the new cool enhancements that MSFT did in the new version, so, we deployed it in our test lab and starting playing with it over 2 months ago and are very impressed.  We are thinking about re-doing our intranet and KMS now.  Rather than write an essay over here, I am going to point you to three very good sites which have excellent write ups on this topic and will probably help you make the choice between WSS or MOSS:

The official blog of the Sharepoint team - link.

Sharepoint Server 2007 Edition comparisons - link.

A side by side comparison between WSS and MOSS - link.