I decided to share all my interesting reads and resources month by month with my blog readers. You can find these posts by searching on the label Links. I'll try to order the resources in logical categories. If you would like to see some interesting stuff added in the next month, don't hesitate to post a comment.

So this is my first Links post for October 2008.

SharePoint - Design and Customization

• Auto-Refresh a SharePoint Page: Explains how to enable your SharePoint page to refresh every x seconds.


• SPListDisplaySetting (Powered by Laurent Cotton Aka Suchii - Bewise) : SharePoint feature (for WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007) providing advanced settings to customize list form rendering in new, display and edit mode. See also Customize SharePoint list form rendering in new, edit and display mode


• Folders in SharePoint document libraries - Why???: comparing advantages and disadvantages of using folders in document libraries


• Updating Content Types and Site Columns That Were Deployed as a Feature: explanation of how site columns and content types are handled internally by SharePoint

SharePoint - Business Intelligence

• Plan external data connections for Excel Services: To configure Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 to enable workbooks loaded on Excel Services in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 to successfully refresh external data, you need to understand the relationships and dependencies between Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Excel Services. The guidance provided in this article helps you resolve the Data Refresh Failed error message.

SharePoint - Tips and Tricks

• How to move/migrate SharePoint list items/documents and preserve metadata properties at the same time

Blogging - Blog Widgets

• Lijit: blog widget which allows publishers (primarily bloggers) to create their own search engine.

Continue reading......

Problem Description: VHD image over end of Windows evaluation period

Microsoft offers a great set of evaluation VHD images which you can see here (the list changes from time to time). It is great for evaluation purposes, for creating a training or testing environment or as starting point to give a demo. The only problem is that these VHD images are installed with an evaluation copy of Windows: as such they have a limited time frame: once this time frame is ended, the operating system reboots every hour... If you have created a demo VHD image based on such an evaluation image, you run into troubles once the evaluation period of the operating system has ended.
I created a demo environment based on the Office SharePoint Server 2007 VHD with lots of addings by myself. But unfortunately the evaluation period of the operating system was ended, so my system rebooted every hour. Which is really embarrassing during demos, moreover all your web server caching is lost, so your demo goes really slow after the reboot.

Solution: Upgrade Windows Server

To fix the problem, upgrade Windows Server: you'll be prompted to enter your product key. After the upgrade, you'll have a valid operating system version and not anymore an evaluation version. Only thing remaining will be to activate your newly installed Windows version

To upgrade follow exactly these steps:

• Download the Windows CDs from Technet.


• Start up your VHD image and press the CD option. Choose Capture ISO Image.... Select your downloaded Windows CD.


• Reboot your VHD image, once you get the press any key to boot from CD... message, press a key.


• Once you are up to the install/repair in the recovery console, choose to install.


• Press F8: the installer will search for an already installed version of Windows.


• Once it has found the evaluation copy of Windows, choose to repair this installation.


• You'll be asked to enter your product key.


• Installation will continue and it will reboot your VHD image.

During activation of your Windows version, you may receive following error message: Microsoft Out of Box experience has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience. This can be caused by a conflict between your current Windows installation and Internet Explorer 7.
To fix this, follow these steps:

• Open the C:\windows\ie7\spuninst folder. (Make sure hidden files are shown)


• Double click spuninst.exe which will start up the wizard to uninstall Internet Explorer 7.


• Reboot your VHD image: you'll be able to activate your Windows installation now.

Continue reading......

Problem Description: Data Refresh Failed

You have configured Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 to enable workbooks load in Excel Services. You have stored your data connection in a trusted data connection library and your Excel 2007 workbook in a trusted file location. You open the Excel 2007 workbook and you apply a filter or you choose to Refresh All Connections. Following error message is appearing:
Unable to retrieve external data for the following connections:
Connection_Name
The data sources may be unreachable, may not be responding, or may have denied you access.
Verify that data refresh is enabled for the trusted file location and that the workbook data authentication is correctly set.
Refreshing all connections or filtering with an administrator account works without problem.

Solution: Configure the Unattented Service Account

Go to SharePoint Central Administration and go to your Shared Service Provider. In the section Excel Services Settings, choose Edit Excel Services Settings. In the External Data section configure the Unattended Service Account: it should be an account with administrator rights. Execute an iisreset. Your problem should be fixed.

Continue reading......

Business requirement: Hide list fields upon creation / modification of a SharePoint list item with the SharePoint GUI

In a previous blogpost Hide list fields upon creation of a SharePoint list item, I talked about how to hide a SharePoint list field upon creation of a list item and to show it upon modification of that same list item.
Unfortunately, this is something which cannot be achieved by using merely the out-of-the-box administration tools of SharePoint, but the SharePoint Tips Utility Pack could help you out. This great tool has some disadvantages:

• You can only run it on the SharePoint server itself.
• If you are a SharePoint implementator, you can set the properties of each field with this tool. Unfortunately, if power users of the SharePoint environment afterwards want to change anything to a field, they are not able to do this anymore (whereas they are able to change views,add content types or add columns on a SharePoint list you have set up for them by going to the appropriate settings forms).

Solution: use the SPListDisplaySetting feature

Laurent Cotton created a SharePoint feature: SPListDisplaySetting, also available on CodePlex. After installing this SharePoint feature (it comes with a nice install wizard), activate the feature on your site collection.


After activation of the SPListDisplaySetting feature for the site collection, each SharePoint list will have automatically an extra topic when you go to the List Settings: Display settings (powered by Bewise) (in the General Settings section).

Clicking the Display settings will give you a form on which you can set the display properties for each field on the new item form (NewForm.aspx), the edit item form (EditForm.aspx) and the display item form (DispForm.aspx).
Following options are available for the display property on each form:

• Always: the field or column will always be visible on that particular form.
• Never: the field or column won't be visible on that particular form: you can use this to hide list fields upon creation of a new SharePoint list item as alternative solution to the one described in my blogpost Hide list fields upon creation of a SharePoint list item.
• Where: with this option you can make the visibility of the field or column depending on a condition. This adds even more functionality than what can be achieved with the SharePoint Tips Utility Pack. The conditions available are currently limited to verifying if the currently logged in user is belonging or not to a certain SharePoint group.

After setting the display properties for each SharePoint field of your list, execute an iisreset: you 'll notice right away the changes in your NewForm.aspx, EditForm.aspx or DispForm.aspx.

Continue reading......

Problem description: You do not have permission to view the membership of the group.

When clicking on a SharePoint group you don't belong to, you get the message You do not have permission to view the membership of the group. As such, you cannot see the members of that SharePoint group.

Solution: Change property Who can view the membership of the group?

Go to the Group Setting of the SharePoint group and set the property Who can view the membership of the group? to Everyone.

Continue reading......