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 Links post for April 2009.

SharePoint - Design and Customization

•   Displaying listname and sitename when querying data with CQWP

SharePoint – Development and Programming

• WSS Custom Field Type linked to Microsoft CRM entities: Create a custom field type in which a web service is called.
• Calling SharePoint web services using Visual Studio 2008, WCF, and Windows Authentication: Solution for the following error: The HTTP request is unauthorized with client authentication scheme ‘Anonymous’ .

SharePoint – Search

•   MOSS Search broken: list of search error and how to fix them.

SharePoint - Setup, Upgrade, Administration and Operation

• Upgrade from Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
• Quick Tip: Delete extended Web Application
• Moving MOSS & Project Server 2007 Databases to a new server: walkthrough.
• Database permissions (Office SharePoint Server): this article describes the databases that are created, the logins (domain or local accounts) that are granted permissions to Microsoft SQL Server 2005 and databases, and the server and database roles to which you add the logins.

Dynamics AX

• Writing a report to file, through code: Generate reports in AX as a PDF, and automatically email the reports out without having user interaction.

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 Links post for March 2009.

Problem Description: Wrong urls in SharePoint alert message

Recently I ran into a problem with the automatic generated urls in SharePoint alert messages. Each alert message has some hyperlinks in it:

• One to the site where the alert originated from
• One direct link to your alert so you can Modify the alert settings
• One to the item where the alert originated from
• One to the list where the alert originated from

The SharePoint environment was set up with two Web Applications with another authentication mechanism:

• The first Web Application was set up with Windows authentication (using corporate Active Directory credentials): I’ll call it the http://intranet url in this post.
• The second Web Application (extended from the first one) was set up with Forms Based authentication (using credentials in a Forms Authentication data store): I’ll call it the http://extranet url in this post.

For some users logging in using the Web-based form (and hence entering the Forms Based authentication Web Application, http://extranet url), the hyperlinks in the generated alert messages started wrongly with http://intranet. This was not the case for all users entering the Forms Based Web Application: for some the hyperlinks in the alert messages started correctly with http://extranet.

Problem description: Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage

At one of my customers, all of a sudden, the SharePoint website was not accessible anymore for some users. Those users were prompted for their credentials when trying to enter the SharePoint website, but then they got immediately a Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage error page. The SharePoint environment was a MOSS 2007 environment with Windows Authentication.

Problem Description: Forms Based Authenticated users cannot open Microsoft Office documents

You have configured your Web Application to use Forms Based Authentication. Users cannot open Microsoft Office documents such as Microsoft Word or Excel files. Non-Office documents open without problem. When a user tries to open a Microsoft Office document, the Microsoft Office program is launched (such as Word), but the file, stored in a SharePoint document library, is not opened. In stead, the user sees something which is similar to the login page to which a user is redirected for a Web Application configured with Forms as Authentication Type. The document opened is also indicated as being the login.aspx page.

The CKS:Internet/Extranet Edition has released a pre-beta release of a Forms Based Authentication Solution.

This set of great features adds some missing out-of-the box functionality in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. The solution can be downloaded at Codeplex.
The functionality I like the most is:

• Ability for external users who authenticate themselves through forms based authentication to change their password through a web part. The web part is highly customizable in terms of error messages and labels.


• Ability for the SharePoint administrator to add external users who will authenticate through forms based authentication within the site settings of your site collection. There is no need to set up an extra website for user management, nor to do the administration of users directly in a database.

• In the user management pages, I could not get an overview of already created users. The UsersDisp.aspx threw an Unknown error.


• Some of the other user management pages had the same problems.

The solution is already available, but unfortunately is not yet included in the downloadable pre-beta version of the Forms Based Authentication Solutions. I found the working .aspx pages in a blogpost on the Van Laan on Sharepoint and all things Microsoft blog. From there the working .aspx pages can be downloaded. Just copy-paste the downloaded pages over the installed .aspx pages in the 12 hive under TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\FBA\MANAGEMENT.

In the same blogpost, I found a great tip to change the default view of those user management pages, which display only 5 users at a time: it is very easy to change this to more users on one page.

As my external users were now able to change their password, I wanted to enforce a certain minimal password policy. To achieve this, I changed the web.config file of my web application set up with forms based authentication.
Look for the providers tag in the web.config: you'll find the add name tag, which specifies your provider for forms based authentication. In it, you'll find some properties which you can change to set up a password policy such as:

• minRequiredPasswordLength: the number specified is the minimal length for a valid password


• minRequiredNonalphanumericCharacters: the number specified is the minimul non-alphanumeric characters which the password must contain.

To activate this new policy, you should remove your previous definition of your provider. This can be achieved by adding a remove name tag, as shown in the screenshot below.