Unless you lived in a cave for the last 48 hours, you probably know that Microsoft announced 2 days ago the general availability of the public beta of Office 2010, SharePoint Server 2010, Visio 2010, Project 2010 and Office Web Apps .

Due to several months of NDA with Microsoft, I haven't be able to talk about Sharepoint 2010, but I've been using the Sharepoint 2010 Technical Preview (beta 1) for months:

• I'm currently creating a 5 days Sharepoint course that will be available at Devoteam in a few weeks,
  I'm actually updating the course to the beta 2 and the new version will be tested next week. I will be the main trainer.
• I’ve also been fortunate to work with Devoteam on a Sharepoint 2010 pilot project in Belgium.
• Last month (with 7399 other attendees much more than Tech-Ed!), I attended the first public presentation of Sharepoint 2010 at Vegas.

What’s next ?

• You can download the Sharepoint 2010 beta 2 here.
• Software & hardware requirements here.
• You will get an overview of Sharepoint 2010 in this post.
• For developers, go the Sharepoint developer center.
• For IT pro, go the TechNet.
• If you have a problem, a question, or if you want to learn from other people, go to the Sharepoint 2010 newsgroups.
• You will find a list of webcast in Mike Walsh web site.

Installing Sharepoint 2010

you can install Sharepoint 2010 on Windows 7 (yes), Windows 2008, Windows 2008R2 all 64 bits.
I did it on all platforms. I recommend of Virtual environment like HyperV, VMWare or the free Sun Virtual Box (which is the one I'm currently running and very happy wit it). Forget VirtualPC, it cannnot run 64 bits OS.

On Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2, make sure the following hotfix is installed, that is super important.

If you want to install Sharepoint 2010 on Windows 7, please read this post it’s the most important !!!!!

Also read this post .

For developers, Visual Studio 2010 beta 2 (sure!)

yes, now Sharepoint 2010 is a first class citizen in Visual Studio 2010 b2, you can get it here. You will notice that Sharepoint 2010 is based on the .Net framework 3.5 and not on .Net 4.0; you won’t be able to use WF 4 in SP2010, but hey, you can design your workflow in Visio, you won’t miss the new WF 4 Designer.

I will start a series of posts that will describe the new platform, but to summarize:

• there are MUCH more out of the box features in Sharepoint, and this was a problem with WSS3/MOSS2007: it took a few months to companies/customers to realize that they need a developer to customize the platform. Sharepoint 2010 is now a great ECM platform->power to the people/managers…
• on the architecture point of View, the main modification is the Service Application Model : no more Shared Service providers and each web application can use any Service and the same service can be used by several web applications in a many to many way; Custom Service Applications can be created->Extensible.
• off course the Developer and the IT Pro experience has been improved, but again I will describe it in other posts/videos.
• I still have to mention that the integration with external data (like external database) has been improved: external data can show up as sharepoint lists thanks to a new kind of content type : External Content Type (we can also modify external data, more details later); and this is available in the free version of Sharepoint 2010 : Microsoft Sharepoint Foundation 2010. No more BDC, but “just” a new service, the Business Connectivity Service; as a Microsoftie used to say, “there was an opportunity for improvement”.

 

 

I’ve been Connected System MVP during several years; I’m very glad to be awarded Sharepoint MVP by Microsoft !

…or don't detach your content db.

In server farms that have a large number of sites, installing a software update with the content databases attached can result in too much downtime. To minimize downtime, Microsoft recommends that you perform the additional step of detaching the content databases.
But this time, don't do that for the last August cumulative update.

More details here http://blogs.technet.com/stefan_gossner/

The problem is being investigated

The Sharepoint Pattern & Practice group recently released the August version of Sharepoint Guidance and it’s worth reading!

A common question in the sharepoint newsgroups is “shoud I use a Sharepoint list or the database ?”.

Michael Washam (MSFT) announced today in the sharepoint newsgroups the last release of the Visual Studio Extensions for Sharepoint 1.3 CTP.

I’ve used this tool since its first release in 2007, but the upgrade from 1.2 to 1.3 provides major improvements and is (now) really usable.

This is probably the last release of the venerable VSeWSS before Sharepoint 2010 and the Sharepoint developement tools that will be part of Visual Studio 2010.

By the way if you watched the Sharepoint 2010 sneak peek video, you probably noticed that VSeWSS projects can be imported in Visual Studio 2010.

 

 

New features of VseWSS 1.3:

 

• The extensions now install on x64 bit OS. Visual Studio 2008 and SharePoint must be already installed.
• Command Line Build option for TFS and MSBuild integration
• Separate WSP Package and Retract commands. You can now build the WSP without deploying it
• SPSolGen to Support Exporting from Content Management Publishing Sites
• New Item Template for RootFiles Deployment
• Automatically Remove conflicting existing features on development SharePoint server
• WSP View New Feature Dialog Improvements: scope, receiver checkbox, element checkbox
• WSP View can now be used to merge features and it blocks site features being merged into web features
• Allow adding separate binary files such as Workflow assemblies
• Some refactoring allowing for Web Part renaming and removing lines from feature.xml Item Removed
• Allow selection of GAC or BIN deployment for Web Part Project not including CAS generation
• Increase visibility of hidden features that VSeWSS creates
• Add fast update deploy for DLL only or file only changes to solutions
• Numerous Bug Fixes and improvements to error messages

 

That is a frequent question I have to answer…This seems to be a common issue.

In Central Administration, Application management, you will find the following option:

When you selected it, you will get this :

In the setting “Enable user-defined workflows for this site”, select “No” (you will notice other interesting options for internal or external users who don’t have site access, but who need to take part of workflows).

Now, if you open one of the site of the web application with Sharepoint Designer 2007, when you try to create a End User workflow

You will get this warning :

Don’t forget ; more details here.

 

Don’t forget it, that’s the place to be if you really want to learn something about Sharepoint 2010. Hope to see you there…

SharePoint 2010 Overview and What's New

Upgrading to SharePoint 2010

SharePoint 2010 Capacity and Performance Planning

SharePoint 2010 Security and Identity Management: What's New.

Visual Studio 2010 Tools for Office Development

SharePoint 2010 Ribbon, ECMAScript and Dialog Framework Development

Developing with REST and LINQ in SharePoint 2010

Upgrading SharePoint Server 2007 Code to SharePoint 2010

Building SharePoint Composite Applications with the Microsoft Application Platform

What’s New in Business Connectivity Services (The Business Data Catalog Evolves!)

FAST Search for SharePoint – Capabilities Deep-Dive

Advanced Dashboard Creation with PerformancePoint Services for SharePoint 2010

Overview of Visio 2010 and Visio Services for SharePoint 2010

SharePoint 2010 Web Content Management Deep-Dive

If You Build It, They Will Come: Driving End User Adoption

Understanding Office 2010 and the Office Web apps

Office Web apps: Deployment and Manageability

Customizing Office 2010 Backstage view and Ribbon

What's New in Office 2010 for Developers

Deep-Dive into SharePoint 2010 My Sites and Social Networking Architecture

SharePoint 2010 Governance: Planning and Implementation

SQL Server Best Practices for SharePoint Deployments

Overview of Access Services in SharePoint 2010

Introduction to SharePoint Applications Using InfoPath and Forms Services 2010

Launching and Supporting Large Global Sites: Lessons Learned from AMD.com (Customer Session presented by AMD)

How SharePoint Helped Employee Communications Do More with Less (Customer Session presented by Dow Jones)

Planning, Deploying and Administrating Excel Services and Project "Gemini" in SharePoint Server 2010

Advanced Web Part Development in Visual Studio 2010

 

I guess this will help many people in the Sharepoint community (according to some messages in the Sharepoint newsgroups…)

After working on it this week-end, I’ve decided that the quality was good. Now it’s time to move it to Sharepoint 2010; more details after the Sharepoint Conference in Las Vegas. Enjoy !

 

I spent most of the nineties  in the C++ world with the venerable MFC (Microsoft Foundation Classes) , ATL(Active Template Library) & its famous smart pointers.

I recently had to answer a question in the Sharepoint newsgroups related to using Sharepoint dlls in C++:  I jumped on it as a kid in a candy store (to be honest my current candy store is Sharepoint 2010).

This is what I did:

Create a new CLR Console Application project :

 

The following code is generated :

 

Add a reference to the Microsoft.Sharepoint.dll :

 

 

Define the Microsoft.Sharepoint namespace:

 

Write your C++; since Sharepoint classes are managed classes, you have to use the new gcnew operator and you don’t have to call delete.

Run the application :

 

Don’t forget, Visual C++ is the only compiler that allows you to mix-up managed and native code (we call that IJW or “It just works”); and this without the overhead of the PInvoke layer.

This is quite simple, but it’s not your grandma’s C++ compiler anymore.

I just added a small fix (workflows in content types bug). Enjoy!

Several Sharepointers notice that using the CreateTask activity alone in a Sharepoint workflow doesn’t really create a Sharepoint Task: To have the task created (in the task list) you need to have an activity that will move the workflow in waiting state ; any activity implementing the IEventActivity interface will do the job; that is the case of all sharepoint activities having name starting with “On” (OnTaskCreated, OnTaskChanged,OnTaskDeleted,…), and also the Delay activity.

The Sharepoint activities modifying the Sharepoint content database are enrolled in a transaction which is committed when the workflow persists.

 

 

 

The following setting in the web.config file specifies the Transaction timeout duration:

 

<configuration>

  <system.transactions>

    <defaultSettings timeout="00:05:00"/>

  </system.transactions>

</configuration>

By default the value is set to 1 minute.  You can increase the value to 5 minutes if you face the following error, which can happen if yoy create several hundreds of tasks :

 

Workflow Infrastructure             72fg     High    Error in persisting workflow: System.Transactions.TransactionAbortedException: The transaction has aborted. ---> System.TimeoutException: Transaction Timeout     --- End of inner exception stack trace ---     at System.Transactions.TransactionStateAborted.CreateAbortingClone(InternalTransaction tx).

 

 

 

 

Spending a lot a time (anwering) in the Sharepoint newsgroups, I've noticed the "Failed On Start" error is an extremely frequent question.This post will probably help many people.

When we start a (Custom) Sharepoint Workflow (but even sometimes Out of the Box workflows) the infamous Failed on start (retrying) error may hit you.The most common reasons of this error are:

1. in most cases the main reason is that the CodeBesideclass and the CodeBeside assembly in workflow.xml don't match the workflow class name & assembly strong name  of the dll registered in the GAC  ("Unexpected Load Workflow Assembly: System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not load file or assembly xxxx") is what you will find in the Sharepoint log.

User Reflector the compare your assemblies strong name/class name & don't forget the namespace!

2.the workflow-eventdelivery-throttle parameter is to low

To prevent web front ends (w3wp) from getting overrun by running too many workflows instances, there is a throttle limit. If more events than the throttle are already being processed, the newer events are enqueued as work items – they will be picked up by OWSTimer.

If your workflows don’t start immediately as expected you probably have to increase this throttle limit

stsadm -o setproperty -pn workflow-eventdelivery-throttle -pv "20"  (the default value is 15).

By Code :

SPWebApplication myWebApps = SPWebApplication.Lookup(new Uri(websiteUrl));
            myWebApps.WebService.WorkflowEventDeliveryThrottle = 20;
            myWebApps.WebService.Update();

It looks like in some situations” a Failed On Start” may be triggered and can be solved by increasing this value.

In some cases, I’ve noticed that increasing this value may solve a “Failed On Start” which indeed is very strange : when the W3P.exe is overrun, all actions (including event deliveries) are supposed the be enqueued (and thus executed later) but the OWSTIME.exe service.
The error message in the Sharepoint log looks like this:

Windows SharePoint Services     Workflow Infrastructure         936r    Verbose        RunWorkflow: No pending events - possibly targeted for async delivery

 

3.the transaction timeout value is too low can also generate a Failed on Start, specially when a lot of task (several hundreds) are created by the workflow which try to store the in a SQL Server transaction. the information you will find in the Sharepoint log file is soething like this

Workflow Infrastructure             72fg     High    Error in persisting workflow: System.Transactions.TransactionAbortedException: The transaction has aborted. ---> System.TimeoutException: Transaction Timeout     --- End of inner exception stack trace ---     at System.Transactions.TransactionStateAborted.CreateAbortingClone(InternalTransaction tx).

One possible workaround is to increase the timeout value in the web.config file.  By default the value is set to 1 minute.  You can increase the value to 5 minutes for instance :

 

<configuration>

  <system.transactions>

    <defaultSettings timeout="00:05:00"/>

  </system.transactions>

</configuration>

 

4.repair of the .NET 3.0/.Net 3.5 Framework may be necessary. If you have SP1 for the .NET Framework installed, just go into the Control Panel/Add Remove Programs and click the Change button on Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 SP1. If you don't have the Service Pack you can install it. The Change process takes about 2 minutes.

5.A more exotic one : Workflow Foundation performance counters not loaded

Reload them again:  Lodctr "c:\Windows\Microsoft.Net\Framework\v3.0\Windows Workflow Foundation\perfcounters.ini"

 

 

Introduction

A very good practice in software is to work with roles instead of working with individuals.

I’ve  often noticed in the Sharepoint newsgroups that assigning a workflow task to a group seems to be a popular question.

First off you cannot assign a Task to Active Directory groups, but only to  Sharepoint groups !

 

Hands-on

 

• Let start by using the HelloWorldSequential workflow sample provided with the Sharepoint sdk. Open up the project in Visual Studio 2008 and modify the Install.bat file to specify your site collection url (for the feature activation) : find  the http://localhost string and replace it with your site collection url.
• Double click on Workflow1.cs to display the workflow in the Visual Studio workflow Designer.
• Double click on the createTask1 activity to get into the code editor.

• In the associated code (the CreateTask function), replace the line taskProps.Assignee with code described in the red rectangle below.We assume our approvers must be part of a (custom) group called “MyApproverGroup” that we will create later.

 

• Create a new group, name it MyApproverGroup, add several users; give this group the Contribute permission.

 

• Rebuild your solution, and start Install.bat; make sure the feature is activated in the site collection features, create a custom list, associate the workflow with the list and start an instance of the workflow and check the task list : indeed, a task has been created by the workflow and assigned to the MyApproverGroup.

 

• Login as one of the group user :

• Go to the task list and change the view to “By My Groups”, the new task shows up :

Congratulations !

I just registered for the Sharepoint Conference (Las Vegas) that will be the conference to learn about SharePoint 2010.

Join the newly created Facebook Events page for the SPC09

Just taking a loan in the house before heading to the casino…

 

Wow ! No more secret: if you want to know what Sharepoint 2010 looks like, check the following web site. 

My Fifth webcast on Sharepoint  for Microsoft Belux has recently been published; in this video, I show how show you how to quickly create Sharepoint workflows with aspx association and initiation forms.This demo is based on my Generic Framework uploaded to codeplex.

I will be Ineta speaker at the Macedonian Code Camp in 2 weeks organized by the Macedonian.Net User Group. This is my third stay in Macedonia, and I really love it.

More details here.

I will present 2 intensive sessions on Sharepoint.

 

I’m currently working on a screencast for Microsoft Belux to better illustrate it. Stay tuned !

I shortly described it in a previous post.