Ben There, Done That

I’m definitely not the first to blog this, nor will I probably be the last; and, chances are that you have already read this elsewhere, but just in case you haven’t, I figured I would post it anyways.

So, here it is, the launch date for Office and SharePoint 2010 has been set!  It will be May 12, 2010 at 11:00 am EST.  You can view all the details and sign up to watch the even live online here – http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/businessproductivity/proof/pages/2010-launch-events.aspx#fbid=N7_NqK7briG.

Ben SharePoint 2010 Launch, Office 2010, SharePoint 2010

So this weekend I decided to install SharePoint 2010 on my desktop at home.  My desktop is running Windows 7, and due to requirements of other software I need, I’m unable to run Windows Server 2008 on it.

Running a stand alone installation of SharePoint 2010 is great, however, I wanted to see if I could get a complete install on Windows 7 and user SQL Server 2008.  Fortunately, I found this blog post by Neil Hodgkinson that explained how to do it.  Everything appeared to be working great and the configuration wizard finished without any problems.  Unfortunately, that appearance didn’t last too long.

My problem arose when I went into Central Administration and, despite being a farm administrator, the first thing I noticed was I couldn’t create new web applications.  There were some other security issues as well, however, those are beside the point.  The purpose of this post is how to go about fixing this issue if you encounter the same thing.

After mulling over the issues for a few minutes, I remember are beloved User Access Control (UAC) and other issues I’ve seen when it is enabled on Windows Server.  So, I went into my UAC settings, disabled them complete, restarted my computer, logged into Central Administration and what do you know, it worked!  I can now create new web applications and have full control over my SharePoint 2010 installation.

Ben SharePoint 2010 SharePoint, SharePoint 2010, UAC, Windows 7

A while a go a write a short post on how to hide web part headers in SharePoint 2007.  Recently I had some inquire how to do the same thing for SharePoint 2010.  So, here is what to do in order to hide a web part header in SharePoint 2010.

1.  Add a content editor web part to your page.

2. Edit the Web Part

3. Click in the content area of the web part, click HTML and select “Edit HTML Source”

4. Put the following code in the web part:

5. Click “OK”

6. Expand “Appearance” (on the right side of the page)

7. Set the chrome type to “None”

8. Click “OK” and then save and check in your page.

The headers of your web part should now be hidden.  This can be extremely helpful when your page contains a web part using “boxed” for your style when creating a list view.  The only downside to this approach is if you have multiple web parts on a single page, it will hide the headers for all the web parts on your site.

How to do the same thing in SharePoint 2007

Ben Customizations, Development, SharePoint 2010 Content Editor, SharePoint, SharePoint 2010

I was working with SharePoint surveys the other day and discovered an old issue working with surveys and Microsoft Office that appears to have resurfaced.

We were trying to see what other reports we could generate from a SharePoint survey.  Naturally with the option to export to Excel, we figured why not just export all the survey data into Excel and play with it there.  To test it out I tried to get a variety of questions in the survey, one of these questions being the rating (matrix) survey question.

I created a few responses to the survey and attempted to export the list data to Excel (I’m running 2010 Beta).  Everything came over well with the exception of the matrix type questions.  I did some searching and this was also an issue with Excel 2003.  However, people said it was resolved with Excel 2007.  I installed Excel 2007 and sure enough the matrix questions imported into Excel 2007 just fine.  I tried Excel 2010 once more and the values still failed to come over.

So, it appears that the problem with importing matrix type of questions from SharePoint 2007 to Excel 2003 has returned in Excel 2010.  Granted, this is the beta, so maybe it will be fixed by the release.

I also want to do some testing with SharePoint 2010 surveys, Excel 2010 and possibly PowerPivot.  I’ve been reading some great things about PowerPivot but haven’t had much of a chance to play with it for myself.  Once I get a chance to do some testing with these tools I’ll write a new post.  Hopefully there will be some good news about doing more in depth analysis of SharePoint Survey results using these new tools.

Ben Office 2010, SharePoint, SharePoint 2007, SharePoint 2010 Excel 2010, Office 2010, PowerPivot, SharePoint 2007, SharePoint 2010, SharePoint Surveys

For those of you with a TechNet subscription and an itching desire to download the Office 2010 Suite of products, they are now here!! I’m sure every other blogger is writing this same post so I won’t make it long.  The RSS feed for the released products is here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/subscription-downloads.rss if you want direct links to the downloads, here they are:

Office Search Server Express 2010 Beta (x64)

Office SharePoint Foundation Server 2010 Beta (x64)

Office Visio Premium 2010 Beta (x64)

Office Visio Premium 2010 Beta (x86)

FAST Search Server SharePoint 2010 Beta (x64)

Office Project Server 2010 Beta (x64)

Office Project Professional 2010 Beta (x64)

Office Project Professional 2010 Beta (x86)

Office Professional Plus 2010 Beta (x64)

Office Professional Plus 2010 Beta (x86)

Office SharePoint Designer 2010 Beta (x86 and x64)

Office SharePoint Server 2010 Beta (x64)

Office SharePoint Foundation Server 2010 Beta (x64)

Office Business Contact Manager 2010 Beta (x64)

Office Web Applications 2010 Beta (x64)

That is everything I currently see on TechNet.  They are all English versions and please, no one comment and tell me I have the wrong names.  I realize the names above don’t all match up to the new names that Microsoft announced when it comes to SharePoint.  I just copied the names directly from the TechNet site.

Ben "Office 14", Office 2010, SharePoint 2010 Office, Office 2010, SharePoint, SharePoint 2010, SharePoint Beta Downloads, SharePoint Foundation, SharePoint Server

Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the SharePoint conference this year. However, I have been trying to follow it all day via twitter and the #SPC2009 hash tag. There have been a ton of tweets and with the tweets and the amount of people a lot of duplicates. As tweets have been going out all day I’ve tried to capture new blog posts about the 2010 stack and am attempting to put together a good list of blog posts that I’ve have noticed today (and continue to notice throughout the week). Feel free to send me any blog posts I have missed or you would like me to add to my site. So, here they are:

SharePoint

SharePoint Overview from the Microsoft SharePoint Team – http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2009/10/19/sharepoint-2010.aspx

SharePoint 2010 Home Page - http://sharepoint2010.microsoft.com/Pages/default.aspx

SharePoint Conference 2010 Home Page (Keynote video soon) – http://www.mssharepointconference.com/Pages/default.aspx

SharePoint Conference Video Highlights – http://www.mssharepointconference.com/Pages/videohighlights.aspx

SharePoint 2010 MSDN Site – http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd776256.aspx

SharePoint 2010 TechNet Site – http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/default.aspx

Pre-Register for SharePoint 2010 Beta – http://sharepoint2010.microsoft.com/try-it/Pages/Trial.aspx

Arpan Shah, Welcome to SharePoint 2010 – http://blogs.msdn.com/arpans/archive/2009/10/19/welcome-to-sharepoint-2010.aspx

Andrew Connell’s Blog (Several SharePoint 2010 posts already) – http://www.andrewconnell.com/blog/

SharePoint Sharpener, Rundown of New Features – http://sharepointsharpener.wordpress.com/2009/10/19/spc09-sharepoint-2010-unveiled-rundown-of-new-features/

SharePoint 2010 Installation (not in English, but has screen shots of the install) – http://sharepointsisters.de/2009/10/installation-sharepoint-server-2010/

SharePoint 2010 Preview by Knowledge Management Associates – http://blogs.kma-llc.net/microknowledge/2009/10/sharepooint-2010-preview.html

A listing of SharePoint 2010 Documentation and Posters published by Microsoft – http://bink.nu/news/sharepoint-2010-documentation.aspx

Document Management in SharePoint 2010 – http://dotneteers.net/blogs/aghy/archive/2009/10/19/document-management-in-sharepoint-2010.aspx

ZDNet SharePoint 2010 Announcement – http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=4278

Corey’s SharePoint 2010 Observations – http://www.dotnetmafia.com/blogs/dotnettipoftheday/archive/2009/10/19/corey-s-big-post-of-sharepoint-2010-observations.aspx

Ballmer, SharePoint and the Economy – http://www.infoworld.com/d/developer-world/microsofts-ballmer-shows-sharepoint-and-cites-its-link-economic-prosperity-587

Another index of some SharePoint 2010 postings online – http://webpartner.com/PNPT#7fc51a6079d86e3841db

Mike Gotta Notes from SPC09 Day 1 – http://mikeg.typepad.com/perceptions/2009/10/sharepoint-2009-conference-morning-keynotes.html

SharePoint 2010 Public Beta to be released next month – http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10377483-56.html

StoragePoint for SharePoint 2010 – http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS164545+19-Oct-2009+PRN20091019

SharePoint 2010 Central Admin – http://planetmoss.blogspot.com/2009/10/central-administration-in-sharepoint.html

Eli Robillard, Sandbox Solutions and Security in WSS 4.0 (SharePoint Foundation) – http://weblogs.asp.net/erobillard/

SharePoint Conference 2009, Morning Keynote from The Burton Group – http://ccsblog.burtongroup.com/collaboration_and_content/2009/10/sharepoint-2009-conference-morning-keynotes.html

SharePoint 2010 Links from S.S. Ahmed, SharePoint MVP – http://vspug.com/ssa/2009/10/19/sharepoint-2010-links/

Lookup Columns in SharePoint 2010 – http://weblogs.asp.net/bsimser/archive/2009/10/19/sp2010-what-s-new-lookup-columns-spc09.aspx

Overview of SharePoint Conference 2009, Day 1 – http://weblogs.asp.net/bsimser/archive/2009/10/19/the-kimono-is-open-the-veil-is-lifted-the-gags-are-removed-spc09.aspx

BI

BI in SharePoint 2010 – http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/blogs/GetThePoint/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?List=8d9e2a99-f288-47c2-916b-2f32864f7b82&ID=268

Office 2010

PivotPoint for Excel 2010 – http://www.powerpivot.com/

Office 2010 Public Beta to be released next month – http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10377483-56.html

Visual Studio 2010

Announcing Visual Studio 2010 – http://blogs.msdn.com/somasegar/archive/2009/10/19/announcing-visual-studio-2010-and-net-fx-4-beta-2.aspx

Again, this is just a list of what I could capture while keeping an eye on twitter all day.  Feel free to email me addition blog posts or add them as a comment as I will try to continue updating this list throughout the week.

admin Conferences, Office 2010, SharePoint, SharePoint 2010, Twitter BI, Office 2010, SharePoint, SharePoint 2010, SharePoint Foundation, Visual Studio 2010

After a little over a month since my last blog post I’m back.  The lapse in posting had several contributing factors.  The biggest being that within the last month I go married and then went on a week long honeymoon to St. Lucia with my beautiful bride. (I’ll maybe put up a few pics when we get our favorites).  That combined with the increased workload to make up for the time off didn’t give me a lot of time to blog.  I’ve also been eagerly awaiting the Office 2010 suite of products to start working with.

So, rather than posting sever updates, I figured I would post one update that highlights what has been going one.

First, I have the SharePoint 2010 bits that I have started testing.  Due to an NDA with Microsoft, I can’t talk about them other than if you want to get a peak, head over to http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/2010/Sneak_Peek/Pages/default.aspx where MS has posted 3 videos giving you a sneak peak at SharePoint 2010.

Secondly, I have also installed the Office 2010 clients.  I was accepted into the Office 2010 beta program on http://connect.microsoft.com.  There is no NDA in place for the clients, so there may be more posts following on that topic.

Also, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 have both RTM’d.  You should expect to see them on MSDN and TechNet the beginning of August.  I’ve seen several dates, so I won’t try to predict, just keep your eyes open. You can see the official Microsoft Post here.

The June Cumulative Update Package for SharePoint 2007 has also been released.  Head over herehttp://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2009/07/20/june-cumulative-update-packages-ready-for-download.aspx to get the download links and more information about the update.

I read an article on The Seattle Times website that in an attempt to compete with Google Docs, Microsoft will be releasing a free web based version of Microsoft office. Read the Full Article here.

I think that’s all I have for now, stay tuned as more and more information becomes available on the Office 2010 suite of products.

Ben Office 2010, SharePoint, SharePoint 2010 Microsoft, MOSS, SharePoint, SharePoint 2007, SharePoint 2010, Windows 7, Windows Server

There is now a signup available at http://connect.microsoft.com for the Office 2010 beta.  The direct link to the survey is: http://connect.microsoft.com/InvitationUse.aspx?ProgramID=3343&SiteID=160&InvitationID=Beta-PRJM-HVCM.  Unfortunately it doesn’t guarantee access, and if you are granted access, it won’t happy until July.  But nonetheless, it gets you into the pool of “applicants” for the beta.  From there you just wait and see if you are accepted.

Can’t wait to get my hands on it!  I’m here more and more about details, some rumors, some not, but the anticipation is building!

Ben Office 2010, SharePoint, SharePoint 2010 Beta, SharePoint, SharePoint 2010

Yesterday the Groove team announced on their blog the change to Groove.  They said, “The name makeover is in concert with the direction the product is going.  SharePoint Workspace will provide easy access to SharePoint content (or content from any server that implements the publicly documented protocols) in an effort to provide a seamless online/offline experience.”  It will also now be bundled with the Office Professional 2010 package.

I’ve used Groove some but ran into some limitations as I was running all 64 bit machines.  The post doesn’t mention anything specific about running on 64 bit, nor have I heard any other news about it, hopefully this is another thing that will be updated, the same functionality on 32 bit and 64 bit.  Stay tuned for more news about Office 2010 as it emerges.

Ben "Office 14", Office 2010, SharePoint 2010 Groove, Office, Office 2010, SharePoint WorkSpace

With TechEd 2009 going on this week in LA, details of SharePoint 2010 are starting to emerge.  Unfortunately I wasn’t able to attend this year, however, I was able to watch the keynote live streaming online.  Between that and twitter, I was able to gain the following details on SharePoint 2010.

1. SharePoint 2010 will be only 64 bit and will require Windows Server 2008
2. More preliminarily system requirements for SharePoint 2010 can be found on the SharePoint Team blog post.
3. The SharePoint Technical Preview will be available in July, however, it will be invitation only with TechEd attendees getting priority.

Those were the SharePoint highlights that I was able to pick up today.  I’ll continue to post updates as I get them.

Ben Conferences, SharePoint, SharePoint 2010 Requirements, SharePoint, SharePoint 2010, TechEd, TechEd09, Tela