An unhandled exception occurred in the user interface.Exception Information: OSearch (Administrator)

While installation of MOSS 2007 on stand alone machine i got this error.

Error:
An unhandled exception occurred in the user interface.Exception Information: OSearch (Administrator)

Cause:
You are using user name without domain or machine name

Solution:
Use user name like [Domain\UserName]
Even if you are using your local machine [MachineName\ServiceAccount]

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SharePoint HotShots - January Monthly Group Meeting

Event Info
Host:
SharePoint HotShots

Type:
Group Meeting

Time and Place
Date:
Friday, January 16, 2009

Time:
3:30pm - 5:00pm

Location:
Al-buanain, Near Gaint Store
City/Town:
Jubail, Saudi Arabia

Contact Info
Phone:
00966-50-633-2711
Email:
SharePointHotShots@yahoogroups.com

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10 Best Intranets of 2009

Intranets are getting more strategic, with increased collaboration support.

Team size is growing by 12% per year, and platforms are becoming integrated, with a strong showing for SharePoint. Improving usability increased use by 106% on average.
The winners of the award for 10 best-designed intranets for 2009 are:

• Altran, a large engineering and innovation consultancy (France)


• Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), a developer of computer and graphics processors (USA)


• BASF SE, the world's leading chemical manufacturing company (Germany)


• COWI Group A/S, a consulting group focusing on engineering, environmental science, and economics (Denmark)


• Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu (DTT), a global professional services network providing audit, tax, consulting, and financial advisory services (a Global member organization)


• Environmental Resources Management (ERM), one of the world's leading providers of environmental consulting services (Global)


• HSBC Bank Brazil (Brazil)


• Kaupthing Bank (Iceland)


• L.L.Bean, a vendor of apparel and outdoor equipment (USA)


• McKesson Corporation, a large provider of pharmaceuticals, medical supplies, and health care information technologies (USA)

Learn more from here

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Announcement - User Group Renamed

Dear Friends,
With an overall increase in our user group activities in Microsoft SharePoint technologies, after discussion & olnine meeting with group members we decide to rename the group.

Old Name: dotnethotshots
New Name: SharePoint HotShots

Old Blog Link: http://dotnethotshots.blogspot.com/
New Blog Link: http://sharepointhotshots.blogspot.com/Groups Focus: Microsoft SharePoint Technologies


Thanks for your understanding.

Regards,
Tariq Younas
http://sharepointhotshots.blogspot.com/

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SharePoint Farm Migration Looop

Recently i have finished my SharePoint Farm Migration from 32 bit OS to 64 bit task.
There were lot of things to share.
Let me share you loop which i use as action plan for migration on Live Production Farm.
We had 20 Major Portals...mean 20 web applications.

So, what i did

For Portal=1 to 20
{
1- Plan a portal lock time (Read only ~ 3 hours)
2- Notify Power User & Account Admin
3- Send an interruption message to the affected site
4- On the planned time:
a. freeze the portal (Read Only)
b. Backup the portal from the current production farm
c. Restore it to the test farm
d. Check the design
e. Do a random test
f. Send a test link to the power user
g. If it is ok, do another restore to the new production farm
h. Do a test on the new production
i. If it is ok, update DNS record to the new IP
j. Check with power user for confirmation
k. Send a service back notification
l. Stop the old portal on Old Servers
loop
}

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SharePoint Guidance - November 2008

This guidance helps architects and developers design, build, test, deploy, and upgrade SharePoint intranet applications. A reference implementation demonstrates solutions to common architectural, development, and application lifecycle management challenges.

It covers following topics..

- Architectural decisions about patterns, feature factoring and packaging.
- Design tradeoffs for common decisions many developers encounter.
- Implementation examples demonstrated in the RI and in the QuickStarts.
- How to design for testability, create unit tests, and run continuous integration.
- Set up of development, build, test, staging, and production environments.
- Managing the application life cycle including upgrade.
- Team-based intranet application development.

Click here to download from Microsoft Official site.

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Sharepoint Portal site is showing [System Account] instead of my username

Problem: After installation of my MOSS testing server when I login with my username & password into SharePoint Portal site, it was showing me "System Account" instead of my username on the top right corner of the Site.
Any activity which I was performing like updating system, updating lists, creating new document was stamping system account instead of “Tariq Younas”

Reason: While installation if you will use your account, it will be used to create SharePoint db. At that time you account will be marked as system account.

Solution:
If you face such type of problem then use stsadm utility and run this command
stsadm -o updatefarmcredentials -identitytype NetworkService
After running command restart your IIS

Also set your pool identity as NetWorkService account by performing these steps

1- Go to run
2- Write “inetmgr” and press OK
3- Here under application pools, select your application pool and right click
4- On identity tab select radio “predefined” Network service

This will not occur again.

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RampUp - New Community-based Learning Program

Another good community for Microsoft products learning.

Here number of different tracks will help you build your professional portfolio and development skills.

So, Just start by clicking here to visit....or click on image

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Redirect to a custom page after entering item in SharePoint List

Most of the time we need to redirect user after submitting on list on our custom page like Thanks You page.
Here i have custom list by name of "Feedback" and basic page "Thanks".

When user will submit his/her feedback in library he/she will be redirected to thanks page.

1- Create a basic page for Thanks Message.


2- Name it and press create



3- Go to site navigation Site Settings-> Modify Navigation


4- Select the link of library where you want to submit new item and then want to rout on another thanks page



5- As i have Feedback is List and i am giving path..................
To redirect users to your Thanks/Custom page after they have completed the feedback, simply add ?SOURCE=Your_Thanks_Page.

as i am doing below in this link
http://Tariqsite/Feedback/newform.aspx?source=http://Tariqsite/Feedback/Thankyou.aspx

6- Now click on new in Feedback List

7- Fill the form and press ok



8- After pressing ok instead of routing in your Feedback library....you will be redirected on Thank You page.

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Microsoft Innovation Day- Riyadh Saudia

Microsoft Innovation day in Riyadh on 4th Nov-2008 ......great i must be there.....For technology seekers its great oppt. So, don't miss it.

Who should attend?
Business decision makers, technical decision makers, IT professionals, solution architects and consultants.

If you haven’t registered yet, then click here to register.....

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Office SharePoint Server Search stuck in Stopping Status

Today when I get entered in my office I received a number of emails that
“Search is not working”
“Dear Mr. Tariq Younas, we are unable to search leave application form,”
“What’s wrong with search”

There was a long list of emails like that…..when I open our index server I found this server is in stopping state and unable to show restart/start options.


After some search we found a work around.

Go to Application (Search index and query server) Server

1. Start command prompt

2. Run taskkill /F /IM mssearch.exe /T

3. Navigate to the C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12 \bin folder and run “psconfig -cmd upgrade -inplace b2b -wait –force”

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Best Practices Analyzer tool (Office SharePoint Server)

You can run the Best Practices Analyzer tool to check for common issues and best security practices. The tool generates a report that can help you optimize the configuration of your system. The tool can be run locally or from a server that is not attached to the server farm.

I generate a report by using this tool on test server then it look like given below.
It shows your Errors & Warnnings.....what you are missing on your server e.g as i have not configure out-going email settings, Trusted DCL's on servers.
You can download it from Microsoft Official Site...Click here to download

Simply a tool which helps to help administrators to achieve greater performance, scalability, and uptime........So, be ready and start generate reporting.

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Flash file display on Portal

During search and on specific scenario requirement i found good post on msdn blog.
It show how to display your .swf flash file on Portal using content editor.
On msdn post there you will got a chunk of code....you just need to put that code in Content Editor Webpart and change its path.
It will be look like given below image as i test it on my testing portal.

Click here to see the msdn blog post

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Office SharePoint Server Search - Error Stopping

While administrating my company SharePoint Portal our search services unable to stopped. Many times we try to stop it from different servers using central administration but they were continuous showing message.

Error Stopping

Workaround:
1- Go to run
2- Write services.msc and press Enter
3- Select & right click service [Windows SharePoint Services Search]
4- Stop it and restart from here

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Big Loss in SharePoint Community

Patrick Tisseghem, long time SharePoint MVP and co-founder of U2U, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, suddenly passed away on September 3rd evening in Gothenburg, Sweden due to heart failure. He is survived by his wife, Linda, and daughters, Anahi and Laura.

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