SharePoint

I have updated the SharePoint Manager 2007 application and added some new features.

See my first blog http://www.sharepointblogs.com/keutmann/archive/2006/11/01/15615.aspx

New stuff:
- Edit data directly in manager.
- Cancel data modifications.
- Refresh data when changed in browser.
- Restucture of treeview to match object model.
- Added properties collection.

Warning!
This program enables you to update the data in SharePoint object model directly.
Therefore be very careful when changing the data.

Download: SharePoint Manager 2007

Have fun :o)

This is an application I have created to better understand the new SharePoint object model and at the same time ease some of the managing tasks of SharePoint. The first version is no more than an Object Model Explorer. Only managing the SharePoint FeatureDefinitions is enabled, but I plan to implement more functions in future versions. The application is not meant to be a windows form application version of the SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration, but to provide extra functionality that is only found in stsadm.exe or nowhere else.

Download: SharePoint Manager 2007

The only feature available at the moment is the SharePoint FeatureDefinition install and activate functions.

Special nodes like the SPList have more tabs to display data like item grid view and a browser.

Prerequisites:
Microsoft Server 2003
Microsoft  .NET Framework 2.0
Microsoft SharePoint Services 3.0

Install:
1. Download the ZIP file and unpack on a SharePoint 2007 Server.*
2. Run the SharePoint Manager 2007.exe program.

(*) This program has to run on a server where Microsoft SharePoint Services 3.0 or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 is installed.

Enjoy :o)

Since last week, there are 2 new SharePoint user samples available on GotDotNet:

• Forms Based Authentication Setup Helper for MOSS 2007 - Utility to ease the process of setting up and configuring Forms Based Authentication for MOSS 2007. This is a work in progress. So feedback is solicited.
• Infowise SharePoint & Wss Watchtower - Infowise SharePoint Watchtower is a centralized security application that allows you to view and manage your SharePoint Portal 2003 and Team Site permissions from one location.

Ishai posted a very nice article about a print list option in SharePoint. Besides the fact that it is a useful option, I demonstrates the extensibility of the SharePoint UI using features very well.

"The solution will be deployed as a wss feature, which allows us an easy way to add a menu item to the sharepoint menus. The feature will define that the item we want to add will be added to the actions menu of all lists, in a site collection. You can ofcourse change it so that it behaves differently and connects only to lists of a certain type if you so wish, or maybe move the menu item to a different place. I recommend reviewing the msdn article on the possible configurations."

Sometime soon I will post some articles about the feature framework as well, with some interesting examples.

The program for the European SharePoint Conference in Berlin later this year is published on the conference website. Seems like there are some interesting session and the conference is definately worth visiting. Check out:

• Day 1
• Day 2
• Day 3

As I posted before, I finally found the Dutch MOSS version last week. The SharePoint product team blog announces now 13 new languages for download:

Servers + SharePoint + SharePoint Server 2007 (617MB)

• Office SharePoint Server 2007 Standard and Enterprise Editions (Arabic)
• Office SharePoint Server 2007 Standard and Enterprise Editions (Dutch)
• Office SharePoint Server 2007 Standard and Enterprise Editions (English)
• Office SharePoint Server 2007 Standard and Enterprise Editions (French)
• Office SharePoint Server 2007 Standard and Enterprise Editions (German)
• Office SharePoint Server 2007 Standard and Enterprise Editions (Hebrew)
• Office SharePoint Server 2007 Standard and Enterprise Editions (Italian)
• Office SharePoint Server 2007 Standard and Enterprise Editions (Japanese)
• Office SharePoint Server 2007 Standard and Enterprise Editions (Korean)
• Office SharePoint Server 2007 Standard and Enterprise Editions (Polish)
• Office SharePoint Server 2007 Standard and Enterprise Editions (Portuguese-Brazil)
• Office SharePoint Server 2007 Standard and Enterprise Editions (Simplified Chinese)
• Office SharePoint Server 2007 Standard and Enterprise Editions (Spanish)
• Office SharePoint Server 2007 Standard and Enterprise Editions (Swedish)
• Office SharePoint Server 2007 Standard and Enterprise Editions (Traditional Chinese)
• Office SharePoint Server 2007 Standard and Enterprise Editions (Thai)

The English 180 day trial of Office SharePoint Server 2007 from download center is available here.

Office Forms Server 2007 (in Server)

• Office Forms Server 2007 (Arabic)
• Office Forms Server 2007 (Dutch)
• Office Forms Server 2007 (English)
• Office Forms Server 2007 (French)
• Office Forms Server 2007 (German)
• Office Forms Server 2007 (Hebrew)
• Office Forms Server 2007 (Japanese)
• Office Forms Server 2007 (Korean)
• Office Forms Server 2007 (Italian)
• Office Forms Server 2007 (Polish)
• Office Forms Server 2007 (Portuguese-Brazil)
• Office Forms Server 2007 (Swedish)
• Office Forms Server 2007 (Thai)
• Office Forms Server 2007 (Simplified Chinese)
• Office Forms Server 2007 (Spanish)
• Office Forms Server 2007 (Traditional Chinese)

No trial is available.  Download SharePoint Server Enterprise Trial here to evaluate Forms functionality.

Office SharePoint Designer (in Applications)

• Office SharePoint Designer 2007 (Arabic)
• Office SharePoint Designer 2007 (Dutch)
• Office SharePoint Designer 2007 (English)
• Office SharePoint Designer 2007 (French)
• Office SharePoint Designer 2007 (German)
• Office SharePoint Designer 2007 (Hebrew)
• Office SharePoint Designer 2007 (Japanese)
• Office SharePoint Designer 2007 (Korean)
• Office SharePoint Designer 2007 (Italian)
• Office SharePoint Designer 2007 (Polish)
• Office SharePoint Designer 2007 (Portuguese-Brazil)
• Office SharePoint Designer 2007 (Swedish)
• Office SharePoint Designer 2007 (Simplified Chinese)
• Office SharePoint Designer 2007 (Spanish)
• Office SharePoint Designer 2007 (Thai)
• Office SharePoint Designer 2007 (Traditional Chinese-Taiwan)
• Office SharePoint Designer 2007 - DVD (Traditional Chinese-Hong Kong SAR)

The 180 day English trial of Office SharePoint Designer 2007 is available from download center here.

Via Mark, a worth reading document to know everything about MOSS Search.

"This evaluation guide is designed to present a solid understanding of the search capabilities in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. It provides an overview of Enterprise Search solutions from Microsoft, gives a hands-on tour of the product, and concludes with useful information for administrators and developers. IT professionals should use this guide to perform a thorough and effective evaluation of Enterprise Search functionality in Office SharePoint Server 2007."

Download here

Currently, we (Tam Tam) are looking for new people that want to join our team. We"re looking for SharePoint developers, or developers that want to dive into SharePoint (2007) technology.

So, if you are interested or want to have additional information, please drop me a line, add me to your live messenger list, or linkedin account (both: martATmartmullerDOTnl).

Via the SharePoint Team blog:

"The Tool WSSDW.exe is on Codeplex and is a community supported tool, not an officially Microsoft released product.  It can be downloaded here. Please don"t contact product support with any issues you may experience using the tool.  This is the tool referred to on TechNet as the tool that was used to for load testing by the SharePoint Performance test team at Microsoft.

From Codeplex workspace:

"The SharePoint test data population tool (WSSDW.exe) is a capacity planning and performance testing tool that populates data for testing SharePoint deployments. The SharePoint test data population tool is available as a command-line executable program that extracts information about how to populate the server from an XML configuration file, and calls Microsoft .NET assembly: WSSDWLib.dll. "

...

For additional SharePoint performance and capacity planning information, see Plan for performance and capacity.
For additional Excel Services performance and capacity planning information, see Determine resource requirements to support Excel Services."

Read the complete article here

Finally, the moment I"ve been waiting for a long time ;) I"ve been tagged by Joost Bekel in the tagging-thing-game in blog-o-sphere, initiated by Jef Pulver. As many others have done before me, five things people probably don"t know about me:

• I"ve been playing some musical instruments since I was little: flute, violin, guitar, bass guitar, piano and a little bit of drums. Until a few years ago, I"ve been playing in several bands as well (uncluding with Matthew Cosier at the Seattle EMP during the Office DevCon 2006). It"s something I should pick up again.
• In 2002, Tam Tam gave me the opportunity to go to the SharePoint DevCon in Seattle...during my iternship.
• We recently bought a new house in Capelle aan den IJssel. Arienne (my wife) and I had two demands: she wanted to have a bath, I wanted a private parking space. We"re both happy now :)
• We"ve had a lot of pets since we are together (3,5 years): 6 guinea-pig"s, 2 rabbits (of which one died a day before Christmas), 24 fish, a cat (which the fire department is very happy with) and two rats. The cat and a few fish are still here.
• I drink too much coffee!

So, the five people I tag are:

• Matthew Cosier. I met him in Seattle during the 2006 Office DevCon
• Pedro Serrano, a Portugeese friend and fellow blogger
• Liam Cleary, who writes excellent postings about MOSS
• Ferry den Dopper, one of my colleagues at Tam Tam and Interaction Designer
• Branimir Giurov, a C# MVP (and almost ex-colleague) from Bulgaria

I"ve been looking and asking for it a while, but then I ran into it last week: the Dutch version of MOSS 2007. Also available in German, English, French, Italian, spanisch and Swedisch. It is available for a little while already, but somehow I have missed it. Some of our customers will be very happy.

Download here

Guidance and tools to enable IT Pros to upgrade custom Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 sites and templates to function in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 environments.

The Toolkit serves three main purposes:

• To provide IT professionals with the guidance and tools they need to upgrade customized Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 sites and site templates to function in a Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 environment.
• To provide a set of upgraded application templates for Windows SharePoint Services based on those currently published for Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 on TechNet.
• To provide instructions for installing these application templates in a Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 environment.

• Ch 1: Introduction. Introduces the Upgrade Toolkit for Windows SharePoint Services Sites and Templates, explaining its purpose, scope, audience, and contents.
• Ch 2: Planning Your Template Upgrade. Examines the site and site template upgrade process from beginning to end and gives you necessary information for planning your upgrade strategy. It explains that the upgrade process has two stages: one to perform before your Windows SharePoint Services environment is upgraded to Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, and one to perform after the upgrade.
• Ch 3: Preparing a Site Template Based on a Customized Site Definition. If you determine, based on Chapter 2, that one or more of your site templates are based on customized site definitions, this chapter will familiarize you with upgrade definition files and new site definitions.
• Ch 4: Stage 1: Before Upgrading to Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. Describes the Stage 1 site template upgrade steps that you must perform before starting the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 upgrade.
• Ch 5: Stage 2: After Upgrading to Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. Describes the Stage 2 site template upgrade steps that you must perform after finishing the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 upgrade.
• Ch 6: The Upgraded Application Templates for Windows SharePoint Services. Lists and describes the function of each of the upgraded application templates for Windows SharePoint Services and gives you detailed instructions for installing the application templates in a Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 environment.
• Ch 7: Troubleshooting. Provides workarounds and fixes for problems you may encounter.
• Appendix: Glossary. Lists the relevant terms used in this solution accelerator.

• A set of command scripts to streamline some of the server tasks during the site and template upgrade
• A set of upgraded application templates for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. To get these templates, click here.

To view this solution online at TechNet, click here.

Download here

First of all, happy new year! 2006 has been an exciting year, expecially for office/sharepoint people. A lot of beta stuff and new things to dive into. 2007 will probably be even better, looking at all the Office 2007 opportunities to come!

Anyway, a good start with a tip from Eli, talking about authenticating when opening documents in an extranet, and expecially, how to avoid it.

"The solution is found in Internet Security and Acceleration Server (ISA) 2006. If you"re making SharePoint available externally you should already be running ISA. The trick is configuring the Listener of that external connector to allow persistent cookies. Go to Listener Properties, Forms, Advanced. Name your cookie and select "Only on Private Computers" for the second field.

It"s also good to configure ISA to use Forms-based NTLM authentication, which even has extensions to supoprt third-party authentication providers like RSA. That way you can use most any browser to hit your external SharePoint site, not just IE and Firefox. "

Read the complete article

Today I ran into a blog post from Tony Bierman, talking about one of the new surprises of WSS3: SPWebConfigModification object. This object is an interface for changeing the web.config file(s) on all SharePoint servers in the server farm. So, in case you have missed it:

"At some point in your career as a SharePoint developer you may find it necessary to push out a change to a SharePoint web application"s web.config file for all servers in the farm.  In the simplest of scenarios, it may be realistic to make the change to web.config manually, but if you are creating a packaged application for redistribution or there are many servers in the SharePoint farm, a better approach might be to make the web.config modifications programmatically.  The WSS v3 API contains the SPWebConfigModification object which allows you to do just that."

using System;

using System.Globalization;

using Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration;



public class Program

{

static void Main(string[] args)

{

AddAjaxHandlerToWebConfig("Default Web Site");

}



/// <summary>

/// Adds the Ajax HttpHandler to a web application"s web.config for all servers in
the farm 


/// </summary>

/// <param name="webAppName">Name of web application</param>

private static void AddAjaxHandlerToWebConfig(string webAppName)

{

string assmDetails =

string.Format(CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, 


"Microsoft.Web.Handlers.ScriptResourceHandler, Microsoft.Web.Extensions, Version={0},
Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken={1}", 


new object[] { "1.0.61025.0", "31bf3856ad364e35" });



SPWebConfigModification modification =

new SPWebConfigModification("add[@name="AjaxHttpHandler"]", "configuration/system.web/httpHandlers");

modification.Owner = "Ajax";

modification.Sequence = 0;

modification.Type = SPWebConfigModification.SPWebConfigModificationType.EnsureChildNode;

modification.Value =

string.Format(CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, 


"<add verb=\"{0}\" path=\"{1}\" type=\"{2}\" validate=\"{3}\"/>", 


new object[] { "GET", "ScriptResource.axd", assmDetails, "false" });



SPWebApplication webApp = SPWebService.ContentService.WebApplications[webAppName];



if (webApp != null)

{

webApp.WebConfigModifications.Add(modification);

SPFarm.Local.Services.GetValue<SPWebService>().ApplyWebConfigModifications();

}

}

}

Read the complete article

This is the next version of the SharePoint Query Tool, designed for MOSS (SharePoint 2007). It has a similar feature set to the SharePoint Query Tool - it allows you to use a point and click interface to gather information such as search scopes and properties, type in search terms, and click a button to create both the search SQL syntax as well as the Xml document that is needed to run a query against MOSS. You can see results in plain text, structured Xml and now a dataset view. It supports FREETEXT and CONTAINS as well as wildcard searching. A very valuable tool for those trying to write custom SharePoint queries.

Download here

Via Jopx

This white paper explores how the 2007 Microsoft Office system allows enterprises to adopt Web 2.0 ideas and technologies to create high-value, user-driven applications for the Internet and intranet.

Download here

The Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Management Pack monitors events placed in the application event log. This Management Pack highlights events that might indicate possible service outages or configuration problems, so you can quickly take corrective or preventive actions. This Management Pack also provides the knowledge and expertise you need to leverage Microsoft Operations Manger (MOM) 2005 and get an immediate return on your investment.

Feature Summary:
• Monitors whether the application pool account has insufficient permission to add or read users from the Active Directory
• Monitors for issues arising from improper configuration of the authentication provider
• Monitors backup failures and recycle bin quotas
• Monitors for connectivity problems with computers running SQL server
• Monitors for issues arising from the deployment and topology of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
• Monitors events related to the health of the tracing infrastructure
• Monitors connectivity with the SMTP server
• Monitors whether the application pool account has problems writing to disk or a registry key
• Monitors connectivity with Windows Rights Management Services servers
• Monitors performance counters
• Monitors events that are critical to the sound operation of the search service
• Monitors Windows service availability
• Monitors events associated with the Timer service
• Monitors events associated with failures to load event handlers and safe control assembly paths

Download here

Slated for general availability in mid-2007, Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 is a highly integrated performance management application, driven by the SQL Server platform and familiar Microsoft Office front end, allowing corporations to monitor, analyze, plan and make critical business decisions based on reliable data from all aspects of the company. Partners, customers and end-users are encouraged to visit the Web site to download the application to begin building plans in a real-world environment and testing the overall power of the product for themselves.

Read the complete article here

Via Jan:

Finally the latest version of the SmartPart is here: the Return of the SmartPart, also know as SmartPart v3, also know as SmartPart for SharePoint 2007. For those of you who are new to the SmartPart: the SmartPart is an open source web part that can host any ASP.NET Web User Control. What is the advantage of creating web parts by making use of the SmartPart? Well if you are familiar with the "traditional" web part development technique you probably know that you have to write lots of code, there is no designer support in Visual Studio. The SmartPart allows you to create a Web User Control (ASCX) in Visual Studio by making use of the designer, and deploy it to a SharePoint site. This release of the SmartPart is targetted for SharePoint 2007, both Windows SharePoint Services v3 (WSSv3) and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS). Since the initial release almost 40.000 SharePoint developers have downloaded the SmartPart, get your copy today (for free of course) from the GotDotNet Workspace (in the releases section)! For those of you who have attended my session about web part development on TechEd: Developers in Barcelona, this is the version that I showed over there.

For more information about the deployment of the Return of the Smartpart, check out this post which also has a link to a small screencast. Keep an eye on my blog or www.smartpart.info for more information, examples and screencast about creating web parts the smart way!

Full article

Angus Logan refers to Ishai"s blog where the SharePoint Tips ustility Pack is available for download. Some interesting applications for easy development, like quickly change list settings, push webparts and recursively delete sites.

Use at your own risk..

Download here

Great work from S.S. Ahmed. WSUploadService is a web service for uploading documents in SharePoint 2007 environments.

"WS UploadService is a web service written for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and is meant for uploading documents into SharePoint. I have just uploaded the zip file to GotDotNet.com so it will take some time before the zip file appears in the list of downloads. For the time being, you can download the zip file from the following location:"

http://www.walisystems.com/ws1_dlc.asp (Download Size: 361 KB)

See Ahmeds post for full details and code examples.

Arno posted a nice list of poster-sized docments in Visio:

Models

• Model: Business Intelligence (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=73117&clcid=0x409 )
• Model: Office SharePoint Server Application Security (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=73118&clcid=0x409)
• Model: Office SharePoint Server Backup and Restore (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=73120&clcid=0x409)
• Model: Office SharePoint Server Topologies (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=73122&clcid=0x409)
• Model: Office SharePoint Server Baseline Site Hierarchies (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=73124&clcid=0x409)
• Model: Office SharePoint Server Customization (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=73125&clcid=0x409)
• Model: Office SharePoint Server Database Administration (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=73130&clcid=0x409)
• Model: Office SharePoint Server Enterprise Content Management (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=73132&clcid=0x409)
• Model: Office SharePoint Server Extranet Topologies (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=73153&clcid=0x409)
• Model: Office SharePoint Server Inter-Farm Shared Services (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=73155&clcid=0x409)
• Model: Office SharePoint Server Products Migration (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=73156&clcid=0x409)
• Model: Office SharePoint Server Search Administration (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=73165&clcid=0x409)
• Model: Office SharePoint Server Shared Services (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=73166&clcid=0x409)
• Model: Upgrading Office SharePoint Server Products (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=73167&clcid=0x409)
• Model: Upgrading SharePoint Portal Server 2003 to Office SharePoint Server (1 of 2) (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=73168&clcid=0x409)
• Model: Upgrading SharePoint Portal Server Version 2 to Office SharePoint Server (2 of 2) (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=73169&clcid=0x409)

Scenarios

• Scenario: Enterprise Content Management (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=73170&clcid=0x409)
• Scenario: InfoPath Forms Services Customer Interaction Form (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=73171&clcid=0x409)
• Scenario: InfoPath Forms Services Expense Reporting (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=73172&clcid=0x409)
• Scenario: InfoPath Forms Services Insurance Claims (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=73173&clcid=0x409)
• Scenario: InfoPath Forms Services Permits (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=73176&clcid=0x409)
• Scenario: InfoPath Forms Services Supplier Survey (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=73177&clcid=0x409)
• Scenario: Keeping Connections to Data Sources Current (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=73178&clcid=0x409)
• Scenario: Large Corporate Internet Site (Infrequent Changes to Web Content) (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=73179&clcid=0x409)
• Scenario: Office SharePoint Server Call Center (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=73557&clcid=0x409)
• Scenario: Office SharePoint Server Corporate Intranet Portal Site (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=73181&clcid=0x409)
• Scenario: Office SharePoint Server Departmental Portal Site (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=73182&clcid=0x409)
• Scenario: Office SharePoint Server Equities Research (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=73183&clcid=0x409)
• Scenario: Office SharePoint Server Informational Portal Site (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=73184&clcid=0x409)
• Scenario: Office SharePoint Server Out-Hosted Portal Sites (ASPs) (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=73186&clcid=0x409)
• Scenario: Online News Internet Site (Frequent Web Content Updates and Searching) (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=73187&clcid=0x409)
• Scenario: Preserving "One Version of the Truth" for Distributed Workbooks (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=73188&clcid=0x409)
• Scenario: Records Management in Office SharePoint Server (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=73189&clcid=0x409)
• Scenario: Rendering Data from Spreadsheets to Web Parts (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=73190&clcid=0x409)

Flowcharts

• Office SharePoint Server Planning Flowchart, Part I (application administrators) (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=73192&clcid=0x409)
• Office SharePoint Server Planning Flowchart, Part II (IT pros) (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=73193&clcid=0x409)
• Office SharePoint Server Deployment Flowchart (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=73191&clcid=0x409)

There are some more language packs available for WSS 3.0, including the Dutch one. You can download them here. But beware, if you want to install them on a MOSS server, there will be problems when creating sites using language packs.

One of the problems is that now all enterprise feature translations are made in the language packs, which means they will not be traslated or shown the proper way.

One of the other problems is when you create a new list item, some JS files are missing (i.e. the spelling check).

So, let"s wait for the MOSS language packs. More info can be found here.

Related Articles:

• Deploy Language Packs in Office SharePoint Server 2007
• Deploy multiple language versions of the 2007 Office system
• Language identifiers in the 2007 Office system
• Simplified design for multiple languages in the 2007 Office system

This white paper showcases compliance-related features and extensibility opportunities with the 2007 Microsoft® Office system, and demonstrates how the Office system can help you meet the demands of regulatory compliance. By focusing on a few core products, including Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server, Office client-side applications, and Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, this paper introduces built-in features of the Office system that address compliance requirements. The paper also focuses on the opportunities for developers to use expanded tools support to build customized solutions that facilitate regulatory compliance without bogging down business processes.

Download here

Via Andrew:

Finally! MOSS 2007 RTM bits, the non-eval ones, are now up on MSDN Subscribers Download for those of you who don"t want to use the eval bits. You"ll also find Forms Server 2007, Groove Server 2007, Project Server 2007, and XBOX 360 Server 2007 (just kidding).

In case you didn"t notice, all the Office 2007 RTM clients (including SharePoint Designer 2007) are also on MSDN Subscribers Download.

If you"re looking for additional downloads including WSS v3 RTM, MOSS 2007 x86 120-day evaluation, check the RTW post on the SharePoint Team Blog: Announcing the RTW of WSS and Office SharePoint Server 2007 Standard and Enterprise Evaluation!

Finally, if you are looking for updated RTM SDK"s, the MOSS and WSS v3 ones are up and live on MSDN (the downloadable CHM"s will be available soon):

» WSS v3 SDK (RTM)
» MOSS 2007 SDK (RTM)

"Application Templates are out-of-box custom scenarios for the Windows SharePoint Services platform, tailored to address the needs and requirements of specific business processes or sets of tasks in organizations of any size.

Microsoft will release a new set of 40 application templates for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. Some of the previous scenarios, such as Help Desk, Project Site, Knowledge Base and the Employee/HR templates will be improved to incorporate and highlight new capabilities in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. New scenarios will also be added to address specific customer needs and business requirements.

While Application Templates can be used to solve particular business needs, they can also provide a starting point for partners and developers looking to build deeper Windows SharePoint Services solutions. The new templates will make use of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 capabilities and be compatible with Office SharePoint Designer 2007 to help make customization easier."

See the full article here

For extending OpenOffice and offer an alternative for SharePoint (its everywhere on the site),  O3Spaces is an integrated solution for Collaboration, Document Management and Document Retention within teams and small businesses. Although everyone tells it is taking over SharePoint, I don"t think it will go that fast. :)

Anyway, good thing to dive into.

http://o3spaces.org/

Download these posters to learn more about the new features and enhancement to the 2007 Microsoft Office System.

This download contains the following files:

• Developer Roadmap for the 2007 Microsoft Office System. Download this poster to view a developer roadmap for the 2007 Microsoft Office system programs, tools, services, and servers.
• Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007 Managed Object Model Poster. Download this poster and get a deep dive into some of the new and enhanced objects in the InfoPath 2007 managed object model.
• Developer Map for SharePoint Products and Technologies Poster. Download this poster and discover the developer roadmap for Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies.

Go here to download!

The following picture can help to decide which licence you should have to get the functionality you need.

Download this macro-enabled Excel worksheet to see a gallery of built-in icons available for solution development.

When opened, this Excel worksheet adds a group to the developer tab with icon galleries of built-in icons available for reuse in your solutions.

Use these icons in your Ribbon solutions by specifying the imageMso value for your controls. For example, <button id="myButton" label="My save" imageMso="FileSave" /> creates a button with the Save icon.

Download here

Finally, it is here! the RTM version of WSS 3.0 is available for download at the Microsoft site. According to other sources, MOSS 2007 will be available on MSDN subscriptions later today.

Windows SharePoint Services is a versatile technology that organizations and business units of all sizes can use to increase the efficiency of business processes and improve team productivity. With tools for collaboration that help people stay connected across organizational and geographic boundaries, Windows SharePoint Services gives people access to information they need.
Built on Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Windows SharePoint Services also provides a foundation platform for building Web-based business applications that can flex and scale easily to meet the changing and growing needs of your business. Robust administrative controls for managing storage and Web infrastructure give IT departments a cost-effective way to implement and manage a high-performance collaboration environment. With a familiar, Web-based interface and close integration with everyday tools including the 2007 Microsoft Office system, Windows SharePoint Server is easy to use and can be deployed rapidly..

Important:
If you intend to install Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 on a server that is running Windows Small Business Server 2003, see "Installing Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 on a Server Running Windows Small Business Server 2003" at the Microsoft Web site. It contains important installation steps and procedures that you must perform to ensure a successful deployment.

Caution:
If you do not follow the instructions in "Installing Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 on a Server Running Windows Small Business Server 2003," your configuration of Windows Small Business Server 2003 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 might not work or might not be supported.

Download here

With the RTM of Office 2007, a lot of people want to upgrade their SharePoint environment from Beta 2 (TR) or from a previous SharePoint version (WSS 2.0 / SPS 2003) to the new version. On the SharePoint team blog, you can find very useful information about this topic:

"Version to Version Supported Upgrade Paths

With RTM recently being announced and code availability around the corner.  I"m posting a series of upgrade articles to assist in planning your upgrades to the RTM (Release to Manufacturer) versions of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Office SharePoint Server 2007.  To better understand the different editions and SKUs of the various SharePoint Products and Technologies please refer to the recently published features comparison, edition comparison, and differences.

Supported Version to Version Upgrade Paths:

• WSS RTM 2.0 SP2 -> WSS 3.0 RTM
• WSS RTM 2.0 SP2 -> WSS 3.0 RTM -> SharePoint Server 2007 RTM
• SharePoint Portal Server 2003 SP2 -> SharePoint Server 2007 RTM
• CMS 2002 -> SharePoint Server 2007 RTM (Migration)"

More specific info here

and:

"Build to Build Upgrade Path to RTM

We appreciate those of you who have participated in our beta and TAP (Technology Adoption Programs.)  If you aren"t planning to do a fresh/clean install of WSS 3.0 RTM or Office SharePoint Server 2007 and are planning to upgrade from an earlier beta, please read this carefully.  Note, support is not available until after you have properly upgraded your environment to the RTM version of the software.  Look on this blog for steps on how to upgrade to RTM from Beta 2 Tech Refresh in the next few days.  If you are still running beta 2 please refer to the steps posted here.    

Supported Build to Build Upgrade Paths:

• WSS v3.0 Beta 2 -> WSS Beta 2 Tech Refresh -> WSS RTM
• WSS v3.0 RTM -> SharePoint Server 2007 RTM
• SharePoint Server Beta 2 -> SharePoint Server Beta 2 Tech Refresh Standard -> SharePoint Server Standard Edition RTM
• SharePoint Server Beta 2 -> SharePoint Server Beta 2 Tech Refresh Enterprise -> SharePoint Server Enterprise Edition RTM"

More info on that here

Some of my colleagues have been upgrading the Office 2007 client and ran into serious problems as well. An article from Patrick Schmid helped them a lot with fixing the problems:

"Steps:

1. Uninstall all existing Office 2007 suites and/or standalone apps via the Control Panel, if possible. Refer to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927222/en-us to see which products belong to the beta.
2. Go to Start/Run and type “installer” (w/o quotes). This will bring up the Windows Installer directory.
   Change to “Details” view if you are not in that view
   If you don’t have “Subject” as a header, then right click on the headers in the directory, click more, then choose “Subject” so you can see the Subject information for each item in that directory.
   Sort by Subject and observe any items that contain Microsoft Office 2007.
   For each Office 2007 msi listed:
   • Click on Start->Run
   • In the Open box type “msiexec.exe /x”
   • Drag the msi into the the Open box
   • Click in the Open box and press End to move to the far right
   • Press the space bar and enter the text “NOREMOVESPAWN=1″
   • Press Enter to begin the removal and then wait until it finishes before proceeding to the next one
3. Right-click on My Computer and choose Manage
   Expand “Services and Applications and then select Services
   In the right pane, stop the Office Source Engine service if it is running
4. Delete the following registry keys if present:
   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\12.0
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Delivery\SourceEngine\Downloads\*0FF1CE}-*
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\*0FF1CE*
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\ose
   HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Features\*F01FEC
   HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Products\*F01FEC
   HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\UpgradeCodes\*F01FEC
   HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Win32Assemblies\*Office12*
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UpgradeCodes\*F01FEC
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Products\*F01FEC
5. Find and delete all keys under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall with a valuename of UninstallString that contains a value with *\Office Setup Controller\setup.exe*
6. Delete the following folders (if present):
   %CommonProgramFiles%\Microsoft Shared\OFFICE12
   %CommonProgramFiles%\Microsoft Shared\Source Engine
   %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Office\Office12 (this is the default location but can be changed during the installation)
   On all drives remove all folders below the MSOCache\All Users folders containing the string *0FF1CE}-*
7. Clear the content of your temporary files directory (go to Start/Run and type %temp%)
8. Reboot
9. Temporarily disable antivirus software and related services"

Anyway, good luck!

   A belated “Happy New Year” to our readers! And a belated “Happy 1^st Anniversary” for our team blog! It’s truly amazing how far this blog has come since Kurt DelBene’s initial post on Jan. 9, 2006. In terms of monthly traffic, this blog now ranks 8^th among all MSDN blogs as measured by page views and averages over 55,000 unique Web-based visitors (i.e. people who view the blog with a browser). The team blog has indeed become a “beacon” within the SharePoint community, and people are coming to it not only to connect with the BG but also each other by way of blog comments as exemplified by the following blog entries:

·         Introduction to SharePoint Wokflow (74 comments)

·         Announcing the RTW of WSS and Office SharePoint Server 2007 Standard and Enterprise Evaluation! (62 comments)

   I hope that you’ll agree with me that once a blog entry gets beyond 15 or so comments, the conversation becomes difficult to follow. Yes, we’ve long had newsgroups as a channel for these types of conversations, but their lack of scoped/filtered search, moderation, HTML support, and tagging has limited their usefulness. Hence, following the lead of other product groups such as SQL Server and Exchange Server, I’m pleased to announce the SharePoint Products and Technologies forums on MSDN, which are mirrored on TechNet. As I mentioned in one of my “Welcome” messages, these forums are being positioned and managed (with MVP and product group participation) as the de facto channel for community Q&A and discussion going forward. The newsgroups will continue to exist for the benefit of those who simply cannot give up the 2-way offline synchronization functionality, which is the only significant shortcoming of forums.

   After running on Telligent’s Community Server (great product and excellent people, by the way) for the past year, it’s time for the SharePoint Team Blog to be relocated to the permanent home that it’s destined for now that SharePoint Server 2007 has been released for about 2 months. The URL and RSS link for this blog will change as part of the move. The new URL will be announced when our MOSS-based community portal goes live within the next month or so, but for those of you who subscribe via RSS, you should use our new RSS link at http://feeds.feedburner.com/sharepointteamblog, which will shield you from the upcoming changes. The FeedBurner feed service also provides us with detailed statistics that will help us make better informed decisions about how and where to improve the blog’s content.

   Lastly, I’ve added some script from MyBlogLog and Snap to make the blog’s Web-based viewing experience more useful as depicted in the following screenshot.

   Again, Happy New Year! And thank you for reading our team blog and being part of the SharePoint community.

   <Lawrence />

With the upcoming changes to DST in the US, those of you who have SPS 2003 or WSS 2.0 deployed should read this.  "Preparing for daylight saving time changes in 2007" includes a list of Microsoft products and describes the change.   WSS 3.0 has no change and hence SharePoint Server 2007 has no change.

 Since SPS 2003 is based on WSS v2 platform then it gets DST from WSS so WSS v2 and SPS 2003 customers would need to install the update, http://support.microsoft.com/kb/924881.  The update has other fixes in it, but the DST update is the updated timezone.xml file and is included in the update.