Wig night

Add icon to pdf document types

1. Copy the pdf image icon file to the “Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\60\TEMPLATE\IMAGES” folder, maintain the size of the image.
2. Open the “DOCICON.XML” file which will be in “Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\60\TEMPLATE\XML”
3. Type inside the tag.
4. Restart IIS this to take effect.
5. Now all uploaded pdf document will be shown with pdf image

Getting your search service from starting to started

This may have been partly down to the SQL issues posted earlier (Databases created on SQL 2000 instead of SQL 2005); however i am not the only person to have come accross this so its definately worth a mention.

Microsoft recommend that in a farm environment you first start the Office Server Search Service on the Index server; in our case DEV02. Once up and running start the Query service on the Query server, DEV01.

When i started the Search Index service on DEV02 it hung on 'Starting' and after forcing a refresh gave the messgae 'Error Starting'.

To fix this:

I cannot definately say what fixed this or if it won't happen again but here's two ways in which i got it working:

Solution 1

1. Temporally enable Central Administration on the server running the search service (DEV02). (Central Admin is in our case then briefly running simultaneously on both the Office App & WFE Servers)
2. Start the Search Index service on the Index server (DEV02)
3. Start the Search Query service on the Query server (DEV01)
4. Disable Central Administration on the Index server (DEV02)

Solution 2

This was the solution that worked once the SQL issues had been resolved:

1. Start the Search Query service on the Query server (DEV01)
2. Start the Search Index service on the Index server (DEV02)

How to point your web applications to the WFE server

Should be obvious you would have thought, but alas no.

I set up the farm (3 servers as described in previous posts), and started creating the web applications for the SSPs & websites.

Note: I have a directory set up on the DEV02 (WFE) under E:\MOSS\Webs to store all Web Apps.

When creating the app pool I could not point my web app path at DEV02 E:\MOSS\Webs; SP would only accept DEV01 F:\MOSS\Webs.

Checking on the file systems and IIS app pools all the apps i created were sitting on DEV01 (App Server) rather than DEV02 (WFE).

To fix this:

1. Turn off the WSS Web Application Service on all servers other than WFE servers.
   Note: If you turn off the web app service on a server, the web apps you have already created that reside on that server will be deleted.
   
2. Select Create New Web Application.
3. Assign a description; port 80 & host header.
4. Set the path to DEV02 E:\MOSS\Webs
5. Assign App Pool name & DB name etc
6. Create.
7. Check IIS & files in DEV02 & E:\MOSS\Webs

The app should now be hosted on DEV02 the WFE.

Databases created on SQL 2000 instead of SQL 2005

When i started installing MOSS across our three server farm everything initially appeared to have gone well and i was ready to start creating the SSPs & web apps when Central Administration completely disappeared.

The issue:

SQL server was running both SQL 2000 as well as SQL 2005 and for some reason all the DBs had been created in SQL 2000.

I can't find a reason why this happened - all the previous installations had used the same SQL Server and had by default created the DBs on SQL 2005.

To fix it:

Use a SQL Server with only SQL 2005 installed on it!

Deploying MOSS 2007 on a Medium sized Farm (3 Servers)

This has not been without the normal issues but here's how i installed MOSS over a 3 server farm environment.

To install MOSS i have pretty much followed the Microsoft Technet documentation Deploy in a simple server farm (Online Technet webpage).

This is a pretty typical medium sized farm consisting of a database server running SQL Server 2005, one front end web server also running the Search Indexing service and one Office application server also running the Search Query service & Central Administration.

Some points MS note before starting:

• You must install MOSS on the same drive on all load balanced front end server computers
• You must install MOSS on a clean installation of MS Windows Server 2003 SP1 or later. If you uninstall and then reinstall MOSS may fail to create the config DBs. (This is not always the case - i have tried out both on clean and 'dirty' servers).
• You must use the Complete installation option on all servers you want to be index, query or Excel Calc servers.
• Each index server in a farm requires its own SSP.
• If you uninstall Office SharePoint Server 2007 from the first server on which you installed it, your farm might experience problems. It is not recommended that you install Office SharePoint Server 2007 on an index server first.
• Setup installs the Central Administration Web site on the first server on which you run Setup. Therefore, we recommend that the first server on which you install Office SharePoint Server 2007 is a server from which you want to run the Central Administration Web site.

What I Did:

Using clean servers running Windows Server 2003 SP1

The admin & service accounts used are listed in the document MOSS Admin & Service Accounts (access is restricted)

1. Set up SQL Server with SQL 2005 only
   
   • Add the SQL Service account via SQL Management Studio.
2. Install .NET Framework 3 onto both DEV01 & 2
3. Enable ASP.NET 2.0 on both DEV01 & 2
4. Install MOSS on to DEV01
5. Run SP Configuration Wizard on DEV01 to create a new server farm.
6. Install MOSS on to DEV02
7. Run SP Configuration Wizard on DEV02 to connect to the existing server farm.
8. Stop the WSS Web Application service on DEV01 (this server is not serving any content). If you dont do this then the web apps will be hosted on the wrong server. See my post about this: How to point your web applications to the WFE server
9. Start the Office SP Server Search service (Query) on DEV01 - MS says to do this after starting the Index service, however I found that it did not like starting the Index server and hung on service startup. See my post about this: Getting your search service from starting to started.
10. Start the Office SP Server Search service (Index) on DEV02.
11. Create the Web Applications to host the SSPs
    
    • MOSS SSP1 Admin
      
    • MOSS SSP2 Admin
      
    • MOSS SSP3 Admin
12. Create the Web Applications to host the Portals & My Sites using port 80 & host headers.
    
    • MOSS 1
      
    • MOSS 2
      
    • MOSS 3
13. Create the three Shared Service Providers using port 80 & host headers.
    
    • MOSS SSP1
      
    • MOSS SSP2
      
    • MOSS SSP3
14. Create the top level site collections
    
    • Portal 1
      
    • Portal 2
      
    • Portal 3

MS Server Topology Recommendations

In addition to the many sources of information we discovered a great document from Microsoft full of recommendations, and not a moment too soon to get through the 741 pages of very small print. For a marvelous read check out the full document Planning & Architecture for Office SharePoint Server 2007

With regards topology MS point out the following:

We recommend that you configure Office SharePoint Server 2007 in the order listed below. This order makes configuration easier and ensures that services and applications are in place before they are required by server types.

Recommended Order of installation

1. We recommend that the Central Administration Web application be installed on an application server, such as a query server or a server that runs Excel Calculation Services, but not an index server (for performance reasons). If your farm will have an application server, install Office SharePoint Server 2007 on that server first. This also installs the Central Administration site.


2. All your front-end Web servers.


3. The index server (if using a separate server for search queries and indexing).


4. The query servers, if separate from the index server. (To configure more than one query server in your farm, you cannot configure your index server as a query server.)


5. Other application servers (optional).

Because the SSP configuration requires an index server, you must start the Office SharePoint Server Search service on the computer that you want to be the index server, and configure it as an index server before you can create an SSP. Because of this, you must deploy and configure an index server before other servers. You can choose any server to be the first server on which you install Office SharePoint Server 2007. However, the Central Administration Web site is automatically installed on the first server on which you install Office SharePoint Server 2007.