Alexander’s Blog

Microsoft has several products that are generating good revenue for their business. Mary Jo Foley recently published this article that has more details. Most of the heavy hitters are big names but SharePoint definitely stands out.

There are over dozens products in this select group that generate over a $1 billion a year in sales for Microsoft, including the following products listed in alphabetical order.

1.  Azure
2.  Developer Tools
3.  Dynamics (ERP & CRM)
4.  Office
5.  Online display and search advertising.
6.  SharePoint (crossed the $2 billion mark in 2012)
7.  SQL Server
8.  System Center
9.  Unified Communications
10. Windows
11. Xbox

SharePoint is supposedly the only product that have crossed the $2 billion mark. If I am not mistaken, SharePoint was also the first product to cross the $1 billion in sales. You can bet all the tea in China that Office365 will be added to this list shortly.

For more information on this topic, check out Mary Jo Foley’s article. She also has some other interesting stuff in her article.

When working with Windows computers, especially Windows servers, I often run into situations where the hard drive is running out of disk space. In fact, I have often seen drives literally have no available space on a SharePoint or SQL server. There are too many reasons why a drive can run out of space, or continue to run out of space even if you keep freeing more disk space. In this article I won’t be going into the details of the reasons why drives run out of space but I can tell you that trace logs, SharePoint_Config_log.ldf file on SharePoint 2010, and cache files in %windir%\winsxs\ManifestCache folder on the server and PST files, temporary files, and thumbnails, eating up the disk on the workstation are a few common reasons. I have also blogged about other reasons in the past. The purpose of this article is to show you how to find out the size of some of the largest files on your computer so you can take action and delete them if they are not needed.

Not all large files are needed. If they are not needed then there is no sense in keeping them on your computer. Obviously, you can delete a lot of small junk files but The question is how to find out which are the largest files. A simple way to find out the size of the largest files is to write a PowerShell script. You can then pipe the results of the script to a file and look at them one by one. Here’s a sample script that will display in GB the 5 largest files on your server or workstation. You can change the number 5 at the end of the script to display more or fewer large files.

@echo off
Powershell -noexit “Get-PSdrive  | where { $_.Used -gt 0 } | foreach { Get-ChildItem $_.Root -recurse -force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Select Name,DirectoryName, @{Label=’Size’;Expression={($_.Length/1GB).ToString(‘F04′)}} | Sort Size -descending | select -first 5}”

1. Paste the above script in Notepad.
2. Save the file as a batch file (File, Save As, change “Save as type” to All files, click Save). Give it a name like Top5largestFiles.bat. Make sure you use the .bat extension, otherwise it will not execute as batch file.
3. Start the Command Prompt as an Administrator.
4. Go to the folder where you saved the batch file.
5. Type the name of the batch file (e.g. Top5largestFiles). It’s optional to type the .bat at the end of a batch file because the system automatically knows that it’s an executable file.
6. Wait a while because the batch file needs to go through every file on your computer. The results will be displayed in GB.
7. You can also pipe the results into a text file if for some reason you want to save the results as a reference for future use. For example, type
   5ToplargestFiles > largefiles.txt
   This will send the results into a text file called largestfiles.txt.
8. Once you know which files are the largest files you can go through them and see if some of them can be deleted. Obviously, you have to have certain level of knowledge to understand which files are safe to delete.

As an example, on a SQL Server 2008 R2 if you run out of disk space, you can delete the file that ends with _blobs.bin (e.g. a368b368b28d9265_blobs.bin) in the %windir%\winsxs\ManifestCache folder. According to Microsoft, this file is used by Windows Update mechanism and it is safe to delete this file. However, do not delete or mess with any other files in the WinSxS foder. Even if you delete all the files in the ManifestCache folder, they may appear later after a Windows Update or a reboot but will likely be not as large. Just keep an eye on these files and deleted them when necessary. Here a post from Joseph Conway on TechNet that describes in detail what the WinSxS folder is all about. Unfortunately, there is no known solution to this problem of Windows servers and workstations running out of disk space. Until Microsoft comes up with a solution, here’s a workaround.

Here’s how you can delete files in the Windows\WinSxS\ManifestCache folder.

1. Run the above batch file to find out the top 5 largest files.
2. If the files in the ManifestCache folder are among the largest files then use the following commands.
3. Run Command Prompt as an Administrator.
4. Run the command “net stop trustedinstaller” without the quotes to stop the Windows Modules Installer service. If your OS is running this service then make sure you wait for it to stop, if it’s not running and you get the message “The Windows Modules Installer service is not started” then go to the next step.
5. Type EXIT to get out of the PowerShell command and run the command “takeown /f %windir%\winsxs\ManifestCache\*” without the quotes at the Command Prompt to take the ownership of the folder. This step is necessary because you must take ownership of the folder before giving the Administrators proper permission.
6. If you get an error it’s likely because you ignored the first part of the previous step and ran the command inside PowerShell (if your prompt starts with PS then you are in the PowerShell command). If you run the command in PowerShell you will get the message “ERROR: The system cannot find the path specified.”
7. Run the command “Icacls %windir%\winsxs\ManifestCache\* /grant Administrators:f” without the quotes to grant Administrators Full Access permissions to the folder.
8. The last step is to delete the files in the ManifestCache folder. Run the command “del /q %windir%\winsxs\ManifestCache\*” without the quotes.
9. Restart the Windows Modules Installer service by typing “net start trustedinstaller” without the quotes.

Scheduling Cleanup of ManifestCache folder

The ManifestCache folder will continue to grow in the future but you can create a batch file to cleanup the content occasionally. I would recommend that you clean up the folder only if you need disk space because the cache files will improve performance. This solution is for people who are in desperate need of additional disk space. Here’ a batch file that I use on my SharePoint 2010 server and my SQL Server 2008 R2 server. I saved the content of this batch file in Notepad and named the file CleanManifestFolder.bat. I run this file at the elevated Command Prompt.

@echo off
cls
net stop trustedinstaller
takeown /f %windir%\winsxs\ManifestCache\*
Icacls %windir%\winsxs\ManifestCache\* /grant Administrators:f
del /q %windir%\winsxs\ManifestCache\*
net start trustedinstaller

You can also schedule to run this file with Task Scheduler if necessary.

Disk Cleanup Tool

At this point you may want to go through additional files and delete them if they are safer to delete. On some operating systems, such as Windows 7, you also have the option Disk Cleanup on the drive properties. However, this tool is designed to delete only certain types of files that are safe to delete, such as downloaded program files, temporary Internet files, setup log files, temporary files, thumbnails, etc. It won’t find other files that can be very large and often useless. I still encourage you to go through these and delete them. Especially, the temporary files and thumbnails. I noticed that on my PC, the thumbnails were 79MB but the temporary files were a whopping 13.7GB. Your mileage may vary but the results may surprise you.

Microsoft has documented some useful information on how to determine your current Microsoft SQL Server version number and the corresponding product or service pack level in the KB article 321185. The article also describes how to determine the specific edition of SQL Server that you are using.

There is another article that has information on how to find the latest builds for SQL Server. That information is available in the KB article 957826.

For example, to determine the version number of the SQL Server Client tools in SQL Server 2008 R2 you can start the SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) and go to Help, About.

It’s easy to verify that you have the latest build by using these KB articles. For example, Build 10.50.2806.0 (Cumulative update package) was the latest build as of today for SQL Server 2008 R2 since the release of SQL Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1.

When I am teaching classes, my students sometimes ask me questions about licensing for various Microsoft products. Back in the NT days, it was relatively easy to tell students how the licensing worked because there were only a few options. In recent years, it seems easier to get a PhD in Nuclear Physics then to try and understand licensing for Microsoft products. In fact, the licensing has become so complicated to understand that I doubt if even Microsoft sales people have all the answers to our questions.

Luckily, Microsoft has this Volume Licensing portal which is very helpful. Microsoft deserves credit for creating this Web site full of useful information. Consider it a Microsoft licensing encyclopedia. Besides other great information, it also includes an online Microsoft Licensing Advisor (MLA). This advisor is a wizard that walks you through your particular scenario and gives you a quote.

SharePoint Licensing

SharePoint licensing is a bit more complicated because it involves Windows Server and SQL Server in addition to SharePoint Server. If you are looking for SharePoint licensing, this SharePoint Licensing Q&A is a great resource.

Another good resource for SharePoint is a third-party tool called SharePoint Price Calculator from Bamboo Solutions. This is not a licensing tool but it helps you figure out the total cost of SharePoint and its related products, such as Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008.

SharePoint 2010 can be used to set up intranet, extranet, and Internet sites.

Intranet sites are licensed using a Server/CAL (Client Access License) model. SharePoint Server 2010 is required for each running instance of the software, and CALs are required for each person or device accessing a SharePoint Server.

Extranet and Internet sites are licensed using a Server-only model—no CALs are required.

Here are some additional details from Microsoft’s Web site.

SharePoint Server 2010: Intranet Scenarios

Client Access License

The Standard CAL delivers the core capabilities of SharePoint 2010:

• Sites: A Single Infrastructure for All Your Business Web Sites
• Communities: An Integrated Collaboration Platform
• Content: ECM for the Masses
• Search: Relevance, Refinement, and People (excludes FAST Search)
• Composites: Do-It-Yourself Business Solutions (excludes Access Services and InfoPath Services)

For more details on the specific features in the Standard CAL, see Edition Comparison.

Enterprise Client Access License

The Enterprise CAL delivers the full capabilities of SharePoint 2010:

• Sites: A Single Infrastructure for All Your Business Web Sites
• Communities: An Integrated Collaboration Platform
• Content: ECM for the Masses
• Search: Relevance, Refinement, and People includes FAST Search)
• Composites: Do-It-Yourself Business Solutions (includes Access Services and InfoPath Services)
• Insights: BI for Everyone (includes PerformancePoint Services, Excel Services, and Visio Services)

Note that the Enterprise CAL is additive: To access the Enterprise edition features, a person/device must have both the Standard CAL and Enterprise CAL. For more details on the specific features in the Enterprise CAL, see Edition Comparison.

SharePoint Server 2010: Internet/Extranet Scenarios

SharePoint Server 2010 for Internet Sites, Standard

SharePoint for Internet Sites, Standard, delivers the core capabilities of the SharePoint 2010 Standard CAL for use on an Internet or extranet site. This server license is designed for small and mid-sized companies, and deployment is limited to a single domain and related subdomains. A domain is a combination of a public domain (such as .com, .net, .org) and a second-level, proprietary domain (such as MyCompany, MyOrganization, MyClub). Examples of valid domains are MyCompany.com, MyOrganization.net, and MyClub.org. Subdomains are any URL prefixes to the left of the second-level domains.

SharePoint Server 2010 for Internet Sites, Enterprise

SharePoint for Internet Sites, Enterprise, delivers the full capabilities of the SharePoint 2010 Enterprise CAL for use on an Internet or extranet site. This server license also includes the rights to FAST Search for use in Internet or extranet scenarios. You can deploy a single server license of SharePoint Server 2010 for Internet Sites, Enterprise, as a SharePoint server or a FAST Search server—but not both concurrently.

If you don’t find answers to all your questions on Microsoft’s Web site, you can contact Microsoft in United States at 800-426-9400. In Canada, contract Microsoft representative at 877-568-2495.

Summary of Resources

1. Volume Licensing Portal
2. Microsoft Licensing Advisor
3. SharePoint Licensing Resources
4. SharePoint Licensing Q&A
5. SharePoint Price Calculator

Microsoft SQL Server licensing provides the option to purchase SQL Server 2008 R2 under a Server/CAL licensing model with a server operating system license and incremental Client Access Licenses (CALs), or a Per Processor license model.

NOTE: The following table provides guidance on estimated Open NL level pricing for U.S. and Canadian editions of SQL Server 2008 R2 offered in the Volume Licensing program. These prices were posted on Microsoft’s Web site on March 1, 2011. For current pricing information please visit Microsoft’s Web site.

* SQL Server Datacenter and SQL Server Web are offered in the VL Channel Only

- Unless otherwise noted, all editions are licensed in the Volume Licensing (VL) and Retail Full Packaged Product (FPP) sales channels.

- Estimated prices are provided in US dollars and are representative of Open NL level pricing for a company purchasing a small number of licenses via volume licensing distribution partners in the United States.

- Software Assurance prices are annual estimates for comparative purposes only.

- Actual reseller pricing may vary.

- To find the Microsoft Web site for your country/region, visit the Worldwide sites page.