Alexander’s Blog

Microsoft has the following information documented in KB article 934838.

To change the passwords for service accounts in SharePoint Server 2007 and in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, follow these steps.

Note If the SQL Server service uses a domain account, and the password for that domain account is either expired or invalid, make sure that you update the password for the domain account before you perform this procedure.

1. Update the password for the account that is used by the Central Administration application pool. To do this, follow these steps:
   1. On all servers in the server farm, open a command prompt, type the following line, and then press ENTER:
      cd %commonprogramfiles%\Microsoft Shared\Web server extensions\12\Bin
   2. On the server that hosts the Central Administration Web site, type the following line at the command prompt, and then press ENTER:
      stsadm -o updatefarmcredentials -userlogin DomainName\UserName -password NewPassword
   3. On all other servers in the server farm, type the following line at the command prompt, and then press ENTER:
      stsadm -o updatefarmcredentials -userlogin DomainName\UserName -password NewPassword -local
   4. Restart Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0. To do this, type the following line at the command prompt, and then press ENTER:
      iisreset /noforce
2. Verify that the Administration Application Pool Credential Deployment job definition is no longer displayed on the Timer Job Definitions page of SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration. To do this, follow these steps:
   1. Open SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration, click Operations, and then click Timer job definitions under Global Configuration.
   2. Verify that the Administration Application Pool Credential Deployment job definition is no longer displayed in the list.Note If the Administration Application Pool Credential Deployment job definition is displayed in the list, wait until it disappears from the list.
3. Update the password for the application pool account that is used by Web applications on the server farm. To do this, type the following line at a command prompt on every server on the server farm, and then press ENTER:
   stsadm -o updateaccountpassword -userlogin DomainName\UserName -password NewPassword -noadmin
4. Update the password for the account that is used to run the Windows SharePoint Services Help Search service. To do this, type the following line at a command prompt on every server on the server farm, and then press ENTER:
   stsadm.exe -o spsearch -farmserviceaccount DomainName\UserName -farmservicepassword NewPassword
5. Update the password for the default content access account that is used by the Windows SharePoint Services Help Search service. To do this, type the following line at a command prompt on every server on the server farm, and then press ENTER:
   stsadm.exe -o spsearch -farmcontentaccessaccount DomainName\UserName -farmcontentaccesspassword NewPassword
6. If you are running SharePoint Server 2007, you must also follow these steps:
   1. Update the password for the account that is used by every Shared Services Provider (SSP) on the server farm. To do this, type the following line at a command prompt on every server on the server farm, and then press ENTER:
      stsadm.exe -o editssp -title SharedServicesProviderName -ssplogin DomainName\UserName -ssppassword NewPassword
   2. Update the password for the account that is used to run the Office SharePoint Server Search service. To do this, type the following line at the command prompt, and then press ENTER:
      stsadm.exe -o osearch -farmserviceaccount DomainName\UserName -farmservicepassword NewPassword
   3. If the server farm is configured to use single sign-on, update the password for the account that is used by the Microsoft Single Sign-On Service. To do this, follow these steps:
      1. Click Operations in SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration, and then click Service accounts under Security Configuration.
      2. Under Windows service, click Single Sign-On Service.
      3. Under Configurable, specify the password, and then click OK.
   4. Update the password for the default content access account that is used by the Office SharePoint Server Search service. To do this, follow these steps:
      1. Open SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration, and then click the link to the SSP Web application under Shared Services Administration.
      2. Under Search, click Search settings, and then click Default content access account.
      3. Specify the password to use for the content access account, and then click OK.

The KB article 934838 also has a script listed that automates changing of the passwords.

How to update the SharePoint Server 2007 password when SharePoint Server 2007 is installed in a least-privileges configuration

Method 1: Start the SPAdmin service

Start the SPAdmin service on all computers in the farm before you update the password. Stop the service when the operation is complete.

Method 2: Add the database access account to the local administrators group

Add the database access account to the local administrators group of each computer in the farm that has an online search instance. Log on by using that account, and then update the password by using the stsadm command.

When this operation is complete, remove the database access account from the local administrators group of each computer.

If you’ve run into the 50 site limitation in the site directory listing you can use the following method to increase the size limit. The Table of Content (TOC) Web part is used to display the site directory listing. If you were using SPS 2003 before you may have thousands of sites listed in the TOC Web part but if you upgrade it to MOSS 2007 you will notice that only the first 50 sites are displayed.

Edit the IIS web.config file located at C:\inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\YourSiteName80 on each front-end Web server. Make sure that you edit the correct web.config file. DO NOT edit the SharePoint web.config file located at C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\CONFIG\.

Set the DynamicChildLimit value to “0″ if you don’t want any limits. Otherwise, set it to a number that you would like.

For each provider listed below, add the DynamicChildLimit value, as shown in bold below. The following example sets the size limit to zero (unlimited).

<add name=”GlobalNavSiteMapProvider” description=”CMS provider for Global navigation” type=”Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.Navigation.PortalSiteMapProvider, Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=70ac9876ab9ca575″ NavigationType=”Global” EncodeOutput=”true” DynamicChildLimit=”0″/>

<add name=”CombinedNavSiteMapProvider” description=”CMS provider for Combined navigation” type=”Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.Navigation.PortalSiteMapProvider, Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=70ac9876ab9ca575″ NavigationType=”Combined” EncodeOutput=”true” DynamicChildLimit=”0″/>

<add name=”CurrentNavSiteMapProvider” description=”CMS provider for Current navigation” type=”Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.Navigation.PortalSiteMapProvider, Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=70ac9876ab9ca575″ NavigationType=”Current” EncodeOutput=”true” DynamicChildLimit=”0″/>

<add name=”CurrentNavSiteMapProviderNoEncode” description=”CMS provider for Current navigation, no encoding of output” type=”Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.Navigation.PortalSiteMapProvider, Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=70ac9876ab9ca575″ NavigationType=”Current” EncodeOutput=”false” DynamicChildLimit=”0″/>

A lot of people use Secunia’s online software inspector to inspect operating system and software for insecure versions and missing security updates. Although you may not see older versions of Adobe Flash Player in Add/Remove Programs, Secunia’s inspector detects the older version and informs you of the risk. You can get rid of the older versions by following the technique described below.

Find out where the Flash Player ActiveX control is installed. Thanks to Secunia’s scan, it tells you exactly where the file is installed, as shown in the graphic below.

The file is called flash.ocx if you are using Flash Player version 6 or later. For version 5 or earlier it is called swflash.ocx.  Here are the default locations for the file.

C:\Windows\System\Macromed\Flash for Windows 95, 98 and WinME
C:\WinNT\System32\Macromed\Flash for Windows NT and 2000
C:\Windows\System32\Macromed\Flash for Windows XP and Vista

Sometimes you may see the file name to be something like flash9b.ocx, so you might want to look for all files that end with extension .ocx. For example, you may find a file located at C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\Macromed\Flash\Flash9b.ocx.

Keep in mind that there are still some other locations that these players are installed. For example, Dreamweaver installs it in the location where your Dreamweaver is installed, such as : Dreamweaver\Configuration\Plugins\NPSWF32.dll.

A lot of vendors want to install software on your computer either without your knowledge, or they bundle other “junk” software with useful products and it gets installed often without user’s knowledge. Both Apple and Adobe are notorious for their “junk” software installation. For example, you may also find a version installed with Adobe AIR in C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe AIR\Versions\1.0\NPSWF32.dll. Why? Because Adobe bundles Adobe AIR with Acrobat Reader. Luckily, Secunia’s report will give you all the details you need. Here’s the step-by-step procedure to get rid of the old versions of Flash Player ActiveX controls.

Step 1

Locate the Flash Player version that you want to remove. Once you’ve located the file, use regsvr32 to unregister the ActiveX control. For example, to remove Flash9b.ocx, go to Start, Run and type regsvr32 “C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\Macromed\Flash\Flash9b.ocx” /u. You should see the following message.

If there are other versions you need to do the same for all other versions. Remember to use quotes if there’s a space in the file path. For example, to unregister the DLL installed by Adobe AIR type regsvr32 “C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe AIR\Versions\1.0\NPSWF32.dll” /u because there are spaces in the path.

Step 2

After the ActiveX has been successfully unregistered, locate the file .ocx and delete it.

Step 3

Locate the .inf file associated with the Macromedia Flash Player ActiveX control (swflash.inf) and delete it. In the Adobe AIR example I gave in step 1, I would delete the entire folder 1.0 under Versions.

Step 4

Restart the computer.

Once you’ve removed old versions successfully, you should run Secunia’s inspector again to verify the removal.

Microsoft ISA Server blog has posted an article on this topic that goes into details on how to deal with this issue of not being able to check out a document in MOSS 2007. Here’s an excerpt:

“Troubleshooting SharePoint/MOSS 2007 publishing through ISA Server can be really challenging, mainly because most of the times the argument is: but it works just fine internally. Although this can be a good argument it doesn’t prove that the issue is on ISA Sever. The reason why it doesn’t prove is because most of the time while publishing MOSS 2007 through ISA Server 2006 the Alternate Access Mappings is controlled by MOSS. This is a key element in this type of publishing scenario, so before we move further on this issue I strong recommend you to read the following article: Plan alternate access mappings (Office SharePoint Server). This article has all the concepts that you need to plan your AAM without hurting your publishing rule through ISA Server.”

Read the rest of the article here.

If you’ve run into a situation where Windows Help and Support is no longer working, you will notice that the Help in other applications, such as Internet Explorer is also affected. You get the following error: