Alexander’s Blog

The Microsoft SharePoint Administration Toolkit contains functionality to help manage Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) version 3.0. This toolkit contains the ability to diagnose performance issues, perform bulk operations on site collections, an Stsadm operation to update alert e-mails after the URL for a Web application has been changed, and a User Profile Replication Engine tool.

The supported operating systems include Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista and Windows XP. You must have MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 installed on your computer. Microsoft recommends that version 1.0 and 2.0 of the SharePoint Administration Toolkit be uninstalled first before you install version 3.0 of the SharePoint Administration Toolkit.

Here are the download links:

Microsoft SharePoint Administration Toolkit v3.0 x64

Microsoft SharePoint Administration Toolkit v3.0 x86

SharePoint Permission Reporting Tool

Included in the SharePoint Administration Toolkit from Microsoft is the Permission Reporting Tool, which provides various components to help better understand how security is being derived and applied across and within sites, lists and item. The tool includes three components - the Compare Permissions Sets function, the Check Effective Permissions function and the Broken Inheritance Reports function. Here’s a video on TechNet that will show you how to use the Permission Reporting Tool.

End users are so glad to see Windows 7 released, an operating system that works so much better than Windows Vista. The developers, system administrators,  and Microsoft Certified Trainers are not too happy to find out that Microsoft doesn’t support Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 in Windows 7 and even though there are ways to install it (see my blog post “How to Install Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 on Windows 7″), you cannot install a 64-bit guest operating system in Virtual PC 2007.  Yes, although Virtual PC 2007 can be installed on a 64-bit host operating system, you cannot run any 64-bit guest operating system in Virtual PC 2007.

Unfortunately, SharePoint Server 2010 can only be installed on a 64-bit computer. Which means, if you are a developer, trainer, or a tester interested in testing SharePoint Server 2010 in a Virtual Machine, you can’t, You have to go buy a 64-bit computer just to test SharePoint Server 2010, or look for non-Microsoft solutions. For some people it may not be a big deal to look for non-Microsoft solutions but for people like me who teach, consult, support, test, and write about Microsoft technologies and products, it sure makes our jobs difficult.

Luckily, CodeProject has an interesting solution that allows running SharePoint 2010 on a Windows 7 x64 computer simply by modifying the config.xml file located at C:\Program Files (x86)\MSECache\oserver2010. Here’s how.

- Go to C:\Program Files (x86)\MSECache\oserver2010
- Go to the Files folder
- Go to the Setup folder
- Open config.xml
- Add the following line before the closing </configuration> tag

<Setting Id=”AllowWindowsClientInstall” Value=”True”/>

Click here to read the details on CodeProject’s Web site. Before you get started, I encourage you to read this post from MCT Michael Pisarek who explains the steps and gives you some nice tips.

Managing Windows Server 2008 R2 Core edition can be challenging without a GUI. Luckily, CodePlex has come out with Core Configurator 2.0, a free, open source, graphical tool that will let you manage several of your Windows Server 2008 R2 Core edition settings. The previous version was meant to work with Windows Server 2008.

This tool has been written in PowerShell with a reference to Winforms so that a GUI format is displayed. If you haven’t enabled PowerShell on your server core, it will even offer to enable it. Core Configurator tasks include:

• Product Licensing
• Networking Features
• DCPromo Tool
• ISCSI Settings
• Server Roles and Features
• User and Group Permissions
• Share Creation and Deletion
• Dynamic Firewall settings
• Display | Screensaver Settings
• Add & Remove Drivers
• Proxy settings
• Windows Updates (Including WSUS)
• Multipath I/O
• Hyper-V including virtual machine thumbnails
• JoinDomain and Computer rename
• Add/remove programs
• Services
• WinRM
• Complete logging of all commands executed

You can download the tool here.

When I am looking for information on SharePoint that I can’t find, Sharee’s Blog is one of my first stops. I stumbled on this post she wrote about SharePoint Price Calculator that you will find very useful.

Hopefully, Bamboo Solutions will update the calculator so it will calculate price for Windows Server 2008 and other newer products. At the time of writing, the tool only calculates prices for older products, such as Windows Server 2003 and SQL Server 2005. However, it’s a good tool to get an idea of how much it will cost to implement various Microsoft solutions related to SharePoint. Click here to access the SharePoint Price Calculator.

Microsoft offers several spreadsheets that contain all the settings for group policies. These spreadsheets list the policy settings for computer and user configurations included in the Administrative template files delivered with the Windows operating systems specified. You can configure these policy settings when you edit Group Policy objects (GPOs).

Using column filters, you can filter the information in these spreadsheets by operating system, component, or computer or user configuration. You can also search for information by using text or keywords.

These spreadsheets include the following categories of security policy settings: Account Policies (Password Policy, Account Lockout Policy, and Kerberos Policy), Local Policies (Audit Policy, User Rights Assignment, and Security Options), Event Log, Restricted Groups, System Services, Registry, and File System policy settings. These spreadsheets do not include security settings that exist outside of the Security Settings extension (scecli.dll), such as Wireless Network extension, Public Key Policies, or Software Restriction Policies.

• Group Policy Settings Reference for Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7: This spreadsheet lists the policy settings for computer and user configurations included in the Administrative template files (.admx/.adml) delivered with Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7. The policy settings included in this spreadsheet cover Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista with SP1, Windows Server 2003 with SP2 and earlier service packs, Windows XP Professional with SP2 and earlier service packs, and Windows 2000 with SP4 and earlier service packs.
• Group Policy Settings Reference for Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista Service Pack 1: This spreadsheet lists the policy settings for computer and user configurations included in the Administrative template files (.admx/.adml) delivered with Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista with Service Pack 1 (SP1). The policy settings included in this spreadsheet cover Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista with SP1, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP Professional with SP2 or earlier service packs, and Windows 2000 with SP4 or earlier service packs.
• Group Policy Settings Reference for Windows Vista: This spreadsheet lists the policy settings for computer and user configurations included in the Administrative template files (.admx/.adml) delivered with Windows Vista with no service packs installed. The policy settings included in this spreadsheet cover Windows Vista, Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Windows XP Professional with SP2 or earlier service packs, and Windows 2000 with SP4 or earlier service packs.
• Group Policy Settings Reference for Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2: This spreadsheet lists the policy settings for computer and user configurations included in the Administrative template (.adm) files and Security Settings that shipped with Windows Server 2003 with SP2. The policy settings included in this spreadsheet cover Microsoft Windows Server 2003 with SP2 or earlier service packs, Windows XP Professional with SP3 or earlier service packs, and Microsoft Windows 2000 with SP4 or earlier service packs.This spreadsheet includes separate worksheets for each of the .adm files and the security policy settings that shipped in Windows XP SP3, a consolidated worksheet for easy searching, and an Update History worksheet that lists policy settings that have been added since the Windows Server 2003 operating systems were released.