Alexander’s Blog

If you are using Outlook 2007 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007, you are in good shape. The integration between the two products makes your life easier. Here’s how you can add a SharePoint Document Library to Outlook 2007.

1. Go to the SharePoint Document Library that you want to add to Outlook.

2. On the Actions menu click on Connect to Outlook (if you’re using IE) or Connect to Client (if you are using Firefox), as shown in the graphic below.

3. In IE you will see a dialog box that asks you if you want to connect the library to Outlook. In Firefox, first you see the Launch Application dialog box from which you can select Microsoft Office Outlook and then you see the same option as in IE.

4. Click Yes and your Document Library will show up under a SharePoint Lists folder in Outlook.

Now you can read and edit files, use Outlook search to locate documents just like you do with Outlook e-mail messages, work with your documents offline, etc.

You can right-click and remove the offline copy, or download the document again. If you open the file, it will be opened as Read-Only. You can edit it by clicking on Edit Offline button, as shown in the screenshot below.

When you click on Edit Offline, a dialog box will show you where the document will be stored on your computer (in a SharePoint Drafts folder in your default documents folder). You can click on SharePoint Drafts link and change the location if you want.

The Offline Editing Options link gives you some additional customization options. Once you’ve made your modifications, you can save the file. By default, it will save it in SharePoint Drafts folder on local computer. When you try to close the document you will be given the option to update the server with your offline changes.

If you want to switch back to your SharePoint Library, you do not need to leave Outlook. Simply right-click the folder in the left hand pane and select Open in Web Browser. If you add a List, such as a Calendar, it will be added under Other Calendars and will be visible alongside your personal calendars.

This brief overview gives you an idea of some of the capabilities of Outlook and SharePoint integration. Although I showed you how to use both IE and Firefox browsers to connect to Outlook, I should point out that unfortunately Firefox does not work very well when it comes to SharePoint. Some of Microsoft’s blogs give you the impression that Firefox is supported but in the real-world you will run into several limitations, even if you use the IE Tab add-on for Firefox.

You may have heard about Google’s new browser called Chrome. I thought about installing it so I can evaluate it. But then I thought about all the privacy violations that Google has been criticized by security experts over the years and decided to do a little research first. I have to admit, I am pretty hesitant when it comes to installing anything made by Google, whether it’s their toolbar, Web browser or anything else. I stumbled upon this article on TG Daily: Chrome is a security nightmare, indexes your bank accounts. In Google’s defense, I should point out that at the time the article was written, Chrome was still in beta. However, the article raises some interesting points and it’s the fact that Google is once again in the middle of a privacy controversy that caught my attention. Here are a few quotes from the article.

After playing around with Google’s brand new Chrome browser, we’ve discovered that its history search box will fetch all types of data – even text from HTTPS-protected financial sites like Washington Mutual and Capital One.  With a few utterly simple keywords like balance, account and Sept., everything from balance information, account numbers and even how much you spent at Costco can be pulled up.

To see all of this in action, just open up Chrome and log in to your favorite financial website.  Like most important sites, it should be protected with HTTPS/SSL encryption and that should be evident in the address bar of the browser.  Do the stuff you would normally do like look at your balances and gawk at your latest transactions and then open up a new tab in Chrome by clicking the “+” symbol.  In the right-hand history search box, enter a few keywords and see what they get you.  Surprised?  I bet you are.  No luck?  Then try something simple like oh Visa, Mastercard, balance and account.  Also try out the names and abbreviations of months like September, Sept and Sep.

And on Guardian‘s Web site I read the following:

The history search feature means you can find all your financial, medical and other secrets from the browser without going anywhere near the secure site. Or someone else can. If you have a PC where someone else can access it — for example, in almost any office — then it’s a recipe for disaster.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has a different concern. It says, according to CNet’s headline, We’re concerned about Google’s Omnibox. There’s a privacy issue because anything you type in gets sent back to the Google mothership, and it’s storing some of it. The ways to avoid that include (1) turn off auto-suggest; or (2) use a default search engine that isn’t Google; or (3) use porn mode. Any one will do.

Sorry, I forgot to include the (mercifully short) story of the day: you can crash Chrome by typing :% in the address bar. I expect someone will figure out how to crash it remotely, if they haven’t already done so….

According to Google their browser is supposed to “make the web faster, safer, and easier”. Safer? Really? Funny I just switched my default search engine from Google to Live Search as I mentioned in yesterday’s blog post Goodbye Google, Hello Live Search!. And no I didn’t do it because of privacy concerns, I did it because I liked Live Search better.

In July I wrote an article Microsoft Surges with TechNet/MSDN Search. In that article I documented my observations, talked about some cool features and listed the areas that needed improvement. Microsoft has been making considerable changes to it’s search engine lately and seems to be more committed to offering consumers search capabilities that rival competitors, such as Google. Recently, I decided to give Live Search a try. The last time I used Live Search, a long time ago, I wasn’t too impressed so I was hesitant at first and definitely skeptical. Anytime Microsoft, or another vendor, tells you to try their new improved product you know they are trying to sell you their product so if you are skeptical that’s natural.

I made Windows Live my default search engine on December 1 and in this article I am documenting my observations. Keep in mind that I have only used Live Search for ten days as my default search so my experience is rather limited. However, I wanted to document my experience because when I wrote the article about TechNet and MSDN Search in July , I clearly stated that I do not prefer Live Search over Google, at least not at that time.

So what changed my mind that I wanted to give Live Search a serious try? Well, the simple fact that Microsoft made tremendous improvements in TechNet/MSDN Search, which impressed me, and I assumed that Microsoft must have made significant changes to Live Search over the past several months. Also, at the last MVP Global Summit Steve Ballmer told us that Microsoft is making improvements to Live Search and asked us (MVPs) to give it a try and then give our honest feedback. So here’s my honest feedback.

For me, the easiest way to compare and contrast two products is to use them both for the same task. And that’s exactly what I did with Live Search. I used the exact same search for both Google and Live Search to better compare the two search engines.

General Observations

Here are some general observations after running same searches on both engines. This list in the following table is not in any particular order.

There are some areas where Live Search blows away Google out of this world, like searching for images. Look at the side-by-side comparison of the two graphics below to get a better idea. With Live Search I can simply move my slider down and it automatically takes me to the next page. Unlike Google search, there is no need to scroll down to the bottom of the page, click Next, wait for the images to load and then start this procedure over for the next page. If you want to search among thousands or even hundreds of images, Live Search is the way to go. Google allows you to refine your images by selecting options from a drop-down button at the top of the page, while Live Search allows you to refine searches by options such as size, aspect ratio, color, style, face, etc. Live Search options are more intuitive and will be easier to navigate and understand by most users.

Live Search Example:

Google Search Example:

In Live Search, when you hover over an image, you get several options including the size of the image. The four zoom options further enhance image searches. Another thing I noticed is that images look much crisper in Live Search. I haven’t spent time to further research this and it may be due to the fact that Live Search has a much cleaner and sharper look to it, while Google feels too messy and the ads definitely add to the clutter.

There is a typo of sorts in Live Search screen. At the time of writing, the cashback link in the upper right hand corner should be spelled Cashback with an uppercase C, just like the rest of the links.

Conclusion

My overall impression about Live Search is that it has made significant improvements since I last used it. I consider it a serious competitor to Google. After using it for 10 days, and mind you it’s only 10 days, I believe an average user is not going to find a significant difference between the two search engines. More sophisticated users will find pros and cons in both search engines. Because I primarily work with Microsoft products, I would prefer to use Live Search just for that reason alone even though I realize that that’s no guarantee for better results.

I like Live Search for aesthetics and clarity, I didn’t notice a significant speed difference in either of the search engines, and the most important factor in search for me is relevance. Well, I didn’t find either of the two search engines having any significant edge over the other in relevance of search results. As far as searching for images, Live Search is light years ahead of Google. For all these reasons, I’ve decided to switch to Live Search for now. I will use it for a while and see how I like it. If I find significant deficiencies I will report back with my findings. Until then, goodbye Google and hello Live Search.

If you’ve run into a situation where a user can open a Word 2003 file on SharePoint Server but is directed to save the file locally, try the following solution. I had a client who ran into this situation and was able to fix using the technique described below.

1. Uninstall the SharePoint support from Office 2007 applications (e.g. Visio).

2. Set the document files (e.g Word, Excel) to not open in the browser as follows. This procedure is for Windows XP Professional.

a) Open Windows Explorer.

b) Go to Tools, Folder Options.

c) Click on File Types tab.

d) Highlight the document extension for the file type, e.g. highlight DOC in the extensions column.

e) Click on Advanced button.

f) Uncheck the box “Browse in same window.”

g) Click OK twice to close all windows.

Make sure you do this for other file types that are causing this problem, e.g. Excel.

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.