Alexander’s Blog

In SharePoint Server 2010, the State Service is a shared service that is used by some components to store temporary data across related HTTP requests in a SQL Server database. The State Service is required by InfoPath Forms Services (including out of the box and custom workflow forms), the SharePoint Server 2010 Chart Web Part, and certain Microsoft Visio 2010 scenarios that do not use Microsoft Silverlight 3.

Problem

After you install SharePoint Server 2010 you may see the following warning in the Health Analyzer Reports.

InfoPath Forms Services forms cannot be filled out in a Web browser because no State Service connection is configured.

If you have configured a workflow form, you may see the following error.

The form cannot be rendered. This may be due to a misconfiguration of the Microsoft SharePoint Server State Service. For more information, contact your server administrator.

Solution

Configure the State Service. The State Service is automatically configured as part of the Basic installation of SharePoint Server 2010. However, the Advanced installation of SharePoint Server 2010 requires separate configuration of the State Service. You can use one of the following two methods to configure the service.

1. Farm Configuration Wizard (I don’t recommend using this wizard after installing SharePoint).
2. PowerShell (this is my preferred method).

The default configuration for the State Service is sufficient for most configurations and you only need additional configuration if your server farm has a very large number of InfoPath active state sessions for forms or charts, or you may need additional configuration in hosted environments.

The default configuration includes the following.

• One State Service service application.
• One State Service database on the same database server that contains the configuration database. The databases must be associated with the service application.
• One State Service application proxy associated with the default proxy group of the server farm.

As I mentioned earlier, I prefer using the PowerShell to configure the State Service. By the way, you can also use PowerShell to perform configuration tasks that are not available on the Central Administration site of the farm.

Use PowerShell to Configure the State Service

Here are the steps to configure the service using PowerShell.

1. Verify that you meet the minimum requirements. See Add-SPShellAdmin for more details. Essentially, you need to add the logged in user account to the SharePoint_Shell_Access role in the target database using the following syntax.
   Add-SPShellAdmin [-UserName]
   If you are already logged in as a user that has the securityadmin and dbowner role in SQL Server and is a member of the WSS_Admin_WPG user group then you can skip this step.
2. On the Start menu, click All Programs.
3. Click Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products.
4. Click SharePoint 2010 Management Shell.
5. To create a service application, type the following command:
   $serviceApp = New-SPStateServiceApplication -Name “<StateServiceName>“
   For example, $serviceApp = New-SPStateServiceApplication -Name “Intranet Farm State Service“
6. After the service application is created, you need to create a State Service database and associate it with a service application.
   New-SPStateServiceDatabase -Name “ <StateServiceDatabase>” -ServiceApplication $serviceApp
   For example, New-SPStateServiceDatabase -Name “StateServiceDB” -ServiceApplication $serviceApp
   
7. To create a State Service application proxy, associate it with the service application, add it to the farm’s default proxy group, type the following command.
   New-SPStateServiceApplicationProxy -Name “<ApplicationProxyName>” -ServiceApplication $serviceApp -DefaultProxyGroup
   For example, New-SPStateServiceApplicationProxy -Name “Intranet Application Proxy” -ServiceApplication $serviceApp -DefaultProxyGroup
8. Here’s what the summary of the commands might look like. The commands in the red are the one you would type, the output is shown in blue.
   
9. As soon as you run the above command to finish configuring the State Service, re-analyze the rule (listed in the problem section above) in the Health Analyzer Reports.
10. Click the rule and then click Reanalyze Now.
11. Refresh the screen. The warning message should disappear in the Health Analyzer Reports.

More information on this topic is available on Microsoft TechNet here.

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Copyright ©2010 Zubair Alexander. All rights reserved.

To upgrade VMware ESXi 4.0 host to ESXi 4.1, first you need to download the upgrade zip file from VMware. There are several methods to upgrade your ESXi but in my opinion using the vSphere CLI tool is by far the easiest. The versions listed in this post are the latest version available at the time of writing.

If you don’t have the vSphere CLI v4.1.0 installed, you can download it from VMware. Make sure that you download vSphere CLI, not PowerCLI. You will need the vSphere CLI utility to upgrade your ESXi host. You can install vSphere CLI utility on Windows XP and Vista. At the time of writing, Windows 7 is not supported. I installed it on Windows 7 but had problems running the utility. I used a Windows XP computer and it worked just fine for me.

When you start the utility, you may notice that it is starting in VMware\VMware vSphere CLI folder. You need to be in the Perl\bin folder where the utility resides. One solution is to add the Perl\bin folder to the path and then close and re-open the command prompt. If you have added the VMware\VMware vSphere CLI\Perl\bin to the path and are unable to execute the vihostupdate.pl utility, just simply change the directory to VMware\VMware vSphere CLI\Perl\bin and then execute the command. You can type vihostupdate.pl –help for help with the syntax.

Execute the following command to upgrade ESXi4.0 host to ESXi 4.1.

NOTE: In the blog post what may look like a hyphen is actually two dashes. Make sure you type two hyphens before the words server, install and bundle. For some reason my WordPress blog is converting the double hyphens “- -” to one solid dash “–”.

vihostupdate.pl –server Server_IP_Address –install –bundle Full_Path_to_Zip_File

For example, enter the following command.

vihostupdate.pl –server 10.0.1.200 –install –bundle “C:\Source Files\VMware\ESXi 4.1\upgrade-from-ESXi4.0-to-4.1.0-0.0.260247-release.zip”

where 10.10.1.200 is the IP address of the ESXi server. If the path includes spaces then use quotes, as shown in the example above. Do not enter the two dashes “–” before the path. Your command will look something like this.

C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware vSphere CLI\Perl\bin>vihostupdate.pl –server 10.0.1.200 –install –bundle “C:\Source Files\VMware\ESXi 4.1\upgrade-from-ESXi4.0-to-4.1.0-0.0.260247-release.zip”
Enter username: root
Enter password:
Please wait patch installation is in progress …
The update completed successfully, but the system needs to be rebooted for the changes to be effective.

Note: Your password won’t be displayed. After you press enter it can take a very long time to install the software so be patient.

Verify the bulletins are installed on the ESXi host by running the following command.

vihostupdate.pl –server 10.0.1.200 –query

C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware vSphere CLI\Perl\bin>vihostupdate.pl –server 10.0.1.200 –query
Enter username: root
Enter password:
———Bulletin ID——— —–Installed—– —————-Summary—————–
ESXi410-GA                    2010-12-11T02:24:28 ESXi upgrade Bulletin
ESXi410-GA-esxupdate          2010-12-11T02:24:28 ESXi pre-upgrade Bulletin

You will be prompted to enter the username and password again.

Reboot the ESXi host by using the reboot command.

vicfg-hostops.pl –server 10.0.1.200 –o reboot

The letter before reboot is O, not zero. You will be notified that the host rebooted successfully.

Congratulations! You have upgraded your ESXi 4.0 host to ESXi 4.1 successfully.

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Copyright ©2010 Zubair Alexander. All rights reserved.

 

I was running my Seattle Windows Networking User Group Web site on MOSS 2007. I was using a User Group template that was specifically designed for MOSS 2007. Recently I moved my site from MOSS 2007 to SharePoint Server 2010. I decided to use the Team Site template in SharePoint Server 2010. I had to do a bunch of tweaks to my Web site because I wasn’t able to port a lot of my customizations. My homepage used to be http://www.winnetusergroup.com/default.aspx. However, for the new site I used a publishing page as my homepage so the URL is http://www.winnetusergroup.com/Pages/default.aspx.

I wanted to redirect the User Group members that have bookmarked the old URL to the new homepage. I opted to use the Content Editor Web Part. Why? Because it’s one of my favorite Web parts and it is very simple to add a meta tag to redirect people to a different page. You can use this technique to redirect your SharePoint site, or just a page, to another location. Here’s what I did.

1. I edited the default.aspx page that was loading my old homepage (http://www.winnetusergroup.com/default.aspx).
2. Then I added the Content Editor Web Part.
3. I edited the Web part and added the following text at the beginning of the page:
   Our homepage has moved to http://www.winnetusergroup.com/Pages/default.aspx. Please update all your existing Favorites/Bookmarks. You will be automatically redirected to the new homepage in 10 seconds.
4. I added the following meta tag.
   <meta http-equiv=”refresh” content=”10;url=http://www.winnetusergroup.com/Pages/default.aspx”>
5. The entire code on the old homepage looks like this.

Our homepage has moved to http://www.winnetusergroup.com/Pages/default.aspx. Please update all your existing Favorites/Bookmarks. You will be automatically redirected to the new homepage in 10 seconds.

<meta http-equiv=”refresh” content=”10;url=http://www.winnetusergroup.com/Pages/default.aspx”>

You can go to http://www.winnetusergroup.com/default.aspx and check out how the scripts works. You can view the page source to see the code.

I experimented with the number of seconds after which the page is redirected (“content=” value). I settled with ten seconds because that gives my members enough time to read the text and gives me enough time to edit the page in Internet Explorer. One thing that I would suggest is to configure the page exactly as you want but while you are experimenting make sure that the redirection time is set to a longer period so you can easily go back and edit the page.

NOTE: There are lots of ways to redirect a site or a Web page, JavaScript, IIS redirection, meta tags, etc. This is one of the many methods that you can use. Each method has some pros and cons associated with it. For example, with this method users are not able to easily use the back button.

This is not the most ideal way to redirect page. I am not a developer and if you ask a developer she might tell you that there are better ways to redirect a page. This is the method that I use because I find it very simple. I can also export the Web part and import it to any Web part page on my site. If you don’t want people to know why they are being redirected to a different page you could simply set the redirection time to 1 second. In that case I would probably use IIS to redirect the page, especially if I am redirecting a site.

The other day I was experimenting with the screen options in my WordPress blog. On my Dashboard I changed the Screen Options from 2 columns to 1. Then when I tried to switch back to 2 columns again I was unsuccessful. I spent a lot of time Googling the issue and discovered that this bug has been driving people crazy for a long time…..over a  year. People are experiencing this problem since WordPress version 2.6. I am using WordPress version 3.0.

Problem

In WordPress 2.6 or later, once you switch your Screen Options layout from 2 columns to 1 column you cannot go back to the 2 column layout again. You are stuck. By getting stuck in a single column layout, all the panels are lined up in one column so you have to go way down in the page to select items, such as categories. By using two columns you can easily select categories or publishing options at the top of the screen in the right hand column.

Solution

The solution that worked for me was simple. I made sure the Screen Options was set to 2 columns and then I clicked and dragged the panels that I wanted to the right side of my screen, such as Author, Publish and Categories.

Another possible solution is to remove one of your screen options and then exit the edit screen. Re-enter the edit screen and choose a different option. This may work for some of you but don’t be surprised if it doesn’t.

Here’s a list of all the Active Directory cmdlets in Windows PowerShell that are available in Windows Server 2008 R2 with a link to Microsoft TechNet for each cmdlet for more details.

Add-ADComputerServiceAccount

Adds one or more service accounts to an Active Directory computer.

Add-ADDomainControllerPasswordReplicationPolicy

Adds users, computers, and groups to the Allowed List or the Denied List of the read-only domain controller (RODC) Password Replication Policy (PRP).

Add-ADFineGrainedPasswordPolicySubject

Applies a fine-grained password policy to one more users and groups.

Add-ADGroupMember

Adds one or more members to an Active Directory group.

Add-ADPrincipalGroupMembership

Adds a member to one or more Active Directory groups.

Clear-ADAccountExpiration

Clears the expiration date for an Active Directory account.

Disable-ADAccount

Disables an Active Directory account.

Disable-ADOptionalFeature

Disables an Active Directory optional feature.

Enable-ADAccount

Enables an Active Directory account.

Enable-ADOptionalFeature

Enables an Active Directory optional feature.

Get-ADAccountAuthorizationGroup

Gets the Active Directory security groups that contain an account.

Get-ADAccountResultantPasswordReplicationPolicy

Gets the resultant password replication policy for an Active Directory account.

Get-ADComputer

Gets one or more Active Directory computers.

Get-ADComputerServiceAccount

Gets the service accounts that are hosted by an Active Directory computer.

Get-ADDefaultDomainPasswordPolicy

Gets the default password policy for an Active Directory domain.

Get-ADDomain

Gets an Active Directory domain.

Get-ADDomainController

Gets one or more Active Directory domain controllers, based on discoverable services criteria, search parameters, or by providing a domain controller identifier, such as the NetBIOS name.

Get-ADDomainControllerPasswordReplicationPolicy

Gets the members of the Allowed List or the Denied List of the RODC PRP.

Get-ADDomainControllerPasswordReplicationPolicyUsage

Gets the resultant password policy of the specified ADAccount on the specified RODC.

Get-ADFineGrainedPasswordPolicy

Gets one or more Active Directory fine-grained password policies.

Get-ADFineGrainedPasswordPolicySubject

Gets the users and groups to which a fine-grained password policy is applied.

Get-ADForest

Gets an Active Directory forest.

Get-ADGroup

Gets one or more Active Directory groups.

Get-ADGroupMember

Gets the members of an Active Directory group.

Get-ADObject

Gets one or more Active Directory objects.

Get-ADOptionalFeature

Gets one or more Active Directory optional features.

Get-ADOrganizationalUnit

Gets one or more Active Directory OUs.

Get-ADPrincipalGroupMembership

Gets the Active Directory groups that have a specified user, computer, or group.

Get-ADRootDSE

Gets the root of a domain controller information tree.

Get-ADServiceAccount

Gets one or more Active Directory service accounts.

Get-ADUser

Gets one or more Active Directory users.

Get-ADUserResultantPasswordPolicy

Gets the resultant password policy for a user.

Install-ADServiceAccount

Installs an Active Directory service account on a computer.

Move-ADDirectoryServer

Moves a domain controller in AD DS to a new site.

Move-ADDirectoryServerOperationasterRole

Moves operation master (also known as flexible single master operations or FSMO) roles to an Active Directory domain controller.

Move-ADObject

Moves an Active Directory object or a container of objects to a different container or domain.

New-ADComputer

Creates a new Active Director computer.

New-ADFineGrainedPasswordPolicy

Creates a new Active Directory fine-grained password policy.

New-ADGroup

Creates an Active Directory group.

New-ADObject

Creates an Active Directory objet.

New-ADOrganizationalUnit

Creates a new Active Directory OU.

New-ADServiceAccount

Creates a new Active Directory service account.

New-ADUser

Creates a new Active Directory user.

Remove-ADComputer

Removes an Active Directory computer.

Remove-ADComputerServiceAccount

Removes one or more service accounts from a computer.

Remove-ADDomainControllerPasswordReplicationPolicy

Removes users, computers, and groups from the Allowed List or the Denied List of the RODC PRP.

Remove-ADFineGrainedPasswordPolicy

Removes an Active Directory fine-grained password policy.

Remove-ADFineGrainedPasswordPolicySubject

Removes one or more users from a fine-grained password policy.

Remove-ADGroup

Removes an Active Directory group.

Remove-ADGroupMember

Removes one or more members from an Active Directory group.

Remove-ADObject

Removes an Active Directory object.

Remove-ADOrganizationalUnit

Removes an Active Directory OU.

Remove-ADPrincipalGroupMembership

Removes a member from one or more Active Directory groups.

Remove-ADServiceAccount

Removes an Active Directory service account.

Remove-ADUser

Removes an Active Directory user.

Rename-ADObject

Changes the name of an Active Directory object.

Reset-ADServiceAccountPassword

Resets the service account password for a computer.

Restore-ADObject

Restores an Active Directory object.

Search-ADAccount

Gets Active Directory user, computer, and service accounts.

Set-ADAccountControl

Modifies user account control (UAC) values for an Active Directory account.

Set-ADAccountExpiration

Sets the expiration date for an Active Directory account.

Set-ADAccountPassword

Modifies the password of an Active Directory account.

Set-ADComputer

Modifies an Active Directory computer.

Set-ADDefaultDomainPasswordPolicy

Modifies the default password policy for an Active Directory domain.

Set-ADDomain

Modifies an Active Directory domain.

Set-ADDomainMode

Sets the domain functional level for an Active Directory domain.

Set-ADFineGrainedPasswordPolicy

Modifies an Active Directory fine-grained password policy.

Set-ADForest

Modifies an Active Directory forest.

Set-ADForestMode

Sets the forest mode for an Active Directory forest.

Set-ADGroup

Modifies an Active Directory group.

Set-ADObject

Modifies an Active Directory object.

Set-ADOrganizationalUnit

Modifies an Active Directory OU.

Set-ADServiceAccount

Modifies an Active Directory service account.

Set-ADUser

Modifies an Active Directory user.

Uninstall-ADServiceAccount

Uninstalls an Active Directory service account from a computer.

Unlock-ADAccount

Unlocks an Active Directory account.