BeginningSharePoint® Administration:

Windows® SharePoint Services and SharePoint Portal Server

Göran Husman

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BeginningSharePoint® Administration:

Windows® SharePoint Services and SharePoint Portal Server

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BeginningSharePoint® Administration:

Windows® SharePoint Services and SharePoint Portal Server

Göran Husman

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Beginning SharePoint® Administration: Windows®SharePoint Services and SharePoint Portal Server Published byWWiilleeyy PPuubblliisshhiinngg,, IInncc..10475 Crosspoint BoulevardIndianapolis, IN 46256www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2006 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

ISBN-13: 978-0-470-03863-5ISBN-10: 0-470-03863-2

Manufactured in the United States of America

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from publisher upon request.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any formor by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except aspermitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the priorwritten permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy feeto the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978)646-8600. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Legal Department,Wiley Publishing, Inc., 10475 Crosspoint Blvd., Indianapolis, IN 46256, (317) 572-3447, fax (317)572-4355, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

LIMIT OF LIABILITY/DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY: THE PUBLISHER AND THE AUTHORMAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES WITH RESPECT TO THE ACCURACY ORCOMPLETENESS OF THE CONTENTS OF THIS WORK AND SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM ALLWARRANTIES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION WARRANTIES OF FITNESS FOR A PARTIC-ULAR PURPOSE. NO WARRANTY MAY BE CREATED OR EXTENDED BY SALES OR PROMO-TIONAL MATERIALS. THE ADVICE AND STRATEGIES CONTAINED HEREIN MAY NOT BESUITABLE FOR EVERY SITUATION. THIS WORK IS SOLD WITH THE UNDERSTANDING THATTHE PUBLISHER IS NOT ENGAGED IN RENDERING LEGAL, ACCOUNTING, OR OTHER PRO-FESSIONAL SERVICES. IF PROFESSIONAL ASSISTANCE IS REQUIRED, THE SERVICES OF ACOMPETENT PROFESSIONAL PERSON SHOULD BE SOUGHT. NEITHER THE PUBLISHER NORTHE AUTHOR SHALL BE LIABLE FOR DAMAGES ARISING HEREFROM. THE FACT THAT ANORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE IS REFERRED TO IN THIS WORK AS A CITATION AND/OR APOTENTIAL SOURCE OF FURTHER INFORMATION DOES NOT MEAN THAT THE AUTHOR ORTHE PUBLISHER ENDORSES THE INFORMATION THE ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE MAYPROVIDE OR RECOMMENDATIONS IT MAY MAKE. FURTHER, READERS SHOULD BE AWARETHAT INTERNET WEBSITES LISTED IN THIS WORK MAY HAVE CHANGED OR DISAPPEAREDBETWEEN WHEN THIS WORK WAS WRITTEN AND WHEN IT IS READ.

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TTrraaddeemmaarrkkss:: Wiley, the Wiley logo, Wrox, the Wrox logo, Programmer to Programmer, and relatedtrade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its affiliates,in the United States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission. Windowsand SharePoint are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or othercountries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Wiley Publishing, Inc., isnot associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.

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www.wiley.com

About the AuthorGGöörraann HHuussmmaann is a true computer nerd who started his career as a computer programmer in 1978.After working as a C and Fortran developer for a medical university and later a large telecom company,he started his own consulting company in 1989. Due to market demands he soon switched his focusfrom Unix to the MS environment and from developing code to implementing large e-mail systems andbuilding information systems. Göran has also been hired as a computer trainer since the beginning of1980. In 1993 he became one of the first certified MS Certified Trainers (MCT) in Sweden, and he has reg-ularly conducted MS courses ever since. He is also certified by MS as an MCP (with the number 2888)and an MSCE. His great engagement in e-mail systems awarded him status as Sweden’s first MS ExchangeMVP (Most Valuable Professional) by Microsoft. He switched focus to MS SharePoint in 2003, and inJanuary 2006 Microsoft awarded him status as Sweden’s first SharePoint Portal Server MVP. Göran haswritten a large number of training materials for the Swedish market over the years, and in 2001 his bookExchange 2000 Server on Site was released in the U.S. He is also frequently a speaker in conferences andseminars. Today Göran is dividing his time between consulting contracts, training, leading his companyHuman Data, and from time to time writing books. Oh, and he is also the proud father of six great kidsfrom the ages of 5 to 27, which may be his greatest achievement in life.

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CreditsSenior Acquisitions EditorJim Minatel

Development EditorKelly Talbot

Technical EditorsPhred MenyhertEli Robillard

Production EditorFelicia Robinson

Copy EditorKim Cofer

Editorial ManagerMary Beth Wakefield

Production ManagerTim Tate

Vice President and Executive Group PublisherRichard Swadley

Vice President and Executive PublisherJoseph B. Wikert

Project CoordinatorJennifer Theriot

Graphics and Production SpecialistsCarl ByersJennifer ClickCarrie A. FosterJoyce HaugheyHeather RyanAlicia South

Quality Control TechnicianLaura Albert

Proofreading and IndexingTechbooks

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To all my kids—You are the true joy in my life!

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Acknowledgments

When I started to write my own books, I also started to read the acknowledgments in different booksI owned. This can be more interesting than one might first think. This is the place where the authorreally can say whatever he wants. But don’t worry, I will not be too honest here. When I first told mywife that I was preparing to write this book, she questioned my sanity and her judgment in marrying me.It is good to have an honest wife, but.... Fortunately, she has actually stayed with me through the entireprocess. (Of course, I have not yet told her that I am planning to write a new book about SharePoint 2007;this will be a surprise for her.)

However, there are definitely a number of people who I really want to thank for helping me write thisbook. First is Jim Minatel, the Senior Acquisitions Editor at Wiley, who was brave enough to give me thechance to write this book. I also want to thank my great agent Neil J. Salkind at Studio B, who convincedme to start writing this book, and the great author Mitch Tulloc for getting me in contact with Neil!There are also some people at Wrox who have done a heroic job: Kelly Talbot, my Development Editor,who had to correct my bad grammar and sometimes totally confused descriptions (thanks Kelly—I reallyappreciate all your assistance!). Then I want to thank Phred Menyhert and Eli Robillard, both TechnicalEditors, for their great job of scrutinizing the technical part of the book. I was constantly amazed at yoursharp eye for details and for your highly technical skills. I am solely responsible for the content of thisbook, but all the invaluable tips from Phred and Eli helped me write a book that is full of clear and valu-able descriptions on how to perform important tasks in SharePoint.

During the writing of this book, I also got numerous tips and tricks from my colleagues, employees, andfellow SharePoint nerds on the Internet. I want to thank them all: Michael Jansson, Gustaf Westerlund,Kaj Sjöberg, Magnus Danielsson, James Milne, Siegfried Weber, and James Butler. You are all great guys,and your SharePoint expertise is outstanding, but I hope that as more women pursue careers as SharePointprofessionals, the people I thank for my next book will be even more diverse!

Finally I want to thank my beloved wife Marina for her support and understanding; I know this hasn’talways been easy, but sometimes a nerd’s got to do, what a nerd’s got to do. This is simply the life of acomputer widow.

And to my fantastic kids, Anna, Thomas, Marielle, Alex, Beatrice, and Johan—I love you all!

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Contents

Acknowledgments ixIntroduction xix

Chapter 1: Introduction to SharePoint 2003 1

What Is SharePoint? 1The History of SharePoint 2The Future of SharePoint 3

Differences between WSS and SPS 4Windows SharePoint Services 2003 4SharePoint Portal Server 2003 5

What You Need to Run SharePoint 5Software Requirements 5Hardware Requirements 6Building a Test Environment 6

Integrating with MS Office 2003 7Built-In Features of SharePoint 8

Alerts (WSS and SPS) 9File and Document Management (WSS and SPS) 9Project Management (WSS) 10Managing Meetings (WSS) 11Keeping Your Organization Updated (SPS) 12Finding Your Information Faster (SPS) 14What File Types Can You Search? 15What Type of Searching Can You Do? 16

Accessing SharePoint over the Internet 17How You Do It 17Allowing External Partners Access 18

Summary 19

Chapter 2: Installing Windows SharePoint Services 21

Preparing to Install WSS 21Types of WSS Configurations 23Hardware Requirements 25Software Requirements 27

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Installing WSS 29The Config and Content Databases 29Installing a Single-Server with the WMSDE Database 30Installing a Single-Server with a Local MS SQL Database 36Installing a Single-Server Using a Remote MS SQL Database 42

Upgrading WMSDE to MS SQL Server 47Preparing to Upgrade Your WMSDE 48Upgrading WSS to a Local MS SQL Server 50Migrating WSS to a Remote MS SQL Server 51

Uninstalling WSS 52Uninstalling WSS but Leaving the Database Files 52Removing WSS Completely 52

Summary 53

Chapter 3: Configuring and Managing Windows SharePoint Services 55

Important Concepts 56Administrative Web Sites and User Web Sites 56Top Sites, Subsites, and Site Collections 61The Security Mechanism 62

Beginning SharePoint Administration 64Creating Your First Sites 64Creating a New Top Site 67Configuring WSS to Use an SMTP Mail Server 72Managing Access Control of Web Sites 74

More Advanced WSS Administration 76Site Groups 76Cross-Site Groups 81Anonymous Access 83Working with Custom Site Templates 86Removing User Accounts 93

Summary 96

Chapter 4: Installing SharePoint Portal Server 99

Preparing for SPS 99When Do You Need SPS? 100Three Database Combinations 101The Databases in SPS 102The Front-End and Back-End Roles 102Hardware Requirements 106Software Requirements 108

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Installing SPS 111Installing a Stand-Alone Server with the MSDE Database 111Installing a Single-Server with a Local MS SQL Database 117Installing SPS in a Small Farm 127

Backing Up SPS 2003 133Upgrading MSDE to MS SQL Server 136

Preparing to Upgrade to MS SQL Server 136Upgrading SPS to a Local MS SQL Server 136

Post-Installation Tasks 138The Configuration Database 138The Content Database 139The User Profile Database 140The Service Database 140

Uninstalling SPS 141Uninstalling SPS but Leaving the Database Files 141Removing SPS Completely 142

Summary 142

Chapter 5: Configuring and Managing SharePoint Portal Server 145

Changing the Look and Feel of the Portal Site 146Modifying the Portal Site 146SharePoint’s Folder Tree 149Branding the Portal Site 153Changing the CSS File 156

Managing Portal Areas 161The Home Area Page 162The Topics Area Page 175The News Area Page 187The Site Area Page 194

Managing Access to the Portal Site 200Managing Users and Groups 200Site Groups 202Anonymous Access 204

Summary 205

Chapter 6: Advanced Administration 207

SPS-Related Administration Topics 207Managing Portal Area Templates 207Managing User Profiles 212Managing Audiences 221Managing My Sites 227Security in the Portal Site 238

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Searching 241Searching in WSS 242Searching in SPS 244

Summary 259

Chapter 7: Comparing WSS and SPS 261

The History of SharePoint 261SharePoint Team Services (STS) 261SharePoint Portal Server 2001 (SPS) 262The Road Ahead from 2001 262

Comparing the Objectives 263The SharePoint Philosophy 263The Primary Objective for WSS 265The Primary Objective for SPS 265

Comparing Security 266List Security 266Site Security and Rights 267Visibility of Objects 270Cross-Site Groups 272

Comparing Web Parts 272Comparing Customization 274

Customizing Colors and Styles 274Customizing the Site Layout 275

Comparing Templates 280Creating Site Templates 281Creating Lists and Library Templates 283Copying Templates 284

Comparing Administrative Web Pages 286Comparing Backups 287Summary 287

Chapter 8: Working with Web Parts 289

Introduction to Web Parts 289Web Part Zones 290Default Web Parts 291

Finding More Web Parts 306Free Web Parts 307Not-So-Free Web Parts 314

Installing Web Parts 319Developing Web Parts 320Summary 321

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Chapter 9: More Effective File and Document Management 323

Traditional File Chaos 323Document Management Systems 324Traditional File Management Systems 325What You Really Need 326

The SharePoint Way 327Allowed File Types 328Creating Document Libraries 330Understanding Columns and Views 332Working with Alerts 341Checking Out and Checking In 342Document Version History 345Document Management with MS Office 346Working with Datasheets and MS Excel 350

Managing List Access 353Managing Document Workflow 354Working with Document Workspaces 356Using SharePoint as a File Share 357Summary 360

Chapter 10: More Effective Meetings 361

The Typical Meeting Process Today 361Before the Meeting 362During the Meeting 362After the Meeting 363The Problems of Today 363

What You Really Need 364Before the Meeting 364During the Meeting 364After the Meeting 364

How to Do This with SharePoint 365Before the Meeting 366During the Meeting 366After the Meeting 367

Integrating Outlook and SharePoint 368Managing Integration Features in Outlook 368Meeting Workspace Templates 370Creating a Meeting Workspace 370Modifying a Meeting Workspace 373Managing Pages 377

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Managing a Series of Meetings 379Joining an Existing Meeting 379Managing List Content for a Series of Meetings 380Tips about Series of Meetings 381

Meetings with Other Users 383Allowing Additional Internal User Access 383Allowing External User Access 384

Summary 384

Chapter 11: Case Study: Building an Intranet 387

Analyzing the Needs 387WSS or SPS? 388Analyzing an Intranet 389

An Intranet Based on WSS 390General Features of the Intranet 390Building an Intranet Using WSS 391Creating Local Team Intranets 396Creating Top-Level Local Intranets 397

An Intranet Based on SPS 399The Portal Site Overview 400Creating Picture Libraries 400Targeting Audience Groups 401Hiding Links from Users 404Adding Calendars 404Weather Reports 404External News Reports 405Personal Calendars 406Searching with SPS 407Displaying Web Content 407Departmental Intranets 408

Smarter Navigation 410Summary 412

Chapter 12: Designing with FrontPage 413

Why FrontPage? 413A Quick Guide for FrontPage 414

Opening Sites with FrontPage 414FrontPage’s Display Modes 415Modifying the Site 416Saving Your Work 416Differences between SPS and WSS 417Ghosting and Un-ghosting 417

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Basic Design 418Adding Text Outside Web Parts 418Adding Links to Team Sites 419Adding a Background Picture 420Changing the Team Site Logo 420Interactive Buttons 420Hiding Fields on a Web Form 422Managing Site Templates 423Page Transitions 425Managing Web Part Zones 425Adding an IFrame 426Retrieving a SharePoint Summary 427

Extended Design 428Managing Themes 428Adding Pages to SharePoint 432Creating a Blog Package 436Data Sources and Data Views 438

Summary 444

Chapter 13: Backup and Restore 445

What Data Should You Protect? 445The SharePoint Database 446SharePoint Files 446Backup Options 448Moving and Copying Information 448

Backing Up with Stsadm 450Preparing for Stsadm 451Running the Stsadm Backup 451Tools for Stsadm 452

Backing Up with Smigrate 454Preparing for Smigrate 455Running the Smigrate Backup 456Tools for Smigrate 456

Backing Up with Spsbackup 457Making Backups Using the Graphical Interface 459Making Backups Using the Command-Line Interface 460

Restore Procedures 460Restoring a Single Item 461Restoring a Single Site 464Restoring a Single Site Collection 466Restoring a Complete Portal Server 467Making a Backup Plan 469

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Third-Party Backup Tools 470General Backup Agents 470MS SQL Backup Tools 471AvePoint Tools 472NSE Tools 472

Summary 473

Chapter 14: SharePoint 2007 475

Why a New Version? 476The Next Generation 476

The MS Office 2007 Suites 477Windows SharePoint Services 480The New SharePoint Portal Server 486

News for Developers 491Master Pages 491Page Layout 492Content Pages 492The New Concept “Features” 492

Upgrading to SharePoint 2007 493Different Upgrade Scenarios 493A Default Site 494A Customized Site 494

Summary 494

Index 497

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Introduction

When I first started planning for this book, I took some time thinking about what challenges face abeginning SharePoint administrator. The many SharePoint courses I have conducted as a SharePointtrainer during the past four years have given me a good understanding of these challenges. All mySharePoint consulting has also been very helpful, because theory is one thing, but real-world experienceis another. I also remember my own frustration and numerous questions when I myself was trying tolearn what SharePoint was all about. I have written the book that I wished I had when I started to workwith SharePoint. My hope is that you will find it full of practical and easy-to-follow instructions that willhelp you get your SharePoint environment up and running in no time.

The goal of this book is to be your practical guide when building your SharePoint environment. I havetried to be very clear and focus on the steps that you must understand to build a production environ-ment. Because SharePoint is a very broad subject with lots of details, I had to make sure that the bookcontains information that you most likely will need to know, such as how to install SharePoint, how toadministrate it, how to customize it, and how to do backup and restore procedures.

But administration is not the only important aspect of SharePoint. I know that most beginningSharePoint administrators also want to know what SharePoint is and what it can be used for. That iswhy the book also contains several chapters on how to use the features of SharePoint. As the adminis-trator you will most likely be consulted by your users when they want to know how to get the mostout of SharePoint.

Finally, the book has a lot of references and tips for smart add-ons and utilities that will enhance thefunctionality of SharePoint, such as better navigation, integrating with other systems, and workflowsolutions. The book describes many free utilities and commercial third-party products. It also shows youwhere to find new utilities, because there is almost no other Microsoft product that has as many relatednew products and utilities constantly showing up.

Who This Book Is ForThis book is intended for the beginning SharePoint administrator and for the administrator who hasbeen working with SharePoint for some time but wants to know more about how it works. The bookassumes that you have a basic understanding of the MS Windows operating system, including theActive Directory, as well as web applications in general. There is no need to be an expert in these areas,because the book explains everything you must know, but as always it helps to know the environmenta product lives in. The book’s main focus is planning, installation, configuration, and administration,but it also covers the basic information about customizing SharePoint—for example, how to create tem-plates, how to build your own Site Definition, and how to use FrontPage for extending the look and feelof SharePoint.

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The book covers the differences between SharePoint Portal Server (SPS) and Windows SharePointServices (WSS) and helps you decide if you need only WSS or if you should also implement SPS.Regardless of your choice, the book describes how to use that environment in an optimal way. If youalready have a SharePoint installation up and running, you can either skip Chapter 2 for WSS installa-tion and Chapter 4 for SPS installation, or you can explore them to get a better understanding of howyour SharePoint environment was set up.

What This Book CoversThis book covers Windows SharePoint Service 2003 (WSS) and SharePoint Portal Server 2003 (SPS).It does not describe how to migrate from the 2001 version of these products, because that task must bevery carefully tailored to your specific needs. The last chapter of this book tells you what to expect fromSharePoint 2007, also known as “Windows SharePoint Server 3.0” and “Microsoft Office SharePointServices.” You will also get several tips about what to avoid in customizing SharePoint 2003 in order tomake the upgrade process to SharePoint 2007 easy.

This book also covers how to use SharePoint 2003 together with MS Office 2003, including MS Outlook2003. It shows you how these products work together to solve typical situations for information workers(users working with projects, document management, and meetings).

You will also find an introduction to FrontPage 2003 and how to use it for extending and customizingSharePoint sites (for example, how to display information in external databases, how to add your ownbuttons and menus, and how to create blog sites in SharePoint).

How This Book Is StructuredThe book begins with an introductory chapter to give you a sense of what SharePoint can do. It thencontinues with four more chapters of detailed instructions on how to install and configure WSS and SPS,along with explanations of what you must think of when selecting the type of MS SQL database for yourSharePoint server. These chapters include information that describes how to configure specific featuresof WSS and SPS, such as how to control what the users can do in SharePoint, how to work with intranetnews pages, and how to set up Active Directory synchronization. In Chapter 5 you will also find infor-mation on how to customize SPS, including how to change the colors, menus, logos, and the generallook-and-feel of the portal site.

The remaining chapters are independent of each other, so you can read whatever interests you, but thebook is written to encourage reading from the beginning to the end. Some of the content is hard tounderstand if you have skipped previous chapters, so I suggest that you read it from the beginning,and skip parts that do not interest you at this time. Later, you might find that you need to understandthose parts; you can go back to them then. Following is more information about these chapters.

Chapter 6 focuses on advanced administration, mainly for the SPS environment, such as managing thesearch feature, creating audience groups, managing user security, handling site definitions, creating templates, and more. Even if you are mainly focusing on WSS, you will still find some interesting information here about important SPS features and how using SPS differs from WSS.

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Chapter 7 compares WSS and SPS. You will see how they differ and what features are similar or identical.It will help you understand how these two product versions work and why some things just are differ-ent in WSS than SPS.

Chapter 8 tells you all you need to know about web parts, the basic building blocks of SharePoint sites.It explains the default web parts that come with SharePoint (for both WSS and SPS), what other interest-ing free (and not so free) web parts you can find on the Internet, and how to get the most out of them.

In Chapter 9 you will find a lot of tips on how to use SharePoint with MS Office for better file and docu-ment management. The chapter covers the ways you can configure and customize document libraries,such as activating version history, custom properties, and custom views. It also explains what documentworkspaces are used for and how to achieve workflow functionality in SharePoint 2003.

Chapter 10 is another very down-to-earth part of the book; it tells you how to use SharePoint 2003together with MS Outlook to get better management of meetings and their information.

Chapter 11 shows you a practical way of building an intranet with either WSS or SPS and how they dif-fer from each other. This chapter will summarize a lot of features described in the earlier chapters, andwill help you understand how to use SharePoint 2003.

Chapter 12 describes how to use FrontPage 2003 for customizing SharePoint sites and extending theirfunctionality. You do not need any previous FrontPage knowledge to get important information fromthis chapter.

One of the most important parts in the book is Chapter 13, which discusses how to make backups anddo restores of your SharePoint environment. Sooner than you may think, this SharePoint server willbecome business-critical, because it will contain lots of important documents, lists, and contacts. You don’twant to lose that information. Make sure to read Chapter 13 to understand how to restore your SharePointenvironment.

Finally, in Chapter 14 you will see what new developments SharePoint 2007 brings. This chapter containsa long list of new features and how they differ from SharePoint 2003. This chapter also lists the differentways you can upgrade from SharePoint 2003.

What You Need to Use This BookThis book is full of practical step-by-step instructions. To get the most out of this book, you should runSharePoint so you can test these instructions. If you don’t have a SharePoint environment, the book tellsyou how to find either the full WSS version or the evaluation version of SPS and install it. You will alsoneed a Windows 2003 Server up and running, preferably in an Active Directory domain, to installSharePoint. A tip is to use an MS Virtual PC or VMWare environment for building your test environment.

Some of these instructions and examples require you to run other programs, such as MS Office 2003, MSOutlook 2003, MS InfoPath 2003, or FrontPage 2003. You can follow many, but not all, of the instructionsif you have MS Office 2000 or 2002/XP, instead of MS Office 2003. If you use MS Office 2007, some of theseinstructions will not be completely accurate, but the difference is not that big, and you will probablyunderstand how to do these steps anyhow.

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ConventionsTo help you get the most from the text and keep track of what’s happening, we’ve used a number of con-ventions throughout the book.

Try It OutThe Try It Out is an exercise you should work through, following the text in the book.

1. They usually consist of a set of steps.2. Each step has a number.3. Follow the steps through with your copy of the database.

Tips, hints, tricks, and asides to the current discussion are offset and placed in italics like this.

As for styles in the text:

❑ We highlight new terms and important words when we introduce them.

❑ We show keyboard strokes like this: Ctrl+A.

❑ We show URLs and code within the text like so: persistence properties.

❑ We present code in two different ways:

In code examples we highlight new and important code with a gray background.

The gray highlighting is not used for code that’s less important in the presentcontext, or has been shown before.

Source CodeAs you work through the examples in this book, you may choose either to type in all the code manuallyor to use the source code files that accompany the book. All of the source code used in this book is avail-able for download at http://www.wrox.com. Once at the site, simply locate the book’s title (either byusing the Search box or by using one of the title lists) and click the Download Code link on the book’sdetail page to obtain all the source code for the book.

Because many books have similar titles, you may find it easiest to search by ISBN; this book’s ISBN is0-470-03863-2 (changing to 978-0-470-03863-5 as the new industry-wide 13-digit ISBN numberingsystem is phased in by January 2007).

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Once you download the code, just decompress it with your favorite compression tool. Alternately, you cango to the main Wrox code download page at http://www.wrox.com/dynamic/books/download.aspxto see the code available for this book and all other Wrox books.

ErrataWe make every effort to ensure that there are no errors in the text or in the code. However, no one is per-fect, and mistakes do occur. If you find an error in one of our books, like a spelling mistake or faultypiece of code, we would be very grateful for your feedback. By sending in errata you may save anotherreader hours of frustration and at the same time you will be helping us provide even higher qualityinformation.

To find the errata page for this book, go to http://www.wrox.com and locate the title using the Searchbox or one of the title lists. Then, on the book details page, click the Book Errata link. On this page you canview all errata that has been submitted for this book and posted by Wrox editors. A complete book listincluding links to each book’s errata is also available at www.wrox.com/misc-pages/booklist.shtml.

If you don’t spot “your” error on the Book Errata page, go to www.wrox.com/contact/techsupport.shtml and complete the form there to send us the error you have found. We’ll check the informationand, if appropriate, post a message to the book’s errata page and fix the problem in subsequent editionsof the book.

p2p.wrox.comFor author and peer discussion, join the P2P forums at p2p.wrox.com. The forums are a web-based sys-tem for you to post messages relating to Wrox books and related technologies and interact with otherreaders and technology users. The forums offer a subscription feature to e-mail you topics of interest ofyour choosing when new posts are made to the forums. Wrox authors, editors, other industry experts,and your fellow readers are present on these forums.

At http://p2p.wrox.com you will find a number of different forums that will help you not only as youread this book, but also as you develop your own applications. To join the forums, just follow these steps:

1. Go to p2p.wrox.com and click the Register link.2. Read the terms of use and click Agree.3. Complete the required information to join as well as any optional information you wish to pro-

vide and click Submit.

4. You will receive an e-mail with information describing how to verify your account and com-plete the joining process.

You can read messages in the forums without joining P2P but in order to post your own messages, youmust join.

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Once you join, you can post new messages and respond to messages other users post. You can read mes-sages at any time on the web. If you would like to have new messages from a particular forum e-mailedto you, click the Subscribe to this Forum icon by the forum name in the forum listing.

For more information about how to use the Wrox P2P, be sure to read the P2P FAQs for answers to ques-tions about how the forum software works as well as many common questions specific to P2P and Wroxbooks. To read the FAQs, click the FAQ link on any P2P page.

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In this chapter you learn about the two versions of SharePoint 2003 — Windows SharePointServices (WSS) and SharePoint Portal Server (SPS) — their history, and what differs between them.You will see several examples of how the built-in features of SharePoint work and how easy it is touse them. You also get an introduction to how SharePoint integrates with other products, such asMS Word and MS Outlook. The objective in this chapter is to show you why SharePoint is such aninteresting product and to give you some ideas of what you can do after installing SharePoint.

What Is SharePoint?The PC-based software industry today is about 30 years old. But if you look carefully at all theproducts that have been released, you will soon find that most of them are just different variationsof a basic theme. For example, consider the most popular word processor today, MS Word. It stillbasically does the same thing WordStar did in 1978 — that is, it allows you to write text docu-ments. Yes, MS Word is much more advanced than WordStar, but most of the documents you writetoday could have been created with WordStar as well. Or think about MS Excel, which is just afancy (some would even say “sexy”) version of VisiCalc, released in 1978. I could go on, but I thinkyou get the idea. Not much is really new in the software industry.

Nevertheless, you will now and then see truly groundbreaking and innovative software productsreleased, such as the web browser and personal search engines. The focus today is more on mak-ing all this sophisticated software interact with each other. For example, you can create a table inMS Excel and link it into an MS Word document, or you can create MS PowerPoint presentationsthat you send by e-mail (which is, itself, simply a fancier version of the File Transfer Protocol, orFTP). So you have all these nice software applications that you use to create and manage all kindsof files and information — the problem is that they all are stored in different places and in differentformats, and that can make them hard to use.

What SharePoint does is help you gather this information together, regardless of what type of file orinformation it is. SharePoint also helps you find information, even when you don’t know where it is

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stored; and SharePoint helps you keep track of updated information. In other words, SharePoint does notinvent any new information type; instead, it helps you get the right information when you need it withoutspending lots of time. Even more importantly, all this information is easily shared between users, such asproject teams, departments, or even large organizations. This truly is a new software concept!

Microsoft has performed a thorough analysis of how people work in a computer environment. It has avery good picture of what the problems are and what things need to be changed or removed. One of itsfindings indicates that people tend to become frustrated when they need help from the administrator orHelp Desk to do simple things. Users want to have more power to do what they want, when they want,and exactly how they want. This concept is sometimes referred to as self-service and is a new trend in thecomputer business. For example, you can find applications that allow the user to reset her password,change her properties in the Active Directory (AD), and so on.

SharePoint is built around this concept, and the main idea is to allow the ordinary user to create websites for projects and other activities without any support from the server administrator or Help Desk.This requires some training for the SharePoint user, but SharePoint is straightforward and easy to learn.Your role, as the SharePoint Server administrator, is to install, maintain, and configure SharePoint. Youare also the person people contact when they need help understanding how do things in SharePoint,such as creating sites and managing lists of information. That’s why this book tells you how to do thesethings and gives you tips and hints to make things easier for you and your users. I am sure you will likeit for your own personal use, too — SharePoint is simply a fantastic application with enormous potential,if you know how to use it correctly!

Following is a short list of things you can do in SharePoint 2003:

❑ Create an intranet that targets news and information to specific groups.

❑ Build local intranets for departments.

❑ Search for documents, files, e-mail, and news regardless of where they are stored.

❑ Create a personal web site for each user that displays targeted information.

❑ Create web sites for managing projects, customers, and activities.

❑ Extend the functionality in MS Office with document management.

❑ Create web sites with MS Outlook to keep track of your meetings.

❑ Create alerts that will notify you by e-mail when something is changed.

The History of SharePointAround 2000, Microsoft unveiled an application called a Digital Dashboard. This web-based applicationused web parts, which are rectangular areas on a web page that display some type of information, suchas a list of contacts, links, or documents. This was innovative because the user could now arrange theweb parts on the web page herself, without any help from an HTML programmer.

In 2001, Microsoft released its first two SharePoint products. One was SharePoint Team Services (STS), andthe other was SharePoint Portal Server (SPS). Most organizations did not use them, nor had they even heardabout them, which was a pity. STS was a web-based product used for collaboration. You could use it toshare contacts, calendar events, and documents within teams and small departments. The information was

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stored in an MS SQL database. It was a nice application, but it did not have any document-managementfeatures, and it was not built for creating intranet solutions for larger organizations.

SPS was a separate product, initially made as an MS Exchange 2000 public folder application (under thebeta name Tahoe). However, during the beta phase of Tahoe, Microsoft got a loud and clear messagefrom the customers: “Do not mess with our Exchange system!” So Microsoft finally released the SPSusing a built-in MS Exchange 2000 server database (which made more than one SharePoint administra-tor wonder why on earth the SharePoint server event log contained messages from the ExchangeInformation Store). This new SPS had built-in document-management features, such as document ver-sioning, checkout/check-in, and document workflow. One serious problem with SPS 2001 was the qual-ity of its performance and the limited number of documents it could manage. And it did not have someof the nice collaboration features that STS had. In fact, the two products were competing with each other,to some extent, which is not a good way of convincing the customer to invest in SharePoint technology.

In October 2003, Microsoft released its new SharePoint solution. The old STS, now renamed WindowsSharePoint Services, was basically a fancier version of STS (internally, Microsoft referred to it as STS ver-sion 2). SPS kept its name, SharePoint Portal Server, but that was about all that was kept from the previ-ous SPS version. No longer did SPS have its own MS Exchange database, and no longer was SPS aseparate product! Now it was an add-on to the WSS application. Finally, Microsoft had one integratedSharePoint solution, completely based on the MS SQL Server database.

The Future of SharePointMicrosoft’s version of WSS and SPS released in 2006 (called SharePoint 2007) is an easy upgrade fromthe previous version, as long as you have avoided modifying SharePoint’s basic structure, such as thefile structure that describes the default SharePoint configuration and the stored procedures in the SQLdatabase. This book gives you instructions and tips on what to do — and what to avoid — in order tomake the upgrade process easy for you.

Because this is just the beginning of the book, you will probably not understand a detailed description ofthe coming features. So here is just a general overview of the most important ones. As you read the chap-ters, you will see more detailed descriptions of these, when relevant. But for now, I just want to give youan idea of what to expect in the new version:

❑ Better navigation features and tree views.

❑ Easier to modify many existing sites by changing the template.

❑ Built-in workflow for documents and other types of lists.

❑ A recycle bin so you can undelete files.

❑ Item-level security on more types of objects.

❑ More advanced search functionality.

❑ Support for reading information on mobile devices.

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❑ Gantt charts for project tasks.

❑ Better support for non-Microsoft web browsers.

❑ Support for Document lifecycle policies and Records Management.

❑ Configurable limited number of version history.

❑ Integration of Microsoft Content Management Server features.

❑ Better support for multilingual user interfaces.

❑ Two-way synchronization between SharePoint and Outlook.

❑ Support for creating Wiki and blog sites.

❑ Many enhancements for the developer.

Differences between WSS and SPSWhen thinking of WSS and SPS, the important thing to understand is that WSS is the foundation andSPS is an optional add-on. In fact, you cannot install SPS by itself. If you try to do this, your computerwill request that you install WSS first. So the question is: What else differs between WSS and SPS?Although some of these answers are hard to understand if you have never seen SharePoint before, giveit a try anyhow. The following chapters further flesh out the following points.

Windows SharePoint Services 2003Windows SharePoint Services 2003 has the following characteristics:

❑ Is a web-based application.

❑ Stores all information in an MS SQL database.

❑ Displays information using web parts.

❑ Has basic document-management features.

❑ Has a number of list types that you can use for storing all kinds of information.

❑ Is perfect for simple, but effective, intranet solutions.

❑ Is ideal for collaboration on project data, meetings, social events, and such.

❑ Is a free add-on to MS Windows 2003 Server (any edition).

In other words, WSS is the perfect place to collect information for your projects, your customers, andyour meetings. You can copy all documents from your file system into WSS and by doing so get access tothe simple but powerful document-management features. It is also a very good solution when you needlocal intranets for teams or departments. And all this is free when you run Windows 2003 Server!

But there are things that WSS does not offer. For example:

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