The easy guide to creating a scheduled task running as system

G’day Windows lovers.
Again, this is not a SharePoint post per se, but hey, we all need to Schedule a task from time to time, unless we have completely flown into the clouds…
No need for any command prompt, at.exe, schtasks.exe or anything like that. This can all be done from the gui.

Note: Some people may state that it is a bad idea running a scheduled task as system, that this is bad for security reasons. I can agree with both sides but a fact is that Microsoft has a number of their default scheduled tasks running as system, so it can’t all be wrong. Also, running the task as a different administrator account is even worse, so…do as you like here. Secure the location of the script files, at least do that.
Good or bad, it is still a fact that some people in some situations want to do this, run a script as system, perhaps for the simplicity of it, for not having to rely on service accounts beeing created or other reasons good or bad.

Step by step:

Note: These steps have been verified on Windows Server 2012, but will function just as well on Windows Server 2012 R2 or Windows Server 2008R2/Windows Server 2008, Windows 7 nd Windows 8x

–

Note: You have to be logged on as a local administrator in order to follow these steps.

Start the Windows Task Scheduler, from the ‘Start’ menu or search, any way works…
When the Windows Task Scheduler is open, Browse to a task under Microsoft. I’m using a .NET Framework task in my example, that will work…

Have a look at the tasks in the .NET Framework container. Select the task at the top and make sure that it is a task running as System by checking its properties.

The properties at the bottom will show you if the task is configured to run as SYSTEM. If the task selected is not, pick another task in the list until you find one that is.

Right-click on the task and select export.

Save the file to a good location locally on the server and give it a good name.

Replace the default name with something of your own:

Save the file, then back in Task Scheduler, select the top of the tree, Task Scheduler Library.

Right-click on Task Scheduler Library and select Import Task…

Browse to the file you just exported.

Click on Open to start the import of the task. Name the new task with the name you want, you now have an exact copy of the default .NET framework task, now we need to make modifications so that it will suit your needs.
Right-click on the task, select Properties to make all the settings available for change.
In my example, I want the task to start a PowerShell script as system.
In order to do that, go to the Actions tab.

Delete the existing action, in my example ‘Custom handler’ and add your own.

If you like me, want to run a PowerShell script, type powershell in the program field and type the path to your .ps1 file in the Add Arguments field.
Save the new action and verify the values.

Now, change all the parameters to suit your needs. For example, you might want to add a scheduled trigger.
Click on the Triggers tab and add the Schedule you need.

In my example, I added a Schedule that starts the task at 07:00 every day and keeps doing this forever…

Now, as a last step, select the completed task under the Task Scheduler Library and verify all the settings, especially, make sure that it is configured to run as SYSTEM!
I also selected Run with highest privilieges in my example because the script I had writted required Run as Administrator to function properly.

Thats all, you’re done! Good luck!
References:

Thanks to:

Me, Myself and I!

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Enjoy!

Regards

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Office 365 guide series – Using your document templates in SharePoint online

SP2013logo

Greetings SharePoint Online users!

This is the third in the Office 365 and SharePoint Online series.

1. Office 365 guide series – Create a new list from an Excel spreadsheet

2. Office 365 guide series – A guide to SharePoint Navigation using metadata

3. Office 365 guide series – Using your document templates in SharePoint online (This post)

This time I will explain how to:

Use Office templates within your SharePoint Online document libraries. In every organisation, or at least the majority, you talk about templates and you know that you have them, somewhere, but in the end, you and everyone else end up using an existing document and make changes, like you take an agreement from one customer and make changes to the numbers and customer names…would it not be nice if you could get everyone to use the same template? And if a change to the template affected everyone? Wouldn’t that be just smashing eh?

Now I’ll show you the easy steps you have to follow to just get started, We’ll use a simple word template in this example, but you can use any template that you allready have.

Note: In this guide, I will show the quick and easy method, in a later post, I wil show how to use Content Types wich will also allow you to use custom templates, but in a much more controlled way. A link to that post will be added here when that guide has been posted.

Start by locating a word template, or create one, add some info to the header with logo and company name and address maybe, and add something to the footer for example and save the file as a dotx file. Save it locally so that you easily can access it when we want to upload it to our SharePoint online. – I have created a simple letter template for the company DonkeyMind, with their logo and some additional info in it. I’ll use this in my step by step guide below. I saved this as letter.dotx in my ..\documents\DonkeyMind templates\ folder.

In a SharePoint Online site, now do this:

1.0 Upload the template file. This is not the easies thing to do, unfortunately Microsoft has choosen to make it a lot harder in SPO and SharePoint 2013 than it really has to be (Browse button from 2010 has been removed), unknown to me why. But this is how you do it:

1.1 Browse to your document library in SharePoit online, where you want to use your own custom document template.

1.2 Click the tab, Library. This will present the ribbon for you with the settings available for a document library.

1.3 In the ribbon, click on Open with Explorer

Note: The site URL has to be added to the ‘Local intranet sites’ or ‘Trusted sites’ with added logon automatically, if it isn’t, you will get a popup telling you that it will not work otherwise.

1.4 Click ok on the Internet Explorer Security warning

1.5 The library will now open in a Explorer window, in this windows you will see a folder named forms which is a bit greyed out.

1.6 Double-click on the folder forms, now you will see the following list of files

1.7 Now, in a separate explorer window on your computer, locate your saved template file (dotx)

Note: In my case, I stored it under ..\Documents\DonkeyMind templates\

1.8 Put the tw0 explorer windows side by side

1.9 Drag and drop the template file from your local folder to the SharePoint library forms folder

1.10 The file will now be uploaded to the SharePoint forms folder

2.0 When the file is uploaded ok, go back to your browser and the document library

2.1 Now, we need to change the template used from the default template.dotx to our own template, in my case, letter.dotx. Again, click on the Library tab.

2.2 Click on Library Settings

2.3 In the Library Settings dialog, click on Advanced settings

2.4 Locate the Document Template section

2.5 Change the filename in the Template URL to reflect your template files name

2.6 Click on OK

2.7 Click on Documents in the ‘breadcrumbs’ to go back to the library again.

2.8 Click on the Files tab

2.9 Now, on the New Document button, click on the dropdown and New Document

2.10 Press Yes in the dialog asking if you really want to open this file, because you do…

Note: Avoid this by changing the Trust Center settings in your Office applications.
1. Allow trusted locations on my network.
2. Add new location
3. Type in the https path to your SharePoint Online tenant
(See references for 2007 and 2010)

2.11 You may also get prompted for your username/email address for the Office 365 account. Type it in and press Next

Note: This dialog only shows up if you are not logged into your office applications using your Office 365 account

2.12 And Password…Sign in

2.13 The new document opens, based on the template

2.14 When you have types your letter and are done, simply press Save, this will show you the save as dialog with the path to the SharePoint document library at the top

2.15 Select that and type in a filename and save the file

2.16 You are done, use the New Documents button to create your standard letters based on the custom template, again and again.

3.0 Done!

Note: All the same steps apply in SPO as well as SharePoint 2013 onpremise, exept for the ‘add site URL to trusted sites’ issue. In an onprem situation the URL is most of the time already considered Trusted or Local intranet.

References

Learn how to set up a template for a library.

How to enable or disable hyperlink warning messages in 2007 Office programs and in Office 2010 programs
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925757

_________________________________________________________

Enjoy!

Regards

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Office 365 guide series – A guide to SharePoint Navigation using metadata

SP2013logo

Greetings SharePoint Online users!

This is the second in the Office 365 and SharePoint Online series.

1. Office 365 guide series – Create a new list from an Excel spreadsheet

2. Office 365 guide series – A guide to SharePoint Navigation using metadata (This post)

3. Office 365 guide series – Using your document templates in SharePoint online

This time, I will explain how to:

Use Managed metadata and the termstore to control your Navigation.

‘

This is not as complicated as it may seem, the difficult parts have been taken care of by Microsoft when setting up the ManagedMatadata Service Application for us.

Navigation is part of the Publishing Infrastructure features in SharePoint, so in order to manage Navigation, the Publishing features must be activated. So if you do not already have it activated, lets do so now.
In your SharePoint root site: https://orgname.sharepoint.com (in my case I’m using a separate Site Collection for this https://blksthl.sharepoint.com/sites/donkeymind) do this:
1. Go to Site settings.
2. In Site settings, locate the column Site Collection Administration, click on Site collection features

3. In the list of Site Collection features, scroll down to the one called SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure

4. On the far right, click on Activate

5. Wait for it, it will take a little while and then it will to show that it is Active. Scroll to the top while waiting, there you will see the ‘Working on it twirl’…

6. Next step is to go back to Site Settings, and locate the category Look and Feel and there you now have Navigation.

7. Click on Navigation.
8. The Navigation settings will by default be configured to use Structural Navigation

Note!
You have the same choice for both the Global Navigation (Top) and the Current Navigation (Left)
In this guide, we will focus on the global, but in order to manage the current navigation follow the same steps.

9. We want to change the Global Navigation setting to Managed Navigation as below.

10. Scroll down a bit past the Current Navigation setting to the area called Managed Navigation: Term set
11. Here you will see your Term Store content

12. Expand the Taxonomy node, and you will see the shared terms and the site collection specific node, in my example: Site Collection – blksthl.sharepoint.com-sites-donkeymind

13. Click on the button Create Term Set and a termset for your navigation will be created.

14. In the Term Store tree you will also see a new node:

15. This is were your navigation entries will be stored. Next we will go to the Term Store Management Tool to start on our new navigation.
16. Before you do, notice the setting below the term windows, these settings will allow you to control what happens when new pages are created.
17. Make changes if you want to, I’ll just leave them as is, I will be creating subsites, not pages.

18. Now, click on the link to the Term Store Management Tool

19. or if you go via Site settings, find the Site Administration Category

20. Click on Term store management
21. In the Term Store Management Tool, you will same as before, see some shared metadata and a site collection node.
22. Expand the site collection node, now you will see the Navigation node we just created.

23. In this example, I will add an entry to the global navigation that is for a subsite I have created, named SubDonkey. It will only be one entry in the navigation and that will open my subsite SubDonkey.
24. Right-click on orgname Navigation

25. Click on Create Term
26. Type in the name of the term, use the same name as you want to show up in the Navigation when done, in my case I named it SubDonkey, hit enter
27. A new empty termlabel will show up but simply click on the new term to make it go away.

28. When the new term is selected, you get a list of choices and configurations you can make.
29. You can here type in a description, add a second label, language and some more. Let this page be as it is.
30. Now click on the tab Navigation

31. This brings up a new page of navigation specific settings.

32. In here, I’m making a few modifications.
33. I add a Navigation Hoover Text: Take me to the SubDonkey.
34. I set Visible In Menus to: Show in Global Navigation Only (deselect the show in current)

35. I select Simple Link or Header, I hit browse and locate my subsite

36. select the icon for the subsite, like in my case, SubDonkey.

37. Click on Insert at the bottom right.

38. Verify your navigational settings for the new node. When done, hit the Save button.

39. Now you are done, go to your rootsite to verify the result.

40. Note the SubDonkey Navigational link with the Hoover Text showing (Mouse is over in image).
41. Repeat the steps 20 to 40 to add more terms and new nodes to your navigation.

Note!
Do not be afraid of trying new things, link to pages, to external sites, you can always delete the node if you don’t like the result.

42. Done!

‘

Note: All the same steps apply in SharePoint Online as well as SharePoint 2013 onpremise, you will need to first configure the Managed Metdata Sevice Application before any of these steps can be performed though.

‘

References

‘

None so far 🙂

_________________________________________________________

Enjoy!

Regards

Twitter | Technet Profile | LinkedIn

Office 365 guide series – Create a new list from an Excel spreadsheet

SP2013logo

Greetings SharePoint Online users!

This is the first in a series of Office 365 and SharePoint Online guides primarily aimed at users and power users, my aim with these guides is to show in an easy to grasp way, how you do a few relatively easy but important tasks in SharePoint Online/Office 365. Tasks that will give you a lot of functionality with relatively little effort. Since a lot have been covered already for SharePoint onprem in blogs and other online documentation like TechNet, but not specifically for Office 365 or SharePoint Onlne, I feel that there is a gap to fill here.

1. Office 365 guide series – Create a new list from an Excel spreadsheet

2. Office 365 guide series – A guide to SharePoint Navigation using metadata

3. Office 365 guide series – Using your document templates in SharePoint online

This first time, I will explain how to:

Create a new custom list from an existing excel spreadsheet
This task is simple if everything goes smoothly, but if you have never done it before, or if you have tried but got stuck on any of the little hickups you may encounter, then this may be the perfect guide for you.

– Start by creating your Excel spreadsheet. Make sure that it is a xlsx file. You may also use an existing spreadsheet with your listdata, copy from an old file, save another format as xlsx.

In the spreadsheet, follow the following rules to get a good result:
– Make sure that you do not have any empty column headers between columns. This will cause all headers to be imported as row 1 instead of beeing headers, new column headers will be created as 1, 2, 3 and so on.
– Keep the spreadsheet ‘clean’, remove empty rows, empty columns and any text above the header row and to the right or under of the table or cell range.
– The first column to the left will be the default edit field in the SharePoint list. Make sure that it has values on all rows.
– For best result, avoid formulas with calculated values.
– Use Excel 2013.

In a SharePoint Online site, do this:
1. Decide on a name for the list, it will be the URL and name of the list.
2. Go to the ‘cogs’/Settings and select Add an app

3. You will now see a list of all available apps (installed)
4. Search for Import or scroll down until you find the app called Import Spreadsheet
5. Click on Import Spreadsheet

6. Type in the Name of the new list
7. Type in a optional Description
8. At the File location field, click Browse…
9. Browse to your xlsx file on your computer
10. Click on Import

11. The Import Wizard starts, by default, the Range type is set to Table Range
12. Change this to Range of cells
13. Click in the Select Range field
14. In the Spreadsheet, select the top left cell and then make sure that you select the entire table of data you want imported
15. It should now read something similar to: Sheet1!$A$1:$G$400 (top left : bottom right)

16. Now you click on Import
17. You may now get a logonprompt from Excel, enter the emailaddress for the SPO account and click next
18. Enter the account password and click on Sign in
19. Excel will now create the list and start importing the data, you will see a little progressbar at the bottom of the Excel application.
20. When the import is done, the new list will open and you will see the columns from the top

Note: You may note sometimes that a ‘mailto:’ has been added to the email column values.

This is added in excel but hidden when a cell is formatted as an email address. In the example above, note that the first row has the value of ‘Email’ which made the list field be formatted as single line of text instead of email.
The trick is most of the time to make sure that all fieldvalues in a column are consistent in format. One cell with a different format will cause the entire column to get a different formatting.

21. Done!

– You may now want to add a link in the left hand navigation to the list. Check the url in the addressbar of IE and copy it.
– Click on EDIT LINKS
– Click on +Link
– Type in the Text to display (will be seen in the navigation), for example ‘Contacts’ and paste the URL into Address
– Click OK
– Try the link out to make sure
– Done! (Again)

Error list

1
You get ‘The specified file is not a valid spreadsheet or contains no data to import’
When: When you browse to your Excel spreadsheet and click Import
Fix: Add site URL to trusted sites in Internet Explorer, it has to be in either trusted sites or Local Intranet sites.

2
A new header row is created instead of the headers I got (Column1, Column2, Column3…) and the headers becomes values if the first datarow
When: You have one or many empty headers in your cellrange
Fix: Remove all columns with blank headers, or add a value to them, this is only within your cell span.

3
If you get the error, ‘An unexpected error has occured. (-2147467259)’
When: Something is wrong with the SPO User session you have open
Fix: Sign out of your SPO session, close all IE windows, Close Excel – logon again to SPO, Add app…same procedure as last time.

4
Very large files, field data types get wrong, you expect Single line of text but get Multiple lines of text
When: The cellrange probably contain one or more ‘special’ values that is interpreted by excel/SPO as something else than it is.
Fix: With large files, create a new excelfile with only header and one row, make sure that the header row or the data row do not contain any value or characters out of the ordinary. Then, copy paste the rest of the rows in quick edit or datasheet view.

5
The wrong Column becomes the default edit column with the ‘…’ for the edit dropdown meny.
When: The column you want to use for default edit is not the first from the left.
Fix: First column will be the default edit field with the …make sute the Cell range starts with the top left cell.

‘

Note: All the same steps apply in SPO as well as SharePoint 2013 onpremise, exept for the Excel logon prompt and the ‘add site URL to trusted sites issue. In an onprem situation the URL is most of the time already considered Trusted or Local intranet.

References

None so far 🙂

_________________________________________________________

Enjoy!

Regards

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Fixing the ScriptResource.axd Errors 500 Internal Server Error

ASP.NET Ajax client-side framework (ScriptResource.axd) failed to load.
The status code returned from the server was: 500
Status: 50 The request is not supported
An unknown error occurred while processing the request on the server
asp.net ajax client-side framework failed to load
or

Greetings SharePoint geeks!

The problem
This post is purely created from a little peice of reality. I just experienced this issue myself in a SharePoint setup published externally thru TMG.

It is not entirely easy to troubleshoot, with quite a few components involved, however, I managed in the end and I will here also give you a few hints on how to go about t-shooting something like this.
Anyway, the circumstanses look like all or some of these:

– An internal SharePoint webserver (sp01)
– A TMG 2010 Server connected to the internal network and the internet, used for many more services than SharePoint
– A Web Application, CollabSite, published using a Firewall policy (from the SharePoint publishing wizard)
– A MySite Web Application also published using the same wizard but a separate policy.
– Both sites are configured to only use https/SSL with a certificate issues by an internal CA.
– An external DNS record pointing both URLs to the eexternal interface of the TMG server.
– Internal DNS records also Points to the external interface of the TMG

When connecting to the sites, mysite.domain.com or collabsite.domain.com from a client on the internet. The site prompts for authentication, the site loads…almost…a popup appears that states:

‘asp.net ajax client-side framework failed to load’

The dialogbox popup

Most of the site loads, you see the blue banner at the top but nothing more.
Reloading the site does not give you the popup again, but soads the site without any of the AJAX functionality, like the ribbon and buttons in the top right area. The ribbon will on some pages show up but it only shows the ‘working on it’ twirl instead of the tools/buttons you would expect.

I will here describe why this happens and how you fix it. But first, I will give you a short version…

Short version
1. SharePoint/IIS offers the ScriptResource.axd files in a compressed format
2. TMG cannot inspect compressed files unless Compression filter/http Compression is enabled
3. Enable the ‘Compression filter’ in TMG under the ‘System’ node
4. Apply, done!

Long version
First we look at what is requested and what is delivered. I use IEs built-in F12 Developer Toolbar, IE later than IE9 will have a Network tab and this allows you to trace the traffic. Same thing if you use Firebug/Fiddler or Wireshark, whatever is available. Browse to the failing site, press F12 and select the Network tab. Here you click on the ‘Start Capturing’ button

This causes IE to collect and show all traffic coming to and from the browser.

The two /ScriptResource GET statements are what fails. This is all that is needed to stop all AJAX functionality, now we know that it has to do with something we do not get down to the browser ok, but why is that, how do we fix it? We need more info to be able to answer those questions.
We can get a bit more info from IE still, select one of the GET lines and click on ‘Go to detailed view’ to see more about the issue.

We get some more info here but not really something that tells us what is going on.

I now tried the same thing from a client on the inside, I added an entry to the local hosts file and added the url and pointed it directly to the IP address of the SharePoint Web Server. With this setup the problem is gone. What this tells me is that the problem is most likely something to do with TMG and how that is configured. Lets take a look.
Logon to the TMG server, make sure that you have permissions to manage TMG.

Since the site at least loads, we have toi assume that https and the publishing in general works as expected. It can’t be all bad.
You will find the logs by clicking on ‘Logs and reports’ in the left pane on TMG.

First add a filter, it should include a filter for:
‘Log record type’ = Firewall or Web Rule
‘Log time’ = Live
‘Action’ != Connection status
‘URL’ contains collabsite (Something that will identify the traffic to your site)

Now, you need to start a Query.
Click on start Query, Then go to your browser with the failing site and refresh the site again.
This should give you something like this in the TMG log

You get a few more pieces of info, but still no real answer to what is wrong…now..it is time.
Now we give up and ask a friend like I did or Google/Bing up this blog post.
Apperantly, this is due to SharePoint ‘offering’ these scriptresource.axd files, which by the way are files that do not exist, they are virtual…anyway, the files are offered in a compressed form, and when TMG is not configured to use compression, it can’t handled files beeing offered in a compressed format, at least that is a more or less accurate explaination to the what happens.
To soolve the issue, yup, it is easy.

Note! DO not make any Changes to the TMG if it is used in production, most Changes made will or can affect the functionality of other applications than SharePoint. Do this when it fits.

In TMG, go to the system node in the leftpane

Locate the Filter named Compression Filter and right click, Enable. It has to be enabled in order for TMG to ‘undersdtand’ compressed files…

Now, make sure that the filer shows an enabled state

You might Think that the Compression filter is now enabled…but no. You have to apply the Changes to TMG first, do this by clicking on the Apply button

The Apply/Discard buttons show app after you have made any change to anything in TMG. Obviously, Discard does nothing and does a reset on all Changes you have made, Apply makes it real. The Changes are commited.

Now. You should be ok. Check again in the browser. To be 100% sure, Close the browser and start a new one, browse to the address and logon if you have to.
Click on F12, Networking, ‘StartCapturing’ and refresh the browser.

Now, as you can see, the ScriptResource.axd files load ok with a 200 back from IIS. Test functionality and you will see that you have full AJAX functionality restored!

Failed Connection Attempt
Log type: Web Proxy (Reverse)
Status: 50 The request is not supported.
Rule: Sharepoint
Source: External (10.0.0.10:5656)
Destination: Local Host (collab.internal.domain.com 10.0.0.2:443)
Request: GET http://sp01.domain.com/ScriptResource.axd?d=j1ZhaacmuTdtaXKJmCKiL5N9BhFaiHjoyTepROfiG-dsvaranCGsbhWSAJThJOqErvtnV3f3JK-eai_4uSJCTTsp5WYkDzemQHrfpRrKq-8pIRNncb_vHcHCmvp1E9WFzbrvgUHEnQm3_A6TBJte_EfSWNQReBfix-6dygtTl0aL7MpGhhWiHQWrWzz1Cixd0&t=6119e399
Filter information: Req ID: 1658eda1
Protocol: https
User: Anonymous

Allowed Connection SERVERNAME DATE
Log type: Web Proxy (Reverse)
Status: 200 OK.
Rule: Sharepoint
Source: External (10.0.0.10:5656)
Destination: Local Host (sp01.internal.domain.com 10.0.0.2:443)
Request: GET http://sp01.domain.com/ScriptResource.axd?d=NPjpKZ25gaaa-UUxeA8GUGfiRsyQ0pvhyH-cklhXQDb_uZT9hy-ZNDagl3Gq5QHfhXPAOU_Ngxhu5H5qxWSnmMDCX-IUhKwtH01F785ZmXZ82_V3aeC5wX4aXxARfov8ZzG-FFwXtesO2xApQUCazxU3-FfqQL1NCZqTLM2ttQQhILR1azFbosx9-RCON3JR0&t=6119e399
Filter information: Req ID: 0670e57f
Protocol: https
User: anonymous

References

_________________________________________________________

Enjoy!

Regards

Twitter | Technet Profile | LinkedIn

Loopback Check configuration Tool released – free download

Hi All.

It is here! Free for all! DOWNLOAD

I am happy to announce that the Loopback Check Tool has finally been made available at Codeplex – https://loopbackchecktool.codeplex.com
No more last minute t-shooting the loopback check and ending up disabling it, trying to find the KB or a decent blog post on how to do it.

This Tool takes care of it all for you. Download the exe, put it on your servers, run it to configure the Loopback Check feature simple and easy.

Its simple.
Its small (21kb zipped)
Only click and make it happen
No installation, one single exe that works on most Windows Servers (and clients)
Disable the Loopback check completely (Not recommended)
Enable or Disable the Loopback Check function
Enable it and add excluded URLs (Recommended, now easy to do)

This is a preview image of what the tool looks like

The tool works fine on:

Windows Server 2012
Windows Server 2012 R2
Windows Server 2008 R2
Windows Server 2008
Windows 7
Windows 8
Windows 8.1
And probably a few more…

References:

You receive error 401.1 when you browse a Web site that uses Integrated Authentication and is hosted on IIS 5.1 or a later version
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/896861/en-us

A quick guide to configuring the Loopback check
https://blog.blksthl.com/2013/05/07/a-quick-guide-to-configuring-the-loopback-check/

DisableLoopbackCheck & SharePoint: What every admin and developer should know.
http://www.harbar.net/archive/2009/07/02/disableloopbackcheck-amp-sharepoint-what-every-admin-and-developer-should-know.aspx

Thanks to:

Herakles and Gutke!

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Enjoy!

Regards

Twitter | Technet Profile | LinkedIn

Create a bootable Windows Server 2012 R2 installation USB flash drive

Hi Windows connoisseurs! (wiki)

(This is essentially a remake of my Create a bootable Windows 8.1 installation USB flash drive post.) The setps are the same so you can easily follow that post or use this slightly updated version.

In this guide I will help you find a way to install Windows Server 2012 R2 quick and easy, from a simple USB flash drive. It’s really easy, but you still need to Think about a few things.
I’ll list them here and if you want, you can follow the step by step guide below.

Quicksteps:

1. Get a USB Flash drive formatted with FAT32, it has to be AT LEAST 8GB! (The Windows Server 2012R2 installation bits will not fit on a 4GB USB drive…)
2. Download and install the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool from Microsoft Store here or Codeplex here (It is an official Microsoft tool, totally wierdly named from the Windows 7 release but still very much valid!)
3. Download or locate a ‘Windows Server 2012 R2’ .iso file and store it locally on your harddrive.
4. Start the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool (from startbutton or ‘windows 8/Metro’ style startmenu’?)
5. Complete the steps 1-4
6. Insert the USB flash drive into the powered off PC to install, Power on and boot from USB drive (F9 at HP logo on HP Machines).
7. Install Windows Server as you would normally.
8. Done!

This guide in its entirety works just as well if you replace the Windows Server 2012 R2 .iso file with Windows 8.1, Windows 7, Windows Server 2012 or plain Windows 8 (Windows Server 2008 R2 not verified but willmost likely also work)

Step by step:

1. USB Flash Drive

Prepare a USB flash drive for installation, is has to be at least 8 GB in size and it has to be formatted with FAT32. It does not have to be erased, the tool will do that for you if needed.

Before

2. Download and install the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool from Microsoft Store or Codeplex. The Links are as follows:

http://images2.store.microsoft.com/prod/clustera/framework/w7udt/1.0/en-us/Windows7-USB-DVD-tool.exe
or
http://wudt.codeplex.com

Run the .exe file, you will have to be a local administrator on your machine for it to install properly.

Click Next

Click Install

Click Finish

3. Locate a Windows Server 2012 R2 .iso file. This file should be placed on a local harddrive. It does not matter where you put it, as long as it is on a local HD and it is accessable to you when running the tool, meaning that you have access to where the file is stored in the filesystem.

4. After the installation of the tool has completed, you will suddenly notice this tile:

You can also just use the search function, in ‘metro mode’ simply type Windows 7 and you will see it and its uninstall app.
Start the tool
Click Ok at the User Account Control popup dialog
The first screen should now look like this:

5. Hit the Browse button to locate your Windows Server 2012 R2 installation iso file.

In my test, I’m using an .iso file downloaded from TechNet Subscriber downloads (soon to be no more)
It does not have to be from TechNet, it can be MSDN or Volume Licensing or really any form of Windows Server 2012 R2 installation iso.

Click ‘Next’

Click on ‘USB device’
If you see the window below, that means that the USB drive is either not plugged in properly, or it has the wrong formatting or insufficient storage or similar. Make sure that you have a USB flash drive that meets: 4GB minimum+FAT32.

Insert a USB drive that meets the requirements and press the refresh button
Now, click on the ‘Begin copying’ button.

If the USB drive was ok, the copying will begin, but if not, if it still had files still on it, you will see this dialog:

Click Erase to continue

Click Yes and the formatting and copying process will begin.

Let it do its thing until it reaches 100%

When it has finished formatting and copying files, you are done.

After!

6. Next step, is to insert the USB drive into the PC you want to install Windows Server 2012 R2 on, Power it off completely and Power on again.
Use BIOS settings to select ‘boot from USB’ or like on a HP machine, hit F9 at the HP logo screen to boot directly from USB.

7. Let the Installation begin! The Windows installation is pretty much standard. A Clean install is described here. The setup of Windows 8, which is pretty much the same, is described here

8. Done!

References:

Install and Deploy Windows Server 2012 (R2)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh831620.aspx

Thanks to:

Herakles and Gutke!

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Enjoy!

Regards

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A quick-guide to setting up OWA with SharePoint 2013 – start to finish

Future and existing Office Web Apps – OWA Lovers!
😁
This time, I just found that a quick guide like this was something that I needed myself, and since I could not find anything that was short and compact enough, I made my own guide…
This Little guide is completely based on the TechNet articles mentioned in the references section, but this is nontheless a lot shorter and easier to follow.

–

The old Clock at Oakwood station
–

–
–

Click your OWA task of choice:

Step 1

Prepare a 2008 R2 Server to run OWA

Prepare a 2012 Server to run OWA

Step 2

Install Office Web Apps Server

Step 3

Deploy a single-server Office Web Apps Server farm that uses HTTPS

Step 4

Configure SharePoint to use OWA over https (recommended)

Configure SharePoint to use OWA over http

Additional

Disconnect SharePoint from OWA farm

Configure the Default open behavior for documents

Credits and References

–
–
Prepare a 2008 R2 server to run Office Web Apps Server

1. Install the following software (Minimum required):

2. Import the server module
(In a PowerShell prompt running as administrator and with the SharePoint snapin loaded)
Import-Module ServerManager

3. Add the required Features and Roles by running this command:
Add-WindowsFeature Web-Server,Web-WebServer,Web-Common-Http,Web-Static-Content,Web-App-Dev,Web-Asp-Net,Web-Net-Ext,Web-ISAPI-Ext,Web-ISAPI-Filter,Web-Includes,Web-Security,Web-Windows-Auth,Web-Filtering,Web-Stat-Compression,Web-Dyn-Compression,Web-Mgmt-Console,Ink-Handwriting,IH-Ink-Support

4. Restart the server if prompted when the command finishes.

5. Done

TechNet Reference
Back to menu

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–
Prepare a 2012 server to run Office Web Apps Server

1. In a PowerShell prompt running as administrator, add the required Features and Roles by running this command:
Add-WindowsFeature Web-Server,Web-Mgmt-Tools,Web-Mgmt-Console,Web-WebServer,Web-Common-Http,Web-Default-Doc,Web-Static-Content,Web-Performance,Web-Stat-Compression,Web-Dyn-Compression,Web-Security,Web-Filtering,Web-Windows-Auth,Web-App-Dev,Web-Net-Ext45,Web-Asp-Net45,Web-ISAPI-Ext,Web-ISAPI-Filter,Web-Includes,InkandHandwritingServices

2. Done

TechNet Reference
Back to menu

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Install Office Web Apps Server
1. Download Office Web Apps Server from the Microsoft Download Center (Link).

2. Run Setup and walk through the steps in the wizard.
Windows Server 2012, open the .img file directly and run Setup.exe
Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, use any program that can mount or extract .img files. Then run Setup.exe

3. Download and install the Office Web Apps Server update KB2810007.

TechNet Reference–
Back to menu

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Deploy a single-server Office Web Apps Server farm that uses HTTPS

If components of the .NET Framework 3.5 were installed and then removed, you might see “500 Web Service Exceptions” or “500.21 – Internal Server Error” messages when you run OfficeWebApps cmdlets. To fix this, run the following sample commands from an elevated command prompt to clean up settings that could prevent Office Web Apps Server from functioning correctly:
In Windows Server 2008 R2:
%systemroot%\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\aspnet_regiis.exe -iru
iisreset /restart /noforceIn Windows Server 2012:
dism /online /enable-feature /featurename:IIS-ASPNET45

1. Create the Office Web Apps Server farm

New-OfficeWebAppsFarm -InternalUrl <InternalURL> -ExternalUrl <ExternalURL> -CertificateName <CertificateName> -EditingEnabled

<InternalURL> FQDN name of the server that runs Office Web Apps Server
<ExternalURL> FQDN name that can be accessed on the Internet
<CertificateName> Is the friendly name of the https/SSL certificate used
-EditingEnabled, optional and is added to enable editing in Office Web Apps

2. Verify that the Office Web Apps Server farm was created successfully

Go to the https://internal.url.com/hosting/discovery
If you see a (WOPI)-discovery XML file in your web browser then all is good.

Depending on the security settings of your web browser, you might see a message that prompts you to select Show all content before the contents of the discovery XML file are displayed.

3. Done

TechNet Reference –
Back to menu

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Configure SharePoint to use OWA over https (recommended)
(In a PowerShell prompt running as administrator and with the SharePoint snapin loaded)

The Web Application to be used must be configured to use Claims as authentication method, else OWA will not work.

1. Create new binding:
New-SPWOPIBinding -ServerName <WacServerName>
(<WacServerName> must be the FQDN internal URL)

2. Verify current zone:
Get-SPWOPIZone

3. Change to internal-https if it is set to http:
Set-SPWOPIZone –zone “internal-https

4. Verify https:
Get-SPWOPIZone

5. Verify functionality in a document library (Not using the system account, appearing as sharepoint\system)
Click on the ‘Three dots’ after a documents name and see if you get a preview, if you do, its all good!

6. Done

TechNet Reference –
Back to menu

–
–
Configure SharePoint to use OWA over http
(In a PowerShell prompt running as administrator and with the SharePoint snapin loaded)

The Web Application to be used must be configured to use Claims as authentication method, else OWA will not work.

1. Create new binding:
New-SPWOPIBinding -ServerName -AllowHTTP
( must be the FQDN internal URL)

2. Verify current zone:
Get-SPWOPIZone

3. Change to internal-http:
Set-SPWOPIZone –zone “internal-http”

4. Verify http:
Get-SPWOPIZone

5. Check AllowoverHttp setting:
(Get-SPSecurityTokenServiceConfig).AllowOAuthOverHttp

6. Set AllowOAuthOverHttp to True.
$config = (Get-SPSecurityTokenServiceConfig)
$config.AllowOAuthOverHttp = $true
$config.Update()

7. Verify change:
(Get-SPSecurityTokenServiceConfig).AllowOAuthOverHttp

8. Verify functionality in a document library (Not using the system account, appearing as sharepoint\system)
Click on the ‘Three dots’ after a documents name and see if you get a preview, if you do, its all good!

9. Done

TechNet Reference –
Back to menu

–
–
Disconnect SharePoint from OWA farm
(In a PowerShell prompt running as administrator and with the SharePoint snapin loaded)

1. Remove the binding
Remove-SPWOPIBinding –All:$true

2. Done

TechNet Reference –
Back to menu

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Configure the Default open behavior for documents

1. On a per farm level: Adjust the default open behavior on a per-file-type basis by using the New-SPWOPIBinding and Set-SPWOPIBinding Windows PowerShell cmdlets.

2. On a per Site Collection level by activating the ‘Open Documents in Client Applications by Default’ site Collection feature.

3. On a per Document library level using the Library setting – Advanced setting – ‘Default open behavior for browser-enabled documents’

4. Done

TechNet Reference –
Back to menu

–
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References:

Deploy Office Web Apps Server
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj219455.aspx

Configure SharePoint 2013 to use Office Web Apps
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff431687.aspx

Configure the default open behavior for browser-enabled documents (Office Web Apps when used with SharePoint 2013)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee837425.aspx

Set-SPWOPIBinding
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj219454.aspx

Plan Office Web Apps (Used with SharePoint 2013)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff431682.aspx

SharePoint authentication requirements for Office Web Apps
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff431682.aspx#authentication

Configuring Office Web Apps in SharePoint 2013 (Steve Peschka – Microsoft)
http://blogs.technet.com/b/speschka/archive/2012/07/23/configuring-office-web-apps-in-sharepoint-2013.aspx

Enabling Licensing and Editing for Office Web Apps in SharePoint 2013 (Steve Peschka – Microsoft)
http://blogs.technet.com/b/speschka/archive/2012/12/31/enabling-licensing-and-editing-for-office-web-apps-in-sharepoint-2013.aspx

Thanks to:

Mattias Gutke! All the time dude!
Ankie D – a great customer who has forced me to learn more on OWA
Stefan K – Another customer who made me refresh my knowledge
Steve Peschka, he wrote the original guide…see ref section

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Enjoy!

Regards

Twitter | Technet Profile | LinkedIn

Create a bootable Windows 8.1 installation USB flash drive

Hi Windows Lovers!?

(Looking to install Windows Server? The same steps apply, but for a server specific guide, go here Create a bootable Windows Server 2012 R2 installation USB flash drive)

This time I’ll help you find a way to install Windows 8.1 quick and easy, from a simple USB flash drive. It’s a piece of cake really, but a few things you need to know about.
I’ll list them here and if you want, you can follow the step by step guide below.

Quicksteps:

1. Get a USB Flash drive formatted with FAT32, it has to be AT LEAST 4GB!
2. Download and install the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool from Microsoft Store HERE or Codeplex HERE (It is an official Microsoft tool, totally wierdly named from the Windows 7 release but still very much valid!)
3. Download or locate a ‘Windows 8.1’ .iso file and store it locally on your harddrive.
4. Start the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool (from startbutton or ‘windows 8 style startmenu’?)
5. Complete the steps 1-4
6. Insert the USB flash drive into the powered off PC to install, Power on and boot from USB drive (F9 at HP logo on HP Machines).
7. Install Windows as you would normally.
8. Done!

This guide in its entirety works just as well if you replace the Windows 8.1 .iso file with Windows 7, Windows Server 2012 or plain Windows 8 (Windows Server 2008 R2 not verified but willmost likely also work)

Step by step:

1. USB Flash Drive

Prepare a USB flash drive for installation, is has to be at least 4 GB in size and it has to be formatted with FAT32. It does not have to be erased, the tool will do that for you if needed.

Before

2. Download and install the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool from Microsoft Store or Codeplex. The Links are as follows:

http://images2.store.microsoft.com/prod/clustera/framework/w7udt/1.0/en-us/Windows7-USB-DVD-tool.exe
or
http://wudt.codeplex.com

Run the .exe file, you will have to be a local administrator on your machine for it to install properly.

Click Next

Click Install

Click Finish

3. Locate a Windows 8.1 .iso file. This file should be placed on a local harddrive. It does not matter where you put it, as long as it is on a local HD and it is accessable to you when running the tool, meaning that you have access to where the file is stored in the filesystem.

4. After the installation of the tool has completed, you will suddenly notice this tile:

5. Hit the Browse button to locate your Windows 8.1 installation iso file.

Click ‘Next’

Insert a USB drive that meets the requirements and press the refresh button
Now, click on the ‘Begin copying’ button.

If the USB drive was ok, the copying will begin, but if not, if it still had files still on it, you will see this dialog:

Click Erase to continue

Click Yes and the formatting and copying process will begin.

Let it do its thing until it reaches 100%

When it has finished formatting and copying files, you are done.

After!

6. Next step, is to insert the USB drive into the PC you want to install Windows 8.1 on, Power it off completely and Power on again.
Use BIOS settings to select ‘boot from USB’ or like on a HP machine, hit F9 at tghe HP logo screen to boot directly from USB.

7. Let the Installation begin! The Windows installation is pretty much standard. A Clean install is described here. The setup of Windows 8, which is the same, is described here

8. Done!

References:

Thanks to:

As Always, Mattias Gutke! At CAG for some strange reason….Always a friend, a great help and a second opinion!

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Enjoy!

Regards

Twitter | Technet Profile | LinkedIn

Move your SharePoint IIS sites from the systemdrive(C:)

Move your SharePoint IIS sites from the systemdrive(C:)
or avoid putting them there in the first Place.

Do you see the lion that is totally in the wrong Place…or is it the Jeeps that are…?

Deal fellow SharePointlovers!

This time, I’ll try to show you how to avoid the messed up situation most SharePoint installations are in, with everything on the systemdrive, or C:
Now, us people have over time been better and better at one thing, we understand that the logfiles should not be located on the systemdrive, so we have learned over time to move the ULS log and the Usage and Health log from C:, some have even been clever enough to move even the IIS log from C:

But, what do we still always, always, always, find installed on C:?… … …yes, C:\inetpub!

It not very strange though, the developers of Windows Server have made a point out of not giving us an option to install inetpub on a different path, not unless you do an unattended installation or otherwise script or Control your installation. The ‘Add/Remove roles’ wizards in Server 2008, 2008R2 and 2012 all lack this option (for a reason).

BUT! This is intentially, the default inetpub location should and must be in the systemdrive, IIS is considered an operating system Component and has to be there for a number of reasons. At the end you will find a link to a KB article that explains this in more detail. Leave inetpub and its subfolders where it is!

So, why would we want to do this anyway
why move the inetpub and all of its content, or at least the separate site catalogs to a different drive?
– Separation (Performance and Security)
– Compartmentalization (Performance and Security)
Having averything on the same drive is bad for a few reasons, primarily performance and security. Perfomance since the OS is on the C drive and security because if an attacker by some means gets access to a different less secure applications sitecatalog, they also get access to the systemdrive and possible also all other webapplication sitecatalogs. Moving them to other drives, same or different, helps mitigate both possible issues.
I therefore recommend doing this:

Do your regular installation, add the Web Server role and let the inetpub folder end up on C:, like I said, no worries. Whats important for us will not be located there anyway.
Next, edit the registry to make the default location of inetpub be for example D: (unless this is were you will be putting all of your logfiles, then select a third or fourth drive)
Install the SharePoint as you would normally do, Central administration will now end up were you pointed the default location.
Create your Web Applications using the GUI or PowerShell and leave out the path, the IIS sites will be were you wanted them.

So, how do we do this in more detail? A Guide…

Configure the Web Server(s)

1. Configure the default location

On all of your web servers in the farm, and on your Central Administration server(s), edit the registry key that Controls the default location:

Start regedit by, Right clicking in the very lower left corner and you will get a list of actions, click on Run.

Type Regedit and click Ok.

Click Yes in the UAC dialog.

In Registry Editor, we locate the following path: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\InetStp

Under ‘InetStp’ we have a number of keys.

Locate and Edit the key PathWWWRoot from the default: (%systemdrive%)

to: (D: or where you prefer to locate it, E: F: G: H:…)

There you go! All set, no IIS reset or restarts of any kind required.
Like said before, go on and do this on all servers that will host a webserver (WFE or CA). If you don’t, then you will have an inconsistent setup making Everything very hard to setup and t-shoot.

2. Add SharePoint
After this has been changed on all of you r web servers, you can go ahead and install the SharePoint binaries and configure your farm, The Central Administration site will now be located on the drive you have specified, it will be in the exact same path as it normally would but on a different drive. For example: ‘D:\inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\20000\’

Note that the Central Administration UI will now be default suggest a different path:

If you create a new site using PowerShell, it will also by default put it in D: even if you don’t specify any path:

New-SPWebApplication -Name TheVeryFirst -ApplicationPool SharePoint -HostHeader theveryfirst.corp.balkestahl.se -Port 80 -Url theveryfirst.corp.balkestahl.se -DatabaseServer blksthl-sql -DatabaseName SP11_Content_TheVeryFirst

As you can see, were done! 🙂

For the logfiles, I’ll make a separate post, they should also be moved, more so even than the sitefolders. Logfiles will fill up the disks, they will slow performance and maybe most importantly, they contain delicate information that you want to keep separated from the OS and IIS.

References:

Guidance for relocation of IIS 7.0 and IIS 7.5 content directories
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2752331

Configure ULS log and Usage and Health log location
https://blog.blksthl.com/2013/06/05/configure-uls-log-and-usage-and-health-log-location/

Thanks to:

Mikael Nyström (The Deployment Bunny) – Truesec
Mattias Gutke – CAG

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Good Luckl!!

Regards

Twitter | Technet Profile | LinkedIn