Last week, Microsoft announced the release of a hot fix to address one of the biggest faux pas in Microsoft service pack history. Not since the Windows 2000 SP2 debacle has a service pack been so maligned. When installed, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS 2007) SP2 activates a product expiration date, meaning that your SharePoint server will stop working 180 days after installation of SP2. Can you say, "Oops"? Wow. The SharePoint Team Blog entry details the problem, and last week's post has links to the fixes. The SharePoint team members promise a "repaired" MOSS 2007 SP2 installer within 4 to 6 weeks. My guess is they'll beat that deadline to save a little face. While the release of the update is the most important news of the week, there are other good bits to share.
I had a number of folks ask me when the sample MOSS 2007 Web Content Management (WCM) site in Adventure Works Travel would be available. Well, it's here! The SharePoint team released the site a few weeks ago. It's a bit tough to hunt down, but I found the installer in the MSDN Code Gallery. The site provides great examples of some important WCM concepts and techniques. You can use the labs and PowerPoint slides provided in the MSDN Code Gallery. The sample MOSS 2007 WCM site is also used in examples throughout the SharePoint Developer website. Let's give a shout of thanks to the team for releasing this and to the vendor who created it!
I'd also like to point you to a couple of great resources and tips that have been posted to the community of late:
- SharePoint MVP Spencer Harbar posted an article detailing high availability and load balancing of Central Administration. Think about it—wouldn't you want Central Administration to be hosted on more than one server? Yes! Check out his article and a short follow-up that emphasizes this is a supported configuration.
- Mirjam van Olst posted the informative article "User Profiles and the User Information List Synchronization". If you enjoyed my article about user profiles ("Wise and Not-So-Wise Choices, Part 1"), this is a good additional resource.
- Looking for a good book on MOSS 2007 administration? Steve Caravajal, Shane Young, and Todd O. Klindt—some of the best and brightest minds out there—share their scoop in Inside SharePoint 2007 Administration. Administration, architecture, governance, and more are the topics covered in the superb book Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Best Practices by Ben Curry and Bill English.
- Now that the spring conference season is over, it's time to start looking towards autumn. The Best Practices Conference is on August 24-26 in Washington, DC. Microsoft's SharePoint Conference 2009, which will be all about SharePoint 2010, is on October 19-22 in Las Vegas. And a number of your favorite speakers, authors, and MVPs will be presenting both MOSS 2007 and SharePoint 2010 sessions at SharePoint Connections on November 9-12 in Las Vegas.
Now enough reading. Go download the MOSS 2007 SP2 hotfix now!
