Software

Here is another warning message that I received after installing SharePoint 2010.  To fix this issue, follow these steps:

• Go to Central Administration.
• Click on “Monitoring.”
• Click on “Review job definitions” under “Timer Jobs.”
• Scroll down and click on “User profile service application – activity feed job.”
• Click “Enable.”

Now, you can go back to Central Administration and view the warning message.  Click “Reanalyze Now” and after some time the message should go away.

After installing SharePoint 2010, you may notice warnings appear from the Health Analyzer after the system has been running for a while.

“The Unattended Service Account Application ID is not specified or has an invalid value.”

To fix this issue:

• Open the Central Administration page.
• Under “Application Management,” click on “Manage service applications.”
• Click on “Secure service application.”
• Next, in the ribbon at the top of the page, click on “Generate New Key.”
• Enter a pass phrase and click OK.
• Now, in the ribbon, click “New.”
• For the Target Application ID, enter a unique identifier such as: TARGET_APPLICATION_ID
• For the Display Name, enter some descriptive name such as: Target Application ID
• Enter your email address.
• Make sure to change the Target Application Type to GROUP.
• Click Next.
• Keep the defaults for the next screen and click Next.
• Enter in your administrator account into the Target Application Administrators and Members fields.
• Click OK.
• Next, go to the Central Administration page.
• Under “Application Management,” click on “Manage service applications.”
• Scroll down and click on “Visio Graphics Service.”
• Click on “Global Settings.”
• Down at the bottom of the page, enter your target ID (TARGET_APPLICATION_ID) into the Application ID field and click OK.

Now, you can go back to your Central Administration page and view the warning messages once again.  Open the “Unattended Service Account” message and click “Reanalyze Now.”  After some time, the message should go away.

One problem you may be facing if you are new to SharePoint 2010 is how to open PDF files.  There are a couple different problems you may have noticed.  One: the PDF files do not show a file type icon like the Word or Excel files do, and Two: when you click on a PDF file to open it, you are presented with a dialog box asking you to Save or Cancel.

By default, SharePoint does not recognize PDF files, so we will have to tell it how to recognize the files to display the pretty icon.

The reason the PDF does not open is because of a new header called X-Download-Options that is passed into your browser and if you are using IE 8, a new security feature will block the file from opening.

While we are setting up PDF files, lets go ahead and configure SharePoint’s search engine so that it can crawl the contents of PDF files as well.

Opening PDFs

First, let’s tackle the easiest to fix issue.  A SharePoint web application has two modes that it uses to handle browser files: Permissive and Strict.  The default mode is Strict and will cause SharePoint to send the X-Download-Options header.

To turn off the header:

• Open your SharePoint Central Administration.
• Click on “Manage web applications.”
• Click on “SharePoint – 80.”
• In the ribbon at the top of the page, click “General Settings.”
• Scroll down the pop up window until you find “Browser file handling” and change the selected value from “Strict” to “Permissive.”
• Click OK to save changes.

Setting Up The Search Engine To Crawl PDFs

• Download Adobe PDF iFilter 9 for 64 bit platforms from Adobe.
• Install iFilter on your SharePoint server (or the server that is running the search service).
• Accept all defaults.

Showing the PDF Icon

• Visit Adobe’s site to download an image of their PDF icon.  Save a copy of the 17 x 17 image size to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\TEMPLATE\IMAGES\ on your SharePoint server.
• Edit the C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\TEMPLATE\XML\DOCICON.XML file on your SharePoint server.
• Scroll down to the <ByExtension> tag and enter the following between the <ByExtension> and </ByExtension> tags:
  <Mapping Key=”pdf” Value=”pdficon_small.gif” OpenControl=”" />
  * If you want to keep the file organized, check the other keys and enter it in alphabetical order.
• Save the XML file.
• Next, open the SharePoint Central Administration site.
• Under “Application Management”, click “Manage service applications.”
• Scroll down the list of applications and click on “Search service application.”
• In the left-hand menu, click “File types.”
• Click “New file type.”
• Enter “pdf” into the “File extension” box and click OK.
• Now, you should be able to scroll down and find your PDF icon.

Now, we’ll need to restart IIS by opening the command prompt on your SharePoint server as Administrator.  Type into the command prompt: “iisreset” and IIS will be stopped and restarted.

Running A Full Crawl

• From the Central Administration, under “Application Management”, click on “Manage service applications.”
• Scroll down and click on “Search service application.”
• From the left-hand menu, click “Content Sources.”
• Hover your mouse over the “Local SharePoint sites” record and click the down arrow for more options.
• Select “Start full crawl”

Now, you should be able to open PDF files, see adobe icons next to them in library web parts, and be able to search the contents using SharePoint’s search engine.

Here is the installation process that I used for setting up SharePoint 2010 using MSSQL 2005 as the backend database.

First, you must make sure if you are going to use SQL 2005 instead of 2008, that your SQL server is patched to a compatible level for SharePoint.

Updating Microsoft SQL 2005

First thing you need to do is make sure your SQL server is patched up.  I ended up using the SQL 2005 SP3 Update 6 found on Microsoft’s site.  You need to make sure you select the 64 bit version.  To do that, you must click on the “Show hotfixes for all platforms and languages (14)” link above the list of files.  This will display all the files available. 

Check the one marked “SQL_Server_2005_SP3_Cumulative_Update_6″ with the x64 platform type.  Enter your email and submit the form to have the download link sent to you.  The link will contain a password protected self-extracting program, so make sure to get the password from the email.

Copy this patch over to your server and install it.  The SQL server will need to be restarted afterwards, so do so at a time when you can down it for a few minutes.

After patching my SQL server, the version now shows 9.0.4266 in the SQL Server Management Studio Express.

Setting Up A Service Account

SharePoint 2010 will ask for a service account that it uses to communicate with the database.  So, you can go ahead and create your service account in Active Directory, I used svc_sharepoint, and configure SQL 2005 for the new user.

• From the SQL Server Management Studio Express, connect to your database server and open up the Security\Logins folders in the tree.
• Right-click on the Logins folder and choose “New Login”
• For the “Login Name”, enter DOMAINNAME\USERNAME
• Click “Server Roles” on the left-hand side and put a checkmark next to “dbcreator” and “securityadmin”.
• Click OK.

Installing SharePoint 2010

Enter the SharePoint disc into your CD/DVD drive on your server.  If it does not start automatically, execute the “Splash.hta” file to see the splash page.

Software Prerequisites

• Click on “Install Software Prerequisites”.
• Accept the default values and start the installation of the secondary programs needed to run SharePoint.
• Click Finish when everything has been installed.

Installation

• Click “Install SharePoint Server.
• Enter your product key. Continue.
• When asked for Standalone or Server Farm, choose Server Farm if this is a production server.
• Next, Mark the circle next to Complete and click Install Now.
• Once everything has finished installing, make sure the “Run the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard now” box is checked and click Close.

Configuring SharePoint

When the configuration wizard starts, you will be asked if services can be started or reset.  Choose yes.

• Click “Create a new server farm” if this is your first server, otherwise choose “Connect to an existing server farm.”
• On the next screen, you will need to enter in the name of your database server, as well as the username/password for the service account you had created earlier.  I used svc_sharepoint.  If your database has not been patched up to a compatible level, you will be stopped right here.
• The next screen will ask you for a passphrase.  This is an important password that you will need if you want to add another server to this server farm.  So, don’t lose it.
• Next, you’ll be asked to configure the Central Administration web application.  You can specify a port number that the admin portion of SharePoint will use.  I would use something easy to remember, like 9999.  Keep NTLM selected and hit Next.
• If everything looks good on the next page, click Finish.

Farm Configuration

Now, a web page should open up and continue the server farm configuration from there.  You will be asked if you want to help make sharepoint better.  Make a choice and hit OK.

• Select “Walk me through the settings using the wizard” and hit Next.
• On the next screen, select “use existing managed account” and make sure your service account is selected.
• Scroll down the page and make sure all services are checked with exception of the Lotus Notes Connector.  Click Next.
• The web page will process these settings for a little while.  Once finished, you will be asked to enter the title and description for your main SharePoint site.  Also, you can select a template at the bottom.  I would stick with the default “Team Site” template.
• Once this has finished, you will get a summary page telling you what services have been enabled.  Click Finish.

Changing Your Site URL

After everything has been configured, you will be sent to the Central Administration page.  If you look at your URL, it will show the server name and not the domain address that you would, no doubt, like to use.  For this to work, of course, you need to make sure you have added an ALIAS entry in your DNS server that points your domain name to your SharePoint server name.

• Under the left-hand menu, click on “Application Management.”
• Under “Web Applications”, click on “Configure alternate access mappings.”
• In the content area, at the top-right side of the page there is a drop down box next to “Alternate access mapping collection.”  Click this drop down and select “Change alternate access mapping collection.”
• Choose one of the sites displayed (SharePoint – 80 or Central Administration).
• Click “Add Internal URLs”
• Enter the URL of your domain name (ex. http://my.domainname.com:port).  If this is the Central Administration, you will need to add the port as well.  It can be ommitted if it is your port 80 site.
• Choose a zone, such as Intranet, if it applies to what your SharePoint server is used for.
• Click Save.
• Run through the same steps to add the URL for the other site.

Now that SharePoint has been installed and configured, you can continue by setting permissions, creating sites and web parts, and building content.