Attention SSRS 2005 SharePoint Integrated Users – Oct 2009 Security Patches Manual Steps

This blog post discusses the additional manual steps SharePoint Integrated Reporting Service instances will need in order to be fully patched correctly.

As part of the October 2009 Microsoft Security Patch Release, the security patch MS09-062 contains fixes for SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services (SSRS). This patch will normally automatically be applied to your Reporting Services instances either through Windows Update or applied as part of your company’s normal security patch process.

However, for Reporting Services instances that are installed in SharePoint Integrated mode, you need to apply an updated “Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services Add-in” also. This will NOT be done automatically as part of the update process.

In most deployments, this updated add-in will need to be applied on your Reporting Services server and all your SharePoint Web Front Ends. Basically, wherever you have already installed this add-in in the past.

There is an SQL 2005 SP2 and SP3 version of this patch so I will list the KB article and the add-in download link:

SQL 2005 SP2 Add-In Details
MS KB 970896
Download add-in here (make sure you grab x32 or x64 as need)

SQL 2005 SP3 Add-In Details
MS KB 970894
Download add-in here (make sure you grab x32 or x64 as need)

WSS 3.0 and SharePoint 2007 August 2009 Cumulative Updates are published

UPDATE – 10/13/09 They have updated the WSS package. It went live on October 7th. Now, you can safely download the WSS CU package using the link below and it should not contain the database attach issue.  Links to both the WSS and MOSS CU packages are below.

UPDATE – 10/01/09: They are updating the WSS CU package to resolve the issue described in the blog posts below…I will update this post again when the new package is live. Right now, you just need to wait for the new package and do not use the previous WSS CU version.

New build available for August CU

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However, note there is an issue with the current cumulative update (CU) packages. Please read the following posts and determine if this issue will effect you before installing the packages:

Important: Be careful when installing WSS August Cumulative Update

WSS August CU and re-attached content databases

You can download the packages by using the “View and request hotfix downloads” link at the top of the KB articles:

WSS 3.0 August 2009 Cumulative Update “Server Package”

SharePoint 2007 August 2009 Cumulative Updates “Server Package”

As always, you can get the most current information about the updates by visiting the TechNet Updates Resource Center for SharePoint Products and Technologies

Problem installing SQL Server 2008 on Windows 2008 R2

This post is focused on installing SQL Server 2008 on a Windows 2008 R2 server for those of only need to do a few installs. In other words, this is the quick fix. At the bottom of this post is the solution for how to resolve this issue if you regularly install SQL Server in this configuration. In other words, at the bottom is the enterprise solution. For me, I ran into this issue building a virtual machine for local testing of SharePoint.

I ran into a problem installing SQL Server 2008 (SQL2K8) RTM onto a Windows 2008 R2 server. After some research, the issue is SQL2K8 is not supported on Windows 2008 R2 without SQL2K8 Service Pack 1.  We receive this error message when you try the install:

If you continue the install process, you will get through all the setup screens but the installation of any of the services will fail. The issue is the setup files that come with the RTM version of SQL2K8 cannot properly install the services on the R2 version of Windows 2008.  Anything I did from this point forward did not resolve the issue. I did some research and found the answer. I started with a clean Windows 2008 R2 image and started my resolution process from there.

So here is the work around solution. Before you even try to install SQL2K8, run the SQL2K8 Service Pack 1 install. As it starts up, it will install the latest group of setup support files.

After this part is done, it will not detect any installed SQL components (to be expected) and you will cancel the installation. Now run the installation of SQL2K8 just like you always would. The installation will detect that there are newer versions of the setup files installed already and will use them instead. These SP1 setup files are aware of Windows 2008 R2 and your installation will complete successfully.

Remember to go back and re-run the SQL2K8 Service Pack 1 to actually update the installed services on your system now. That is it!  You are done!

Enterprise Solution: If you are regularly installing SQL2K8, this solution is very much a work around and adds extra steps and time. The solution for when doing several installs is to make a SQL Server 2008 SP1 slipstream install location. With this solution, you will be able to run the install once, have it install without errors, have the server configured and have the service pack already installed.

St. Louis Day of .Net Presentation

It was great to be able to speak and to see the great turnout for the event this year. There were over 400 attendees this year and with speakers and volunteers over 500 people involved.  As always, feel free to provide any feedback and ask questions in the comments.

My presentation on Best Practices for SharePoint Deployment and Management is available for download.

SharePoint 2007 June 2009 Cumulative Update Finalized

The last of the “uber packages” for the June 2009 cumulative update has been released. This means it is much easier to apply the June 2009 update so I will be recommending this update in my presentations/client interactions to be current.

Joerg Sinemus’ post has the latest information about what packages to install and their installation order to be current.

Also, note in his post that the “uber package” will be referred to as a “server-package” in the future.

SharePoint Saturday Ozarks

It was great to be able to present at SharePoint Saturday Ozarks. Thanks to those who attended. Please feel free to post any comments if there are any questions or comments on Best Practices SharePoint Deployment and Management (presentation).

Gradualdelete is new

With the WSS/SharePoint April 2009 Cumulative Update, a new parameter was introduced for the “stsadm –o deletesite” and “stsadm –o mergecontentdbs” commands. I noticed it while reviewing some recently published/update TechNet articles and tweeted about it here, here, here and here. Because of that I wanted to summarize the content in one post, point out some other things I found while researching and point you to where you can get more detail. On The Sean Blog, Sean covers all the commands added in the April update.

Here are the things that jumped out at me:

1. There is a new property added which is where the SPTimer schedule for the deletion job is stored and marks the site collection for deletion so it can no longer be accessed.

2. To restore a large site collection (see the Note), you can use the gradualdelete parameter with deletesite and mergecontentdbs to help the process. This is the article that got me looking everything else up.

Also, a note I saw while doing this review…MS is recommending you install the April 2009 update before continuing to use the mergecontentdbs command (see the Important note).

To be the most current on your deployment, you will want to install Service Pack 2 and then the April 2009 Update.

This post was all over the place. I hope it was still helpful. Well…it has been a long time since I have posted so hopefully this post will get me back onto the blog wagon.

Call for SharePoint Speakers: St. Louis MOSS Camp

On Saturday, April 18, 2009, there will be an all-day MOSS Camp taking place in St. Louis, MO focusing on all things SharePoint and we are looking for speakers. The current plan is to have four tracks covering the following topics: Development, Infrastructure, Governance/Business, or End User. The session can contain 100, 200, or 300 level information.

Submissions for speakers are being accepted immediately.

Registration being open for attendees will be announced soon. More information will be posted on the St. Louis SharePoint Users Group site as it becomes available and you can follow the St. Louis MOSS Camp twitter account for updates as well.

Do you need to apply the December SharePoint security patch?

Just a quick note to make sure everyone sees this item. As posted on the SharePoint blog, you do NOT need to apply the patch if you have already installed the SharePoint October Cumulative update. However, if you have not, go get that server patched with the December security patch!

64-bit PDF iFilters Update

In this post, I will do a brief review of the state of 64-bit PDF iFilters for the Microsoft platform (this effects SharePoint). There have been a couple things occur in the last few days that I just wanted to point out.

First, let me review the purpose of an ifilter briefly for those who may not be aware. For Microsoft search products, an ifilter allows the indexer to read different file formats. So a PDF ifilter allows a Microsoft search product to open Adobe PDF files so that can be indexed and searched. Also, if you are running the MS Search Product on 64-bit platform, you want to run a 64-bit ifilter for performance and supportability reasons.

Until this month, in my opinion, the only production ready option for a 64-bit ifilter was offered by FoxIt Software. There are two things that have happened that I wanted to point out for your review.

1. Finally, Adobe has released a 64-bit PDF ifilter. Their filter is free.
2. FoxIt Software has released an update to their 64-bit PDF ifilter this month. There is a charge for their ifilter if you are using on a server (free for desktop use).

So if you are using FoxIt already, time to update your filter next patch cycle. If you need an ifilter, you may ask, “Why on earth would I use the FoxIt Software solution I have to buy now that Adobe has a free version?” There have been tests done to show that previously, the FoxIt ifilters (even 32-bit) performed better than the Adobe solution. I know the FoxIt version is multi-threaded. I do not know the capabilities of the free Adobe version yet.

So for Production environments, I would ask you to still consider the FoxIt solution. But if you can’t afford it, there is an alternative now. As more testing is done with these filter solutions, hopefully we will have more information to make a decision.

If you need help installing the ifilters, here are some links that will help:

For SPS 2003: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555209
For WSS 3.0: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927675
For MOSS 2007: http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/adir_ron/archive/2007/05/03/Just-Released-_2D00_-PDF-IFilter-for-x64-Bit_2100_.aspx

How to add the PDF icon

And if you install SharePoint updates/patches, remember that you need to reinstall the FoxIt PDF ifilter.