SQL server has been renamed but the operation is incomplete

I recently moved a number of SQL servers to a new domain and renamed the servers.  In the past this has worked fine with SQL 2008, however I was having trouble with an application on SQL 2005.

According to this blog post "The most common cause of this is if the SQL Server has been renamed after SQL Server was installed. The reason is that, at installation time, SQL Server stores the computer name in a system table, sysservers. This information is not updated when the computer is renamed"

To find out what SQL thinks its called run sp_helpserver


To update the server name values use:
 
sp_dropserver 'ORIGNAME' -- where ORIGNAME is the name returned by sp_helpserver


sp_addserver 'CURRENTNAME', 'LOCAL' -- where CURRENTNAME is the current computer name

MyTechEd 2010 Wednesday Sessions

• OFS308 - Deploying Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 with Claims Authentication
• WSV205 - Remote Desktop Services: Virtual and Session-Based Desktops and Applications Architecture with Partners
• OFS223 - Office Web Apps Architecture & Deployment
• Office web apps
• WSV301-LNC - BranchCache in Action
• WCL313 - Troubleshooting Group Policy
• VIR306 - Desktop Virtualization: You Have a Choice 6
• MGT204 - What's New in Operations Manager Since R2

Slides will be available here



MyTechEd 2010 Tuesday sessions

• COS201 - Office 365: What’s Coming Soon
• SIA320 - Impact of Cloning and Virtualization on Active Directory Domain Services
• WSV201-IS - Working with BranchCache – Beginning to End
• UNC308 - Archiving, Retention and Discovery with Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 SP1
• WSV202 - Windows Server 2008 R2: File Services Overview

Slides will be available here

Microsoft TechEd 2010 in Berlin

Microsoft TechEd 2010 in Berlin. 

The first day was somewhat dissapointing with teh pre-conf sessions seeming to concentrate on level 100 and 200 content, particularly with Lynq which seemed to lack substance, so instead I hit the labs with DPM and SCOM.vNext which were both very good


Keynote wasn't bad, with good stuff on Office 365 and Intune, however there is so much marketing on Winphone 7 that it skews the rest.
http://www.msteched.com/2010/Europe

Rename a domain controller using Netdom: Active Directory

Note: newname for computer must be full DNS - ie newname.yourcompany.co.uk

Create an additional new name for the server

netdom computername oldname /add:newname

Make the new name the primary computer name for that server

netdom computername oldname /makeprimary:newname

Reboot

Remove the old computer name

netdom computername  /remove:oldname

Rename a domain controller using Netdom: Active Directory

Windows Server, IIS/SharePoint, and NULL SID ‘Audit Failure’ Security Errors

Whilst I understand why Microsoft might keep tightening up their servers to stop malware attacks, it would be very helpful if they could put some indication of when they are stopping these attacks into a sensible message in the event log.

I have spent 2 days trying to sort out an error on a development machine with the only pointer being NULL SID - brilliant and thank you Microsoft.

Windows Server, IIS/SharePoint, and NULL SID ‘Audit Failure’ Security Errors

Viewing SharePoint 2010 sites on Windows Server 2008 R2

Running SharePoint 2010 server on a Windows 2008 R2 server seems to be a sensible thing to do.  Well at least I thought that until I tried to locally access SharePoint sites on that server via IE.

You will find that on Windows Server 2008 R2, you will be prompted for authentication three times and the page will fail to load. This is because R2 uses the new SPNEGO2 implementation:

 (You may ask why would you need to access sites locally on the server? - well for things like Visual Studio development for SharePoint you must actually develop and run them on your development SharePoint server)

 The solution to this is to make sure that Web Applications you need to access on a Windows 2008 R2 server are setup with the following:

a) a SPN for each Web Application URL

This consists of using the http url of the Web Application and adding it to the Service Principle Name (SPN) of the AD account that the Web application pool runs as. eg.  with a Web Application called http://home.company.com which runs in an IIS AppPool called MySPSites that runs under the security account of mydomain\SPServices.

SETSPN.exe -S HTTP/home.company.com mydomain\SPServices

• (make sure you use an administrative CMD window)
• (this may take a little while on a large AD as it first checks for any duplicate SPNs and if it doesnt find one then adds it to the account).

and (b) For the URL or (URL plus port number) of the Web Application you wish to access on the Windows 2008 R2 Server, you must set either the Default security Zone, or an extended one to have IIS Authentication set to use Kerberos security.

You can do this either on intially setting up the Web Application with Kerberos, or if you need to use different IIS Authentication types for your Default Zone Web App then, after you have created it, extend it using either a different URL or port number.  You can choose a different security Zone when you extend the Web App, or, unlike SharePoint 2007, you can change the IIS Authentication Settings at any time from the Sharepoint Admin console via -> Central Administration->Security->Specify Authentication Provider.

I had hoped that I would only need to carry out step (a) as eluded to in the Harbar.net article but thus far I havnt managed to avoid step (b)

References:

• 
  
  SharePoint 2010 and Kerberos (Harbar.net)
• How to use SPNs when you configure Web applications that are hosted on Internet Information Services
• Configure Kerberos authentication (SharePoint Server 2010)
• 
  
  HOWTO: Configure SharePoint 2010 for Kerberos (Eric Charran)

SharePoint Technology Conference | October 20-22, 2010 | Boston

An interesting Sharepoint Conference to consider for October
SharePoint Technology Conference October 20-22, 2010 Boston

Access Web Services : form filtering and sorting

If you setup a form based on a table source and then add in the forms properties to sort and filter, when you add this form to a Navigation page it completely disregards what you have entered in the forms properties and  just uses the default sort for the table with all values - Brilliant Microsoft!

Filter and Order By Properties  get ignored.

So to get around this for sorting you need to write a query on your table that has the data sorted in the format you require.  Then change the form to use the query instead of the table and that’s sorting sorted out.

But what about filtering?

Well on the tab for a navigation page there is a property called "Navigation Where Clause"  if you put your where statement in there Microsoft actually uses this filter in the way you would expect and doesn’t ignore it as before.  Wonderful!

Navigation Where Clause's do  work

Access Web Services : filtered field lookup lists

One of the key advantages I thought of for using Access Web Services in SharePoint is for populating fields with lookups. Whilst you can do this in SharePoint using the whole list as a lookup there is no way to filter that list. So if you want to filter out all assignments which are marked with a status of complete then you are stuffed!

 
But with Access Web Services I thought you could use a query for the lookup so this would solve the problem. BUT NO you cant use queries for table field lookups using Access Web Services ! As with most Microsoft technologies its two steps forward one back - why do they do this!?! However I have found a workaround which uses forms to filter the lookup and the detail is at the end of this article.

 
Firstly
if you create a new field and follow the diagrams below you see that lookups from queries are greyed out (why Microsoft !?!). Worse than that, for a new table , you will not see any of the existing tables either. To see the existing tables first save your new table and then fully Sync it to SharePoint. Only then will you get a full list of the tables you can use for lookups.

 

Lookup query workaround

Firstly create a form which includes the lookup field you have defined. As expected you will see that it returns all values from the table. Then make sure your in "Layout View" and highlight the field and bring up the property sheet. In the properties you will see a value for row source and its SQL !! If you update this by either carefully updating the text or using the query editor (much safer) you can put your "where clauses" into this query. And bingo it works on both the local access and on SharePoint. Hurrrah!

 

SharePoint 2010 : State Service issues & problems

I built two SharePoint Enterprise servers in separate farms from scratch using different farms and SQL servers. The first is a development machine to try things out on and the second is the production box.

As with all the best MVP advice you should not use the configuration wizard but manually create each service and for the most part Ive done this successfully, however when we started trying to use Infopath or Reports in Access Web Services we started getting some odd errors such as:

The form cannot be rendered. This may be due to a misconfiguration of the Microsoft SharePoint Server State Service.

And

This report failed to load because session state is not turned on.

This was happening on both the production and development servers which was most odd.

Looking in SharePoint service applications there was no reference to the "State Service" on one of the servers and one line item for "State Service" on the other. Also most odd as both servers had been setup in the same way.

 There is no way to create the State service from the new service application menu as it should have been setup from the SharePoint install, so you either have to use the Configuration wizard or PowerShell.

 In the case of there not being any reference to a State Service I ran a powershell command to create a state service database and then ran the Configuration Wizard with everything possible unchecked apart from the State Service. The powershell command to create the database is "

New-SPStateServiceDatabase" See TechNet for more details

After an IISReset the errors seemed to clear and all was well with one of the servers.

For the other server the same process wasn't an option as the Configuration Wizard already had the State Service Checked. So using Powershell I manually created a State Service Application and State Service Proxy and enabled it all using the commands


New-SPStateServiceApplication
New-SPStateServiceDatabase
New-SPStateServiceApplicationProxy
and
Enable-SPSessionStateService

(See http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee890113.aspx)

 However after doing all of this successfully and being able to see the State Application and Proxy in the SharePoint Central administration list of service applications the error s still persisted. So using the SharePoint service application screen I deleted the first State Service and the new State Service Proxy and State Service which I had created. This allowed me to run the configuration wizard with only the State Service tick box checked and after another iisreset voila !

Others have also seen this issue - see

Misconfiguration of the MOSS State Service
Pasted from <http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en/sharepointworkflow/thread/521db715-0d76-49ce-be36-7c37cfb8026f>








 

Access 2010 Web database conversion

Native SharePoint 2010 is dissapointing in terms of not being able to have relational data lists or lookups with filtering and for reporting I used Access reporting based on SharePoint lists.
With Access Services in SP2010 I thought I'd just convert these reports and data sources over, but as ever its not that simple. You need to create a new Access Web database and then import tables into Web Compliant tables. It would appear that linked tables to sharepoint are not compatible. As ever with Microsoft so near and year so far from a complete solution....

Here is a very good article about converting your access databse "Converting Access Databases to Access Web Databases (25th May 2010)"

IE Automation & Tabs - Tony Schreiner's Blog - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

I wanted to launch IE and open several additional tabs. - thanks to Tony Schreiner's blog

IE7 does not support specifying multiple URLs on the command line, but another way to do this is to use IE Automation to launch IE as an out-of-proc COM server and then call methods such as IWebBrowser2::Navigate2.
While you can do this using C++ or any language that supports COM, the easiest is to use Windows Scripting Host.

First, create a 'lanuchie.js' file using your favorite text editor, add the following, and save:

var navOpenInBackgroundTab = 0x1000;
var oIE = new ActiveXObject('InternetExplorer.Application');
oIE.Navigate2('http://blogs.msdn.com');
oIE.Navigate2('http://blogs.msdn.com/tonyschr', navOpenInBackgroundTab);
oIE.Navigate2('http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing', navOpenInBackgroundTab);
oIE.Navigate2('http://blogs.msdn.com/ericlippert', navOpenInBackgroundTab);
oIE.Visible = true;

Now from the command line you can do:

wscript.exe launchie.js

to open IE, navigate the first tab, and then open three background tabs.
One caveat: due to some IE features such as Protected Mode you will sometimes observe that the links are opened in an existing IE window."

Firebox x10 user count exceeded error

On adding a couple of new devices behind my firebox firewall I recieved the most unhelpfull message "user count exceeded".  I double checked everything and after many weeks of fighting with the issue I finally found the solution.

What the error message means is that there is a licensed limit (based on the key you've purchased) for the number of IP addresses on the local network that can use the firewall to access the external interface.  The error message most un-helpfully calls these IP Addresses "users".

So where you have upgraded a number of machines, changed the IP addresses, and the odd printer has chatted to the internet all these old IP addresses are stored on the Firebox.  These then block any new ones for new devices and have to be manually removed.

To do this open the Firebox System Manager ->Authentication Tab->IP Address button

This will give all the addresses that the Firebox has remembered for you as having access to the external interface.

Either clear them all to start a new list or remove the ones you don't want!


This link eventually told me what I needed to know.

How to remove the “title” column from a SharePoint list | EndUserSharePoint.com

With custom Sharepoint lists or those imported from Excel the default Title field (which is inherited from the content type Item) is always included. This link gives a neat trick to hide this field from the edit screen if you dont want it.
How to remove the “title” column from a SharePoint list EndUserSharePoint.com:

How To: Create, Configure, Consume SharePoint 2010 Secure Store in Business Connectivity Services

How To: Create, Configure, Consume SharePoint 2010 Secure Store in Business Connectivity Services

Configuring Business Data Connectivity Services

Setup BDC with its own user, database and App pool
Start the service
You should have a pages host to contain the external content type definitions so you need to Configure /add an External Content Type Profile Page Host.
Create a new site collection (I use the same web application as the metadata hub created earlier)
Use the Publishing Pages Portal Template
Once published goto Central Admin ->Manage service applications –> Choose the BDC /BCS Service -> Click manage from the toolbar->Configure->Type in the URL of the site collection you created above. ie http://metadata.company.com/sites/ExternalContentTypesFinally assign administrators of the BDC Metadata Store by clicking on the Set MetaData Store Permissions.

To create external connections see this article

Multiple Authentication Methods in SharePoint 2010

There are new and exiting authentication methods such as Claims-based authentication in SharePoint 2010 which leads Microsofts product line in being the first Server to offer it.  This article introduces them
while (alive) { writeCode(); } : Multiple Authentication Methods in SharePoint 2010:

Setup Managed Meta Data Hub for the Sharepoint 2010 farm

My personal notes to: Setup a Managed Meta Data Hub for the SP2010 farm
Create a new web applicationCreate a new user for this (and make sure its in the Managed accounts list with the correct permissions)

Create a new web application & make sure the "Document Sets metadata synchronization" web app. feature is activated (you can find this by managing the web application and choosing "manage features" from the tool bar.always use NTLM to start with to test work and can switch after
Create a new site collection with a template of "Publishing ->publishing Portal"

Create the service application
Create a new "Service Application" from Central Admin->Application Managment->Service Applications->Manage Service applications

Click on the new button on the toolbar and choose "Managed Metadata Service"

Enter the name, SQL server and DB name.

You can either use the IIS Web application pool you created when you setup the web application and site above or create a new one with yet another new user account which has been added to the managed users

For the Content Type Hub use the URL of the site collection you setup above and then click ok.Note: this will not start the Managed Metadata service, and you may see errors in the event log saying that this service is not running on any of the servers in your farm. You need to start the serice seperatly.
You start the service by Central Admin->System Settings->Servers->Manage services on server

Click start next to Managed Metadata Web Service

-------------

To check it is working and to manage the content goto Central Admin->Application Management-> Service Applications->manage Service Applications

You will see two entries for the Service, the first is the actual service and the second indented line is a proxy stub.

Click on the first line and choose Manage from the toolbar. This will bring you up the Term Store Mangement Tool where you can manually input Terms or import them using a CSV

Note: you may find errors if you do this straight away as certain timer services need to run to fully impliment this service. Gernerally I would always do an IISReset as well (well it cant hurt!)

Article for next steps setting up content types

SharePoint 2010 Connection Filter Logic

For SharePoint 2007 our MOSS profile sync uses the an LDAP query that filters which OU Users we dont't require -

ie User filter: (&(objectClass=user)(!Status:=System)(!UserAccountControl:1.2.840.113556.1.4.803:=2))

This assumes we want everyone except those with and AD attribute of Status=System (the UserAccountConrol setting excludes accounts disabled)

For SharePoint 2010 once you have setup your Sychronization Connection to include one or more OUs from AD, you can then add exclusion rules by clicking to the right of the Syncronization Connection and choosing Edit Connection Filters from the menu.

I didn't read the screen properly and just applied the same filter logic as SharePoint 2007 but after 4 hours of pain not getting the results I wanted, so I read what it said on the screen.
It says "Exclusion Filter for Users" - as such YOU MUST REVERSE YOUR LOGIC from SP2007!!

Thus to achieve the same result above you need:
ie User filter: (Status:=System)(UserAccountControl:Bit On:=2))

I'll read the screen next time - duh!

The importance of SharePoint 2010 Managed Service Application install order

SharePoint 2010 is very unforgiving when it comes to the configuration of its Managed Service Applications. Not only do all the security settings need to be just so, but the order of install needs to be just right.
Because of this sensitivity, after installing the binaries and getting the administration site running I concentrated on getting the most tricky Service Apps running first, ie the User Profile and User Sync Service Application. However after a good install with few errors, on editing a user's profile some of the fields had really odd errors saying that "There was a problem retrieving data for this field"

There was nothing obvious; however it turns out that if you don't install the Managed Meta Data Service then you will have this problem. It doesn't matter if you install the MMD before are after the UPA but it just needs to be there.

The order I attempted to install Services after the binary and install of the administration site is as follows:

• Register some pre-configured AD accounts into SharePoints' Managed Accounts (having setup the right AD permissions first). These will be used for the IIS Application Pools so you know what is running what. SharePoint very unhelpfully gives these GUIDS as names.
• Create a New Web Application for the MySite Profiles with its own application pool and use one of the Managed Users we setup above
• 
  
  Create New Site collection in that Web Application – using a template of Enterprise –> My Site Host
  (Don't try to load site at this time)
  
• 
  
  Create a new User Profile Service Application with its own app pool
  • Start the UPA service – (very easy to miss this)
• After service has started do an IIS Reset – or even reboot to make sure
• Start the User Profile Sync service – prompts for details – wait 10 minutes until started
• Reboot again – very important.
• Add a Synchronization Connection to AD (You can add LDAP Filters to the connection after it is setup)
• Start profile Synchronisation (full)
• Once complete (and it will take a while…..) Manage User Profiles and you will see on some of the fields the errors I mentioned above.
• Now install the Managed MetaData Service
• IISReset or reboot again – and these field errors disappear!!

Glad it's so intuitive……..!
References :
Spencer Harbar's Rational Guide to implementing SharePoint Server 2010 User Profile Synchronization
SharePoint 2010 – Provisioning User Profile Synchronization

MSDN: Edit Profile Synchronization connection filters

http://blogs.msdn.com/brporter/archive/2010/02/20/excluding-disabled-user-accounts-in-sharepoint-2010.aspx
http://www.wictorwilen.se/Post/SharePoint-2010-user-profile-properties-temporarily-disabled.aspx

Visual Studio error 'Cannot find the certificate and private key for decryption'

I have a perfectly good (and expensive) Thwate Code Signing Certificate - but when I try to import it into Visual Studio to sign an assembly I get a daft error of the form of the title above. I thought MS might have fixed this in VS2010 but no.

The problem appears to be that the certificate holds too much information for VS to comprehend, so you need to import the Certificate onto your machine and export it without all this extra "stuff".

The solution is to run CertMgr.msc - import your certificate - (usually into Personal->Certificates) and then:
export it by right clicking on the certificate you just imported ->All Tasks ->Export->Yes Export Private Key->
(Do not include any Personal Information Exchange check boxes)
Type a password and export it to a folder (preferably in your VS Project)

Now, in Visual Studio->Signing->Strong Name Key File-> try and browse to your new key and it should load after you enter the password.

Sharepoint 2010 BCS connection getting started and authentication issues

There is a very good "get you started" article here, walking you through creating a SharePoint List to an external SQL table. Whilst all the steps were clear it did not deal with security and authentication to the SQL server.

Several methods are available to connect through to back end data providers, however "Connect with User's Identity" (or Pass Through) will only work with Kerberos enabled, and if it is not you will get a Login failed for user 'NT AUTHORITY\ANONYMOUS LOGON' error.

With SP2010 it is much better to use either the Impersonate Windows (or Custom) Identity - which makes use of the SharePoint 2010 Secure Store Service.

If however you dont want to use these or havnt set them up then you can use RevertToSelf which uses the BCS's application pool credentials.

Microsoft warn against this method as a potential security risk and if you try to select it as a connection property it will give you an error saying that revert has to be enabled for the application pool. (See this link)

This is done by setting RevertToSelfAllowed for the BCS model's authentication mode wont work without using powershell to set the Sharepoint Server setting for this to True.

$apps = Get-SPServiceApplication
$bcs = Get-SPServiceApplication where {$_ -match ""}

## If you’re doing this by hand, just type $apps and look #for the Business Data one, then index into it like $apps[i].#If you’re doing it for automation, filter by #$_.GetType.FullName (not $_.TypeName, which is localized).

$bcs.RevertToSelfAllowed = $true

Remember that if you do use this method then the BCS's application pool credentials must have the appropriate rights to the SQL Server Table.

References:
Authenticating to Your External System - BCS Team blog
BCS and External List Learning – Part1
BCS and External List Learning – Part2
Getting started with Business Connectivity Services (BCS) in SharePoint 2010

SharePoint 2010 and Project 2010 Server demo and Eval VM (RTM edition)

Having spent a week fighting with SharePoint 2010RTM to setup demo scenarios, it is refreshing to see that Microsoft have released RTM VM machines for both SharePoint and Project server. Downloading now and will see what goodies they hold...

Chris Johnson : SharePoint 2010 Demo and Eval VM (RTM edition): "SharePoint 2010 Demo and Eval VM (RTM edition)"

Running VMware vSphere Client on Windows 7

The problems running vSphere clients on Windows 7 have brought a lot of pain and the proposed workarounds were complex and invariably didnt work.

BUT here is a very good simple arcticle which works ! - we like this a lot...

Sharepoint 2007 wildcard searching

To use a wildcard search or part of the name, you must specify the field name you are looking for.

eg. FileName:whiz* will find all documents with a FileName starting with "whiz"

I havent found a way to search on field's with spaces in yet (ie where there is a space in the file name replacing it with _x0020_)

There is a good article here
http://www.novolocus.com/2009/05/27/sharepoint-can-have-wildcard-searching/

dotNet Dictionary - ContainsKey

I think Dictionary objects are brilliant data structures. The way they can contain objects and nested dictionaries within them seleves makes them a fantasic store,

However I was using a Dictionary obect to store Key Value Pairs and I couldnt be sure that I knew if all the key's were present. The first way I found to check was to try to get the key within a Try Catch block and if they key wasnt found the Catch block would return a default value.

This was both stressfull to me and the performance of the app, so I was very pleased when I found a method to test if a key existed: Dictionary<(Of <(TKey, TValue>)>)..::.ContainsKey Method

BUT I was even happier when I found the Dictionary<(Of <(TKey, TValue>)>)..::.TryGetValue Method

TryGetValue means you dont need to wrap your code in Try Catch blocks to handle exceptions and you can pass back a default value if the key is not found. Brilliant !

A couple of Excel VBA usefull notes

UserName = Environ("Username")
Domain = Environ("UserDomain")
Combined= Environ("UserDomain") & "\" & Environ("Username")

CurrentDate = Date
CurrentTime = Time

Some file and folder VBA commands

Current folder name: CurDir
Change the active folder: ChDir "C:\My Documents"

File exists test: If Dir("F:\My Documents\My Workbook.xls") <> "" Then ....

Delete a file : Kill "F:\My Documents\My Workbook.xls"

Creates a new folder: MkDir "F:\My Documents\NewPrivateFolder"
Delete a folder: RmDir

Copy a file (the file must be closed): FileCopy "OrgWorkBook.xls", "CopyWorkBook.xls"

How to move a file (the file must be closed):
OldFilePath = "C:\OldFolder\Filename.xls" ' original file location
NewFilePath = "C:\NewFolder\Filename.xls" ' new file location
Name OldFilePath As NewFilePath ' move the file

My thanks to this reference - allbeit a little hard to read beacause of the ad's

February 2010 Windows Media Center Cumulative Update for Windows 7

Although Windows 7 Media Centre is much better than previous releases - its support of media extenders such as Xbox 360 and Linksys are woefully behind. Here is the latest patch for Windows 7 and I do hope that this is supported by the extenders being updated as well.

Sharepoint list item - custom drop down menu

To be able to customise Sharepoint Context menus easily using Javascript in a a Content Editor Web Part is extreemly powerfull and remarkably simple to get working. - see this article for guidance Customizing SharePoint Context Menus.

(Suplimental: The obove article is ok as far as it goes however to try to get the client side menu to carry out actions is not simple. You need to be skilled in Javascript and have a knowledge of the internal variable names Sharepoint 2007 users. [at least Sharepoint 2010 will have a client side dll!).

Other references I found usefull were :

• MSDN - Sharepoint Client side API - OpenDocuments Control
• Changing the context menu of a document library in Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2003 or Windows SharePoint Services
• “Send Document Link By Mail” menu item to document libraries
• How to open SharePoint documents in Edit mode with Internet Explorer 6 and Windows XP (without regfix

BUG: SSIS 2008 derived columns from User variables data type

I wanted to create a derived column from a user:variable in SSIS so that I could combine the input of a CSV into a SQL table along with a column name saying where the CSV came from.

Usually you initialise the user:variable before the package starts with a non relevant string, such as "1234" then updated it to the correct value once the process starts.

The problem is that when you use the Derived Coulmn Transformation Editor and add a Derived Column as SSIS fills in the Data Type automatically for you and wont let you change its data length. So if you initialise the user:variable with "1234" the new column will be defined with a Data type Unicode string [DT_WSTR] 4 - notice maximum length of 4!

So if you update the user:variable string to a length of 5 characters SSIS fails!

My work around is to make sure that you initialise the user:variable string with a value which has a length of the maximum possible string which you are likely to encouter.

Hopefully this will be resolved in future releases.

Another Microsoft SQL exam passed

I'm sure it gets harder to study and pass exams as each year goes by, however just managed to achieve 98% in Microsoft SQL Server 2008, Implimentation and Maintenance so off for a beer to celebrate.

Summing Excel Range Intersects

Ever wanted to add up the value of the Intersecting Sets or Ranges.

I had a couple of Ranges as rowns,
eg Dept1 = Rows A1:N4 , Dept2 = Rows (A5:N6, A12:N16) etc

and then Columns Ranges for Jan, Feb
eg Jan = Column B1:B12, Feb = C1:C12 etc.

I wanted to get the sum of the Intersection between Ranges Dept1 for Jan. To do this use a Space as an operator. eg =Sum(Dept1 Jan)

Whilist everyone knows about the comma as a Union operator not many people have heard of space as an Intersect operator - see "Reference operators" in Excel help for more info

Using Windows 7 for "Server-like" loads

I'm studying for a SQL 2008 exam and found that you can mirror up to 3 backups to different devices, so when a client had some new Windows 7 machines delivered with loads of spare hard drive, I thought this would be an excellent location to backup an additioanal copy of SQL to overnight.

However after about a 15Gb backup from SQL 2005 server onto a Windows 7 share, the Windows 7 workstation seemed to loose its visibility from any of the Windows 2003 servers. (The other Windows 7 machines could still see the share).

A reboot solved the issue, until I tried to backup again!

Looking in the event log, I found memory errors showing as Non-Paged pool problems.

After a lot of searching, I came across the article below - it would appear that from the old SysInternals Site there used to be an article called "Tunining Workstations for Server-Like Loads". Microsoft seem to have "tidied up" these old articles and I couldnt find any links to the references shown on Technet, however if you make the registry changes to a Windows 7 machine, it seems a lot happier pretending to be a backup file server overnight.

Set the following registry to key to 1

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\LargeSystemCache

and set the following registry key to ‘3′:

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters\Size

Reboot and enjoy!


References:
http://alan.lamielle.net/2009/09/03/windows-7-nonpaged-pool-srv-error-2017
Event ID 2017 and 2021 - microsoft.public.windows.vista.networking_sharing Google Groups

ICO (Windows Icon) file format plugin for Photoshop

A very usefull Adobe photoshop CS plugin that works really well.
ICO (Windows Icon) file format plugin for Photoshop