Windows 7, Configuring

Last month I took the Windows 7 Configuring beta exam (70-680). Well, the results are out and I did pass the exam.

Tip for anyone taking an exam : Always read carefully the "Skills measured" section on the official exam's site. The exam preparation will almost be done when you go through that stuff.

Here is link to the exam preparation site:

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/exam.aspx?ID=70-680&locale=en-us

Also, if you need more resources, check out the links below:

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/training/windows.aspx
http://www.techexams.net/forums/mcts-mcitp-windows-2008-general/42480-71-680-resources.html

Visual Studio 2010 and .NET FX 4 Beta out

Visual Studio 2010 and .NET FX 4 Beta has been released to MSDN subscribers...Check out the image below:



Time to pull up your sleeves and start testing it....

Error while importing a sitecollection in MOSS 2007

Recently got this error message while trying to import a site collection in MOSS 2007:

FatalError: Failed to read package file.

at Microsoft.SharePoint.Deployment.ImportDataFileManager.Uncompress(SPRequest request)
at Microsoft.SharePoint.Deployment.SPImport.Run()
*** Inner exception:
Failure writing to target file
at Microsoft.SharePoint.Library.SPRequest.ExtractFilesFromCabinet(String bstrTempDirectory, String bstrCabFileLocation)
at Microsoft.SharePoint.Deployment.ImportDataFileManager.<>c__DisplayClass2.<Uncompress>b__0()
at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSecurity.CodeToRunElevatedWrapper(Object state)
at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSecurity.<>c__DisplayClass4.<RunWithElevatedPrivileges>b__2()
at Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities.SecurityContext.RunAsProcess(CodeToRunElevated secureCode)
at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges(WaitCallback secureCode, Object param)
at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges(CodeToRunElevated secureCode)
at Microsoft.SharePoint.Deployment.ImportDataFileManager.Uncompress(SPRequest request) 

Resolution: The error is because of insufficient space on c drive. Please clean up c drive run the import process again.

IE 8 NTLM Authentication on Windows 2008

If you are using host headers to resolve the websites, then you might have seen the following issue with NTLM authenticated sites on IE 8. When you access the websites on a machine other than the one where it is hosted, you will be able to get to the sites.
Once you RDP onto the server and try to connect to the website, it will prompt for your windows credentials and will get an access denied message. This problem occurs because Windows includes a loopback check security feature that helps prevent reflection attacks on your computer(Probably some kind of security change has been made in IE8 related to this feature). Therefore, authentication fails if the FQDN or the custom host header that you use does not match the local computer name.

Resolution: Disable the loopback check

• Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
• In Registry Editor, locate and then click the following registry key:
  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa
• Right-click Lsa, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
• Type DisableLoopbackCheck, and then press ENTER.
• Right-click DisableLoopbackCheck, and then click Modify.
• In the Value data box, type 1, and then click OK.
• Quit Registry Editor, and then restart your computer.

Loading this assembly would produce a different grant set from other instances

After installing .NET 3.5 sp1, all the MOSS web applications were working fine except for one. The following error was showing up:

Stack trace:
at System.RuntimeTypeHandle.CreateInstance(RuntimeType type, Boolean publicOnly, Boolean noCheck, Boolean& canBeCached, RuntimeMethodHandle& ctor, Boolean& bNeedSecurityCheck)
at System.RuntimeType.CreateInstanceSlow(Boolean publicOnly, Boolean fillCache)
at System.RuntimeType.CreateInstanceImpl(Boolean publicOnly, Boolean skipVisibilityChecks, Boolean fillCache)
at System.Activator.CreateInstance(Type type, Boolean nonPublic)
at System.RuntimeType.CreateInstanceImpl(BindingFlags bindingAttr, Binder binder, Object[] args, CultureInfo culture, Object[] activationAttributes) at System.Activator.CreateInstance(Type type, BindingFlags bindingAttr, Binder binder, Object[] args, CultureInfo culture)
at System.Web.Configuration.Common.ModulesEntry.Create()
at System.Web.Configuration.HttpModulesSection.CreateModules()
at System.Web.HttpApplication.InitInternal(HttpContext context, HttpApplicationState state, MethodInfo[] handlers)
at System.Web.HttpApplicationFactory.GetNormalApplicationInstance(HttpContext context) at System.Web.HttpApplicationFactory.GetApplicationInstance(HttpContext context)
at System.Web.HttpRuntime.ProcessRequestInternal(HttpWorkerRequest wr)

Fix:
Just restart the application pool account associated with the erroring application and you be all set.

MOSS search access denied error after .NET Framework 3.5 sp1 installation

Recently we rolled out .NET Framework 3.5 sp1 on our MOSS Servers. During testing, we found out that while crawling the Sharepoint website the following error occurred:

Access is denied. Verify that either the Default Content Access Account has access to this repository, or add a crawl rule to crawl this repository.

To fix the above issue, try the below steps:

• Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
• In Registry Editor, locate and then click the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa
• Right-click Lsa, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
• Type DisableLoopbackCheck, and then press ENTER.
• Right-click DisableLoopbackCheck, and then click Modify.
• In the Value data box, type 1, and then click OK.
• Quit Registry Editor, and then restart your computer.(Try to re-run the crawl after registry change without restart. Sometimes it may not be necessary to restart.)

MOSS out of the box search error

Recently while configuring the out of the box search for a MOSS site, I encountered the following error : Your search cannot be completed because of a service error. Try your search again or contact your administrator for more information.

In order to fix the error, please make sure the application pool, the site is running under, has access to the search index. Here are the steps to follow:

• First make sure the MOSS Search Service is running. Check the event viewer for error messages. If everything is ok, go to the next step
  
• Find out the application pool account the site is running under(network service, local account or another account)
  
• Go to Central administration -> SSP settings -> Search
• Check the default content access and make sure it is the same as the above one