Fear and Loathing

No, really. I’ve been a SharePoint MVP for a couple of years now and it’s great. My award cycle renews in April and I’m looking to receive the coveted Silver Sow award for SharePoint again but for awhile now, something else has caught my eye. It’s that silly little application that everyone uses, Notepad!

You know all about Notepad. In fact, it’s deployed to every Windows machine out there. Yup, every single machine. Let that sink in for a minute. It even can’t be uninstalled so it’s almost like Internet Explorer (but much better). It’s used worldwide and I bet you yourself have used it every day (or at least once in your lifetime). I’ve heard even Bill Gates and Steve Balmer use it whenver they right click and select View Source on a web page like Google to see what those crazy guys are up to (Bill and Steve don’t use those “enhanced” versions like Notepad++ or Notepad2). 

What’s so great about Notepad you ask? Here are some interesting facts:

• Notepad saves files with a .txt extension and has no formatting or styles, making it suitable for editing any file at all.
• It can edit traditional 8–bit text files as well as Unicode (both UTF-8 and UTF-16, and in the case of UTF-16, both little-endian and big-endian files)
• Notepad has been around since Windows version 1.0 in 1985 (it might be older than some of you out there)
• Notepad does not require a lock on a file (like Wordpad does) so it can open files already open by other processes
• Like Visual Studio, it already has an edit and continue feature as you just keep on going as you’re working, no mess, no fuss
• Notepad supports headers and footers (just like Word) and you can insert the current Date and Time by pressing F5 (go ahead, try it, betcha didn’t know it was there did you?)
• The current version number is 5.1.2600.2180. That’s a lot of builds for such a small program.
• Notepad only uses about 4k of memory which is a lot less than Word or Visual Studio uses.
• While Notepad is not a .NET application, it already supports NoTouch deployment as it’s installed by default.
• Notepad fully supports the “It just works” motto by Microsoft
• Nobody has ever reporting having to use Task Manager to shut down the Notepad process or Notepad hanging their system

Notepad is the perfect Agile piece of software, as it only implements what it needs. No RSS feeds. No stupid tabs. No silly Ribbon or fancy dropdown toolbars. There’s no crazy COM interface or unnecessary managed code bulk, it’s just plain old good C code.

So you can clearly see why I want to be the first Notepad MVP don’t you? I however have a quandry. A dilemma if you will. You see, you can only be awarded for one product as an MVP at a time. So much as I want to be a Notepad MVP, I would have to give up my current SharePoint MVP status in order to achieve this. This in itself isn’t a bad thing considering I would be giving it up for Notepad but I must do my due dilligence here, namely let’s compare SharePoint to Notepad to see if being an MVP in one is better than the other.

It’s painfully obvious how much of an advantage Notepad has over SharePoint. I mean, the cost savings alone for an organization… that just writes itself.

Of course, there’s also the problem that Notepad isn’t a recognized product for the MVP program, but as a Notepad MVP I’m willing to look past that. If you support and nomimate me to this honorary status I promise to:

• Always push Microsoft to include Notepad on every single operating system they produce and never change it
• Support and contribute to the Notepad Microsite where everyone can add their experiences with Notepad for everyone to see
• Hold frequent webcasts on what’s new with Notepad and offer Notepad related swag
• Show how Notepad can benefit your Enterprise and how easily it integrates into complex business proceses using BizTalk (Notepad is an *excellent* Xml editor too!)
• Solicit the book vendors to write the first Notepad Unleashed book and make it available as a downloadable e-book that Notepad itself can read.

So here’s to that old 69,632 byte program on everyone’s hard drive that we can’t do without. Here’s to the day that, like when Halle Berry accepted the Academy Award in 2003, Bill Gates will present the Notepad MVP award to me personally at the 2007 Global MVP Summit. Here’s to Notepad! The everymans (and everywomans) editor of choice!

Okay, so it’s a long title. And hey, this is a long post (I seem to be doing that recently) but I was struggling with VMs, IE7, and SharePoint and figured I would put this together for those that want to build their own SharePoint development environment in a stand-alone virtual machine. While it’s still basically install a few pieces of software, there’s a lot of configuring going on, extra tools you can (should) use, and a few gotchas when it comes to Virtual Machines and things like Visual Studio solutions.

Note that this is my preferred setup. It has tools that I use and configurations I prefer. This isn’t the only way to fly and I’m sure others out there have other ways of doing this (for example developing on a Windows XP box rather than directly on a server, using differencing disks, local files, small lizards, logging chains, etc.) but this works for me and I’m comfortable with it. Most tools and VS addins are optional and totally up to the reader. Feel free to tweak these instructions as you see fit, add/remove/suggest components, or throw it out altogether.

This is part of my bag of tricks I’m sharing with you. Please use it for good, not evil.

Setup
This assumes that you’ll be using a virtual server type of software (Virtual PC, Virtual Server, or VMWare). Makes no difference but I prefer Virtual PC for now as I can drag and drop files from my desktop into it. Virtual PC and Virtual Server images are compatible so you can build in VPC and use it in Virtual Server if you want. I generally give the VM 1–2GB of RAM as its going to be running everything (Windows Server, SQL, SharePoint, Visual Studio, etc.) so it’ll need it (1GB when I run on my laptop which has a max of 2GB, and 2GB to the VM when I run on my desktop which has a max of 4GB).

I generally don’t keep source code in my VM (or it’s very temporary, say for demos) so I keep it generally on an external drive. This drive is shared to the VM as the Z:. Also keep your VHD files (Virtual Hard disk, or whatever VMWare uses) on an external drive. Mucho better performanco.

Also this a workgroup install rather than a domain controller. Some people like having a DC running with SharePoint but I like to keep it separate. You can also spin up a domain controller VM and connect the machine to the domain through the local network later.

Installing
Okay, here’s the rundown of what gets installed. Some things can be shifted around in order of preference, but obviously you can’t install SharePoint before you install SQL Server. Again, feel free to move things around as you see fit.

No detailed instructions for installing most of this (but feel free to ask for clarification on anything, as some of it might not make much sense). Just follow the wizards entering whatever information is needed and you can generally accept the defaults. Really, it’s not that complicated. Also I make things easy for development like creating a single user for everything and just giving them admin rights to the box. In a real setup you would have domain accounts and only grant them the rights they need in SQL Server. I just find having as few things possible make it easier for development (and we’ll worry about configuration later in the test/production environment).

Windows Setup

• Install Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition. Any edition will do, but this one works fine.
• Install Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1
• Create local spadmin account on the machine. Add to the Local Administrators group. This will be used for all portal functions.
• Create local spuser account on the machine. You can use this as a reader or contributor on your sites for testing (and feel free to create more, but I find two is enough)

• Setup IIS. Just the basic options are needed here.

• Remove event tracker shutdown dialog. What a PITA this thing is for development.
• I prefer to browse to http://machinename rather than http://localhost. Add machinename to trusted sites in IE for this to work. This will eliminate the NT challenge/response dialog when you browse to the site, and all urls will be better formed.
• Edit the command prompt to add QuickEdit. Just handy when copying/pasting things like wp part packs in the command window.

Mail Server

• Install hMailServer. This is a free (open source) SMTP/POP3 server that I use instead of Exchange. Lightweight and free. Alternately you can install Exchange if you really want to.
• Add a catch all account to the mail server – admin@yourdomain.com. This will be used for any mail to/from the Portal or WSS sites.
• Add user account – username@yourdomain.com. This is attached to the user account for the portal (or you can use admin for everything)

SQL Server

• Install SQL 2000. Standard OOTB install, configure it to run in mixed mode. I use SQL instead of the built in MSDE so I do testing with full text searches.
• Install SQL 2000 SP4.

SharePoint Install

• Install SharePoint Portal Server 2003 without the database engine. We’ll connect it to SQL during setup phase.
• Configure and create the initial portal. Name it whatever you want like “Development Portal”, “My Little Pony”, “Big Man Hands”, whatever.
• Use the spadmin account name you created above for all operations.
• Use localhost for the mail server.
• Give spadmin email address of admin@yourdomain.com.
• Add machinename\spuser (spuser@yourdomain.com) as reader to the portal.
• Install WSS SP2. Have to install this before we install SPS SP2.
• Install SPS SP2.
• Add shortcut to 60 HIVE directory on desktop or QuickLaunch. I just find it a pain to navigate down the ugly tree anytime I need to hit the directory in Explorer so having a folder that goes directly there is handy.

• Add STSADM dir to path in command prompt. I find this very handy so I can open up a command prompt and just start typing STSADM rather than the full path. Optionally you can install STSADMWin or whatever. I’m just a command prompt kinda guy

IIS Configuration

• Change WSS_Minimal in web.config to Full. This is required to set debugging=true and makes life easier.
• Set debug=true in compilation section of web.config for debugging Web Parts

Visual Studio Setup

• Install and Configure Visual Studio 2003. I just select the default which includes C# and VB.NET but you do whatever works for you.
• Copy keyboard shortcuts (so ReSharper can install, if you’re installing it)\
• Install Web Part Templates for Visual Studio .NET. These are the templates for creating new Web Part Library projects.
• Install ReSharper. Set the persistence to use the local drive (this is for performance of local files vs. remote). I prefer ReSharper but some like CodeRush, Refactor Pro!, and other tools.
• Install GhostDoc. I use this for creating stub documents for APIs and Web Parts that I’ll be sharing.
• Install TestDriven.NET. Killer app for TDD and running unit tests. Also includes NCover now. 

SharePoint Tools

• Copy InstallAssemblies (from the Web Part Toolkit) to server and add to QuickLaunch. You just need the EXE and I like having it on the QuickLaunch taskbar as I can just click on it and install a web part quickly.
• Install SharePoint Explorer. Best tool for looking at what you have.
• Install SmartPart (if you’re planning to do development via User Controls)

Office 2003

• Install Office 2003
• Install FrontPage 2003

Install Other Tools

• TopStyle. I use this for editing CSS files but feel free to use Visual Studio (blech) or your own CSS editor (Notepad anyone?)
• XmlSpy. This comes with a cost, but it’s worth it for Xml editing. There are some less expensive packages and then there’s always… Notepad!
• IE Dev Toolbar. Very handy for debugging pages and poking around in SharePoint sites.
• Notepad++/Notepad2. I prefer these over the standard Notepad.
• Paint.Net if you plan on making your own icons or graphics. Free and written in .NET!
• SysInternals BGInfo. I have this in my startup for the server as it shows me what the server name is, IP, and other info that is handy when you’re flipping around between machines.
• Plus any other tools you like. Scott Hanselman’s list here is a great resource.

Testing

• Create a new web part using the template (Hello World or something)
• Install using InstallAssemblies. This will add it to the bin dir and create the SafeControl entries in web.config so the web part will work correctly.
• Add the web part to a page somewhere.
• Run Web Part project in Visual Studio with debugging to make sure debugging works
• Create an alert, open up Outlook Express and configure it to use your local mail server (if you installed it). You should receive an alert.

Security and Source Code

When working in a VM you generally do NOT want your source code to be in the VM (just in case it turfs and you can’t recover it) so I keep all my source on an external drive (rather than say the host drive as I move from place to place). I also only have it set to use Local networking meaning it can’t see out and I can’t see in (which is why I prefer Virtual PC so I can drag/drop files to the VM). This allows me to have a domain controller on the local network if I need it.

With Virtual PC you can share this drive as a network drive letter inside the VM (my external drive is always Z:. In order to open files and not get the dreaded “the project location is not fully trusted” you need to fix security policy if you want to open files from a network drive. Google "the project location is not fully trusted" and you’ll get a ton of answers. Problem is that none of these work for a drive that is mapped into a VM. A drive shared shows up in the Intranet Zone. Bizzare huh? Means you have to trust the entire internet zone. Not a good thing. Can’t use z:\\, have to use file:// but there is no file:// for a mapped drive (because there is no server name).

James Kovacs says to use ZoneStripper but I really don’t want to do this with each project so the technique below works well:

• Open the ".NET Framework Configuration" utility
• Expand "Runtime Security Policy->Machine->Code Groups"
• Right click "All Code", and then select the "New..." item
• Type a name in the "Name" textbox (like “VS Projects on Z:“ or something), and then click the "Next" button
• Set the condition type to "URL" and type the following string to the "URL:" textbox: “file://Z:/*”
• Click the "Next" button and assign the "FullTrust" permission set to this Code Group.

This will trust all code on Z: and not display the dialog. You can also use file://servername/* but since we’re working with a drive letter here, we don’t have a server name.

I also run regular scheduled backups of my external drive to whatever host it’s connected with using SyncToy so I generally always have 3 copies around (1 on laptop, 1 on desktop, 1 on drive) and do make weekly DVD backups of the source and CVS trees.

Tips and the Afterlife

• After your environment is setup, all the tools are running, and you’re happy with what you have created SAVE IT! Snapshot that puppy so you can come back to it. Some people might prefer to use undo disks but again, I find these sometimes have issues so I just copy the whole dang VHD file as an archive in case the worst happens.
• Setup a Development Area in the Portal. Two things I do as a final step in getting things up and running on the portal. If I installed SPS then I create an area called Development. This is just a collection of sub-areas for various projects, spike web parts, whatever. It leaves the rest of the default portal setup intact as I don’t need to build a taxonomy that represents a production site or anything. If I need something like that (for example to demo what a sample navigation structure might look like) I’ll just create a new Virtual Server in IIS and create a portal off it. I keep the main portal on port 80 for general development.
• Another thing I do is copy the STS definition and create a new STSDEV site def from this. Not much is changed in the definitions but I do go in and add a top and bottom zone to the default.aspx page. This lets me a) screw around with any list definitions without touching the default STS one and b) have some extra zones to mess with in case I want them. I also setup 10 pages in the default module which are copied at creation time. These are placeholder pages (copied from default.aspx) which I can use instead of web part pages and are ghosted so I don’t worry about them showing up in something like Ghost Hunter. Finally I create a new site called Sandbox using this config and add it to my Development section in SPS as a listing to quickly get to it. For most web parts, I develop them so they work in both a SPS area and a WSS site (unless it has SPS specific stuff).

Okay, now go start using your portal for development. It’s complete, self-sufficient, and fun for the whole family.

Whew.

Yeah, it's a bad day for Billy today. Let's walk through what's happened so far to me today:

• My VMs crapped out on me to the point where they were not usable and I had to rebuild them (bluescreen of death in a VM is pretty much a given death)
• Spent the better part of yesterday just physically installing stuff and not getting anything done. Visual Studio wouldn't install from the DVDs. I switched to a copy I had on an external drive (that I've used in the past to install from) and it would freeze halfway through.
• Differencing disks (yes, I went down that path to try it out) were just dying left, right, and centre. I fully believe that using a differencing disk on an external drive when you're installing software doesn't work, no matter what anyone says. It also really doesn't save me space as 1 master image = 2.5gb. 1 diff image = 4gb (because it saves the changes, it decides to save the entire swap file). 1 copy of master image with extra software installed = 3gb. I don't see a savings here.
• Trying to move to a new external Iomega hard disk as I bought a new 250gb one to replace my 80gb one for demos, presentations, etc. Can't seem to install onto it.
• Forgot my phone at home this morning (don't you hate when that happens?)
• Somehow left my Outlook client running at home so now it's picking up emails every few minutes. I usually shut it down so I can access mail to my ISP via a web interface.
• Discovered that IE7 is absolute crap (feel free to quote me on this) as a) it barely renders most web pages where there's CSS layouts involved and b) it can't render SharePoint sites worth a damn. An upgrade should at *least* do what it's previous version could do, even if it was doing it incorrectly. Now I'm hoping I can uninstall it cleanly or it's paving time.

Yeah, it's pretty craptastic today and doesn't seem to be getting much better. Feel free to leave suggestions as to how my day can get worse.

I’ve been checking out the various web parts from Bamboo Solutions lately and they’re pretty good. I’ll provide a more complete review of them at a later date but wanted to mention two new web parts from them.

A common problem with SharePoint lists that I hear is that there’s no referential integrity with lists. You can create lookups from one list into another, but if you delete the lookup list, the parent just shows blank data. I’ve come across this a few times building solutions for people and it’s been a typical thing that presents SharePoint as a tinker-toy rather than a robust solution like Oracle or SQL Server. Yeah, right. You go and write a document versioning system in Oracle. Anyways, the Bamboo guys have a solution in the form of the List Integrity Web Part that enforces various constraints and performs background “housekeeping” tasks while maintaining referential integrity between SharePoint lists. Neat stuff so you can check it out here.

Another cool thing they’ve done is created a more unified process for adding users to SharePoint. From the website:

The User Account Setup Web Part enables users to create a user account in ADS at the same time that the user account is added to SharePoint. Administrators can assign Site Groups and Cross-Site groups along with defining ADS user attributes such as Job Title, Company, Business Phone, Address, etc all from the User Account Setup Web Part.

Personally I think you should have your people setup in AD already before you go adding them to a portal, but then with this web part it paves the way for using SharePoint as an admin tool for people to create new users in an organization. I’m not convinced 100% that this is really what you want to use SharePoint for, but it may fit some peoples agendas.

So drop by and check these guys out as their stuff is of good quality, reasonable price, and works as advertised. Their main site is here and their storefront where you can download 30 days trials for most of the web parts can be found here. Enjoy!

On a side note, I do notice that there are many gaps in the SharePoint world that third-party companies and individuals have to step up to the bat to fill. I don’t know about the Outlook, Excel, and Powerpoint worlds but it seems people are always asking for features that are not available OOTB but can be accomplished with some extra development work. Maybe it supports the notion that SharePoint is an application development platform rather than an application, but it is frustrating when people ask to accomplish something and are forced to download (or even purchase) external tools or web parts to get the job done. I’m all for capitalism and hopefully we’ll see more base functionality with the next version but in the meantime, keep those thinking caps on and keep pushing us to fill in those gaps.

A few tidbits of non-original thoughts this morning as I teach the new cat (we named him Xander) how not to wake up Daddy with his claws buried in my chest at 4 in the morning.

The SharePoint Show has launched and looks (well, sounds) pretty good. It’s an independent audio show (read: podcast) all about SharePoint (and in English too, Michael Greths podcast is great by my German is so rusty he could be podcasting about the latest bratwurst recipe for all I know). The launch site has a good amount of content for it’s first day so why not drop by and give it a listen.

Fitz comes out of his rabbit hole and has a nice lengthy talk about WSRP, Web Services for Remote Portlets. This was a standard that formed sometime in the last year or so and there was some buzz about it but it quickly died out. Fitz comes back with some highly technical architecture diagrams explaining it and the benefits. You’ll see a lot more of this as Office 12 kicks in.

Finally I see our newly awarded MVP, Carlos Segura Sanz, has posted a modified doclib schema with folders in a regular view. It was only a matter of time someone did this but his solution shows a doclib with folders in a view that gives you a sort of tree view of the library (but without using Explorer view which we all know is evil). Very nice and simple for those that are still clinging to their folder structure and want to see SharePoint behave like Windows Explorer. Check it out here.

I’ve added a copy of things to the site here that may (or may not) make life easier for you, the weary traveller. The site feed can now be consumed via Feedburner here. Not really sure what benefit that has over the normal .Text Xml feed but whatever. It does put a nice graphic on the home page showing me how many people are subscribed (a whole 2 at the moment, but don’t worry as I won’t hold a small intergalatic animal hostage to bump that number up). There’s also a Google guestmap that you can pin your name somewhere on the map to let everyone know where you’re from. Again, I have 2 people on this (including me) but it’s fun. Check it out on the left hand side under the map. Yeah, my sidebar is getting pretty full with a lot of silly internet tricks. Let me know if it’s really annoying and I’ll take it down but I figure I might as well fill up the space.

Looks like VMWare has it’s server software up and available for download so go forth and be free in the virtual world.

Oh yeah, Rory finally got it up last night so check out the new TinyThings site running on dasBlog and download the show 10,000 times to free the Ewok.

It is a period of blogging war (and a slow weekend). Rebel MVPs, striking from a hidden base somewhere on the internet, have won their first victory against the evil Crusader Evangelist. During the battle, MVP spies managed to steal secret plans to the leaders ultimate weapon, the COMMUNITY SERVER, an online web application framework with enough power to host 10,000 downloads at a time. We have observed the Crusaders forces as they try to upgrade their so called COMMUNITY SERVER to the latest version. Apparently the upgrade has hit some snags but we have discovered through intel that they are now meeting with a deep operative codename “Grandma”. We believe this person to be the mastermind behind the entire Ewok Adventure and feel that after this meeting, our MVP spies will be in position to carry out the second part of our rescue attempt and release our captive brethren.

It all started so innocently. Rory Blyth and his so called “TinyThings” wanted some attention. Wanted some traffic. Wanted somebody to love.

Then he succumbed to the dark side. The dark side where fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to page hits. Unfortunately, as there are always casualities in war, Mr. Byth took it upon himself to capture and is currently holding an unnamed Ewok against his will.

That was the last straw. I have put together a top secret covert operation comprised of a band of the top MVPs to rescue the little guy. As Solution Architect of the dastardly deed, I went ahead and drafted together the blueprint for the rescue mission. Please review it below in order to prepare for the mission.

I only hope that we’ll be in time to rescue the poor little Ewok.

In the meantime, please visit Rory’s TinyThings site and check out his cool podcast about that stuff you keep in your pocket (no, not THAT stuff, the OTHER stuff like PDAs and electronic doofers).

So according to Patrick, we’re now allowed to openly blog about Office 12 client products (Word, Excel, etc.) which is great. This was also mentioned on Josh’s blog and Ed Bott’s blog and Josh confirmed it with a Micrsoft PR guy. We’ll still have to wait on the server products (namely SharePoint and Windows SharePoint Services) but hopefully that’ll come shortly (if this is any indicator). Odd but it seems some of us MVPs are that last to know this stuff (meaning that I end up reading other peoples blogs to discover it). I guess because I’m not an Office Client guy I wasn’t on the “in”. In any case, let the floodgates open and watch for all the cool things to come.