Duarte's SharePoint info

Sometimes SharePoint users notice that Multiple Upload is not available when trying to upload documents. This usually has to do with their company security settings.

The following conditions are needed to have Multiple Upload working:

1. At least Office 2003 must be installed.
2. Enable the ActiveX controls:
   2.1 Go to Internet Explorer > Tools > Internet Options > Security Tab
   2.2 Here in the "custom level' button activate/enable the Active X controls that say "Script ActiveX controls maked safefor scripting*", like in the image below:

You can also check the following:

1. Check that the Windows SharePoint Services Support component (under 'Office Tools') has been installed by the Office setup program. This installs an ActiveX control that provides functionality such as support for uploading multiple documents within IE. If it does show as installed use the Repair option so that Office setup can ensure it is installed correctly.

2. You can check if the upload ActiveX control is installed correctly by going to Manage Add-Ons in IE8 (or 7). Set the filter to show 'All Add-Ons'. Under Toolbars and Extensions look for the STSUpld UploadCtl Class and ensure it is enabled. It should have a major version of 12, for example 12.0.4518.1014 > not sure if it is this version without Office 12.

Good Luck!

Some customers might like to use Access files as they use Excel & Word files. But the *.mdb files are blocked by default.

You must unlock/unblock these files in different places: SharePoint Central Admin, IIS & eventually the .NET web.config file.

1. Go to Central Administration > Operations > Blocked file types

2. In a page like the image below, remove the mdb file & press OK

3. Now you can upload MDb files.

4. The problem with MDB files is that you cannot download them later on by default.

5. When trying to click of save target as in an uploaded file, you might get the following error:

   the type of page you have requested is not served because it has been explicitly forbidden. The extension .mdb may be incorrect.Please review the URL below and make sure that it spelled correctly.

6. Despite the fact some articles might recommend you to:

   6.1 Open IIS

   6.2  Go to Properties of the website (Root) > tab Home Directory > Button Configuration

   6.2 Now remove the following 'ISAPI' extensions map entry: ".mdb"

   6.3. This is sometimes NOT ENOUGH!

7. Change the AS.NET web.config file:

   7.1 C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\VERSION\CONFIG

   7.2 Open the Web.config file, and comment the following line in the image:

         <add path="*.mdb" verb="*" type="System.Web.HttpForbiddenHandler" validate="true"/>

   7.3 Don't do this, if your application is using an mdb file that can end up being downloaded and therefore leaking your DB info...

Good luck!

When you are trying to edit your Office documents, in SharePoint, they always open with [Read-Only]?

This issue has a lot of articles online with several suggestions. Here's some:

1. A solution I found for one of my customers

 (IE6 & Office2003):

   1. Open Windows Explorer (not the browser! Can be by opening any folder)

   2. Go to the menu “Tools”

   3. Select “Folder Options…”

   4. Open the tab “File Types”, and it will list a big list of file types

   5. Select the Excel File type (XLS)

   6. Click on the button “Advanced”

   7. In this new window uncheck the option “confirm open after download” (image below)

3. Another approach: MSDAURL.DLL rights

http://blogs.technet.com/anneste/archive/2009/01/28/editing-a-document-in-sharepoint-opens-as-read-only.aspx

4. But, what if you are working in large corporation and you can not so easy push this registry change to all machines?

This article contains an interesting approach, and involves adding a new JavaScript file:

http://dotnetninja.wordpress.com/2009/01/12/how-to-open-sharepoint-documents-in-edit-mode-with-internet-explorer-6-and-windows-xp-without-regfix/

Recently came accros with the request for paging in a Content Query WebPart, because reinveing the wheel is a waiste of time. I ended bumping into this interesting webpart: Enhanced Content Query Web Part.

I ended up needing to customize some code, change the Pager webpart XSL and apply some CSS as well. But Worked beautifully after deployed & implemented.

If you want to read more general information; http://blog.mastykarz.nl/paging-content-query-web-part/.

Good Luck!

It seems Microsoft's intended purpose for the workflow history log disappear after 60 days.

Some customers do really want to keep their Workflow history, so here goes 3 options:

1. Disable the Workflow Auto Cleanup timer job completely
2. You can include a specific xml tag in your workflow feature.xml file that controls the number of days retained for the workflow history (max days = 9999)
3. Run a job nightly to force all the workflow history retention settings to a certain number of days (max days = 9999) >> an article was already published in this blog on how to implment such script (http://blogs.tamtam.nl/duarte/default,month,2008-08.aspx)

Honestly the consequences of keeping the whole workflow history is absolutely unknown. But might reduce the performance of whole portal or simple the workflow procedure. Might be noticeable after 1 year or earlier depending on the amount of workflows going on on a daily basis.