SharePoint offers both workflow and organization in a completely free software package. Unfortunately, in the hands of most IT shops the tool is an open-ended invitation to waste time.

Software development teams have not only capable developers, but design and user interface specialists. Lacking those skills great sysadmins and great shell-scripters usually spend more time playing with colors and graphics than actually producing useful SharePoint sites. On the other hand, if you have an admin on the IT team who is goal-oriented enough to quickly churn out usable SharePoint tools - give them a raise and try to keep them around.

To avoid wasting time on the little things, try starting projects with a SharePoint template. Templates offer a basic design and make a great skeleton to hang features and tools on. Thanks to open source, several sites offer free SharePoint templates to get started on:

• Classroom, Employee, and Event Tools - 30 SharePoint templates from Microsoft
• Complete Finance, Human Resource, and Sales department SharePoint sites
• A SharePoint MVP’s shared templates
• SharePoint Resources Directory, by SharePoint MVP Heather Solomon
• List of SharePoint Blogs and Bloggers, by SharePoint MVP Mark Kruger
• SharePoint & MCMS Directory (OPML format), by SharePoint MVP Andrew Connell

Update: SharePoint MVPs appear to offer a lot or resources, tips, and even basic support via their own blogs. I’ve added MVP-maintained resource and blog listings of SharePoint MVPs.

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Using the “SELECT TOP” pharse in a query on SQL Server 2005 can take a very long time to return results when the query sorts on a column with no index. In those instances, instead of SELECT TOP, use the deprecated “SET ROWCOUNT” to return results in a reasonable time. Originally discovered by Davide Mauri, he has a SQL test script available and also notes that the bug won’t be fixed in the first MS-SQL 2005 production release, but in the first service pack.

It’s not a surprise that there are some strange bugs in MS-SQL 2005, but I am surprised that Microsoft will wait until the first service pack to patch them. Let’s hope that the service pack comes soon after the database server goes on sale.

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The Exchange SP2 became available for download yesterday. Even though Exchange 2003 has been very stable for us, SP2 is already installed on the test server here and I’ve been doing some reading to determine how soon we’ll need to install it. The biggest positive I’ve found yet is the increase in the mail database limit to 75GB on the Standard version of Exchange 2003. This is a much-needed increase, and the only reason we’re running Exchange’s expensive Enterprise version is our need to accomodate huge attachements from cour clients. I also have a personal client in television-services who will be thrilled to know their four users can now store video clips in exchange, instead of constantly archiving to one big folder on the network.

The 75GB database limit isn’t set automatically when SP2 is installed. After all, 75GB exceeds a lot of expectations of the Exchange server and the disk space on most older servers. Since so few admins read the documentation, they might miss this change and lock up their servers. The registry change below, originally explained by The Lazyadmin.com can be set to any value between 1 and 75, the maximum size of the Exchange database in GB’s. By default Exchange 2003 SP2 pushes the default database size to about 18GB, which is the original 16GB maximum plus a 10% over-limit buffer to keep mail coming in while Exchange floods the system with alerts about the database size.

To expand the Exchange database, or set a limit between 1 & 75GB:

1. Open regedit and navigate to HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchangeIS\SERVER_NAME\Private-STORE_GUID. To change the Public store limit, navigate to HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchangeIS\SERVER_NAME\Public-STORE_GUID.
2. In the event your Exchange server has more than one private or public store the GUID of each store can be found by running ADSIEDIT.msc and navigating to:
   

   CN=MAILBOX_STORE_NAME (SERVER_NAME),CN=STORAGE_GROUP_NAME,CN=InformationStore,CN=SERVER_NAME,CN=Servers,CN=First Administrative Group,CN=Administrative Groups,CN=Organization name,CN=Microsoft Exchange,CN=Services,CN=Configuration,DC=domain,DC=com

   SERVER_NAME, STORAGE_GROUP_NAME, and MAILBOX_STORE_NAME reflect the mail store to be changed. Then take note of the objectGUID:… value for that mail store.

3. Create a new REG_DWORD value in the registry key for the correct GUID. Name it “Database Size Limit in Gb” and set the value from 1 to 75.
4. Assuming you are newly setting the “Database Size Limit in Gb” value, it will be detected at the next size check. Reboot the Information Store service for immediate recognition.

By setting the “Database Size Limit in Gb” key the mailbox store will not exceed that value. When the mail store reaches 90% off that value, a default 10% buffer is allowed, it will begin to log event ID #9689 to notify you that the store limit has been reached. Once the mail store does reach the maximum limit the first size check, which happens every 24 hours at 5am, will not take the database offline. The second size check will dismount the store that exceeds the limit.

Both the % of the mail store used as a buffer and the time of the database size check can be changed within the same GUID registry key referenced above. To set either, create a REG_DWORD value named “Database Size Buffer in Percentage” or “Database Size Check Start Time in Hours From Midnight”. Set their values from 1 to 100 or 0 to 23 to change, respectively, the buffer % or the offset from midnight for the size check.

The Exchange 2003 Enterprise information store can also be limitted by the “Database Size Limit in Gb” key. The valid range of values is 1 to 8000. If the key is not set, the default value is 8000GB.

It still amazes me that the Exchange System Manager doesn’t have settings for either “max. database size” or “min. disk space remaining on server”. Isn’t that the whole point of Exchange? …that it’s faster and easier to run because it doesn’t require the amount of experience and forethought that Postfix does.

Update: This same registry tweak is also supported on Windows Small Business Server 2003 (SBS). See the comments below for a link the the SBS 2003 FAQ.

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Another support call to Dell today for a replacement SCSI drive, thankfully the server had a hot spare in the array or we would be restoring our whole Help Desk and Windows SUS systems. We were taking shifts on the phone while running the extended hardware diagnostics for a second time and, like all long support calls, I chatted with the Dell support tech. Among other things I complained about the removal of the Array Manager interface from Dell’s newest OpenManage 4.5 utility… the interface of the replacement is slow and cluttered.

The older Array Manager can cause problems, and isn’t supported, when installed alongside Open Manage 4.5. It turns out there is a new Array Manager hidden on the OpenManage CD or downloaded installer. It’s not supported officially, but it doesn’t cause the conflicts the old Array Manager did and you won’t be asked to install it before proceeding with other troublshooting. Here is the executable path and extra commands to run in order to install the new version of Array Manager alongside OpenManage:

(CD Drive or Extracted Installer Folder):\srvadmin\windows\SystemManagement\msiexec.exe /i SysMgt.msi ENABLEAM=YES

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I run dual-monitor systems both at home and work and regularly use Remote Desktop for remote connections. Last week I was finally fed up with connecting to remote systems in their single-monitor resolutions. My search turned up Microsoft’s command line switches for the Terminal Services and Remote Desktop clients and the file format of .RDP-format (saved Remote Desktop setting) shortcuts.

The easiest way to open a local Remote Desktop window with 2560-by-1024 dimensions (remote system must support the choosen resolution) is to open the run dialog box and type type “mstsc /w:2560 /h:1024″. The mstsc.exe is the Remote Desktop client in the \system32\ folder and the flags attempt to force the remote system to send screen data at the settings specified. Don’t overdo the resolution requests. If a remote system’s video driver isn’t capable of the requested resolution it steps-down to the closest single-monitor settings. Likewise, beware of where icons are placed on the remote system, as the forced high-res leaves them at the same x:y points and hides them from users logging into a local desktop session.

To save both resolution and connection settings Mstsc.exe commands can be saved to .LNK shortcuts:

• Right-click on the desktop or a folder and choose New > Shortcut.
• In the “Item location…” field add the command-line from earlier, with an additional location flag: “mstsc /w:2560 /h:1024 /v:10.10.10.10:9999″. Replace 10.10.10.10:9999 with your IP, a colon, and the port # of your RDC connection. Leave the colon and port # off if using the default RDC port # 3389.
• Click Next, name the shortcut, and click Finish.

Here is the full Remote Desktop command flags list. Additionally, .RDP files can be edited using the mstsc /edit flag. The complete .RDP file format settings list is here. There is a bug in using mstsc.exe from the command line to access Windows 2003 servers. The bug forces you to enter login credentials multiple times; here is that fix.

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A thanks and some link cred to Andy Smith for saving me the time of having to rewrite his MetaBuilder free, collapsing-expanding panel control.

Google failed to pull up this control at all, and Yahoo had it all the way back on page 2 of search results. To help prevent so many costly or plain-bad IT and developer tools from filling the top search results, any other techies with sites please link genuinely useful tools when you find them.

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Have networked printers? Odds are they don’t fail often, but they do fail when our employees are “really busy”. It is line-of-business to get important docs out in time for FedEx, but it’s still never on my priority list to have a tech walk to the other end of the office to replace toner or add paper.

I recently discovered the print server in Windows natively supports alternation between multiple ports assigned to a single queue. This means that multiple printers in one queue will share the jobs sent the that queue and if one fails (or runs out of paper) all jobs will go to the printer(s) that are still running. No special configuration is needed. Just configure an IP port for each printer on the network. Once all printers have their own IP port assigned, open the print queue properties and check the “Enable Printer Pooling” box, then select multiple ports in the “Ports” tab and click “Apply”. With pooling enabled the print server will automatically rotate jobs between all the active printers.

The only problems I have had are with older printers that don’t report their status to the server immediately. For example, the LaserJet IIISi, LaserJet 4, and LaserJet 5 printer models have this issue. This doesn’t mean these printers can’t be used, just that one document gets “stuck” in the printer’s memory before the server begins to skip over it. Those older printers are, in all the forgotten corners they’re still installed in, the ones most in need of being backed up.

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