[Updated April 2, 2007: Added "Complete reference of all STSADM operations (with parameters) in MOSS 2007" to the Operations section. Obviously, José had one of them rainy days...]

While scavenging the web for information related to the course (T660 - Developing Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Solutions) that I'm delivering for Cornerstone, I came up with all kinds of interesting resources. Somehow, I just felt a sudden urge to share those with you.

Developing solutions on the MOSS platform requires a somewhat broad knowledge of what is available to you as a developer. All in all, I believe that the links in this list should cover most of your needs.

I do have some additional links (currently unsorted) related to specific topics. If I notice this page becoming somewhat of a reference page, I'll add those as well.

Introduction to SharePoint Products

• Minimum Overview of WSS 3
• An Overview of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
• SharePoint Developer Map in short
• Significant Developer Improvements In SharePoint Services
• New Application Templates for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

Enterprise Content Management

• MOSS 2007 Content Types
• Change a site content type
• MOSS2007 – Records Management part 1
• MOSS2007 – Records Management part 2
• WSS 3.0 Master Pages and Content PlaceHolder’s: A Desktop Reference Companion
• Smart Client Authoring
• Site Definitions and Provisioning: the Feature Framework

Business Data Catalog

• AdventureWorksDW SQL Server 2005 Sample BDC metadata

Configuration, Deploy, Operations, Architecture & Governance

• Architecting Regulatory-Compliant Architectures
• Jose Baretto on Configuration and Management of MOSS
• MOSS Architecture & Shared Services
• SharePoint Deployment and Provisioning Checklists
• SharePoint Governance, part 1
• SharePoint Governance, part 2
• Basic and Advanced Deployment in a Nutshell
• How solution deployment has changed development with SharePoint technologies
• Design document conversions topology
• Complete reference of all STSADM operations (with parameters) in MOSS 2007

Licensing and Packaging options

It's really annoying that I even have to add a section like this. Product licensing models should not be this complicated! Anyhow... I believe that you will find most of your answers here.

• FAQ
• How to buy Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
• Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Related Technologies pricing
• Sahil Malik tries to break down the pricing model to something your CxO would understand
• John Stover's take on it. Adds some configurations including CALs and hosting
• Microsoft Office server system requirements
• Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007 Edition Comparison

Definitely worth reading

Some good stuff here that I don't want to label.

• Daniel McPherson::MSFT - How to avoid a Critical Situation
• Daniel McPherson::MSFT - SharePoint Best Practice: Creating a dedicated Windows SharePoint Services environment
• Creating a MOSS / Office Demo setup
• Using Performance Monitor (perfmon.exe) to Monitor SharePoint Server 2007
• SharePoint 2007 URL Quick List
• SharePoint Technology and Related Posters... as in hang on your wall Posters
• Calling SharePoint Web Services

Certification

The obvious reason for this list. The list is by all means a derivate from the course but still, there would be no list without the certification requirememnts.

• Preparation Guide for Exam 70-542: TS: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 - Application Development

Other Resource Lists

• Andrew Cornell
• Mark Kruger
• Randall Isenhour::MSFT
• Johnwe::MSFT
• Stefan Gossner::MSFT

Good luck with all your SharePointing!

Just a quick note to let you know that apparently you can't make use of Office SharePoint Server' s document conversion features as long as you are running your MOSS on a domain controller.

For myself, I do not really need this right now. I just wasted a couple of hours that I really didn't have, trying to resolve this piece.

The document conversion services are utilizing a low priviledge local account, which is switched off and on (disable/re-abled) on a need basis. For those of you in the know, and actually even more for the rest of you, it is kind of obvious that there are no local accounts on a DC; the DC is the network, right? :-/

So, for those of you running small companies and still want to work away on document conversion, the time has come to invest in a new box (or maybe look into virtualization.

For the rest of us, who just love our Virtual PC images, we need to start running dual VPCs - one that has the single purpose of acting as domain controller (which actually is the right thing, considering good infrastructure practice) and another VPC running the full SharePoint install.

I think it's time to look into creating those base images again...

Have you been thinking about attending a course on SharePoint configuration in order to increase performance and server stability? No need to do so! All you have to do really, is to head over to Microsoft's download area and get your copy of Microsoft Best Practices Analyzer for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and the 2007 Microsoft Office System.

All you have to do is run that little tool and it will analyze and debrief on your setup's current status as well as suggest where to go from here.

Rumor has it that official support for AJAX in SharePoint will be provided in service pack 1.

If you can't wait until then, Mike Ammerlaan of the SharePoint team has been kind enough to provide instructions on how to integrate AJAX with SharePoint in its current state. Mike provides a nice step-by-step instruction for how to set up and configure your server/farm and wraps things up with a nice snippet as a proof of concept.

To get one step further, you'd want to check out Eric Schoonover's post on how to use AjaxBasePart to speed up the process of AJAXing your MOSS site.

I just noted that the course T660-Developing Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Solutions is available for reservations at Cornerstone's web site. This is a course that I am developing at the moment and which I will deliver at Cornerstone sites across Sweden from mid March and onwards.

I feel confident that this will be an awesome course for aspiring Sharepoint developers, with a focus on all the enterprise features that are introduced in MOSS 2007. Besides being an obviously good base for MOSS 2007 development, this course is also aimed at improving your chances at the TS: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 - Application Development exam. The 70-542 certification will become one of the required certifications for the Information Worker Partner Skill.

Unless otherwise noted, T660 will be delivered in Swedish.

I’m excited to announce that I will be spending a lot of time in the good company of Sweden’s leading developer trainers over at Cornerstone. After numerous envigorating phone calls with Cornerstone’s energizing Alliance Manager, Richard Richthoff, our companies have finally signed a strategic partnership regarding course development as well as course delivery.

This partnership grants me a certain extent of insight, and hopefully influence, on Cornerstone’s future directions. From what I’ve heard to date, I am in for a blast and I am really looking forward to getting back to teaching. The commitment that Cornerstone are putting into the Swedish developer community will make every day I get to spend in a class room a pleasure, knowing that I only will get to deliver high octane courses.

Uuuhhh! Last week I finally got my copy of Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh installed. The long name alone should have warned me to steer clear of this bastard but who am I to refuse a good install?!

Anyway... after some ten tries or so, attempting to install MOSS 2007 B2TR on my Virtual PC-image, to my surprise, it finally came through. Cheezus what I had to go through to get there!

Since I found this to be a bit of a pain, I thought I’d share some of my findings with you in case of you feeling like venturing into an install of your own.

First things first. Here is what the documentation said:

Get yourself a Windows 2003 Server. Preferably SP1 or R2

Install MOSS 2007 Beta 2

Apply Technical Refresh

That routine looks pretty basic. There is only one problem – it does not work!

OK, so the part with Windows 2003 Server was right. I used SP1 and during my continuous installations, I never experienced the OS to be the issue. Imagine that.

Since I didn’t want to set up a farm but rather a tiny single host lab environment, I figured the SQL 2005 Express that came with the MOSS 2007 B2 install would do just fine. Turned out that it was trashed. I don’t know if it was my download that was erroneous or if this is a general issue. Either way; I downloaded a copy of SQL Express from the Microsoft web site and installed it only to find that MOSS actually isn’t so keen on Swedish collation. MOSS is actually rather specific with what type of collation your server should use – Latin1 General dictionary order, case insensitive, accent sensitive, kana sensitive, and width sensitive collation (SQL_Latin1_General_*_CI_AS). I reinstalled, changed the collation and got one step further.

This time, the Beta 2 actually installed. But, I had past the best-before-date and obviously got to step three in the list above. Apply TR. Piece of cake. Not. First, you have to uninstall Windows Workflow Foundation Beta 2 (in case you installed that for the Beta 2 of MOSS). Then you are supposed to install the September CTP of .NET Framework 3.0 (dotnetfx3setup.exe).

OK, so this still doesn’t mean that we’re done. Third step was to apply the Technical Refresh. But first... we need to install a TR for WSS v3. Interesting. I tried browsing the Sharepoint developer center. I tried browsing the main Sharepoint site and ended up with – nothing. To this day I still can’t remember how I found it but there is a file called WSSv3b2tr-kb000000-x86-fullfile-en-us.exe that seems to be what one would want.

After the WSS V3 TR install, it was finally time to apply the MOSS 2007 B2 TR! When all the other options were set as expected, running the TR setup (officeserver2007b2tr-kb000000-x86-fullfile-en-us.exe) wasn’t such a big deal.

The quick recap:

1. Uninstall Windows Workflow Foundation Beta 2 if installed

2. Install SQL Express with SQL_Latin1_General_*_CI_AS collation

3. Install September CTP of .NET Framework 3.0

4. Install MOSS 2007 B2

5. Apply WSS V3 TR

6. Apply MOSS 2007 B2 TR

...and that’s all there is to it.

Oh, and if your search doesn’t work after the installations you apparently forgot some kind of workaround. Mike has a workaround for that issue.

It actually seems that Microsoft’s documentation wasn’t crystal clear for this update process. During my research I found some interesting reading regarding Community Enhanced Installation Guides. LOL, I even stumbled across Microsoft’s suggestion of what should be an installation guide. Actually, Amanda Murphy has quite a good write up of the installation process. Too sad she missed to mention the collation order. That would have saved me a couple of days...