Top 5 Favorite SharePoint Articles

My editor hijacked this blog and posted this list of her top 5 favorite SharePoint articles from 2010:

5. T'is a Privilege to PowerShell

One of the major investments made by Microsoft during the development of SharePoint 2010 was in support for Windows PowerShell. Even if you've not used PowerShell before, you'll find that the cmdlets (pronounced command-lets) and structure of PowerShell makes it easy to learn. .... (Read more?)

4. SharePoint is So Last Month--And Scripted Configuration: Dan Holme at TechEd 2010

Greetings from New Orleans!  The city known for celebration and rebirth is hosting Microsoft TechEd 2010, and 6,000 or so of my closest friends converged on the city for a week of … um … professional development …. Yes!  That’s what I’m seeing happening on Bourbon Street—professional development!

Seriously, though, people are packing into the convention center for hundreds of sessions across every Microsoft technology, but one of the most amazing things to me is that SharePoint Server 2010, which launched less than a month ago and is part of Office that hits the global market this week, is not even close to the center of attention.  It’s “so last month,” I guess!  Everything seems to be about the cloud (which of course includes SharePoint as well as many other MS products) and new products like Windows InTune and Office Communications Server.  Fundamental technologies like Active Directory are barely getting a nod.  I look forward to upcoming events that are more focused in their content—TechEd may have gotten too big to be able to be “everything to everyone”, particularly when it’s less than half the size it was just a few years ago.

I’ve also been completely consumed by a SharePoint content project that is a case study in Murphy’s Law.  Nothing has gone right on the project for five months.  Very little of that has anything to do with SharePoint 2010 itself, though.  I continue to be impressed with the changes in the product, both big and small.  I’m definitely a believer!  But because the project has been plagued with challenges, one thing I’ve had to do is re-deploy SharePoint about… um… a million times. 

In the process, I’ve become a master of scripting the installation and configuration of the farm I’m working with.  So this week, I thought I’d share some of the fruits of my work....(Read more....)

3. Riding the SharePoint 2010 Product Wave

Microsoft’s SharePoint “wave” promises to swell to epic proportions as enterprises begin to recover from the economic downturn. The myriad new features, new products, and new messaging offer a lot for any IT pro or developer to interpret and digest. Let’s take a look at what Microsoft SharePoint 2010 has to offer and try to make sense of it all. (Read more....)

2. SharePoint User Profile Synch: Achilles’ Profile (Part I)

I spent quite some time trying to pick one of many possible titles for this column. Candidates included:

- SharePoint User Profile Synch: 14 Days of My Life That I Will Never Get Back

- Service from the Dark Side

- Get Rich Quick: Get Paid Hourly for UPS Troubleshooting

- CSI: UPS

 Then, ironically (as incorrectly as ironically can be used), it happened… The User Profile Synchronization Service (UPS) took a bite out of the entire community. If you haven’t heard, this is important: DO NOT INSTALL THE OCTOBER 2010 CUMULATIVE UPDATE for SharePoint Server or Project Server.

The update kills the UPS. 

What is the UPS? (Read more....)

1. Least Privilege Service Accounts for SharePoint 2010

In the last few years, enterprises have come to care about least privilege—the security concept that relates to an account being given only the permissions it requires to perform its tasks, nothing more. Least privilege is important for security, auditing, and compliance, and it applies not only to the accounts used by human beings, but also by service accounts.

And, like least privilege, enterprises have come to care about service accounts as well. I remember the days when it was perfectly acceptable to create a service account and set “password never expires.” Now, most enterprises have security policies that explicitly forbid such configuration because of the open door it leaves into a system.

During the next few weeks, I’ll be posting steps to help you deploy SharePoint with least privilege and to manage SharePoint service accounts. Let’s start by clearing up some confusion and all-too-prevalent mistakes that I see made with SQL Server, SharePoint administration, and farm accounts—and don’t be surprised that at least some of the confusion is due to the weirdness of the SharePoint setup wizard itself....(Read more....)