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1/6/2009

How to stop the !New tag from appearing when you add items to your SharePoint Team Services and SharePoint Services Web site

SUMMARY

When you add a new entry to announcements, to events, or to links on a Microsoft SharePoint Team Services and Windows SharePoint Services Web site, the new entry always includes a tag that is made up of the exclamation point character (!) and the word "new" (!New). This article describes how to stop the !New tag from appearing when you create a new entry.

MORE INFORMATION

To stop the !New tag from appearing for new entries on your Windows SharePoint Services Web site, follow these steps, as appropriate for your version of SharePoint Services.

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Web site

To stop the !New tag from appearing next to new entries on a Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Web site, use the Stsadm.exe tool to change the "Days to Show New Icon" property to zero.

To do this, follow these steps:

Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, and then click Command Prompt.
Type the following commands, and then press ENTER after each command:
cd /d %programfiles%\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\BIN

stsadm.exe -o setproperty -pn days-to-show-new-icon -pv 0 -url [Your Virtual Server's URL]

Windows SharePoint Services Web site

To stop the !New tag from appearing next to new entries on a Windows SharePoint Services Web site, use the Stsadm.exe tool to change the "Days to Show New Icon" property to zero.

To do this, follow these steps:

Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, and then click Command Prompt.
Type the following commands, and then press ENTER after each command:
cd /d %programfiles%\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\60\BIN

stsadm.exe -o setproperty -pn days-to-show-new-icon -pv 0 -url [Your Virtual Server's URL]

Posted at 1:07 PM by Abdurrahman Al-Husami | Category: Administration | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (1)

10/29/2008

Determine subsites and top-level sites (site collections) in SharePoint Solution

To determine the subsites and site collections of your SharePoint solution, you have to go into number of factors in order to determine the best site structure. In general, the decision of creating the sites as subsites in one site collection or as top-level site in different site collections is based on how much the sites have in common with each other and the need of managing the sites and their databases individually.

Before digging deep in these factors, I would like to clarify some points in SharePoint Architecture:

- In SharePoint, there is a difference between “web application”, “site collection”, “top-level site”, “subsite” terminologies.

- Each “site collection” has only one “top-level site” and zero, one or many “subsites”.

- Under any “subsite”, you can create many “subsites”.

- Each “web application” has zero, one or many “site collections”.

- Each “web application” has one or more “Content databases”.

- “Site Collections” under specific “web application” can be in one or separate “Content databases”.

- All sites (top-level site and subsites) in specific “Site Collection” are located in One “Content database”.

The following figure summarizes the previous points: (it is also designed to be your desktop background :) )

G is a “top-level” site of “Site Collection A”.

· H is a “subsite” of the “top-level site” G and we can say that H is a “subsite” of the “site collection A”.

· I and J are “subsites” of “subsite” H.

· K is a “subsite” too of the “subsite” J.

Now suppose that you have to create new sites in your SharePoint Portal and you need to decide if they will be:

· Subsites in a site collection.

· Or top-level sites (by creating each of them as a separate site collection).

The table below lists the most important differences between the two structures to help you take the right decision.

Create the new sites in one site collection when:

Create the new sites as separate site collections when:

Content Database

1. There is no need to have separate database for each site.

2. The new sites have the same characteristics.

For example; it is not recommended to make “My sites” and the Team sites in the same site collection as the “My sites” are many and small in their site while the Team sites are few and have a large size. So they have different characteristics and making them in same content database will affect the SQL performance.

You need to make each site in separate database.

Out-of-box Backup and Restore capabilities

No need to backup or restore each site separately.

Need to back up and restore each site individually.

Quota

No need to set specific quota for each site separately.

Need to set the quota for each site to control the amount of space for each site.

Max number (soft limit)

Maximum number of subsites per site collection is 2000

Maximum number of site collection per web application is 50,000

Security Groups and permissions

The security settings, permissions, users and groups are shared between the new sites.

- Note: you can set the subsite to inherit the permissions from the top-level site or break the inheritance to create unique permissions for that subsite.

Each site has unique security requirements: different users, different groups, and different permissions. The site collection is also used to separate the authorized content from the anonymous content.

Note: Although you can have unique permissions for a subsite, at times you may want to be sure that there are no users and permissions in common between two sites. In those cases, you should use separate site collections.

Policies

The policies are shared between the new sites.

Need set different policies for each site.

Administration

Need one administrator for the all sites.

Want to decentralize your administration.

Search Settings

Want to share the search scopes, keywords and best bits between the new sites.

Want to have unique search scopes, keywords and best bits for each site.

Navigation

Want to share navigation between the sites.

-Note: subsite within a site collection can have its own navigation.

Need unique navigation for each site.

Data Aggregation

Sites are displayed the contents of each other. (so there is a need to query the content from one site to another site).

Note:

All out-of-the-box Web Parts work well within the boundaries of a Site Collection. None of them, including the significantly used Content Query Web Part, will cross Site Collection boundaries. Thus, the aggregation of information across Site Collection boundaries is not possible using out-of-the-box Web Parts. Therefore, any situation that requires you to aggregate and display information across Site Collection boundaries will require a custom development effort or the purchase of a 3rd party Web Part.

No need to aggregate and query the date from one site to another site.

Site Column

Most of the site columns are shared between the sites.

Most of the site columns are not shared between the sites.

Content Type

Most of the content types are shared between the sites.

Most of the content types are not shared between the sites.

Workflow

Most of the workflows are shared between the sites.

Most of the workflows are not shared between the sites.

Feature

Most of the features are shared between the sites.

Most of the features are not shared between the sites.

Lookup Fields

Most of the lookups are shared between the sites.

Most of the lookups are not shared between the sites.

Design element

Most of the design elements (such as themes and styles) are shared between the sites.

Themes and styles are not shared between the sites.

Master Page

Shared master page.

Need unique master page.

Recycle Bin

No need for a dedicated recycle bin for each site.

Dedicated Recycle Bin for each site.

Language

Same language requirements for the sites.

Different language requirements for the sites.

Hope it helps :)

Posted at 12:25 PM by Rasha AlFawzan | Category: Administration | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (3)

10/26/2008

My MOSS Journey …Part 2 (Installing Windows server 2008 and Active Directory)

In my journey (Part 1), I ended up with creating a virtual machine.. now it is time to prepare the virtual machine for MOSS.

before you begin preparing your VPC, read the hardware and software requirements for installing MOSS from this link

we have already took the hardware requirements in consideration when we created the virtual machine in the previous post. As for the software, I used the following:-

1. Operating System: Windows Server 2008 64 bit.

2. Database: Sql Server 2008 64 bit.

3. MOSS 2007 with SP1: MOSS 2007 can not be installed on Windows Server 2008.

4. Visual Studio 2008.

Type of installation: Simple Farm.

Of course, you can install MOSS on other types of operating systems, using other types of installations …etc. For me, since I am preparing the virtual machine from scratch, I went with using the latest up – to date software currently available smile_wink

Assuming this is the configuration you want as well, Lets start preparing the machine:-

Step1:- Install Windows Server 2008

1. Click on Start –> All Programs –> Microsoft Virtual PC.

2. Choose the MOSSDevMachine created previously and click on Start.

3. Either enter the Windows Server 2008 CD and choose CD-> Use physical drive from the Virtual Machine top bar or click on Capture ISO image and browse for the windows server 2008 cd image( *.iso)

4. Follow the steps to install Windows Server 2008. (I installed Windows Server 2008 64 bit

5. After installing the OS, make sure the Server has all up-to-date updates installed by running the automatic update.

Step2:- Update VPC Additions

1. Click on Start –> All Programs –> Microsoft Virtual PC.

2. Choose the MOSSDevMachine created previously and click on Start.

3. Click Start.

4. From the Action menu choose “Install or update Virtual Machine Additions”

5. If the setup did not start automatically, you can start it by clicking on CD drive inside the Virtual machine.

6. Follow the steps and click finish

Step3:- Installing the Active Directory

I followed the steps in this good Post (adding roles) by Liam Cleary and then installed active Directory by:-

1. Log in and then click on Start –> Run and type dcpromo

2. click next while checking the advanced option

3. click next

4. choose “create a new domain in a new forest” and click next

5. type a fully qualified name for the domain and click next

6. click next

7. choose windows server 2008 and click next

8. make sure that “DNS Server” is selected and click next

9. click next

10. enter admin password and click next

in the next post, we will create the user accounts needed for MOSS installation and install SQL Server 2008.

Happy Sharepointing smile_nerd

Posted at 11:10 PM by Areej Abukar | Category: Administration | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (1)

10/10/2008

My MOSS Journey … Part 1

When I decided to buy a new laptop and say good bye to my old one after 4 years of service… I had MOSS development in my mind smile_wink .

In this post and one becomes I will be sharing with you my journey from the first step (buying a laptop) to the end (whatever the end is)..

Step1: Buying a laptop,

Recommended characteristics for a good laptop:-

1. Memory (RAM): 4GB

2. Supports Virtualization and Hyper Threading

3. System Type: 64bit Operating System

After searching I bought HP Pavilion dv5-1070ee Entertainment Notebook PC … and installed Vista Ultimate Edition (64bit) on it. The drivers can be downloaded from this link.

*For detailed product information(Specifications, warranty …etc.) visit this link

Step2: Install Virtual PC,

Microsoft Virtual PC allows you to create and run one or more virtual machines, each with its own operating system, on a single computer. Therefore, it can be used to create a virtual machine for MOSS development on your Vista laptop without changing any of the configurations, settings or programs installed on the laptop.

1. download and install Microsoft Virtual PC 2007

2. To qualify Windows Server 2008, you need to install Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 SP1

*Note: Please make sure to install the 64bit version

Step3: Create a virtual Machine,

1. Open Microsoft VPC 2007 and choose “New” to create a new virtual machine, a wizard will be displayed to guide you through the steps for creating a new virtual machine … click Next

2. From the Options Available choose “Create a Virtual Machine” and click Next.

3. Specify a Name for the Virtual Machine (i.e. MOSSDevMachine) and click Next.

4. Choose Windows Server 2008 from the list of Operating Systems available and click Next.

5. Adjust the RAM to (2GB) and click Next.

6. Choose a New Virtual Hard disk and click Next.

7. Accept the Name provided for the hard disk or change it and click Next.

8. Click Finish.

Next we will start preparing the virtual machine (Installing Operating System along with SQL Server, VS and MOSS) …

until next post,

Happy Sharepointing

update:- while installing VPC 2007 SP1 you might get error file in use .. (the file is the windows explorer.exe) however, you can not just terminate this process because this is the one running the desktop. you can either un-install , re-install VPC or click ignore … the same message will pop up twice while running the setup, however, choosing “ ignore” worked for me

Posted at 11:54 PM by Areej Abukar | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

7/3/2008

Recap of July JSUG Meeting: SharePoint Administration using DocAve

We had a pretty good turnout for yesterday's meeting. Around 50 people showed up. It was a pretty advance topic, so for the people who were new to SharePoint, I promise we'll have a session in the next month or so covering fundamentals of SharePoint Administration. Some of the topics we covered during the meeting include:

Backup & Recovery
High Availability and Disaster Recovery Plans
Farm Administration
Replication
Archiving
Migration from SPS 2003 to MOSS 2007

Anyway, I've uploaded my slide deck, you can download it by clicking on the links below.

If you'd like any other information on DocAve, feel free to send me an email and ask.

Posted at 12:46 PM by Muhanad Omar | Category: JSUG Meetings | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (1)

6/27/2008

Information Architecture Worksheets for MOSS

To help me in site planning, I use the Information Architecture - Worksheets for SharePoint 2007 excel workbook created by Mark Miller

Mark Miller said he is currently planning to convert the entire workbook into linked lists in SharePoint since the workbook is getting a little dated.

however, it is very very useful and can still be used :)

The workbook is a self contained set of worksheets for defining Information Architecture such as:-

User Analysis Worksheet
Content Analysis worksheet
Site definitions worksheet
Site map worksheet
Library/List/Blog/Wiki Specifications worksheet

There are even predefined list values to choose from

and comments to help filling each column ;)

It is very useful and I strongly recommend using it. you may want to customize it, add sheets or columns as necessary...etc.

Happy Sharepointing Nerd

Posted at 12:26 PM by Areej Abukar | Category: Administration; General | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

6/15/2008

Wikis in WSS 3.0

To understand how Wikis work let’s consider the following scenario. A software development team at company ABC wants to have their programming standards, new findings and lessons learnt from new projects, documented and managed, to make them available for reference. In other words, the software development team wants to create a Software Development Knowledge Base.

The Team would need an online database of managed content that can instantly be edited and contributed to, and establish some sort of interlinking between the knowledge articles to facilitate finding relevant information. What this team is looking for is a Wiki library! Wikis work perfectly as Brainstorming sites, FAQ pages, or most importantly as Knowledge Bases.

In MOSS 2007 and WSS 3.0, Wikis can be created in one of the following three ways.

1. As a Wiki Page Library within a site

2. As a new site within a site collection

3. As a standalone site collection dedicated for Wiki page provisioning.

Wiki Pages are managed in the form of a SharePoint library where you add delete manage and even benefit from the SharePoint Library features such as RSS notifications.

Once you have created a Wiki site, or library, you can edit the wiki page content using the edit tab. See Figure 1

Figure 1

Once you have clicked Edit, the Wiki page becomes fully editable using Microsoft Word- looking tool bar (figure 2) that makes wiki web page creation as easy as editing a word documented. Although limiting access to HTML and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) of wikis limits user ability to alter the structure and formatting of wiki content, there are some benefits. Limited access to CSS promotes consistency in the look and feel and having JavaScript disabled prevents a user from implementing code, which may limit access for other users. Hence promoting the original purpose of Wikis, which an easy to share, easy to contribute to knowledge base.

Figure 2

For you to interconnect knowledge articles in SharePoint Wikis, examine the following example:

“The Privacy Policy of Company ABC contains all privacy regulations related to content reuse. “

Is written as:

“The [[privacy Policy]] of Company ABC contains all privacy regulations related to content reuse.”

In order to have different text to link to other wiki pages use the following syntax:

[[wiki page name | Link Text to display]]

Eventually, you will end up with numerous knowledge articles interlinked to each other using key words and hence enhancing relevant content acquisition.

On the bar in figure 1 you can also find a tab for incoming links, this tab provides a list of all wiki pages that link to the current wiki page. You can also view and restore the previous versions of the current page. Changes to the current page would be viewable yet strike-lined to show their obsoleteness.

In addition The site administrator can create a custom scope for searching the knowledgebase which is in fact the Wiki library, and hence making knowledge articles instantly available for continuous use.

Posted at 4:44 PM by Zaid Arafeh | Category: General | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

6/5/2008

Do Want to become a sharepoint developer and do not know from where to start? This is for you.

You are a .Net developer, you have heard about sharepoint or had to work on sharepoint ;) ... got excited ...prepared your development environment and then ... Ahhh ... you are living your worst nightmare ever!!

You can not find resources, got confused and simply do not know from where to start...

I have heard that many times ... I have said that many times and so as a .Net developer I understand your pain ....

The good news is... the pain is over ..

check out "The SharePoint Developer Introduction for .NET Developers" resource set at Tech Ed.

where you can:

1. view screen casts.

2. download samples.

3. view quickstart code.

4. work through online virtual labs.

for each topic in sharepoint development (web parts, branding, silverlight, workflow, custom content types and more).

It also provides you with links to related certifications, downloads, and white papers.

All this designed in a way that makes navigation very simple and more fun..

Hope you will enjoy it as much as I did..

Happy sharepointing :)

Posted at 10:33 PM by Areej Abukar | Category: Development | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

5/22/2008

How to Crawl an External Source using MOSS 2007

Some organizations have a lot of information stored outside the MOSS database, such as file shares and external SharePoint sites. Using MOSS 2007 Enterprise Search, you can allow your users to search for this information without leaving your MOSS site. To make this information searchable, you have to define a content source that points to that location. This will enable SharePoint index engine to crawl that content.

The following example will show you how to search for an external WSS 3.0 site from MOSS 2007 site:

Define New Content Source:

Open Central Administration
Click on your default SSP from the Quick Launch
In the Shared Services Administration page, click on Search Settings
In the Configure Search Settings page, click on Content sources under the Crawl Settings section
In the Manage Content Sources page, click on New Content Source
In the Add Content Source page, enter a Name and choose the content type of the external source that want to be crawled. In our case, it is a SharePoint site.

Example

Name: Sales Site Content
Content Source Type: SharePoint Sites
Start Addresses: http://serverA:8181/Sales
Crawl Settings: Crawl everything under the hostname for each start address
Crawl Schedules: (select the desired schedule)
Check Start Full Crawl
Click OK.

Define New Search Scope:

Now you have to add a scope for the new content source that you've just created. Define a new search scopes is a two-step process: first you create the search scope through the SSP Admin site, then you enable this search scope in a site collection. To do that, follow the following steps:

Click on your default SSP from the Quick Launch
Click on Search Settings
In the Configure Search Settings page, click on View scopes in Scopes section
In the View Scopes section, click on New Scope
In the Create Scope page, enter the following values:

Title: Sales Sites
Description: Scope for Sales Sites
Accept the default settings and click OK

The View Scopes page will be displayed. Click on Add Rules for the scope you just created.
This will open Add Scope Rule page. Enter the following values:

Scope Rule Type section, select Content Source
In the Content Source section, select the content source that you created in the previous steps. In our example it is Sales Site Content
In the Behavior section, select Include - Any item that matches this rule will be included, unless the item is excluded by another rule
Click OK

Update Scope:

Go to your SSP Admin page and click on Search Settings
In the Configure Search Settings page, click Start Update Now under the Scopes section

Grant Read permission for the Default Content Access account in the WSS 3.0 site:

From the Search Settings page in the SSP Admin site, please note the Default Content Access Account that you have. This account should have Read permission on the external WSS 3.0 site. This permission is necessary to allow SharePoint to crawl the site content and search inside it. Please follow the next steps to grant the read permission for the Default Content Access Account:

Go to the SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration of the WSS 3.0 site which you want to crawl
Click on the Application Management tab
Under Application Security, click on Policy for Web Application
Add Users
In Add Users page, select the web application that you want MOSS to be able to crawl
In Select the Zone, select All Zones.
Click Next
In the Add Users page, in Choose Users enter the same user that you use as Default Content Access Account
In Choose Permissions, check Full Read - Has full read access
Click Finish

Add the Search Scope to the site Collection:

Logon to your MOSS portal
Go to Site Actions > Site Settings > Modify All Site Settings
3Under Site Collection Administration, click on Search Scopes
From View Scopes page, click on Search Dropdown
In Edit Scope Display Group, check the scope that you created and then click OK
From View Scopes page, click on Advanced Search
In Edit Scope Display Group, check the scope that you created and then click OK

Now you should be able to see select your new scope in the scopes drop-down list and start searching within your new content source.

Hope this helps :)

Posted at 5:43 PM by Rasha AlFawzan | Category: Administration | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (1)

5/10/2008

Step by Step: Get Ready to Develop MOSS Remotely

Theoretically, you can either use a development server with MOSS installed or install virtual machines on your development PCs.

One server per developer is not applicable in real life. So, we decided to go for the second choice; virtual machines. Unfortunately with only 1GB RAM, this approach is not applicable for us either. Our development PCs don't meet the minimum hardware requirements.

What this means basically, that to develop web parts and workflows for MOSS in our environment, we will have to find a workaround and there is one.

In this and the upcoming posts, I will describe in details the steps we performed to setup our machines to develop remotely for MOSS and WSS 3.0.

Step 1: Installations

1. Install .NET Framework 3.0 or 3.5

2. Install Office 2007 System

3. Install Visual Studio 2005 extensions for .NET Framework 3.0 (Windows Workflow Foundation)

4. Install SharePoint Server 2007 SDK: Software Development Kit or Windows Sharepoint Services 3.0 Software Development Kit

If you need to develop for MOSS and WSS 3.0 installing MOSS SDK is enough because it contains both. However, we do WSS development only and therefore I just installed WSS SDK.

Step 2: Copy and Install required DLLs

1. Copy the files under the folder [Drive$]:\program files\common files\microsoft shared\ web server extensions\12\

From your MOSS server (a server with MOSS installed) to a relevant path on your development machine

Below a snapshot of the folder contents on my development machine.

2. Extract required dlls from the GAC_MSIL directory

Copying the assemblies under the ISAPI folder is not enough. There are other assemblies such as Microsoft.SharePoint.Library.dll that are found under the ... microsoft shared\web server extensions\12\ISAPI folder.

These assemblies can be found under the GAC_MSIL directory. To get these assemblies create a folder on your MOSS server (lets call it tmpmsil) and then open the command prompt and write the following command line. Make sure to navigate to the windows/assembly directory.

C:\Windows\assembly\ xcopy GAC_MSIL c:\tmpmsil /E

Below is a snapshot of the contents of the tmpmsil after running this command.

Not all these assemblies are necessary. You have to copy the assemblies related to SharePoint to your development machine.

I installed the following assemblies to the GAC in my development machine

Microsoft.office.DocumentManagement.DocSite
Microsoft.office.Excel.Server
Microsoft.Office.Excel.Server.CalculationServer.dll
Microsoft.Office.Excel.Server.CalculationServer.Proxy.dll
Microsoft.Office.Excel.Server.resources.dll
Microsoft.Office.Excel.WebUI.dll
Microsoft.Office.InfoPath.Server.dll
Microsoft.Office.InfoPath.Server.Administration.CommandLine.dll
Microsoft.Office.InfoPath.Server.Intl.dll
Microsoft.Office.InfoPath.Server.Intl.resources.dll
Microsoft.Office.InfoPath.Server.Pages.dll
Microsoft.Office.Policy.Barcode.Generator.dll
Microsoft.Office.Policy.Intl.dll
Microsoft.Office.Server.Conversions.dll
Microsoft.Office.Server.Diagnostics.dll
Microsoft.Office.Server.intl.dll
Microsoft.office.server.search.intl.dll
Microsoft.office.server.search.intl.resources.dll
Microsoft.Office.Server.UI.dll
Microsoft.Office.SlideLibrary.dll
Microsoft.Office.Workflow.Feature.dll
Microsoft.office.workflow.routing.dll
Microsoft.office.workflow.routing.intl.dll
Microsoft.SharePoint.AdministrationOperation.dll
Microsoft.SharePoint.Diagnostics.dll
Microsoft.SharePoint.Dsp.dll
Microsoft.SharePoint.Dsp.OleDb.dll
Microsoft.SharePoint.Dsp.SoapPT.dll
Microsoft.SharePoint.Dsp.Sts.dll
Microsoft.SharePoint.Dsp.XmlUrl.dll
Microsoft.SharePoint.intl.dll
Microsoft.SharePoint.Library.dll
Microsoft.sharepoint.portal.intl.dll
Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal.Upgrade.dll
Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.Intl.dll
Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.Intl.Resources.dll
Microsoft.sharepoint.search.intl.dll
Microsoft.office.server.search.intl.resources.dll
Microsoft.SharePoint.SetupConfiguration.Intl.dll
Microsoft.sharepoint.WorkflowActions.intl.dll
Microsoft.SharePoint.workflowactions.intl.resources.dll
Microsoft.SharePoint.workflows.dll
Microsoft.SharePoint.workflows.intl.dll
Microsoft.SharePoint.workflows.intl.resources.dll
Microsoft.Web.Design.Server.dll
Microsoft.Web.Design.Server.intl.dll

Beside the assemblies in the ISAPI folder.

To install an assembly to the GAC, you need to do the following steps:-

1. Browse to Control Panel -> Administrative Tools and then open the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Configuration

2. Click the Add an Assembly to the assembly cache as shown below

3. Browse to the assembly and click open

Step 3: Display WSS Workflow Items in the Visual Studio 2005 toolbox

1. Create a new project of type SharePoint Sequential Workflow library (or state machine workflow library)

2. View the workflow in design mode

3. Right click the toolbox and click on Add Tab. Empty tab will appear, name it WSS Workflow or any other name you find it appropriate.

4. Right click on the newly added tab and select "choose items"

5. Browse to the path \Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\ISAPI

6. Select the Microsoft.shaerpoint.workflowActions.dll assembly

7. Do not forget to check the Complete Task Activity which is highlighted after selecting the Microsoft.sharepoint.workflowActions.dll.

Below is a snapshot of my VS toolbox after adding the WSS workflow items.

Step 4: Insert WSS XML Code Snippets

1. In Visual Studio 2005, open the Code snippets manager (found under the tools menu, if you could not locate it use the Ctrl K+B shortcut to open it)

2. Make sure the language selected is XML. Click Add and browse to C:\ program files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\xml\1033\Snippets\Windows SharePoint Services Workflow\" as shown below.

3. Click Open.

Step 5: Install Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Tools: Visual Studio 2005 Extensions, Version 1.1.

WSS extensions can not be installed on a machine that does not have WSS installed. Well, that is theoretically. Practically, you can add a registry key to be able to install the WSS extensions.

This is not a recommended practice, not supported at all. But if you still want to do so, open the registry and create the following key [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0]

After creating the key add the following string value

“Sharepoint”=”Installed”.

Below is a snapshot of how my registry looks like after adding the SharePoint string key.