The book "Pro SharePoint 2007 Development Techniques" (Apress) from Margriet and Nikander Bruggeman (Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1590599136/heme0f
 $ 32.99) seems to have started off the next phase of SharePoint 2007 books with also the release of the long-awaited "Digital" book "Microsoft SharePoint 2007 Technologies: Planning, Design and Implementation" (Digital Press) by Kevin Laahs, Emer McKenna and Veli-Matti Vanamo (Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0123736161/heme0f
 which was earlier $ 44.07 but now Amazon US list at the list price of $ 69.95 so look instead at Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0123736161/heme where it is £26.39 if you are in Europe until Amazon US has regained its senses)  expected to be released in mid December.

There's also a heavily researched book by C. A. Callahan (Mastering Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (Sybex) (Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0470127287/heme0f $ 31.49) which is due out a few days before the Laahs etc. book

Then in February 2008 we might finally see the release of mainstream SharePoint Designer 2007 books including what might well be my favourite "SharePoint Designer X for Dummies" (For Dummies) by Dustin Miller and Heather Solomon (Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0470096012/heme0f $16.49) although the rival book from Penny Coventry might also be worth an only slightly less cheap look ("Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007 Step by Step (MSPress) : Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0735625336/heme0f $19.59)

Why most (all?) of the SharePoint Designer 2007 books are out so late in the cycle is a separate discussion and I can only guess the causes of that delay. SPD 2007 was certainly too difficult for me to even consider writing a book about unless all it consisted of were chapters on Data View Web Parts. But it seems this was the case for all the authors originally signed up - if indeed many were signed up. I remember being shown a proposal before RTM for yet another standard SharePoint book and of suggesting to the publisher that what we really needed was ONE SharePoint Designer 2007 book. If only they'd followed my advice ...

As for the new wave of standard SharePoint books mentioned above, it's clear to me that these only have a chance of success if they provide in-depth information obtained by extensive working with the released product. The first phase was books based entirely or almost entirely on the Beta versions. The second phase (summer?) was books sketched out in the beta phases and with the text adjusted after checks were made using the released version(s). Finally this third (and possibly final) phase could and ought to be the same again but with a greater amount of detail.

I haven't seen any of the books from this third phase unlike the books from earlier phases where I have seen quite a large number and so that's my assumption only. All the three writers/sets of writers mentioned above have it in them to do extensive research so we'll soon see whether they have included the fruits of their research in these new books and whether by doing so they have made them unreadable :)

P.S. I'm not sure whether to assign the two O'Reilly books to Phase 2 (for which they were late) or to Phase 3 (for which they were early). Certainly from my quick look at the Definitive Guide, that is not heavily researched so I won't be generous and allocate it to Phase 3 but Jeff Webb usually does a lot of research for his books so maybe his Essential SharePoint (Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0596514077/heme0f $ 26.39) might just sneak in.

P.P.S. The total book list (which of course includes the very worthwhile (!) "Real World SharePoint 2007" book!) is still here http://wss.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSSv3%20FAQ/V%20Books.aspx  It includes several foreign language books which I hope to take a closer look at tomorrow.

 

 

Installations 6, 7, and 8 of Nero 8 (caused by my seeing a suggestion on the Nero web site's upgrade section to use a new tool they have for completely removing old versions) still didn't work and in fact it took until the 8th installation before I was back to where I was after the 5th installation.

During these installations there were increasing signs that the Registry was in a mess and once again - and despite having Location and Settings set to English(UK) I once again got Finnish language installation menus (6, 7).

Meanwhile the laughably-named support department of the Ahead people (makers of the Nero product) still hadn't got round to replying to any of my e-mails (even the 100% nice one) of a week ago (and still haven't).

So I finally got so fed up with all of this that I decided that Vista 64-bit (which I perhaps  unwisely was blaming for most of my installation problems) was just too much hassle (I was already using only 32-bit IE within it because various things wouldn't work in 64-bit IE) and that it was time to wipe it.

I couldn't of course use the 32-bit DVD Vista version I had bought a year ago because that being corrupt was the only reason I had installed 64-bit Vista in the first place, but I still have MSDN and this is a development machine (for SharePoint web sites) so I used the MSDN DVD instead. (Actually as I have a legal copy of this version of Vista that's not in use anywhere else, it would have been legal to use the MSDN copy even if it wasn't a development machine).

But first I moved off a couple of things (probably on reflection not enough) from the drive to an external USB disk; re-booted into the still present original OS (XP-Pro) and then re-formatted the entire drive used by the 64-bit Vista.

I then shoved in the MSDN DVD and installed 32-bit Vista Ultimate - naturally as a new installation - and for the first time ever just left the settings as English (US) hoping in that way that the problems caused by over-intelligent software installations deciding that I would just love to have my installation screens in Finnish would vanish.

I did however say that I wanted a Finnish keyboard.

This combination doesn't by the way work as you would expect. I was later using my Finnish keyboard and had to type a " ' " and I got a " \ ". So I looked in the keyboard settings expecting to see that it was in fact still specifying a US keyboard. No, it was saying Finnish but it was an odd Finnish - what it seems to have defined was a "US English - Finnish" keyboard as a sub-set of the US English keyboard rather than as a separately listed Finnish keyboard.

Very, very odd. It was solved easily enough by adding a new Finnish keyboard and selecting that rather than the odd hybrid "US English - Finnish" and now a check showed that " ' " was indeed showing up as " ' ".

Most of the rest of the installations (Office 2007; Adobe Reader 2007; Thunderbird; VMWare Workstation 6.x) went fine with not a hint of Finnish in either the products selected or in the installation screens and then it was time for the big test - would Nero 8 install correctly ?

Naturally it did (it needed a re-boot partway through which made me slightly nervous) and all the Nero products are listed correctly in Start / Programs / Nero8 and SmartStart tabs no longer ask me to upgrade.

Meanwhile I have, for the first time in months, a fast, lean, system again. I wonder how long that will last ?

P.S. The mottos of the story.

1. Every cloud has a silver lining.

2. Vista 64-bit is a big black cloud.

3. Intelligent installation routines aren't.

Note: All of the addresses of the KB / Articles - 2007 Products / MS / Non-MS Articles below were valid at the time I added them to the WSS FAQ
site and to this file. I can't guarantee that they still are.

(This is also posted to the WSS newsgroup at microsoft.public.sharepoint.windowsservices - web access via http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/newsgroups/server/sharepoint.mspx)

(Items are added to the WSS FAQ throughout the week so you will find new items more quickly by checking at wss.collutions.com or www.wssfaq.com daily.)

From 11th - 17th November 2007

I.1 2007 KB Articles    (*now only one section for WSS and MOSS*)

New

None

Modified

None

I.b Forefront KB Articles

New

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;943608

The Forefront Security for SharePoint keyword filter blocks Shockwave Flash Extensions (.swf) files

9th November 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;941005

An error message may be logged in the STSADM export log file after you install Forefront Security for SharePoint on a computer that is running Windows SharePoint Services 3.0: "Access Denied" (ver 2.0)

7th November 2007

Modified

None

I.c InfoPath 2007 KB Articles

New

None

Modified

None

II. Articles - 2007 Products  (no longer with all links to articles for other Office 2007 and other 2007 Products)

New

A. Office 2007 Server Products

http://blogs.technet.com/stefan_gossner/archive/2007/11/15/some-comments-on-common-variation-problems.aspx

Some comments on common Variation problems (MS Blog - Stefan Gossner)

15th November 2007

http://unitedsupplyco.sharepointsite.net/publicfacing/bensblog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=48

Use Conditional Formatting in Data Views based on User Security Permissions (Blog - Ben McCormack)

13th November 2007

http://unitedsupplyco.sharepointsite.net/publicfacing/bensblog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=49

Create Custom E-mail Alert Templates for SharePoint Workflows (Blog - Ben McCormack)

13th November 2007

http://www.sharepointforum.com/en-US/Blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?List=f0104928%2D1beb%2D4409%2Db7f3%2Df577171376fd&ID=6

How to build an optimal developer VPC for SharePoint Development

12th November 2007

http://sharepointnutsandbolts.blogspot.com/2007/11/change-sharepoint-site-url.html

Change a SharePoint site's URL (Blog - Chris O'Brien)

11th November 2007

http://www.sharepointblogs.com/mirjam/archive/2007/11/11/setting-item-level-security-in-an-eventhandler.aspx

Setting item level security in an eventhandler (Blog - Mirjam)

11th November 2007

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointdesigner/HA101191181033.aspx

Add another SharePoint site to the Data Source Library

11th November 2007 (date added)

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb931107.aspx

Welcome to Microsoft Search Server 2008 (pre-release documentation)

11th November 2007 (date added)

http://www.crackerbelly.com/?p=4

Recover a document if the SharePoint Recycle Bin is not in use (Crackerbelly - Mark Shea)

11th November 2007 (date added)

http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/07/11/OfficeSpace/default.aspx

Events in SharePoint 2007 (MSDN Magazine, November 2007 - Ted Pattison)

11th November 2007 (date added)

http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/07/08/Excel/default.aspx

Excel Services: Develop A Calculation Engine For Your Apps (MSDN Magazine, August 2007 - Vishwas Lele, Pyush Kumar)

11th November 2007 (date added)

http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/07/08/OfficeSpace/default.aspx

Solution Deployment with SharePoint 2007 (MSDN Magazine, August 2007 - Ted Pattison)

11th November 2007 (date added)

http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/07/05/OfficeSpace/default.aspx

Features for SharePoint (MSDN Magazine, May 2007 - Ted Pattison)

11th November 2007 (date added)

http://www.tonstegeman.com/Blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=47

Querying SharePoint for content - using SPSiteDataQuery and CrossListQueryInfo (Blog - Ton Stegeman)

10th November 2007

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb870301.aspx

Visual How To: Creating a Custom Task Pane to Consume SharePoint Server 2007 Query Services in Word 2007 (Joel Krist, Akona Systems)

10th November 2007 (date added - date of article is October 2007)

http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepointdesigner/archive/2007/11/09/an-introduction-to-conditional-formatting.aspx

An Introduction to Conditional Formatting (MS Team Blog - "Jon")

9th Novmber 2007

http://blogs.msdn.com/markarend/archive/2007/11/08/scripting-stsadm-commands.aspx

Scripting STSADM commands (MS Blog - Mark Arend)

8th Novmber 2007

http://blogs.msdn.com/joelo/archive/2007/11/08/what-not-to-store-in-sharepoint.aspx

What Not to Store in SharePoint (MS Blog - Joel Oleson)

8th Novmber 2007

http://blogs.msdn.com/joelo/archive/2007/11/07/is-the-hotfix-or-service-pack-going-to-break-my-sharepoint-pages-or-deployment.aspx

Is the hotfix or service pack going to break my SharePoint pages or deployment? (MS Blog - Joel Oleson)

7th November 2007

http://blogs.msdn.com/joelo/archive/2007/11/06/web-usage-reporting-tools.aspx

Web Usage Reporting Tools (MS Blog - Joel Oleson)

6th November 2007

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=a2f225fd-dfb8-4e2a-b0b5-2facd681541f&displaylang=en

2007 Office System Sample: Setting Up a Development Environment (ver 1007)

23rd October 2007

B. Other Office 2007 products (selected few only since 1.1.2007)

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=e5e6d7dc-e0b0-4387-9c28-c49b1ffe34d7&displaylang=en&tm

Microsoft Forefront Server Security Management Console Log Purge Tool

14th November 2007 (relevant to Forefront for SharePoint)

C. Other New 2006/2007 Products  (selected few only since 1.1.2007)

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=bc381af4-9bd0-49dd-be1a-0c6ee49cd2bc&displaylang=en&tm

Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 SP1 Beta 2 VHD - 32-bit version

14th November 2007 (added because it's a semi-relevant VHD)

http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/07/05/BizTalk/default.aspx

8 Tips And Tricks For Better BizTalk Programming (MSDN Magazine, May 2007 - Marty Wasznicky, Scott Zimmerman)

11th November 2007 (date added)

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=6662c7be-d79b-475a-863c-f976239ac0af&displaylang=en&tm

Microsoft Search Server 2008 Express VHD (Note: NOT with WSS 3.0)

9th November 2007 (added because VHD)

Modified

None

III WebCasts (+ PodCasts, On-Line courses) for 2007 Products
 
http://wm.microsoft.com/ms/msdn/office/2007officevisualhowtos/wd2007consumingqueryservicesusingvstose.wmv

Visual How To: Creating a Custom Task Pane to Consume SharePoint Server 2007 Query Services in Word 2007 (Video) (Joel Krist, Akona Systems)

10th November 2007 (date added - date of video is October 2007)

https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastRegistrationConfirmation.aspx?culture=en-US&RegistrationID=1293635296

TechNet Webcast: SAP Enterprise Portal and SharePoint Server 2007 Interoperability (Level 200) (Tilo Boettcher, Anu Chawla, Thomas Reimer)

8th November 2007

https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastRegistrationConfirmation.aspx?culture=en-US&RegistrationID=1293635406

Microsoft Office System Webcast: More Tips and Tricks for Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies (Level 300) (Evan Archilla)

6th November 2007

IV WSS v3 FAQ

New

http://wss.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSSv3%20FAQ/DispForm.aspx?ID=1262

I.41 How do I quickly check if I am running WSS 3.0 or MOSS 2007?

http://wss.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSSv3%20FAQ/DispForm.aspx?ID=1258 

III.49.17 Search: How do I change the scope of a search in MS Search Server 2008?

http://wss.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSSv3%20FAQ/DispForm.aspx?ID=1259

III.49.18 Search: Are there any issues I need to know about when using PDF IFilters with MS Search Server 2008 ?

http://wss.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSSv3%20FAQ/DispForm.aspx?ID=1261

V.74 Microsoft Office User's Guide to SharePoint 2007 (Apress - Michael Antonovich)

http://wss.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSSv3%20FAQ/DispForm.aspx?ID=1260

VI.86 Longitude for SharePoint (Ed: Search) (commercial - BA-Insight)

http://wss.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSSv3%20FAQ/DispForm.aspx?ID=1263

X.88 Visio Stencils for Sharepoint 2007 Site Structures documentation. Version 0.2. (Blog - Maxime)

Modified

http://wss.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSSv3%20FAQ/DispForm.aspx?ID=813

V.07 Microsoft SharePoint 2007 Technologies: Planning, Design and Implementation (Digital Press - Kevin Laahs, Emer McKenna, Veli-Matti Vanamo)

http://wss.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSSv3%20FAQ/DispForm.aspx?ID=967

V.40 Microsoft SharePoint - Technik und Einsatz (in German) (Microsoft Press, Deutschland - Egbert Jeschke) *released*

http://wss.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSSv3%20FAQ/DispForm.aspx?ID=1046

V.45 6 Microsoft Office Business Applications for Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MS Press - Microsoft [no author given]) *released* (out of stock Nov 11th)

http://wss.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSSv3%20FAQ/DispForm.aspx?ID=997

X.19 Ontolica Wildcard for MOSS 2007 (free limited version - Ontolica)

V WSSv2 KB Articles (plus SPS 2003 Hot fixes)

New

None

Modified

None

VI WSS v2 FAQ

New

None

Modified

None

The day after I no longer am an MVP (all good things come to an end) it will be very tempting to send messages with a certain text to all the newsgroup threads that I have been involved with and where the originator hasn't come back in the thread with a "Thanks, that solved my problem" reply.

Here's the text of that proposed message

--------------
Hi XXX,
 
How's everything going?

I wanted to check to see if you have any questions on it. Please let me
know if you need further information.

---------------

Of course if I do then everyone will think that losing MVP status has finally pushed me over the top and I've gone completely mad, because equally everyone knows that in newsgroups no answer means there no longer is a problem (or the poster no longer needs to know the answer).

So why then are managed newsgroups "colleagues" continuing to post completely pointless messages to the public newsgroups which contain (only) the following text.

--------------
Hi XXX,
 
How's everything going?

I wanted to check to see if you have any questions on it. Please let me
know if you need further information.

---------------

Why is it that they continually break the unwritten rules of public newsgroups in this way? Everyone wants to know.

I'm following the revised (end October) version of the "Setting Up a Development Environment for the 2007 Microsoft Office System" and apart from a minor bit of confusion where they had (Steps 1-3) *downloads* of .Net Framework 3.0; Windows SDK for the .NET Framework 3.0 and Visual Studio 2005 Extensions for WWF, followed by *installing* .NET Framework 3.0 (which I naturally had already installed in step 1) it is a good piece of work with the right links in the right place.

But why do I have to keep looking at the screen (especially as I'm working on another PC at the same time and that PC is at 180 degrees from the installation PC - which also goes very quickly black so I can't just turn my head) in order to make sure the installation is still progressing.

I just had a typical (and really stupid, Microsoft guys) case where I had installed Visual Studio 2005 and the next step was to install Visual Studio 2005 SP1. So I clicked on the link; started the link; answered a couple of message boxes and it started downloading. I then ignored it.

Big mistake. When I checked 40 mins later it was showing a message "Do you want to update Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition with the SP1 for Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition". What the h*** do you think, MS guys ?

P.S. Wasn't it the Bob Newhart Driving Instructor sketch that had something like "Madam, you said you were going to turn left; you put out your indicator to turn left so naturally I assumed you were going to turn left" ?

You'd be amazed. At least I was.

Here as far as I can see is the total list

Windows Server 2008 for Itanium - 64-bit

Windows Web Server 2008 - 32-bit  (without Hyper-V)
Windows Web Server 2008 - 64-bit  (without Hyper-V [? the MS text is unclear])

Windows Server 2008 Standard - 32 bit without Hyper-V
Windows Server 2008 Standard - 32 bit with Hyper-V
Windows Server 2008 Standard - 64 bit with Hyper-V

Windows Server 2008 Enterprise - 32 bit without Hyper-V
Windows Server 2008 Enterprise - 32 bit with Hyper-V
Windows Server 2008 Enterprise - 64 bit with Hyper-V

Windows Server 2008 DataCenter - 32 bit without Hyper-V
Windows Server 2008 DataCenter - 32 bit with Hyper-V
Windows Server 2008 DataCenter - 64 bit with Hyper-V

So what's that ? TWELVE versions.

This I suppose is what happens when the Marketing guys take over.

Just pity the poor support people. "Now was that Enterprise 32-bit with or without Hyper-V" ?

P.S. Actually when it comes to paying for the things there are even more versions because of course there's often the choice of product + CALs and paying per processor.

P.P.S. A piece on this from Redmondmag said that the difference in price between with Hyper-V and without Hyper-V was a massive (sarcasm level high) 28 dollars. Or less than 3% (sometimes much less than 3%) of the price.

Someone out there isn't ticking properly. They probably lose that 28 dollars on the printing costs of preparing the material for those extra versions.

Many of the SharePoint v3 books that are already published or soon to be published are written either in full or in part by MVPs.

This makes the job of an MVP reviewer of these books somewhat difficult because the internal code between MVPs is to be nice to each other. So for instance say that I make a completely wrong statement in a newsgroup and another MVP wants to correct me, then he doesn't say "That's complete rubbish" but something like "Umm, Mike, isn't actually XXX the solution?".

The other thing that makes reviewing these v3 books more difficult than reviewing the v2 books was is that now I (as the writer of one chapter in a v3 book) am standing in the book equivalent of a glasshouse. If I say nasty things about their chapters then they can say nasty things about mine - and they don't even need to buy the book, because my chapter is the free on-line one ...

Luckily there's a way out. Many of the books are written by multiple authors only some of whom are MVPs and usually you can't see who wrote which chapter.

One such book is O'Reilly's "SharePoint 2007 - The Definitive Guide"

(http://wss.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSSv3%20FAQ/DispForm.aspx?ID=889)

which is in effect the O'Reilly version of "Beginning SharePoint 2007 Administration: Windows SharePoint Services 3 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (Wrox)"

(http://wss.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSSv3%20FAQ/DispForm.aspx?ID=900)

As there is a dearth of SharePoint Designer 2007 books (although I'm told that "Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007 Step by Step (MSPress - Penelope Coventry)" is likely to be out first (Jan 8th 200)

(http://wss.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSSv3%20FAQ/DispForm.aspx?ID=1238)

I thought I'd look at the Chapter the Definitive Guide has on SPD 2007 and compared it with the equally short (20 pages) chapter that the "Real World SharePoint 2007: Indispensable Experiences From 16 MOSS and WSS MVPs (Wrox)" has

(http://wss.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSSv3%20FAQ/DispForm.aspx?ID=961)

I've already written about the Dustin Miller (the Wrox book says who wrote each chapter) chapter (5) on SPD 2007. I found it short but useful - well written with a good balance of text to screen prints.

I can't say the same about Chapter 19 of the Definitive Guide.

It seemed as if someone had knocked off a quick intro in a couple of hours, most of which were spent doing screen prints. There were in fact so many screen prints and so little text that there were six pages with only screen prints and a couple more with only a few lines of text. This also meant that the text and the relevant screen print were separated in some cases by several pages (so p426 had a reference to Figure 19-26 and that was on page 431!).

So the quality of the editing of at least this chapter was way below O'Reilly's usual standards. Maybe it was an impossible task with such a high proportion of screen prints to text, but in that case shouldn't O'Reilly's editor have demanded more text ?

As for the text. It wasn't that great.

The introductory two pages (no screen prints!) were not really very useful for someone wanting to learn how to use SPD 2007.

The two examples (creating a Data View Web Part after connecting to a database; a workflow example) were very trivial and went no further than someone just messing about with the product would be able to do. Just very basic, standard stuff in other words that you probably didn't need a book for.

The final section (Managing SharePoint Sites) is as trivial as they come,  with very short and very general text only.

All in all a very disappointing chapter and after working through it I know no more than I did before. So I won't be recommending this chapter as something to look at while waiting for a full-length SPD 2007 book to come out.

Dustin Miller's chapter on the other hand IS something worth mentioning. It would be better if it were longer but the few examples he includes are well worth having and unlike the chapter of the Definitive book  they encourage (and prepare the way for) your own experimentation.

For more of the same, keep in mind the Dustin Miller / Heather Solomon SPD 2007 for Dummies book

(http://wss.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSSv3%20FAQ/DispForm.aspx?ID=844)

which is likely to be out a couple of months after the MS Press one mentioned above (and which given the way these deadlines seem constantly to move [back] may actually beat it out).

I made a major blunder this weekend when I took advantage of a 25% off - last three days - offer to upgrade my copy of Nero to version 8.

Their offer had very cleverly not bothered to tell you just how much this upgrade would cost (and it was more than I expected for an upgrade let alone an upgrade -25%, but having got so far in the process [of finding my old code] I stupidly carried on and ordered it). In fact you had to enter the code of the product you were upgrading from for them to tell you.

So the first blunder was mine (but caused by them). Not knowing that the upgrade cost was going to be the same regardless of which version of the product you were upgrading it from (as later checks showed), I upgraded the Nero 7 Multimedia version I had on my Portable (which is the machine I do the majority of my burning on and on which Nero 7 Multimedia was working well despite the OS being 64-bit Vista). Instead what I ought to have done was upgrade the OEM Nero 6.3 I had on my older desktop where it had been bundled. Then of course I'd - for the same money - had one PC running Nero 7 Multimedia and one running Nero 8.

The second blunder was thinking that if I was upgrading a copy of the English version 7 to a copy of the English version 8, the installation routine would be in English.

No, the Nero (Ahead, actually) guys have now a certain amount of Finnish support, which means that without bothering to ask me that upgrade's menus were all in Finnish. Now I may live in Finland (location) and I may use Finnish settings on my PCs but that is purely to get a semi-automatic installation of a Finnish keyboard; Finnish decimals (= ",") and Finnish sort orders. What it does NOT mean is that I want them (for an installation of an English product, I remind you) to give me a set of Finnish installation menus once I press "Update" on the *English* language menu.

Now I've been here long enough and have worked in a Finnish language environment long enough to speak and understand Finnish, but there are lots of people living here who work solely in English because some of the big multinationals have English as their working language, and they would have had serious problems because of this Nero/Ahead cleverness.

For one they would have wondered for instance why after a re-boot the installation started up again. (Which only partly worried me because I had seen the screen way before the Re-boot now screen which had said roughly that some things were still open so the installation would continue after the re-boot). They would in any case have been pressing OK on every screen with no real idea of what they were pressing OK to.

At this point the first message was sent to the Nero support address. (Why the **** are the menus in Finnish?)

Anyway I was OK. I could read the Finnish menus (although cursing at the additional effort required of me) and I would in the end have an English installation wouldn't I ?

Well not exactly. There's something it installs called "Nero Home". THAT was in Finnish. There's also something called a Control Center. That was in Finnish too (actually only partly ...).

At this point the second message was sent to the Nero support address. (Why the **** are Home and Control Center in Finnish?)

I then decided I'm not having this and went to change my computer settings to English and also location to England. I removed Nero 8 from Control Panel / Add or remove Programs and re-installed (again using a custom installation to get everything and to be able to satisfy a location on the D: drive as C: was a bit full). I used the demo version download but specified the full version's code.

Great Joy - English language installation menus !!

The installation went through OK but then I saw that under Start / Programs the only things that were listed were two folders "Nero Manuals" and "Nero Tools". No links to any of the programs at all ....

Nero Manuals by the way is a joke as all it includes is a single file that says that you have to download the manuals as for reasons of space they are not included in the installation download.

Nero Tools includes Nero Control Center which at least this time had text in English.

But to get to the programs that do anything you need to wander down through the file system (and then drag the Nero8 file directory to your Start button to avoid needing to do this again).

I did this and started up the SmartStart application which in v7 I'd used as a quick way to get to the correct actual application for what I wanted to do.

This has some links on the left but there was also a line of Tabs above the main area of the screen so I selected something like (I'm on another machine now, I'll correct the name later) the "Copy and Burn" Tab and the main area came up with "Upgrade Now to the full version of Nero 8". As did all the other Tabs.

Time for a third message to Nero/Ahead support. I've paid; I've used the code I got back when I installed; why don't I have the full version ?

At this point (if not before!) I was getting very irritated. I'd upgraded because I was about to burn some CDs and thought the burning process might be minutely better if I had the latest version of the software. Now I'd spent several hours and seemingly I couldn't burn at all.

So I uninstalled again.

Finally I did yet another install (I've missed one above as I did 2 Finnish setting installs, so this was actually the fourth), this time using the upgrade exe rather than the trial exe (hoping that install would finally take notice of the code I'd bought and then during the installation I selected Typical settings (hoping that I'd now get the Nero products accesible via Start/Programs/Nero).

There was nothing more I could do, I felt.

Well the install apart from adding stuff to C: instead of D: made no difference.

There were still only Nero Manuals (still empty of manuals) and Nero Tools listed and all of the apps were still only available via the file structure (only now in C:\Program Files (x86) of course).

There were still a bunch of Tabs in SmartStart which said I needed to upgrade to the full version of Nero 8 (whereas by now I was wishing I could just revert to Nero 7 Multimedia).

Yet, strangely enough I could actually burn just as usual by going to Nero BurnRom (in the file structure of course) and starting the .exe there.

(Which I'd perhaps been able to do all along).

So I was finally able (near midnight on Sunday with a work day ahead) to burn the things I had in mind to burn.

But I still don't know how many of the other applications will not work because I "need to upgrade to the full version". I still don't know if even the ones that work today will stop working after 30 days even though it ought to know that I've paid.

I don't know because I no longer trust this software.

The "upgrade" was truly a nightmare and I doubt if I'll get any joy from their support people as I have been, let's put it this way, not as friendly and matter-of-fact as I ought to have been (and in fact would probably have been if it hadn't for their **** software forcing Finnish on me and giving me no way to decide that I didn't want Finnish).

So this is one "upgrade" I recommend all Nero users to give a miss.

At least until SP1 is out :)


 

P.S. I did a fifth installation. This time I switched off the virus checker and everything else that was running before I downloaded the upgrade .exe which starts the installation. It required a couple of re-boots and then it said it was ready.

It had all the same problems. My (Nero) license info said both that I was running a non-expiring full version and that I was running an expiring Demo version (after an earlier installation I'd tried deleting the Demo version here but that didn't help, I'd found). Nero SmartStart still had Tabs that didn't work and said I needed to Upgrade to the full version. I couldn't find the Nero code in the registry where it was supposed to be and none of the products (except for Control Center) were listed in Start / All Programs / Nero8.

So I tried in Control Center to get the latest Updates.

This went fine for a while (going slowly) but then there was an "Error accessing the OLE registry" and the rest of the installation speeded up. Then a re-boot was needed after which there was an automatic (yet another - and again very slow !) installation of Nero8. When this was finally finished I actually had a list of all the products with version numbers listed in Control Center / Update and also had the products listed on Start/All Programs/Nero8.

What I unfortunately still had was a non-functioning SmartStart that still kept demanding that I upgrade to the full version; two Nero8 versions listed in Control Center/License; and no Nero code in the registry.

So this time I sent a very calm and detailed message to Nero support (and for good measure apologised for the earlier ones).

This "upgrade" was still a disaster though. Keep away from it (unless you are running an early OEM version when it's a good idea to do it anyway - but maybe wait a bit first :) )

Stop Press: It's no several days later. Their so-called "Help"-desk hasn't replied to a single one of my e-mails.

Could this be that they don't actually have a Help Desk or is it that everyone who has installed (or tried to install Nero 8) is sending messages to them.

I think I'll be generous to the Help Desk guy (singular intended) and say it is a bum product ...

... and to think I really liked Nero 7 Premium ... (when I still had it - pay 50 Euros and have your software destroyed, now that is what they should have had on their upgrade page!).

Most of the time when people complain that a Microsoft product doesn't work the way they think it should (and often complain that the people involved haven't a clue), I tend to think the people making the complaint are the ones who haven't a clue.

Being an MVP doesn't get you very far inside the MS tent, but at least close enough to realise that people who are inside that tent are trying to make the best products they can and that usually things that are missing (or not done the way the rest of us think they should be done) are the results of design decisions - i.e. they often *have* thought of the thing that we see as missing but decided for good (to them) reasons  not to include that functionality.

However occasionally they get it very wrong and in my opinion the worst cases of this are when they remove functionality in a later version that was in an earlier version of the same product (even if that product name has been changed in the meantime to confuse us and maybe make it seem it isn't the same product).

One good example of both of these last two points comes in SharePoint Designer 2007 (which - for SharePoint uses - is the follow-up product to Front Page 2003).

Whereas when you used Front Page 2003 to create a Data View Web Part (DVWP), you had access to all the SharePoint Lists on the same *server*, using SharePoint Designer 2007 you only have access to SharePoint Lists in the same *site collection* on that server.

I think discussion of this started in a thread in a SharePoint public newsgroup where I suggested using SPD 2007 to create a DVWP from any list on the server (based on FP 2003 experiences of doing just this) only for the person asking the question to come back and say this didn't work for sites in another site collection).

Now we have a blog post from Monty (the same guy as in the newsgroup, perhaps?) on this, complete with a reference to a basic MS page saying which SharePoint Lists you can add to a "Data Source Library" where it clearly states ". If the other site is in a different site collection, you can still access all of the other data sources, but not SharePoint lists and libraries."

That Monty blog (with that reference) is here:

http://www.sharepointblogs.com/mcotw/archive/2007/11/07/No-longer-able-to-create-a-DVWP-with-a-datasource-that-pulls-data-from-another-site-collection.aspx

What I'd like to know (but probably never will) is just what was the "design reason" in this case? SPD 2007 is a product that covers an awful lot more than FP 2003 ever did (making it more difficult to use, incidentally), so why, oh why, REMOVE functionality - and what's more, functionality that was easy to use? Yes, even for me.

 

Note: All of the addresses of the KB / Articles - 2007 Products / MS / Non-MS Articles below were valid at the time I added them to the WSS FAQ
site and to this file. I can't guarantee that they still are.

(This is also posted to the WSS newsgroup at microsoft.public.sharepoint.windowsservices - web access via http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/newsgroups/server/sharepoint.mspx)

(Items are added to the WSS FAQ throughout the week so you will find new items more quickly by checking at wss.collutions.com or www.wssfaq.com daily.)

From 4th - 10th November 2007

I.1 2007 KB Articles    (*now only one section for WSS and MOSS*)

New

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/944433

The 2007 Office documents are not found when you try to search for the documents in the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 site collection

8th November 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=943105

After you install SharePoint Server 2007 Service Pack 1, the maximum disk space that is used on a query server or on an index server increases to 2.85 times the physical size of the index

6th November 2007

Modified

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;929360

You cannot create a new document or check out an existing document in a Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 document library when you have multiple versions of Office installed (ver 3.0)

9th November 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=943345

How to defragment Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 databases and SharePoint Server 2007 databases (ver 1.3)

7th November 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;843578

Things to consider when you configure collation settings for SQL Server 2000 databases or SQL Server 2005 databases that are used by SharePoint Portal Server 2003, by SharePoint Server 2007, and by Windows SharePoint Services (ver 2.4)

6th November 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=841057

Support for changes to the databases that are used by Office server products and by Windows SharePoint Services (ver 7.3)

6th November 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb%3ben-us%3b932744

Information about the Maintenance Plan Wizard in SQL Server 2005 and about tasks that administrators can perform against SharePoint databases (ver 2.1)

7th November 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=938499

An external storage API is available for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (ver 1.1)

31st October 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;941330

How to automate the deletion of backups in SharePoint Server 2007 and in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 by using a Visual Basic script (ver 1.1)

31st October 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;936859

Error message when you click Reply in a Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 discussion board in Subject view: "The page cannot be found" (ver 1.2)

31st October 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;936913

How to determine whether the Stsadm.exe command-line tool was run successfully in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and in SharePoint Server 2007 (ver 1.1)

31st October 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;934536

You cannot create a list that is based on a list template that has the E-Mail Notification option enabled in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 or in SharePoint Server 2007 (ver 1.1)

31st October 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;936623

Error message after you change the configuration database name when you perform a gradual upgrade from SharePoint Portal Server 2003 to SharePoint Server 2007: "An update conflict has occurred" (ver 2.1)

31st October 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=932118

Persistent cookies are not shared between Internet Explorer 7 and Office applications in Windows Vista (ver 1.3) [Note: relevance to SSO in MOSS 2007]

31st October 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;944105

How to customize application pages in the Layouts folder in SharePoint Server 2007 and in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (ver 3.0)

30th October 2007

I.b Forefront KB Articles

New

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;943624

Support information for Antigen or Forefront Security management console programs on a computer on which an Antigen server product or a Forefront Security server product is installed

7th November 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;943620

Folders to exclude when you perform a file-level antivirus scan on a server operating system

2nd November 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;943625

Antigen or Microsoft Forefront server security products may detect a file as being infected with the UnwritableCompressedFile virus

2nd November 2007

Modified

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=929074

The scan engines are not updated when you schedule a scan engine update in Forefront Server Security for SharePoint or Forefront Server Security for Exchange, and an error message occurs: "ERROR: Unable to load manifest" (ver 3.0)

7th November 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;943611

An error message is logged in the ProgramLog.txt file when you try to update a scan engine in Forefront Security for Exchange Server or in Forefront Security for SharePoint: "ERROR: Failed to create temporary manifest file" (ver 1.2)

2nd November 2007

I.c InfoPath 2007 KB Articles

New

None

Modified

New

II. Articles - 2007 Products  (no longer with all links to articles for other Office 2007 and other 2007 Products)

New

A. Office 2007 Server Products

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb954662.aspx

Upgrading SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Customizations to SharePoint Server 2007 (Part 1 of 2)

7th November 2007 (date added)

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb954661.aspx

Upgrading SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Customizations to SharePoint Server 2007 (Part 2 of 2)

7th November 2007 (date added)

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointdesigner/HA102098081033.aspx

Collect data from a user in a workflow (SPD 2007 article)

7th November 2007 (date added)

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointdesigner/HA102336241033.aspx

Assign a form to a group in a workflow  (SPD 2007 article)

7th November 2007 (date added)

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointdesigner/HA102336231033.aspx

Assign a to-do item in a workflow (SPD 2007 article)

7th November 2007 (date added)

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointdesigner/HA102376561033.aspx

Create a secondary workflow (SPD 2007 article)

7th November 2007 (date added)

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb330848.aspx

Setting Up a Development Environment for the 2007 Microsoft Office System (Keith Bunge, Alex Hart, Bryan Hart - all Solanite Consulting) (for Microsoft)

7th November 2007 (date added - revised date of paper October 2007)

http://blogs.technet.com/wbaer/archive/2007/11/06/moving-site-collections-between-domains.aspx

Moving site collections between domains (MSBlog - William Baer)

6th November 2007

http://www.sharepointforum.com/en-US/Wiki/Installation%20WSS%203.0.aspx

Installation WSS 3.0 (Daniel Bugday [not MS])

5th November 2007

http://www.sharepointforum.com/en-US/Wiki/Installation%20MOSS%202007.aspx

Installation MOSS 2007 (Daniel Bugday [not MS])

5th November 2007

http://blogs.msdn.com/jingmeili/archive/2007/11/05/how-to-exclude-a-site-collection-from-being-indexed-for-a-global-search-but-not-for-local-search.aspx

How to exclude a site collection from being indexed for a global search but not for local search?  (Blog - Jingmei Li)

5th November 2007

http://www.sharepointforum.com/en-US/Blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?List=f0104928%2D1beb%2D4409%2Db7f3%2Df577171376fd&ID=5

Content Types: Rename Title Column Issue (Blog - Daniel Bugday)

5th November 2007

http://blogs.inetium.com/blogs/rmitchell/archive/2007/11/01/use-powershell-to-list-your-views.aspx

Use PowerShell to list your Views (Blog - Raymond Mitchell)

1st November 2007

http://www.sharepointblogs.com/toth/archive/2007/10/31/using-named-anchors-in-sharepoint-wiki-pages.aspx

Using named anchors in SharePoint Wiki pages (Blog - Adam Toth)

31st October 2007

http://sharepointsolutions.blogspot.com/2007/10/sharepoint-designer-workflows-how-to.html

SharePoint Designer Workflows: How to Tell Which Fields Have Changed (Blog - Ricky Spears, SharePoint Solutions)

31st October 2007

B. Other Office 2007 products (selected few only since 1.1.2007)

None

C. Other New 2006/2007 Products  (selected few only since 1.1.2007)

None

Modified

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=f9956176-cf66-478b-b20d-b9b92dd0dbfa&displaylang=en&tm

Microsoft Office 2007 Professional VHD (ver 1.1)

5th November 2007

III WebCasts (+ PodCasts, On-Line courses) for 2007 Products
 
None

IV WSS v3 FAQ

New

http://wss.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSSv3%20FAQ/DispForm.aspx?ID=1249

I.39 What are the differences between .stp and .wsp template files?

http://wss.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSSv3%20FAQ/DispForm.aspx?ID=1253

I.40 What are the differences between using (AD) Domain Groups and using SharePoint Groups?

http://wss.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSSv3%20FAQ/DispForm.aspx?ID=1256

III.49.15 Search: How do I enable Search Server 2008 Express features for WSS 3.0?

http://wss.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSSv3%20FAQ/DispForm.aspx?ID=1257

III.49.16 Search: Why am I getting an error when I install Search Server 2005 Express on my MOSS 2007 server?

http://wss.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSSv3%20FAQ/DispForm.aspx?ID=1248

V.72 SharePoint 2007 Fundamentals: Interactive Training Course (DVD-ROM) (Pilothouse Consulting, Inc.. - Andre Abramenko) *released*

http://wss.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSSv3%20FAQ/DispForm.aspx?ID=1252

V.73 Modelando procesos de negocio con Workflow Foundation (Workflow Book in Spanish) (Editorial Krasis Press - Unai Zorrilla Castro)

http://wss.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSSv3%20FAQ/DispForm.aspx?ID=1250

VI.82 Lighting Tools Data Viewer Web Part (commercial - Lighting Tools Ltd)

http://wss.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSSv3%20FAQ/DispForm.aspx?ID=1251

VI.83 eSENSE Bridge (commercial - nse)

http://wss.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSSv3%20FAQ/DispForm.aspx?ID=1254

VI.84 Newsletter Web Part for Microsoft SharePoint (commercial - SharePartXXL International Gmbh)

http://wss.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSSv3%20FAQ/DispForm.aspx?ID=1255

VI.85 CorasWorks Data Integration Toolset for MOSS 2007 (commercial - CorasWorks)

Modified

V WSSv2 KB Articles (plus SPS 2003 Hot fixes)

New

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=944445

SharePoint Portal Server 2003 cannot index a 2007 Office document or file [My assumption is that this applies to WSS 2.0 as well]

5th November 2007

Modified

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;822697

Problems that may occur in Meeting Workspace information when you use Outlook Web Access (ver 3.4)

5th November 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=823569

E-mail message attachments are not uploaded to the document library in your SharePoint Services virtual server (ver 1.5)

25th October 2007

(was "E-Mail Message Attachments Are Not Uploaded to the Document Library When You Configure an E-Mail Enabled Document Library (ver 1.2)")

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=913402

Description of the Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 post-Service Pack 2 hotfix package: February 7, 2006 (ver 2.1)

24th October 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=915746

Description of the Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 post-Service Pack 2 hotfix package: March 21, 2006 (ver 2.1)

24th October 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=828813

You receive a "Specified domain does not exist" or an "Adding user name failed" error message when you extend a virtual server with Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 (ver 5.0)

23rd October 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=829067

You may receive a "The initializestrings method returned the incorrect number of strings" error message when you use FrontPage 2003 to open the properties of a Web Part (ver 4.0) [Only in an SPS 2003 environment]

22nd October 2007

Deleted

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=918744

Description of the Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services post-Service Pack 2 hotfix package: June 1, 2006

VI WSSv2 FAQ

New

None

Modified

http://wss.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSS%20FAQ/EditForm.aspx?ID=67

III.05.2 Forbidden characters

http://wss.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSS%20FAQ/EditForm.aspx?ID=242

III.77 SQL Reporting Services on a WSS Server. How do I get it to work?

http://wss.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSS%20FAQ/EditForm.aspx?ID=307

VII.08.09 Free WSS Web parts - Outlook Folders and others (Sigi Weber)

http://wss.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSS%20FAQ/EditForm.aspx?ID=329

VII.08.13 Free WSS Web Parts - Logout WebPart (Sigi Weber)