I typically deploy and configure MOSS and not WSS 3.0 farms. Search Server is included in MOSS but not in WSS 3.0 Good thing that Microsoft has a free version of the Search Server 2008. This is the Search Server 2008 Express edition.

Okay, so install Search Server 2008 Express edition on top of WSS 3.0. This upgrades the configuration database of the existing WSS 3.0 farm. (There are many ways to upgrade WSS 3.0 to have Search Server 2008 but what I was doing was upgrading an existing WSS 3.0 farm configuration database.)

SS 2008 Express installation ran fine without any problems. The Configuration Wizard launches after the installation and the Configuration Wizard ran fine too. Now, when you access the Central Admin for the first time after installing SS 2008 Express, instead of default.aspx at the Central Admin site, you get presented with the Search Server Wizard Page instead. It is http://centraladmin/_admin/SearchServerWizard.aspx. Here you can specify the databases and other setttings for your Search Server.

Well, if the SQL Server 2005 hosting the content and config databases is not SP2 or later, you will get the following error message when click the OK button at the Search Server Wizard page:

Search Server has detected that the minimum database server version requirement is not met. The computer that hosts the database server role must have Microsoft SQL Server 2000 with SP3a or later or Microsoft SQL Server 2005 SP2 or later.

The problem is the instructions for installing Search Server 2008 does not mention anything about making sure your SQL Server 2005 is SP2 or higher.

Lesson: make sure you have your SQL Server 2005 upgraded to SP2 or higher before you install Search Server 2008.

I attended a SharePoint group meeting this last Saturday. The group is the “SharePoint Meetup”. The group is based in the Washington DC Metro area and is led by Naveed Jauhar. We met in Tyson’s Corner and it seems to be a diverse mix of consultants, trainers, decision-makers, and aspiring SharePoint developers and administrators. If you are in the DC area and are interested in SharePoint, I recommend that you join the group.

Items discussed in the meeting:

• SharePoint Designer is now free – Wow! I couldn’t believe it! Check this out: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointdesigner/FX100487631033.aspx?ofcresset=1
• Certification paths in SharePoint – MCTS Exam 70-542, 70-630, 70-541, and 70-631. All these exams use case-study type exams. So, the recommendation of those who have taken the exam is to get real-world hands-on experience
• There is a “Certified Master” for SharePoint. If you get this certification, you pretty much are considered all-knowing with everything related to SharePoint. For details, see http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/master/SharePoint/default.mspx

It’s been a while since I’ve met with others that share the same or similar interest with a given technology. The information sharing and networking benefits of going to these events are great. There are things that you would otherwise miss because it’s difficult to keep tabs on everything going on in tech. Also, with today’s challenging economy, you should go out there and network. I recommend you find meetup at your hometown. If there is none, perhaps it’s time you start your own and lead the way.

I told you about the WSS 2.0 upgrade that I did yesterday. I had to rely on good old “STSADM’ to extract the data out of the WSS 2.0 environment and restore it in WSS 3.0. For WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007, STSADM can be be found in the 12-hive bin folder, which is typically located at C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN. For WSS 2.0, STSADM can be found in C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extenstions\60\BIN.

If you want a straight and fast backup and restore, use the stsadm backup and restore operations.

To back up a site, go to the 12-hive bin folder and type the following command:

stsadm -o backup -url http://mysite -filename myfile.dat

Then to restore your backup, use the following command:

stsadm -o restore -url http://mysite -filename myfile.dat

Notes about using STSADM backup and restore commands:

1. Security settings (owners and permission levels) and other user-informated (Created By and Modified By fields) will carry over when you restore it.
2. This is faster than using STSADM export/import operations.
3. You can only do this on a top-level site. Say you want to get a subsite inside your site-collection, forget it–this operation can only get that subsite by backing up and restoring the whole site collection.
4. Point is, backup/restore is not granular. It’s an all-or-nothing backup and restore of a site collection.

If you want to get ’somewhat’ granular, you can use STSADM export/import command. I say ’somewhat granular’ because you can’t really drill down to list or library level. But if you have many subsites and you just want to backup and restore (or migrate) a few, then STSADM export/import will be for you.

To export a sub-site, go to the 12-hive bin folder and type the following command:

stsadm -o export-url http://myserver/mysite -filename myfile.dat

Then to “restore your backup”, use the import command:

stsadm -o import-url http://myserver/mysite -filename myfile.dat

Notes about STSADM export/import command:

1. Slower than using backup/restore
2. Security settings and other user information (Last Modified By, Created By, etc.) do not carry over to the new site. I didn’t had a chance to test this operation with a site that uses some type of approval workflow–I don’t think the “Assigned To” properties will stick with export/import simply based on the observed behavior on standard documents and list libraries.
3. Yes, you can export a sub-site so that you don’t have to export the whole site-collection. But you can’t export a library or list or document. You say “why not just template the site and include the content in the template”. You got size-limitations there bud and you won’t be able to ‘template’ a site and include its content if the library or list has too many files.

By the way, I’ve only shown examples using the required parameters -url and -filename. There are other optional paramters to use when using these STSADM commands. For full details, visit the Microsoft page Index of STSADM Operations and properties (Office SharePoint Server)