Areej Abukar

Check out my new blog at

http://geeksconnected.com/Areej

Thanks to to all my Geek brothers especially (Mohammed Saleh) for giving me the chance to become the first geek lady in the group, hopefully other geek sisters will join us as well.

so until next post (on geeksConnected) and for the last time on this blog

Happy Sharepointing

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

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

Let’s review this scenario, you are creating a virtual machine using Microsoft Virtual PC 2007, you have checked for the required space needed for the new virtual hard disk, you will not need more than 16 GB, so default settings seem fine.

later on, you find out that you will need more than 16 GB and now you are running out of disk space. Do not worry, NO … you don’t have to recreate the VHD again… and you wont need to spend days on this… the solution is simple, Let go through it together step by step.

1. First, install the VHD Resizer.. This is a free software. When you start the VHD Resizer, you will be asked to provide the source VHD to resize and the Destination VHD..

2. Select the VHD Type and enter the new size (in GB or MB)

3. click on the resize button

the newly added size will be displayed as unallocated space.  There is a great post by Pieter on how to expand the partition… however, if the operating system is windows server 2008 or Vista, there is a more direct solution that is just few clicks away;)

How to extend the partition in windows server 2008?

1. Start the Operating System, Go to Computer Management and then select Disk management as shown below

As you see the additional unallocated free space is on Disk 0 (Displayed in black).. this is the disk that can be extended. To do so, right click the disk and choose Extend Volume

2. The extend volume wizard will be launched as shown below

click Next,

3. Select the free unallocated disk space and then click Add.

click Next.

4. Check the disk again

Now there is not any un-allocated disk space and Disk0 size is extended, enjoy ;)

Thanks for every one who stops by to read my posts here and at Jordan Sharepoint User Group.

Special thanks to Troy Lanphier for referencing the how to prepare an existing DB server for MOSS installation post, I am glad it helped :)

The best is yet to come. Get tuned as I will also be posting at Riyadh sharepoint user group as well and since I am targeting sharepoint community, I will be posting more often :D . 

Happy Sharepointing

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 .

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