Move the content index files on Index and Query servers

We initially created our content index for index and query servers on one drive and later had to move them to new disk drives on the servers. After a little looking around, I figured that this move can be achieved by using the stsadm command utility.

In our case we had a web farm with 3 front-end servers and 1 index server. Only one of the front-end server is being used as the query server.

Move the files for the index server

1. Find the title of the SSP for which you want to move the content index. It is the name of the SSP and can be founf by going to Central Administration and looking under the Shared Services Providers
2. Open the command prompt on the server and if the 12 hive/bin path is not in your PATH environment variable, navigate to it. It is usually C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\bin.
3. Run the following command: stsadm -o editssp -title SharedServices1 -indexlocation e:\search. In my case, the new location was e:\search. The folder does not need to be created before hand. Executing the stsadm command creates it.
4. Delete the old index location. The above command copies the files.
5. If you are moving the index for multiple SSPs, repeat steps 1-4 for each additional SSP.

Move the index files for the Query server

1. Logon to the query server and open the command prompt
2. Navigate to the 12 hive/bin folder if the 12 hive/bin is not in the PATH environment variable.
3. Run the following command to move the index: stsadm -o osearch -propagationlocation e:\search

Restart the Search Service for both the index and the query server. The search service can be restarted from Central Administration by going to the Operations tab and then "Services on Server".

User shows up in people picker after being deleted from Active Directory

If a user has ever accessed a sharepoint site or had been added to a sharepoint site, he/she will keep appearing in the people picker after the user has been deleted from the corresponding active directory because of termination/name change/???. To correct the people picker, follow these simple steps:

• Go to Site Setting -> People and Groups
• In "All People", filter on the user name that was deleted from AD.
• Select the user and choose Delete users from site collection under the Actions menu

This will remove the user from the people picker.

The New! document or listitem days

Ever wondered how to change the number of days to show the "New!" icon that appears for new documents and list items in a SharePoint site? There is a property days-to-show-new-icon that needs to be set using the stsadm command line.

To get the current value for a web application use:
stsadm -o setproperty -pn days-to-show-new-icon -url http://sharepointsite/
The default value for the property is 2

To set the value use:
stsadm -o setproperty -pn days-to-show-new-icon -pv 5 -url http://sharepointsite/
Now, the "New!" icon will appear for 5 days for all new documents and list items

Query servers "Configure share automatically" account

I was configuring a web front-end as a query server for our SharePoint farm. So, I was trying to start the Office SharePoint Search service on that WFE but kept getting the error: Failed to configure propagation share. After some trial and search, found that the account used to propagate the share needs to be part of the WSS_ADMIN_WPG group in addition to the local administrators group.

Moving the server that hosts Central Administration

In our company for MOSS installation, we created a webfarm with three servers and Central Administration (CA) site was hosted on one of them. However, we added a fourth server later and wanted to use the fourth server to host the CA and do other management activities.

I went ahead and ran the SharePoint product and technologies configuration wizard on the fourth server and configured it to host the CA website using Advanced Settings. But the link to SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration link still took me to the server where CA was hosted initially. I removed the CA site from the first server but still the SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration link continued to take me to the first server and the link failed as I had configured that machine not to host CA!

After a little research, I found that I needed to follow the following steps to accomplish my objective:

• First remove CA from the initial server before adding another server to host the CA site. Run the SharePoint product and technologies configuration wizard. Click next until you see an Advanced Settings button. Select Do not use this machine to host the web site. At this point, no server will be hosting CA!
• Now, on the server you wanted to move the CA hosting, run the SharePoint product and technologies configuration wizard. Click next until you see an Advanced Settings button. Select Use this machine to host the web site and finish configuring.

This did the trick.

Please note that you may want to backup the web.config file for CA on the initial server specially if you had made any changes to it for custom authentication providers etc. You should replace the web.config file on the new CA hosting server after you have configured it to host CA.