The Outlook Configuration Analyser Tool (OCAT) provides a quick and easy method to analyze your Microsoft Office Outlook profile for common configurations that may cause problems in Outlook. This can be very useful for busy Help Desk personnel when end-users call for help with Outlook or when you want to identify possible issues with Outlook proactively.

The Outlook Configuration Analyser Tool provides a detailed report of your current Outlook profile. This report includes many parameters about your profile, and it highlights any known problems that are found in your profile. For any problems that are listed in the report, you are provided a link to a Microsoft Knowledge Base (KB) article that describes a possible fix for the problem. If you are a Help Desk professional, you can also export the report to a file. Then, the report can be viewed in the Outlook Configuration Analyzer Tool on another client computer where the tool is installed.

Download @> http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=28806

The Lync Online Control Panel now lets you configure the following Lync Online settings for your entire organization:

• Call and conference recording of meetings and phone calls

• Mobile phone notifications for Lync Mobile users on Lync 2010 for Windows Phone, Lync 2010 for iPhone, or Lync 2010 for iPad

• Presence privacy mode, which gives users greater control over who can see their online presence

In addition, and thanks in part to your suggestions and feedback, the Lync Online Control Panel has a new organization, and includes the ability to search, sort, and filter your list of Lync Online users.

Finally, we’ve added an important fix to resolve a previous issue. Now, when you change an Office 365 user ID, the Lync sign-in address is also updated. This means you no longer need to contact Microsoft Support to change someone’s user ID.

For details about the changes to the Lync Online Control Panel, see the online help for Enterprises or Professionals and Small Businesses.

Additional Information

• For more information on client-side recording in Lync Online, see Record and play back meetings in Lync Online and Microsoft KB 2433212 How to troubleshoot recording online meetings in Lync Online. To configure client-side recording for your organization, see Lync Online Control Panel help for Enterprises or Professionals and Small Businesses.

• Lync mobile push notifications are turned on by default for Office 365 organizations. See the online help for Enterprises or Professionals and Small Businesses, and Microsoft KB 2636320 How to use and troubleshoot issues with Lync Mobile on Apple iPhone and iPad mobile devices and Microsoft KB 2636318 How to use and troubleshoot issues with Lync Mobile on Windows Phone 7 mobile devices.

• Presence privacy mode allows organizations to specify whether a user’s presence is displayed to all users, or only those on a user’s contact list. See the online help for Enterprises or Professionals and Small Businesses.

• Filtering and search options in the Lync Online Control Panel give administrators a way to look at a subset of users by searching on their name or phone number and also to filter users based on the features available to them. See the online help for Enterprises or Professionals and Small Businesses.

• For more information on how Lync Online manages the sign-in address (or SIP Address), see Microsoft KB 2537764 How sign-in addresses and user IDs are managed in Lync Online.

Read more new Office 365 January 20102 features enabled for Enterprise Plans @> http://onlinehelp.microsoft.com/en-us/office365-enterprises/hh831842.aspx

Uninstalling SQL 2005 Manually

First, here are the recommended steps to manually uninstall SQL 2005:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/909967

If that doesn’t work, this is how you can manually uninstall all versions of SQL 2005 so that SQL can be reinstalled: .

Note – This method will delete all databases and configuration, you must have a backup of your existing SQL databases (which this uninstall will delete) before proceeding.

1. Uninstall all SQL components possible in Add/Remove Programs (including the SQL client and VSS writer)
2. Stop all SQL Services and configure them to disabled using Start > SQL Configuration Manager
3. Delete the following registry to get rid of the services. If you have multiple instance installed, it will be Keyname$Instance (i.e. MSSQLServer$OFFICESERVERS)
   1. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSSQLServer
   2. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\SQLServerAgent
   3. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSSQLServerADHelper
   4. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\ReportServer
   5. Verify that the services do not exist in the SQL Configuration Manager.
4. Delete the SQL Configuration in the registry
   1. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSSQLServer
   2. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server
   3. Note – if you installed a 32 bit version of SQL on 64 bit version of Windows, you will need to also delete them from the 32 bit registry node that is redirected. More Info MS 896459.
      * HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432node\Microsoft\MSSQLServer
      * HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432node\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server
5. Delete the SQL Program files – Note this will also delete the existing databases on the system that must be restored from backup.
   1. Delete the directory: C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server
      Note – if you installed a 32 bit version of SQL on 64 bit version of Windows, you will need to also delete them from the 32 bit program files:
      C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server
   2. You might need to reboot to close all files before you can delete the directory.

Now you can reinstall a clean 32 bit or 64 bit SQL without errors.

In order to master SharePoint 2010, you will have to get comfortable utilizing PowerShell (aka SharePoint 2010 Management Shell). There are so many commands (or command-lets as they are called) that interact with SharePoint that it makes it nearly impossible to remember them all. Use this PowerShell command to output a list of all cmdlets that are found within the SharePoint 2010 namespace:

Get-Command –PSSnapin “Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell” | format-table name > C:\SP2010_PowerShell_Commands.txt

If you would like a little more detail, then try this one:

Get-Command –PSSnapin “Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell” | select name, definition | format-list > C:\SP2010_PowerShell_Commands.txt

Note: You may also type gcm as the alias for Get-Command.

A free tool to quickly convert .exe setup application to a msi package.
If an application comes without a .msi file you cannot use the deploying by using GPO. However you can publish it by making msi package with the Exe to Msi Converter. Tool builds setup executable in to a msi package which can be used for deployment on multiple machines via Active Directory.

System Requirements:

• Windows 2000/XP/Vista, Windows Server;

Download a free version | Download a full version (evaluation)

Run As System

It is a simple tool that enables you to start a program or run command and script under a local system account. Requires administrative privileges on the PC. This tool is fully compatible with Vista UAC .
For example, to launch an interactive command prompt as a system account simply type ‘cmd’.
To run batch file use ‘cmd /c [filepath]’ command.

System Requirements:

• Windows 2000/XP/Vista, Windows Server 2000-2008;

Download RunAsSystem 1.0 zip archive

The following are issues that you may experience when you install these service packs:

• Before you install the SP1 packages, make sure that you have sufficient disk space. For caching, the packages may require up to four times their file size in remaining disk space during installation.
• You must restart the computer at the end of the installation process.
• If Office Web Apps will be used in a mixed version environment, where Office Web Apps has SP1-or-later applied while SharePoint Server 2010 remains on the RTM version, you must install the following two updates before you install SP1 for Office Web Apps:

  • 2510639 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2510639/ ) Description of the SharePoint Server 2010 update: April 12, 2011

  • 2510648 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2510648/ ) Description of the Office Web Apps update: April 12, 2011

• Install the service packs in the following order on every server in the farm:
  1. Service Pack 1 for SharePoint Foundation 2010
  2. Service Pack 1 for SharePoint Foundation 2010 Language Pack (if applicable)
  3. Service Pack 1 for SharePoint Server 2010
  4. Service Pack 1 for SharePoint Server 2010 Language Pack (if applicable)
• After you install Service Pack 1 you must run the SharePoint 2010 Products Configuration Wizard or the psconfig –cmd upgrade –inplace b2b -wait command one time on every server in the farm. This step updates the farm to the latest version and is required in order to have full SharePoint functionality. If you do not run the wizard, the farm will run with reduced capacity. For example, Search will not be able to index content.
• You must restart the User Profile Synchronization service after installing Service Pack 1. For more information about how to start the service, see the “Start the User Profile Synchronization service” section of the following Microsoft website:

  Configure profile synchronization (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/ee721049.aspx#StartUPSSProc)

• After SharePoint Server 2010 SP1 is installed, the Workflow feature is disabled when a new site collection is created. To use the Workflow feature in a new site collection, enable it in the Site Collection Settings page.
• After you install SharePoint Foundation 2010 SP1 and SharePoint Server 2010 SP1, we strongly recommend that you install the install the June 2011 Cumulative Update refresh package. The June Cumulative Update includes several important security and bug fixes that are not included Service Pack 1. For more information about these updates, click the following article numbers to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

  2536601 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2536601/ ) Description of the SharePoint Foundation 2010 cumulative update package (SharePoint Foundation server-package): June 30, 2011
  2536599 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2536599/ ) Description of the SharePoint Server 2010 cumulative update package (SharePoint server-package): June 30, 2011

Resolution – Walk Through

• Launch an elevated (Run as Administrator) SharePoint 2010 Management shell from start, All Programs, Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products, SharePoint 2010 Management Shell.
• Once the shell opens, type the following command and press enter:
                (get-spserver $env:computername).NeedsUpgrade

Example: Running above command with true value

If the output is false

No further action is needed.

If the output is true

To complete the SharePoint service pack process you need to follow the same steps to complete PSCONFIG after a SharePoint update.

In order to update the SharePoint databases, you must manually run the PSconfig utility as follows:

1. Open an Administrative command prompt.
2. Change directory to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\BIN
3. Run PSConfig.exe -cmd upgrade -inplace b2b -force -cmd applicationcontent -install -cmd installfeatures

Please Note

• The SharePoint site will be inaccessible while the command is running. It is best to run the command after business hours during a scheduled maintenance period.
• The amount of time the command takes to run will vary on the size of the database and the speed of the machine.
• On a reference machine with 8 logical processors, 32GB of RAM and a 2GB content database, the command took approximately 5 minutes to execute.

This feature is particularly useful when you store document in SharePoint and you need to send them to people outside of your organisation that do not have permission to access your SharePoint sites…

Download the feature (WSP) file from CodePlex: http://sendemailsp2010.codeplex.com/

After deploying this solution, a new button “Send Document” will appear in the ribbon interface. Just select the document (one at a time) by clicking the check box before the document title and click on Send Document button. As soon as you click this button an email form will pop up which allows you to provide values for “To”, “Cc”, “Subject” and “Email body”. Just fill in the details and click send email. You document will be attached to this email and will be sent to the appropriate user.

Also note that as a part of this installation, a send document configuration list will also get deployed on the root site which allows you to add users to whom you want to give rights to send document as an attachment.

System requirements
SharePoint 2010 must be installed. There are no special requirements on the edition of SharePoint

On The client

Following requirements must be fulfilled on the Client in order to use the feature:
1. Outlook is installed on the computer and the computer is located in the same domain as the server.
2. This feature is to be used only with Internet Explorer, as the ActiveX-Technology is not supported by other web browsers.
3. In the security settings of Internet Explorer must be activated following settings: “Initialize and script ActiveX controls not marked as safe for scripting” and “Automatic logon with current user name and password”.
For the activation of settings, following steps must be carried out:
3.1. Click on Tools in the task menu at the upper border of the Internet Explorer
3.2. Click on “Internet Options” from dropdown-menu
3.3. In the internet options click tab ”Security”
3.4. Choose the zone ”Trusted sites”
3.5. Click the button “Sites” and insert your SharePoint-Site to “Trusted sites”.
3.6. Click the button “Custom level”
3.6.1. Activate the setting “Initialize and script ActiveX controls not marked as safe for scripting”
3.6.2. Activate the setting “Automatic logon with current user name and password”

Installation
The installation can be divided in to the following steps:
1. Adding “Communardo.SendSharePointDocumentsAsEmailAttachment.wsp” solution to the SharePoint Farm solutions. There is no possibility to do it by means of user interface. Thus, prompt-tool “stsadm” must be used. Following command should be run under administrative rights on the server (before that save the file “Communardo.SendSharePointDocumentsAsEmailAttachment.wsp” in any directory, e.g. under C:/Communardo).

2. Open SharePoint 2010 Central Administration and click the link “System Settings” and then the link “Manage farm solutions”

3. In the list of all SharePoint solutions click “Communardo.SendSharePointDocumentsAsEmailAttachment.wsp” and then on “Deploy Solution“

Activation
If the feature is not active, you can activate it by doing the following:
Open Internet Explorer and open your SharePoint Root-site. Log in as administrator. Click on “Site Actions” and in the context menu on “Site Settings”. On the page “Site Actions” click on the link “Site collection features. On the then following page search for the feature “Communardo Send documents as attachments” and click on the button “Activate”. The feature is now activated and can be used.

Application
Sending documents via Ribbon Bar
When the feature “Communardo Send documents as attachments” is active, there will be added a button “Send documents as e-mail” to the section “Share & Track” in the ribbon of document libraries.(Figure 4) This button will be active only if at least one document is selected. After clicking on “Send documents as email” the dialogue “New Mail-Dialog” of the Outlook will be opened and the selected documents will be automatically added as an attachment.

Sending separate documents as e-mail via context menu
There is a possibility to send separate documents as an e-mail. For this purpose, there is an entry in the context menu “As e-mail attachment”.

In SharePoint 2007, I have quite a few requests from different client to remove button from the document list view, such as the “Edit in Datasheet” and “Open with Windows Explorer” button. I was able to solve the problem by writing a Javascript to hide the button.

Ribbon is introduced in SharePoint 2010. We can easily make customization it by using the Feature Infrastructure. For example, we can create a new button, delete an existing button, as well as replacing an existing button. Hence I can easily get around with the problem that I had in SharePoint 2007.

In order to hide a button, say the “Open with Explorer”, we will need to create a feature. We start by creating a new folder called “DisableRibbonButton”. Create a new file called “feature.xml” in the new folder and insert the following XML into the file

<Feature Id="33057CD9-6D14-45c9-83ED-5E1FE066AC92"
Title=”DisableRibbonButton”
Description=”DisableRibbonButton”
Version=”1.0.0.0″
Scope=”Web”
xmlns=”http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/”&gt;

Then create another file called “Manifest.xml” and insert the following XML:

The above XML is to remove the “Open with Explorer” button from the Ribbon for all list with type ID 101, hence all the Document Library type. The location “Ribbon.Library.Actions.OpenWithExplorer” is the ID that is registered in the default Ribbon button XML, which can be found in C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\TEMPLATE\GLOBAL\XML\CMDUI.XML”

Once you have created the above xml files…you will need to copy them to a folder called DisableRibbonButton in the Features folder in the 14 hive.

Now we will execute the following Cmdlet using the “SharePoint 2010 Management Shell” to install and active the feature:

Install-SPFeature DisableRibbonButton

Enable-SPFeature DisableRibbonButton –url http://

After that, go to any document library in your site, click the “Library” tab at the top and you should see the “Open with Explorer” button is now disappeared from the Ribbon.

Here are 8 simple steps on how to set up anonymous access in SharePoint 2010 It is not much different then SharePoint 2007 set up, the only difference is the GUI or the Ribbon.

1. Starting in Central Administration, under Application Management, click on the Manage web applications.

2. Make sure you select the site you want to enable anonymous access and click on the Authentication Providers icon.

3. On the Authentication Providers pop-up window click on the Default zone.

4. Under Edit Authentication, check Enable anonymous access and click Save.

5. Going back to Web Application Management click on the Anonymous Policy icon.

6. Under Anonymous Access Restrictions select your Zone and set the Permissions to None – No policy and click Save.

7. Now, web application will allow anonymous access to be set. So, navigate to your top level site collection for the web application. Click the Site Actions > Site Settings. Under Users and Permissions click Site permissions.

8. Under Permission Tools, click Anonymous Access icon and set the permissions to Entire Web site and click OK.

That’s all, folks! If you followed these steps properly you should have now Anonymous Access enabled.

I found a great post from : SharePoint: How to shrink transaction log file and
I was able to follow the instruction and successfully shrink transaction logs for SharePoint database without any problem. 

Here is the instruction to shrink transaction logs  files for SharePoint

1. Change the database recovery model to SIMPLE using the next command:
   • ALTER DATABASE SET RECOVERY SIMPLE;

     

2. Shrink the database or transaction log file using Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio:
   Right click on the database which you  altered to recovery simple and go to Task | Shrink | Database  It will take some time depend on on the size of database

   
   Or use the following command to shrink the transaction log file, for example, to 5 MB:

   • DBCC SHRINKFILE (_Log, 5);
3. Set back the database recovery model to FULL using the next command:
   • ALTER DATABASE SET RECOVERY FULL;

     

If it’s not production database, you, in principle, can skip step 3 leaving the database recovery model in SIMPLE. Transaction log in this case will not grow. But note that some people complain that it can cause some problems while attempting to delete SiteCollection from SharePoint Central Administration. I’ve never been faced with such issue, but just in case keep FULL recovery model.