SharePoint 2013 Vs SharePoint 2010 Boundaries and Limits comparison

Great post on Boundaries and Limits comparison between SharePoint 2013 and SharePoint 2010 versions. This should help to understand the improvements/additions better. A good helpful post for Architects and Developers.
http://www.khamis.net/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=91

Download SharePoint Designer 2013 RTM

For those who are waiting for SharePoint Designer 2013 RTM, here is the link to download from MSDN.

Download SharePoint Designer 2013 RTM

Side Loading of apps is not enabled on this site error while installing app

If you are trying to install an app to SharePoint 2013 RTM environment or to Office 365 then you might see the below error if you are trying to deploy the app to the site which is not developer site.

Error occurred in deployment step 'Install App for SharePoint': Side Loading of apps is not enabled on this site.

Solution: 
Always the app should be published/deployed to the developer site (A site collection with the Developer Site Template). And from this developer site you can add the App to your SharePoint site. 

SharePoint 2013 Cloud or no Cloud - What is your choice?

SharePoint 2013 come up with fantastic features with new UI, new architectures like App Model, Search Crawling and Shredded Storage etc. This new release is impressive and it's support very large and multi-server FARM support. Below are my views on whether to go for Cloud environment or to no go for it.

Why to go for Cloud (SharePoint Online)?

• Platform: As we already know SharePoint online for 2013 Preview build is available. RTM will be available soon.
• UI: The new UI is very easy to use, customize and add more functionality through CMS improvements compared to earlier versions.
• Tools: The Napa tools help us to quickly write the code (Client Side code) and publish them from browser in no time. Very quick development tools. 
• App Model: The new app model will give us the opportunity to extend our SharePoint system with custom coding. Earlier models supports Sandbox solutions and in 2013 we have both Sandbox and App models. 
• Design & Customization: It's as easy as uploading a background image and change colors to design a new theme for SharePoint site in 2013, until unless you want to change the master page for full extent. You can customize the master pages with tools like SharePoint Designer and deploy them to SharePoint Online. Themes are very easy to apply and customization is very simple. 
• Cost: If you like to maintain a FARM on-premises it will be more expensive to maintain the hardware and software. SharePoint online is too cheap compared to on-premises and will save thousands of $. 

Why to not go for Cloud (SharePoint Online)?

• There are no big new reasons why we need on-premises environment. :) If yours is big organization where many services are running like finance services, corporation intranet, file share and search crawling then we must need on-premises environment. SharePoint Online will not give control to run all these as there is  no authorization to Central Administration. 
• If an organization has big repository for the documents on file share and you like to crawl them to show results in Search then we must need on-premises.
• Multi-server FARM is only possible in On-premises and Farm level solutions are possible only in On-premises.

It's completely based on our requirements to decide whether to go for Cloud or not. Above mentioned are the possible reasons according to my view. SharePoint online (build in 2013) is a great product for CMS, small scale intranets. With new templates available in SharePoint 2013, you can build product catalog web sites etc. I believe SharePoint Online will grow fast in near future. 

Download SharePoint 2013 and Office 2013 RTM

Just last week we discussed about 2013 versions are reaching RTM and thought they will be released in mid-November. But, you know what the RTM are available to download in MSDN. Mine is in progress why are you waiting? Download yours too!

Download SharePoint Server 2013

Geolocation field in SharePoint 2013

Today I have played with this field and really fantastic to have this feature in SharePoint. It's going to be very useful in our applications.

I have wasted around 30 minutes of time to find where is the Geolocation field to manually add from browser. I searched in the Site Columns list and didn't find it. Thought I have to activate any features and searched Site collection features and site features.... But no luck.

After did some research and found that we have to add the Geolocation field through programming. Is it? really? Why? So many questions and started doing research more time and everyone given the examples in C# (Server side coding) to add Geolocation field to a list. OK. now what? Below is what I have did to check the Geolocation functionality.

Sorry there was something wrong with the download. Try adding it again error in SharePoint 2013 Apps

**Update: The issues is resolved in RTM release. The issues was coming only in the preview version.

I know everyone should get this error when they try to add an app from the SharePoint Store. Yes, it is a bug and whatever App you want to add to the SharePoint 2013 site you will see the below error.

Sorry, there was something wrong with the download. Try adding it again

SharePoint and Office 2013 RTM announced

Wow. It's too early than expected. Great! The Office 2013 and SharePoint 2013 RTM are announced and it will available from mid-November.
Office team says they provide Business customer with early access for testing, piloting and adopting office within their organizations and give feedback to improve their products.

• We will begin rolling out new capabilities to Office 365 Enterprise customers in our next service update, starting in November through general availability.
• Volume Licensing customers with Software Assurance will be able to download the Office 2013 applications as well as other Office products including SharePoint 2013, Lync 2013 and Exchange 2013 through the Volume Licensing Service Center by mid-November. These products will be available on the Volume Licensing price list on December 1.
• IT professionals and developers will be able to download the final version via their TechNet or MSDN subscriptions by mid-November.

You can stay tuned my blog for more information and news about the new products related to SharePoint and Office. Awaiting for RTM versions.

Limits and Boundaries of SharePoint 2013

As we all know boundaries are absolute limits that cannot be exceeded by design. When we are planning to design a farm we should keep all these limits to avoid future issues. Perfect example of boundary is document size limit: 2GB. It’s by design and the absolute limit and cannot be exceeded by design.
Thresholds are those have a default value that can be change in certain circumstances. Default the document size is 50MB and you can increase up to 2GB.

Main limitations:

How to create tiles for SharePoint

Syncfusion tool is excellent to create the tiles. They have plenty of icons to create our custom tiles to use them in the new windows platform. I am using this software to create tiles for my SharePoint 2013 site. Really cool and strongly suggest you to use it.

Download it here.

SharePoint Designer 2013 design view?

I know the designer fans are not happy when they hear the news about it. The design view is completely removed by Microsoft with no reason. The only mode available is Code view. For each change you are doing, you have to preview it by running the Preview in Browser option. Not good right?

But, the good news is that SharePoint 2013 sites can be opened through SharePoint Designer 2010. I know it's not recommended by Microsoft, but we can use it for now to get the design and code view for our implementations. If you need to implement pages, web parts requires design view then go for SharePoint designer 2010. Otherwise you can use improved designer 2013 for workflows, styles etc..

Event receivers for Users, Roles, Groups, Inheritance SharePoint 2013

Wow. This is excellent news for me, no for all of us. The question we have discussed almost 15-20 times since SharePoint 2007 was released is "Site Permissions, People and Groups are also SharePoint lists, are there any event receivers bound to them?". This is needed for us to track the security for specific sites. For example, when someone is trying to add/edit/delete a user we like to track all of them we don't have any way in 2007, 2010 versions. Now, with these new event receivers we can track the security and can have full control over the complete SharePoint security by implementing the custom solutions. Really it's a great thought to have event receivers on these. The new event receiver class is "SPSecurityEventReceiver".

Below is the list by category the new event receivers.

Download SharePoint 2013 tutorials and eBooks

SharePoint 2013 is now a hot product from Microsoft with new UI and completely new features, we should learn them to keep ourselves up to date. Below are the links for documents and eBooks to know more about them.

• All presentations
• IT Pro Video links
• eDiscovery Planning
• Deployment guide for SharePoint 2013
• Mobile Architecture for SharePoint 2013
• Upgrade Worksheet for SharePoint 2013 Preview

For all content on SharePoint 2013 in MSDN site found here.

You can see the complete details on all kind of downloads related to SharePoint 2013 here.

SharePoint 2013 preview all related downloads

I have good experience on SharePoint 2013 preview now. Leant much, gone through almost all new features and spending time on writing as much blog posts as I can.

Below is the complete list of all downloads available for the SharePoint 2013 and related environment downloads. Please remember,  while you are downloading (some software available in both 32 and 64-bit versions) verify the right version x86 or x64 and download.

Sign in as different user in SharePoint 2013 preview?

I know who started working on SharePoint 2013 preview edition should discuss about this at least once. Yes the link is missing. Very frustrated isn’t it? When I am trying to login to the site if I don’t have access it simply says "Sorry, the site is not shared with you." How crap is that? If it says that then it should give me option to change my authentication. OK. Now, what is the fix?

We know there is sign in as different user link in SharePoint 2010. Let’s try it out in our browser. http://sp15/_layouts/closeConnection.aspx?loginasanotheruser=true. Yes, it’s worked. OK, is there any other way to fix this to add back the link to navigation?

Memory leaks in SharePoint 2013?

I believe yes, there are. As this is the preview version there are possibilities for the memory leaks and other development issues. In the SharePoint 2013 server go to task manager and see what is taking more memory. You should see something like below.

SharePoint 2013 certifications

The certifications news on the new SharePoint product released from Microsoft. And below are the exam codes.

• 70-331 (Core Solutions of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013)
• 70-332 (Advanced Solutions of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013)

The exams will be available from February 5th, 2013.

Discontinued features in SharePoint 2013

Recently the MSDN article is published on discontinued and modified features in SharePoint 2013. This is very important to know as what all are discontinued compared to the previous version for future planning on upgrades or migrations. Below are the main features (according to me) among all the list Microsoft published.

Enterprise Content Management (ECM):

• Barcode: Inserting barcode command is no more available in ribbon. Which means you cannot add the SharePoint generated barcode to Word documents.
• Print labels: Ability to generate, embed a label containing the metadata about office files is no more supported.

Web content management improvements in SharePoint 2013

There are plenty of improvements in CMS compared to earlier versions of SharePoint. I have tried most of them and felt really easy to do things through browser.

Content Authoring Improvements:

• Content authors can copy the text directly from the Word and paste to the Rich text fields, HTML fields, content editor web parts etc.
• A new Video content type is added in SharePoint 2013. The uploading of a video and embed into the content is very easy. When you upload a video, the cms engine will automatically create the thumbnail for the video.
  Note: To generate automatic thumbnail generation for the video you uploaded the Desktop Experience Feature must be installed on the Front-end web server.
• Content author can insert iFrame into the html fields on the page. Site collection administrators can customize the filed security settings by changing the default trusted external domains. So that users will not add all external domains which are not approved to the SharePoint sites. To control this go to Site Settings –> HTML Field Security.
• Image Renditions: Now SharePoint 2013 supports Image Renditions. With this feature you can now enable the same image can render in different sizes in different places. You can set this through the Site Settings and Image Renditions option.
  Note: To use the image renditions you must enable the BLOB cache. To enable the BLOB cache please use this link “Enable BLOB Cache”.

Enable Continuous Crawl in SharePoint 2013

Enable continuous crawls is a crawl schedule option that is new in SharePoint 2013. It is available only for content sources that use the SharePoint sites content source type. A continuous crawl starts at set intervals. The default interval is 15 minutes, but you can set continuous crawls to occur at shorter intervals by using Windows PowerShell.

Prerequisites:

• Create a Search Service Application
• Create at least one content source of type "SharePoint Sites".

Site Policy in SharePoint 2013

SharePoint has lot of features and in any organization data grows day to day. At end of the day we see huge and huge data which is unusable or data grown beyond the estimation or something which is unmanageable. The sites will be created as we need but we don’t delete them when we don’t need it.

You can use site policies to help control site proliferation. In SharePoint 2013 we have couple of options to control the site policy. Below is the site policy with the available options.

The MSDN article has very detailed description of the options mentioned here. These policies will help us to resolve the site management issues we face in large organizations.

Managed navigation using term store in SharePoint 2013

In SharePoint 2013 another feature we must like is the Friendly URL's. This is main feature in terms of SEO as well. If your site has the custom navigation needs to be implemented then one way is to implement from the site settings –> Navigation and add/edit/remove the links whatever you want to show up on the site. Another way with SharePoint 2013 is to manage the navigation via Term Store. You can create a term set and terms [Links] in it to show these terms as links on SharePoint site. For example, if you want to map your /pages/default.aspx with /home then it is possible with this new feature.

State Service in SharePoint 2013

I found that the State Service is missing in the SharePoint 2013 central administration site. I am not sure it is the problem with my installation.

I need to create a simple Approval workflow in my SharePoint 2013 site and for that first I need to check all services required to run workflows are configured correctly or not. As we all know Workflows should require the State Service to be run in the environment and the service should be associated with the web application where we are creating the workflows.

As there is no UI to start the service in SharePoint 2013, I have used the Powershell script to do this job.

$serviceApp = New-SPStateServiceApplication -Name "State Service"
New-SPStateServiceDatabase -Name "StateServiceDatabase" -ServiceApplication $serviceApp
New-SPStateServiceApplicationProxy -Name "State Service" -ServiceApplication $serviceApp -DefaultProxyGroup

The above 3 lines will create the state service application, state service database and the proxy to run the service. Now, the final step will be associating the service with the current web application. For this, go to
Central Administration -> Application Management -> Service Application Associations. Associate the service with your web application.

Here you go, all is set and enjoy with workflows...

New SharePoint 2013 my site experience

SharePoint 2013 my site is looking cool and added many features. I am feeling like acquiring Yammer is a wise decision by Microsoft. The my profile page is looking damn good. Here are the nice features explained by SharePoint blog. Check them out!

One or more field types are not installed properly. Go to List settings page to delete these fields. Error after migrating the SharePoint site from 2007 to 2010

Recently we have migrated a SharePoint 2007 site [publishing site] to SharePoint 2010. The process was successful but while we are opening any ASPX in the pages library or Manage Content and Structure page it is giving below error.

"One or more field types are not installed properly. Go to List settings page to delete these fields."

Usually this error comes when we are trying to access a column which is not there in a list or library. But, in this scenario it is special and took lot of time to figure out what is the issue.

Tools used to find out the issue are:

• SharePoint designer
• SharePoint Manager

After looked deeply into all the lists/libraries and the pages, we found there are some hidden lists in the site. I first tried to deactivate and activate the Publishing feature in the site collection level, it was successful. And then trying to activate the publishing feature at root web level, it was failed. So, I clearly understood there is something wrong with publishing feature as everything else are working fine. 

After did some research and googled for the sometime, found that the list named "Relationships List" is causing the error. It will not migrate successfully most of the times when we migrate from 2007 to 2010.  Below is the solution for fixing it. 

• Deactivate the "SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure" feature in SP 2010 server at site collection level.
• Type http://sharepointserverurl/Relationships%20List/AllItems.aspx in the browser.
• From List settings, delete this list.
• Activate the publishing feature at site collection level.

If needed, you can activate the publishing feature at root web level as well. Once you followed the above steps the site should work without any issues as the "relationships list" is now created right. :)

SharePoint 2013 Developer Tools

As we are in preview version there are couple of tools which are there to help developers to quickly complete their job. The new implementations in SP 2013 like Apps for office and Apps for SharePoint 2013 etc. are also a WSP package. They are also having the same structure as the general WSP packages we developed for 2010 environment.

‘Napa’ tools for Office 365 Development:

If you are having your SharePoint 2013 environment on the cloud then your life is so easy to develop the Apps. “Napa” Office 365 Development Tools provides you a great way to build apps for Office or SharePoint directly out of a browser windows.

You might be thinking now, are there need of Visual Studio or any other tools needs to be installed on the server? No, its not required. All you need is just Office 365 account and the latest browsers. You might need Visual Studio in case if you want to debug your app or writing any complex  code etc..

You can find more details about it on MSDN here.

SharePoint Developer Tools for Visual Studio 2012:

To develop SharePoint solutions in Visual Studio 2012 we must need these SharePoint developer tools. You can install them from here. Once you installed, you will see the new templates in Visual Studio for 2013 as shown.

SharePoint Designer 2013 and Visio 2013:

The SharePoint Designer is improved in many aspects. There are powerful implementations including ability to create .net 4.x workflows, new visual designer, loops [you can implement loop through items, wow.], calling web services, start workflow actions, packaging of workflows, dictionary [array] type variables etc.. So, IT guys can do much more than what they did compared to earlier versions without writing single line of code. It can address solutions to so many issues we had in earlier implementations with new SharePoint designer.

Visio 2013 also looks really cool and you can build powerful workflows and publish them with ease of development. Visio 2013 diagram now can connect to external data sources to use external data in the diagrams/workflows.

Install App for SharePoint Failed to install App for SharePoint

When I am trying to install the App this error encountered.

"Error occurred in deployment step 'Install App for SharePoint' Failed to install App for SharePoint"

Solution:
Please make sure the App Management Service and Subscription Service are running. To fix it, [You should need FARM administrator access]

From browser:
Go to Central Administration -> Services on Server and start both.

Through Powershell:

Get-SPServiceInstance | where{$_.GetType().Name -eq "AppManagementServiceInstance" -or $_.GetType().Name -eq "SPSubscriptionSettingsServiceInstance"} | Start-SPServiceInstance

Install App for SharePoint-There were errors when validating the App Package

While installing the App from Visual Studio 2012, I was getting the below error

"Error occurred in deployment step 'Install App for SharePoint' There were errors when validating the App Package"

And checked everything what could be the possible mistakes I have made. And couldn't able to figure out what was the issue. I have googled  and checked everything by going through all XML files and removed all content from the App project I have written. But, still no luck.

After 2 days, I am going through the MSDN articles on Apps documentation and found below information.

Ensure that your app manifest has an element instead of property. Otherwise, you might encounter this error when trying to deploy your app by using Visual Studio.

And another scenario you might get this error is due to app image. This information I found from internet that make sure the app image size should be 96 width and 96 height.

Uninstall App for SharePoint' Value cannot be null. Parameter name value - Error occurred in deployment step

While working with SharePoint 2013 developing and deploying app you may see this error couple of times in the deployment process. From Visual Studio 2012  when you try to deploy the app from project properties and deploy option then the app will be deploys to SharePoint and install to the site given. In some cases, the app will be deployed but will not install correctly. In this case you have to retract and re-install the app again.

When you try to redeploy the app, it tries to retract the app and it fails with below error:

"Error occurred in deployment step 'Uninstall App for SharePoint' Value cannot be null. Parameter name value."

The solution is: from the "Site Contents" option of the SharePoint site, click remove from the App available options. If it is not successful then retry to remove the app again. It should be removed successfully this time. Now, try to redeploy again from Visual Studio. It should deploy fine with no issues.

Outlook.com looks cool

Outlook.com the new email from Microsoft. The new features, UI everything looks very cool and nice. I personally feel I should recommend to everyone. Another advantage is you can link all Microsoft emails like hotmail.com, msn.com accounts to it. (Everything comes under one).

Try it today for yourname@outlook.com. Hurry. :)

SharePoint site is not developer site - SharePoint 2013 deployment error

This is the first error I got when tried to deploy my first app to SharePoint 2013 environment. Full details:

"Installation of app to SharePoint failed: SharePoint site is not a developer site."

This not giving any full details about why it is failing. Below are the things I verified to resolve the error.

1. Please make sure the site is available from your developer environment [Where visual studio 2012 is installed]
2. I have created my default site [when I created my SharePoint 2012 preview environment] as http://sp15 with publishing template. When tried to deploy this site it was failing. So, I thought of creating another site collection with different settings. When I go to Central Administration, create a new site collection, under Collaboration tab of create site page I found a new option named "Developer Site" template. So, I have created the site collection in the same web application with this template with the url http://sp15/sites/dev. This time I have tried to deploy the app to new SharePoint site and it was successful. 

I am not understanding why the issue is resolved as the developer site template did the trick? More information I will post in the same post soon. Do let me know if you have any more details.

Creating first SharePoint 2013 App

I was playing with SharePoint 2013 when preview was released and the first week gone through all UI, central administration features. After read the documentation, MSDN articles I was interesting to create my first SharePoint App.

Prerequisites:

• We need Visual Studio 2012 to create your SharePoint 2013 App.
• SharePoint Developer tools for Visual Studio 2012. If any else missing from installation install all from here like WIF SDK, Workflow Tools, Client Components etc..
• Permissions to SharePoint site.

So, I have installed all of them and so enthusiastic to see my first app in SP2013. Created a new project in VS 2012 and selected my SharePoint 2013 site and SharePoint host App option. It's created below files as shown.

From project options [right click on solution or project, choose deploy] select deploy to deploy it to SharePoint site. It was not successful and end up with below errors in different trails. If you are getting anyone of the below errors please go through the related solutions and then proceed further steps.

• SharePoint site is not developer site - SharePoint 2013 deployment error
• Uninstall App for SharePoint' Value cannot be null. Parameter name value - Error occurred in deployment step
• Install App for SharePoint-There were errors when validating the App Package
• Install App for SharePoint Failed to install App for SharePoint

Before you start developing App, the first thing we should do is, set up the environment for SharePoint Apps. This include below steps.

1. Start SharePoint Administration Service and SharePoint timer Service. 
2. Start App Manager Service and Subscription Settings Service.
3. Create application pool for both services
4. Associates the application pools to the services.
5. Create database for each service to save the service specific information.
6. Set appDomain for running apps.
7. Set the app site subscription name [which comes as prefix in the app web url.]

Open the command prompt and execute the commands one by one to follow all the above 7 steps.

#Step 1
net start spadminv4
net start sptimerv4
#Step 2
Get-SPServiceInstance | where{$_.GetType().Name -eq "AppManagementServiceInstance" -or $_.GetType().Name -eq "SPSubscriptionSettingsServiceInstance"} | Start-SPServiceInstance
#Step 3
$account = Get-SPManagedAccount "domain\farm account"
$appPoolSubSvc = New-SPServiceApplicationPool -Name SettingsServiceAppPool -Account $account
$appPoolAppSvc = New-SPServiceApplicationPool -Name AppServiceAppPool -Account $account
#Step 4 and 5
$appSubSvc = New-SPSubscriptionSettingsServiceApplication –ApplicationPool $appPoolSubSvc –Name SettingsServiceApp –DatabaseName SettingsServiceDB
$appAppSvc = New-SPAppManagementServiceApplication -ApplicationPool $appPoolAppSvc -Name AppServiceApp -DatabaseName AppServiceDB
$proxyAppSvc = New-SPAppManagementServiceApplicationProxy -ServiceApplication $appAppSvc
#Step 6
Set-SPAppDomain appdomain
#Step 7
Set-SPAppSiteSubscriptionName -Name "app" -Confirm:$false

Note: The appDomain should be your application domain. Full qualified domain is preferable. And please make sure you are replacing the string "domain\farm account" with your actual farm account user.

If all the commands ran successfully without any issues then you are ready to create and deploy your first app to the SharePoint environment. Let me know if there are any issues.

SharePoint 2013 - Apps overview

Apps for SharePoint are self-contained pieces of functionality that extend the capabilities of a SharePoint website. Which means an App may include list, library, pages, workflow, a remote web application etc. The new Cloud App Model enable us to create Apps. Apps will be accessed from "Site Contents" page.

For example, we have to see every day the conversions from one currency to another currency for doing business then every time we have to go to web and open some site and then find the information. Instead if we have an App available to do this job of converting one currency to another currency mapping then we can simply do that inside the SharePoint site without going out of the site.

Important points to remember:

• An app is a web application. So, if you know how to create a web application then you can create an App. It's that simple.
• You can develop the app in any language you know like PHP, .NET, JavaScript, HTML etc.
• App can connect any source like internal or external web services through ODATA protocol support in SharePoint 2013.
• They can use REST [Representational State Transfer], client API's like JavaScript client API or .NET managed client API to integrate/connect app with SharePoint.
• We can use all API's which SharePoint 2013 provides in Apps to read SharePoint data and utilize it to process the requirements. [Basically with ease of access we can read data from SharePoint and utilizing it in our App for different processing scenarios which is a huge advantage when compared to previous versions.]
• The client.svc service we used in SharePoint 2010 for accessing the SharePoint data. Now, we don't need this to call client.svc end point and instead we can directly call the SharePoint 2013 service using the url /_api/ to read SharePoint data. For example, to call search service we can directly use /_api/search to call list data /_api/web/lists/ etc.
• Using ASMX calls are deprecated.

Where can we host Apps?

1. SharePoint Store
SharePoint Store is owned and hosted by Microsoft. Developers can develop the custom apps around the world and can submit to SharePoint Store. So that any user can be able to download and install them. They can purchase apps if it is not free and buy licenses etc.

2. App Catalog
App Catalog is specific to any organization, where the apps are developed and owned by specific organization. It can be either on on-premises or SharePoint online hosted.

As I already mentioned each App will be a web application. SharePoint 2013 uses the App manifest metadata to identify the App and it will be registered to SharePoint. The sample manifest file will looks like below.
 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<App xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/2012/app/manifest"
     Name="My First SharePoint App"
     ProductID="{6c442cc4-0968-4f75-b664-2cbae5d5a6ca}"
     Version="1.0.0.0"
     SharePointMinVersion="15.0.0.0">
  <Properties>
    <Title>My First SharePoint App</Title>
    <StartPage>~appWebUrl/Pages/Default.aspx?{StandardTokens}</StartPage>
  </Properties>
  <AppPrincipal>
    <Internal />
  </AppPrincipal>
</App>

You can include authentication [app principles] and more details in the app manifest files. The string "StandardTokens" is replaced at run time to pass some context data like SharePoint language etc. See more details about App manifest here.

Apps hosting options

• Cloud hosted: This type of hosting is used when app has at least one remote component. It may also include SharePoint hosted components. There are two types in Cloud hosted apps.
• Provider-hosted: Apps for which the non-SharePoint components are deployed. Provider hosted apps can run on the cloud [SharePoint online] or on the own server [on-premises] depends on where you hosted them.
• Autohosted: This will be used when apps that include Windows Azure web site, may has SQL Azure database. These apps will run in the cloud.
• SharePoint hosted: Apps that include only SharePoint components and logic that runs on client. SharePoint hosted apps are hosted in SharePoint itself. The code we can use is HTML, JavaScript, CSS etc. When we deploy SharePoint hosted apps, SharePoint 2013 actually creates a web site in the site collection [to which you deployed] and is called as "App Web". The url of the App web is "prefix you register" + "-some random key from SharePoint"."full server qualified name/appname". For example: app-4c690ed122ce1f.sp15.corp.contoso.com/pages/default.aspx. This url is completely specific to the App and you can call it through API to read the App data.

I believe with this information, you can have clear idea on what are Apps in SharePoint 2013. Feel free to comment me if you have any questions or need more information.

OFFICE 2013 New Features–A new Office

Office 2013 preview got released recently and got time to install and test it out. Some features are really amazing and nice implementation. Here are my views on it.

New Office is Cloud friendly and ready to use on the touchscreen. This is really an amazing feature to Office. Another top new feature in office 2013 suite is the cursor. When you are typing the text, the cursor just move forward just like a line. It don’t appear like blinking anymore. I am liking this much and like to type more and more…

The new interface is looking clean but not with much colors though. A plain and clean white color ribbon. The ribbon and icons are a bit big when compared to office 2010 icons. This will be good for touchscreen users. 

Top Features:

Word:

• Import, edit and save PDF: We can import an existing PDF file directly to Microsoft WORD 2013 and then do edits and then save back to either word or PDF format. This is the number one feature which I liked much in Office 2013 suite.
• Ability to connect to online services: You can directly search web using Bing for keyword search, images or Videos without leaving word. And then you can use/embed the HTML code in the word directly. You can also play the video directly in the word.
• You can embed the online services like Flickr, SkyDrive etc. with document without leaving word.
• Expand and Collapse: Now you can use the expand, collapse option in the word text. This is called "read" mode. You can expand, collapse a paragraph once you read it.
• Resume Reading: Office 2013 will automatically bookmark the user last position in the document. After you reopened the document it can pick you where you left off.

Excel:

• Flash Fill: If you have two columns and based on the first column, if you type the data in second column first row, then the Flash Fill predicts and fills the data accordingly for remaining rows in second column.
• Quick analysis: If you select a range of values in Excel then the quick analysis tool will automatically conditional formats which helps us to understand the data easily.
• Many chart options: There are many chart options and features available in Excel 2013.

Outlook:

• Weather: New outlook has the best option to show the weather reports for next 3 days in the calendar. This helps us to change the plans in meetings and plan according to weather reports.

• Reply, Forward in POP-IN window: You can reply, forward emails in the pop-in window. When you are moving out of inbox, send items etc. and come back to same email the pop-in window still there and you can continue in typing text.

OneNote:

• Onenote is now more powerful and looks very good. It is described as digital notebook from Microsoft.
• Integration to Outlook: You can save the emails to Onenote directly from Outlook.

PowerPoint:

I didn’t spend much time in PowerPoint. I like to see how they improved the functionality in presenting something on projector… And there it wins me.

• When we are presenting the PowerPoint presentation the presenter can see on his screen what is the next slide to present. This will give much information and help to the presenter what to give in next slide.
• Clock on the screen: The presenter can keep tracking of the time how long she/he has been speaking.

Many more features are there. I will document and post them as soon as I can. The bottom line I like Office 2013 much and it is going to be a huge success in Office suite so far which makes Microsoft to sit at top position.

Windows 8 Release Date

I am enjoying the new Windows version and the tiles UI. I am using it in my laptop and it is my main OS now. The release date has been announced from Microsoft and it is on October 26, 2012. I am awaiting to see the final version……

Windows 8 and Cisco VPN Client errors

I have installed Windows 8 Release Preview while ago. And I am doing all my work on this as it supports all software which I was installed on my Windows 7 version. Everything going great except Cisco VPN client. For getting this to work I have spend almost 6 hours by hacking the registry keys, change adapter settings and installing and uninstalling the VPN client, reboot my PC. But, no luck. The error which I am getting always are:

1      12:54:15.440  06/24/12  Sev=Warning/3    CVPND/0xE340000C
The Client was unable to enable the Virtual Adapter because it could not open the device.
2      12:54:15.455  06/24/12  Sev=Warning/3    CVPND/0xE340000C
The Client was unable to enable the Virtual Adapter because it could not open the device.
3      12:54:15.455  06/24/12  Sev=Warning/2    IKE/0xE300009B
Failed to active IPSec SA: Unable to enable Virtual Adapter (NavigatorQM:936)
4      12:54:15.455  06/24/12  Sev=Warning/2    IKE/0xE30000A7
Unexpected SW error occurred while processing Quick Mode negotiator:(Navigator:2263)

Solution 1: 
After a bit of research and information from another community found the Cisco VPN is writing wrong values in the registry key for DisplayName string.

To fix the issue, we should change the value to below:
Open registry editor [From Windows Run type regedit] and move to the location: HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\CVirtA

• For x86, change the value data from "@oem8.inf,%CVirtA_Desc%;Cisco Systems VPN Adapter" to "Cisco Systems VPN Adapter"
• For x64, change the value data from "@oem8.inf,%CVirtA_Desc%;Cisco Systems VPN Adapter for 64-bit Windows" to "Cisco Systems VPN Adapter for 64-bit Windows"

Now, try to connect to VPN and it should work without any issues.

Solution 2:
I have installed VPN Client from Shrew.net site. This can be available here Download Shrew VPN files. This also supports the Cisco VPN PCF files. Once I installed and imported my PCF files, it’s working in a second.

Hope, this will save your good amount of time! Enjoy.

Mapping and metadata information could not be found for EntityType

When I am working with MVC, using Entity Framework this is the error which I get when I do some database changes and forgot to reflect the changes in edmx file or the objects. The detailed error is

"Mapping and metadata information could not be found for EntityType Error"

So, the possibilities are:

• Database table columns changed but those changes not reflected in C# object properties. There could be properties missing, misspelled or the mismatching of the data types.

So make sure you sync Database and your Project classes always to avoid the above errors.

Sql Server 2012 What’s new

This is Microsoft’s golden year as so many things releasing. I really awaiting to see all these,

1. Visual Studio 2012
2. Sql Server 2012
3. SharePoint 15
4. Windows 8
5. Windows Server 2012
6. Team Foundation Server 2012
7. Surface Tab
8. ASP.NET 4.5/ASP.NET MVC 4.0

And this list goes….. The above list is top most. And when comes to Sql Server 2012, I see many improvements in both UI and features. The Sql Server all new features are neatly listed here.

You can get the Sql Server 2012 Express download here. The MSDN documentation given complete details with neat documentation on what’s new. Go through to get to know.

Windows 8 Release Preview Download

I believe you already heard plenty on Windows 8 features. It looks fabulous with its new look and real fast performance. I am really liking it and it has plenty of improvements. The installation and the starting windows is amazingly fast. Their graphics and WCF UI components looks rich and neat. You should like it and enjoy the new feel. Don't wait and download Windows 8 here. Download Windows 8 Release Preview.

Note:
Before that please check the configuration required for the Windows 8 installation. If you have Windows 7 installed experience then you might not need to check the installation requirements. :)

Fix to Outlook 2010 crashes

There is a KB released from Microsoft on troubleshooting the crashes in Outlook 2010. Here is the detailed information and KB download link.
Troubleshooting crashes in Outlook 2010

SharePoint 15 what is new

I believe everyone know what is SharePoint 15 by this time. But, till few days back I didn't get time to completely go through the technical documentation released few months ago. After read the SharePoint 15 Interop API documentation and some information from my friends and SharePoint team, I am posting some concepts which helps to understand better to my readers.

And the new version of SharePoint 15 will be released the early days of 2013 as far as the information I have and it also called SharePoint 2013 [Year number] and code name or version is [SharePoint 15]. The main areas the SharePoint team is concentrating on the Social Networking and the SharePoint App store just like Apple App store etc. Which is good thinking from SharePoint team to try new things and better concepts like these to make a good reviews in the market.

And there is no documentation about the API, but from the classes and the methods, properties exists in the API, I am documenting the concepts and which all are my personal opinions. You can download the technical preview here SharePoint 15 Interop API Download.

The main things which I identified in the new release are:

• Improvements in the Client Object Model
• SharePoint App Market Place
• Minimal Download Strategy [Technology]
• OAuth 2.0 Authentication
• Ability to integrate or platform for SharePoint education. [You can integrate the Moodle etc directly.]

Client Object Model: The Client Object Model is a great concept which was released with SharePoint 2010 version and it helps to solve many problems we face in SharePoint development. But, the 2010 API version don't have the support to make the search queries through Client Object Model. We used to use JQuery to make queries to SharePoint search WCF calls and get the results. But with SharePoint 15 release we have the Search functionality integrated in Client Object Model. With this new API, we can simply make queries to Search service without writing extra code.

App Market Place: This is the big and new feature in SharePoint 15. From the documentation,

• we see the class named "SPApp". This class helps to install the App to SharePoint App Store.
• And the App store can be accessed through SPAppCatalog class. So, with these new classes you can create an App and install them into SharePoint.
• These apps have their own structure and deployment methods. These are not SharePoint solution packages and are not SharePoint web parts. It has own new format comes with SharePoint 15.
• From the description we have understand that the Apps are scoped to SPWeb object only. Each SPApp can be accessed through SPAppInstance and their scope is restricted to SPWeb only.
• It has its own permissions. OAuth is one of the technique and will discuss later in this post.
• It has its own licensing. The SPWebApplication class has a new property called "IsUserLicensedForEntity" which checks the current logged in user has permissions to access the specific entity.
• Apps can have their own databases.

MDS [Minimal Download Strategy]: I think very less people hear about this. This is one of the most popular technique many social websites and heavy load page websites are using these days. Now, SharePoint is implementing based on it and which is a great advantage. With SharePoint 2010 the page load performance is increased much compared to earlier versions. Now, with this technique the response time and load time will be more faster. The main secret behind MDS is, it uses less bandwidth than regular implementations. But how is it different??? In Microsoft words,

"The minimal download strategy will use a single .aspx file (start.aspx) for your pages, with the actual URL encoded in the text following the hash mark (‘#’). When navigating from page to page, only the changes between two compatible pages will be downloaded. Fewer bytes will be downloaded and the page will appear more quickly."

I hope all devs understood it by seeing the hash mark. :) Yes, it only downloads the content changed from previous page to currently requested page and which obviously improves the performance.

OAuth 2.0 Authentication: I hope the people who worked with Apps knew about OAuth. In real world to access the data through apps which needs your permissions, you have to use the OAuth technique. Now, SharePoint has the built in platform to support OAuth 2.0 authentication which is a good thing. The new namespace which has this OAuth implementations is "Microsoft.SharePoint.IdentityModel.OAuth2"

SharePoint Education: We know SharePoint is also widely using in educational institutions, schools, universities. So, to make their life happy, SharePoint also has a new application/templates for SharePoint education. I believe they have some built-in support for popular free e-learning platform like Moodle etc. We have to wait till next year to get more details.

Other than these, I heard from friends, bloggers below are some new features which are releasing with new version. But, there are no such information I have found over internet.

• Versioning of SharePoint sites?
• More information from search API
• SAP integration
• Ability to merge documents?
• Metro interface

Stay tuned to my series of posts on this. I will post as soon as I hear any new concepts and information about SharePoint 15. Please share with me if you know any information about it through comments.

SharePoint Server 2010 - All versions

Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010
Release	Version	KB	Download
RTM	14.0.4762.1000	n/a	n/a
June 2010 CU	14.0.5114.5003	n/a	n/a
Aug 2010 CU	14.0.5123.5000	2352342
Oct 2010 CU	14.0.5128.2003	2394320
Dec 2010 CU	14.0.5130.5002	2459257
Feb 2011 CU	14.0.5136.5002	2475878
April 2011 CU	14.0.5138.5001	2512800
Service Pack 1	14.0.6029.1000	2460045
June 2011 CU	14.0.6106.5000	2536599	n/a
June 2011 CU (Refresh)	14.0.6106.5002	2536599
August 2011 CU	14.0.6109.5002	2553048
October 2011 CU	14.0.6112.5000	2596505
December 2011 CU	14.0.6114.5000	2597014
February 2012 CU	14.0.6117.5002	2597150
April 2012 CU	14.0.6120.5000	2598151
June 2012 CU	14.0.6123.5002	2598354
August 2012 CU	14.0.6126.5000	2687353

SharePoint Foundation 2010 - All versions

SharePoint Foundation 2010
Release	Version	KB	Download
RTM	14.0.4762.1000	n/a	n/a
June 2010 CU	14.0.5114.5003	n/a	n/a
Aug 2010 CU	14.0.5123.5000	2352346
Oct 2010 CU	14.0.5128.5000	2394323
Dec 2010 CU	14.0.5130.5002	2459125
Feb 2011 CU	14.0.5136.5002	2475880
April 2011 CU	14.0.5138.5001	2512804
Service Pack 1	14.0.6029.1000	2460058
June 2011 CU	14.0.6106.5000	2536601	n/a
June 2011 CU (Refresh)	14.0.6106.5002	2536601
August 2011 CU	14.0.6109.5002	2553117
October 2011 CU	14.0.6112.5000	2596508
December 2011 CU	14.0.6114.5000	2596998

SharePoint Server 2007 - All versions

MOSS 2007
Release	Version	KB	Download
RTM	12.0.4518.1016	n/a	n/a
Public DST	12.0.6034.5000	937832	n/a
SP1	12.0.6219.1000	936984	n/a
Post SP1 (Jan) (Global)	12.0.6300.5000	942819
Post SP1 (Jan) (Global)	12.0.6301.5000	945089
Post SP1 (Jan) (Global)	12.0.6301.5000	941274
Post SP1 (Feb) (Global)	12.0.6303.5000	948947
Post SP1 (Feb) (Global)	12.0.6304.5000	949402
Post SP1 (Mar) (Global)	12.0.6306.5000	949955
Post SP1 (Mar) (Global)	12.0.6307.5000	950280
Post SP1 (Mar) (Global)	12.0.6307.5000	950292
Post SP1 (Mar) (Global)	12.0.6308.5000	950487
Post SP1 (May) (Global)	12.0.6314.5000	952294
Post SP1 (May) (Global)	12.0.6315.5000	952704
Post SP1 (May) (Global)	12.0.6316.5000	953138
Post SP1 (June) (Global)	12.0.6317.5000	953471
Infra Update (Global)	12.0.6318.5000	951297
Post SP1 (July) (Global)	12.0.6324.5000	955593
Post SP1 (July)	12.0.6324.5000	955586
Exel Security fix (Global)	12.0.6317.5000	953397
Aug CU (Global)	12.0.6327.5000	956056
Oct CU	12.0.6331.5000	957693
Oct CU	12.0.6331.5000	958569
Dec COD (Global)	12.0.6335.5000	959637
Dec CU	12.0.6335.5000	960011
Dec COD	12.0.6336.5001	961176
Dec COD	12.0.6336.5002	963022
Feb 2009 CU	12.0.6341.5001	961756
SP2	12.0.6421.1000	953334	n/a
April 2009 CU	12.0.6504.5000	968851
Jun 2009 CU	12.0.6510.5003	971537
Aug 2009 CU	12.0.6514.5002	973399
Oct 2009 CU	12.0.6520.5000	974988
Dec 2009 CU	12.0.6524.5001	977026
Feb 2010 CU	12.0.6529.5000	978395
April 2010 CU	12.0.6535.5002	981042
Jun 2010 CU	12.0.6539.5000	983310
Aug 2010 CU	12.0.6545.5001	2276472
Oct 2010 CU	12.0.6548.5000	2412267
Dec 2010 CU	12.0.6550.5000	2458605
Feb 2011 CU	12.0.6554.5000	2475885
April 2011 CU	12.0.6557.5000	2512782
June 2011 CU	12.0.6562.5000	2544398
August 2011 CU	12.0.6565.5000	2553020
SP3	12.0.6608.1000	2526299
October 2011 CU	12.0.6654.5002	2596540
December 2011 CU	12.0.6656.5001	2596986