March 2010 Entries

SharePoint 2007 Parser Error after updating master page

A few weeks ago I was updating the master page for a SharePoint 2007 (WSS) site. The client wanted the site updated to reflect the new look and feel that is being applied to another set of sites in the organization. I created a new theme and master page, which I already wrote about here and here. It worked well, except for a few pages on a subsite. On those pages, I got the following error: Server Error in '/' Application. Parser Error Description: An error occurred during the parsing of a resource ......
Posted On Tuesday, March 30, 2010 8:46 PM | Comments (2)

Updating a SharePoint master page via a solution (WSP)

In my last blog post, I wrote how to deploy a SharePoint theme using Features and a solution package. As promised in that post, here is how to update an already deployed master page. There are several ways to update a master page in SharePoint. You could upload a new version to the master page gallery, or you could upload a new master page to the gallery, and then set the site to use this new page. Manually uploading your master page to the master page gallery might be the best option, depending ......
Posted On Wednesday, March 24, 2010 10:43 PM | Comments (3)

Deploying a SharePoint 2007 theme using Features

I recently had a requirement to update the branding on an existing Windows SharePoint Services (WSS version 3.0) site. I needed to update the theme, along with the master page. An additional requirement is that my client likes to have all changes bundled up in SharePoint solutions. This makes it much easier to move code from dev to test to prod and more importantly, makes it easier to undo code migrations if any issues would arise (I agree with this approach). Updating the theme was easy enough. ......
Posted On Saturday, March 20, 2010 11:03 PM | Comments (4)

Microsoft Certifications – how to prep? and why?

I often get asked by my colleagues, “how do you prepare for Microsoft exams?” Well, the answer for me is a little complicated, so I thought I’d write up here what I do. The first thing I do is go to Microsoft’s website to find the exam that I need to take. If you’re looking to get a particular certification, then their site lists the exam or exams that you’ll need to pass. If you’ve already taken an exam, you can log onto the MCP website and use their certification planner. This little tool tells ......
Posted On Saturday, March 20, 2010 4:27 PM | Comments (0)

Windows 7 Virtual PC - “RPC server unavailable”

I use Windows 7 Virtual PC on my current project and I often bring home the files, so I can work some in the evenings. Since my VHDs are large, I’ll only copy the undo disks, saved state, and virtual machine config files from my external drive. I copy them to a small portable drive and once I get home, I’ll copy them to a large external drive. I’ve done this for over a year, but recently I started getting an error when I tried to start the VPC after the copying was finished. It would open the initial ......
Posted On Sunday, March 14, 2010 5:21 PM | Comments (0)

Can’t eject external USB or Firewire drive in Windows 7

As a SharePoint developer, I work a lot with Virtual Machines (presently using Windows Virtual PC, with Windows 7). I’m using these VMs with my laptop, and in order to get better performance, I’ve moved them to external hard drives. (These drives have faster RPMs, larger caches, and a larger capacity, than the internal drive.) I have one large external drive at home, another similar drive at the office, and a small, slow portable drive that I carry with me. So, at the end of each day at the office, ......
Posted On Monday, March 8, 2010 3:07 AM | Comments (1)