SharePoint Automated Setup, Product Software Updates, and “Single-Click” Deployment

MOSS 2007 and WSS 3.0 December 2008 Cumulative Update (CU)

Blog Updated 12/17/08

The Microsoft SharePoint Team Blog Announced the December Cumulative Update (CU) for Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.  From this point (December 2008) forward each Cumulative Update will consist of a package that contains every hotfix patch that we have shipped including the Infrastructure Update.  This should greatly simplify building MOSS servers and farms going forward.  In summary you can start with WSS 3.0 + SP1 and MOSS 2007 + SP1 plus the Dec CU for both WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007!

After applying the December CU the version should be 12.0.6335

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MOSS 2007 and WSS 3.0 Product Software Updates

As developers you want to ensure you are working with your I.T. departments for building, testing, and deploying your SharePoint software on the latest updated bits from Microsoft.  The best practice going forward is to use the Cumulative Update to build your MOSS 2007 and WSS 3.0 servers but if you want more details on the specific updates prior to the Dec CU check out the following links which will be maintained by the product group.

Deploy software updates for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc288269.aspx

Deploy software updates for Office SharePoint Server 2007
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263467.aspx

MOSS 2007 Automated Setup White Paper

Emmanuel Bergerat (Microsoft Consulting Services) published the following White Paper: “Using scripts to automate SharePoint Server 2007 installations” to industrialize MOSS 2007 environments setup in a single resource.  This will help SharePoint Developers with deployment and Administrators for repeatability and improve consistency.

“Single-Click” Deployment Example – Adventure Works Demo Site Installation

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The MOSS MVP’s have a free webcast series ongoing using a new soon to be published Adventure Works Web Application Demo Site.  Ryan Duguid (Microsoft PM SharePoint) and Steve Fox (Microsoft DPE) have been leading this effort and it is very impressive Silverlight 2.0 enabled SharePoint Web Application that hardly looks like a SharePoint WCM site!  One thing I’m most impressed with is what is called the “Single-Click” Web Application Deployment example which allows you to modify a config file with your MOSS Farm environment settings and it will do a complete uninterrupted installation of the entire Adventure Works Demo Site in about 20 minutes (based on your Virtual Environment efficiency)!  What’s very cool for developers and administrators is that you can examine how this is being done since it’s a combination of custom stsadm extensions with batch and config files.  It is very comprehensive setup process and closely resembles real world Internet farms including dual authentication (FBA and Windows Integrated), AD user setup, IIS host headers, SSP, Web application(s), SharePoint Solutions and Features.. everything!  Until the Adventure Works Demo Site is released soon you can begin ramping up by viewing the MOSS MVP’s free ongoing MS Events Webcast presentations (past sessions are recorded) here:

Date (GMT -0500)
Topic & Registration URL

Tues, Dec 2, 2008 : 2p-3p
Getting Started

Thurs, Dec 4, 2008 : 2p-3p
.COM Branding

Tues, Dec 9, 2008 : 2p-3p
Custom Fields, Web Parts & Lists

Thurs, Dec 11, 2008 : 2p-3p
Authentication

Tues, Dec 16, 2008 : 2p-3p
Web Interoperability

Thurs, Dec 18, 2008 : 2-3p
Search

Tues, Jan 6, 2009 : 2-3p
Content Deployment

Thurs, Jan 8, 2009 : 2-3p
Variations & Multilingual Sites

Tues, Jan 13, 2009 : 2-3p
Enabling Social Networking

Thurs, Jan 15, 2009 : 2-3p
Site Customization with Silverlight 2.0

SharePoint Guidance (SPG) on Deploying and Upgrading SharePoint Applications

The folks in the Patterns and Practices team have published many topics in the SharePoint Guidance (SPG) which is downloadable from here.  It includes a fictitious Contoso Pharmaceuticals Training Site which can be manually deployed from Visual Studio Solutions and there is some great guidance you can take offline in the chm help file which installs with the SPG guidance download.  In particular take a look at the Deploying and Upgrading SharePoint Applications .

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