MS recently posted here that SP2 has a bug that incorrectly activates the Product Expiration Date within MOSS.  Basically this means that 180 days after applying SP2 SharePoint will expire, as if it was a Trial Installation.  They're working on a resolution to this fix and hope to have it out PDQ.

They've posted a manual workaround here but this link appears to be "broken" for now, but should be up within 48 hours.

Note the affected products: SharePoint Server 2007, Project Server 2007, Form Server 2007, Search Server 2008 and Search Server 2008 Express.

Stay tuned as more info comes out...

- M

I found a deal on a Dell PET300 that'll let me virtualize to my heart's content.  So, I've been spending time spinning up a small farm (1 WFE, 1 DB) for my next MOSS implementation.  What I'm going to do here is just jot down issues I've found and how I resolved them during the process, and hopefully it'll help others out.

• Host Setup: Dell PowerEdge 300 (8GB of RAM, 2 250GB SATA Drives, 1 for Host OS files, 1 to hold all virtual images), Windows Server 2008 Server Core with Hyper-V
• Database Virtual Guest Setup: Windows Server 2008 Standard, Full Installation
• MOSS 2007 WFE Virtual Gues Setup: Windows Server 2008 Standard, Full Installation
• I also have a W2K8 Full Install on an older Dimension that's acting as my DC, so all of this is in a domain

Items of Observation

• All virtuals have Windows Firewall enabled.  The DB box needed rules specific to the ports to be added and enabled for communication to and from the MOSS WFE.  Check out KB968872 to help do these firewall operations (you can do so manually, or download a script to do so)
• When installing MOSS make sure you have the Application Server and Web Server (IIS) Roles installed, these are required for MOSS
• You need to install MOSS SP1 (either slipstreamed, or via the MOSS '07 + SP1 media, the latter is commonly available now)
• Create a rule in the Windows Firewall of the WFE to allow for connection to Central Administration
  • netsh firewall set portopening tcp portnumber "description"
  • This is necessary as ports other than 80 are locked down by Windows Firewall, so note the CA port number during your install
  • Most communication issues seem to be caused by the locked down nature of the Windows Firewall...look here first for resolutions to those communications issues
• As this is a fresh install, I ran the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard and set up CA and such, but did not create any additional Web Applications an Shared Service Providers.  I installed SP2 first.
• MOSS installation was of a least privilege one with the following accounts create
  • SharePoint Server System Administrator (user logged on as when SPTCW was run initially)
  • SharePoint Server Farm Access Account
  • Windows SharePoint Server Search Service Account
  • Office SharePoint Server Search Service Account (also used for Search Content Access)

More to come as I continue the process...

Hot off the presses at the MS SharePoint Team Blog is the preliminary requirements for SharePoint 2010.  As most of you probably have known, MS has been saying for a while that, going forward, 64-bit is the path and 32-bit is going the way of the dodo.  On top of that, you will also need to either be running 64-bit SQL Server 2005 or 2008.

More and more tidbits of information are coming to light...stay tuned...

-M