From Office 97 to 2003 Microsoft used the .doc file extension.  These files were binary files.  When Office 2007 was introduced, Microsoft change the file extension to .docx.  These files are stored in an open XML format.  One part of the change is a tremendous reduction in file size.  In my organization, we are just now getting people to use the new formats even though Office defaults to the .docx extension.

Microsoft does have some tools to help convert the old files to the new extension.  The tool can be found at MS Technet.  One example given by a Microsoft employee is that an organization went from 100 file servers to 40 after they changed the file types from the old Office format to the 2007/2010 format.  I have seen it first hand reduce file sizes as much as 80%.

This is where it gets weird.  I could see the new space everywhere except in explore and chkdsk.  They were both telling me that no addition space had been added.  I could not find a way to get the server to recognize the extra space, not even a reboot worked.

This is when I took to the Internet.  I could not find anything that talked about this and Windows Server 2008.  I did find something about this for Windows Server 2003. The article talked about a DISKPART function that is not readily documented.  It is extend file system.

It worked like a champ.  Within a second of running this command, the server could recognize the addition storage.

Here are the commands to run once you are in DISKPART:

 

DISKPART> select volume 1 

DISKPART> extend filesystem

DiskPart successfully extended the file system on the volume.

DISKPART> exit

Leaving DiskPart...

Here is a link to the article for Windows Server 2003:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/832316

Sir Slur

Maybe not, but it might make your life as a Microsoft SharePoint admin a little easier.

To begin, SharePoint would run a search just fine when you searched ‘All Sites’.  If you tried to do a search on ‘This site’ or ‘This list’, it would not return any results.  I tried numerous things to get it to work right, but it came down to one easy solution, setting the URL in the Alternate Access Mappings.

How I fixed it….

Go into SharePoint Central Administration.  Then go to Operations and Alternate Access Mappings under the Global Configuration section.  I had my URL for the Internet zone set to https://sharepoint.companyname.com and the URL for the default zone set to http://sharepoint.  I could access both URLs from the office but not the outside world.  So, I changed the default zone URL to https://sharepoint.companyname.com (which I had to delete the Internet zone listing).  As soon, and I mean as soon as I did this, everything worked.  I did not have to restart IIS or clear the cache.  It just worked right away.

I hoped this helped as I was not able to find this on the web.

l8r

First thing I did was to install SharePoint on the new 64 bit server making sure it was configured the same way the old 32 bit server was.  Next, I followed Stefan’s instructions:

1) Find the content Database

These are listed under Central Admin->Application Management->Site Collection List

2) Backup the content database

You could alternatively detach it, and copy it.  Just doing a backup in SQL Server 2005 Management studio is easier.

3) Restore content database to new server

Copy the BAK file to new server.  Create an empty DB in Management Studio, restore from backup, you may need to change an option in the “options” tab of the restore dialog to get it to work.  (Overwrite db).

4) Create Web App on new Server

Central Admin->Application Management->Create or extend Web App->Create New Web App.

5) Associate restored DB with new Web App

Central Admin->Application Management->

SharePoint Web Application Management->Content Databases->

Remove Content Database from your new web app.

Now use STSADM to add restored DB to this web app

c:\program files\common files\microsoft shared\web server extentions\12\bin on new server is where you can find the STSADM.

run this command from there.

stsadm -o addcontentdb -url http://yourwebapp:port -databasename yourcontentdb -databaseserver yoursqlserver

6) Run ISSRESET from command prompt.

I did all of this a couple of times to test it out.  Then on moving day, I stopped the IIS services, SharePoint services and backed up the production content database.  Then on the new 64 bit server, I restored the production database.  Did some testing to make sure everything was working right.  Well it did not.  I had to move the certificate for SSL.  I also reconfigured the search settings.

l8r