Category: SharePoint 2013 (Page 1 of 2)

Are you developing for SharePoint in a commercial organization? Eager to get coding before a well-thought-out development environment is planned and stood up?

Cool your jets! Avoid the temptation to get started early and begin creating solutions in a Stand-alone SharePoint installation!

DO NOT develop in a Stand-alone SharePoint environment if you’re doing serious work!

Wait for your project team to formalize the environmental architecture and provision real farms in which you will do development, even if a farm consists of a single SharePoint server and separate SQL instance.

I have delivered the bad news to a development team up against a tight deadline that their performance problems and some system errors are the result of the Stand-alone deployment.

For starters, if you have Visual Studio, SharePoint (with a boatload of Services enabled), SQL Express, troubleshooting tools, and the Kitchen Sink running in what is likely a 2-core, 4 GB virtual instance on an over-subscribed virtual host, you are already asking for Big Trouble.

Don’t paint yourself into a corner with a Stand-alone deployment!

Most likely you are unaware (as was I until I researched a bunch of errors) that a Stand-alone deployment will not support all ‘normal’ SharePoint functionality. If you look at the Services status page, you won’t see a clue that anything is amiss!

See these caveats from the authoritative TechNet article on single-server SharePoint 2013 installations:

Consider the following restrictions of this method of installation:

• You cannot use this method on a domain controller or in a workgroup environment.
• This method is not supported for production on a domain controller.
• If your computer is in a workgroup, you cannot install AppFabric for Windows Server.
• A Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1 Express Edition database cannot be larger than 10 GB.
• You cannot use user profile synchronization in this type of installation. If you want to use user profile synchronization, you must use a server farm installation of SharePoint 2013. For more information, see Install SharePoint 2013 on a single server with SQL Server or Install SharePoint 2013 across multiple servers for a three-tier farm, and Synchronize user and group profiles in SharePoint Server 2013.

Like the Nanny state trying to save us from ourselves, Microsoft started pushing SharePoint patching into automatic updates.

If your WinTel team and corporate governance folks are in alignment on best practice, they would avoid automatic patching like an Ebola tent without protective gear. If they do allow Windows Update to patch server OSs and applications, you might want to have a little chat with your CIO. But that’s getting off topic.

The reports from system administrators who have been victimized by automatic patching are unpleasant. Learn from them by making sure your SharePoint (and associated) servers are configured for manual patching only! Stop everything else that you’re doing and read this post from Todd Klindt NOW!  Don’t Enable Automatic Updates on SharePoint Servers