Server Error in ‘/’ Application.
Runtime Error
Description: An application error occurred on the server.[...]

We hadn’t recently patched, or performed any updates except for increasing the max allowed upload file size and timeouts (a client needed to upload LARGE files). The server application logs revealed something slightly more useful:

Event Type: Warning
Event Source: ASP.NET 2.0.50727.0
Event Category: Web Event
Event ID: 1310
Date: 5/6/2010
Time: 4:50:11 PM
User: N/A
Computer: ServerName
Description:
Event code: 3006
Event message: A parser error has occurred.
Event time: 5/6/2010 4:50:11 PM
Event time (UTC): 5/6/2010 8:50:11 PM
Event ID: 57cbaa6a1f804cb2aefe80de4ceec102
Event sequence: 5
Event occurrence: 1
Event detail code: 0

Application information:
Application domain: /LM/W3SVC/1965610693/Root-1-129176526056583668
Trust level: WSS_Minimal
Application Virtual Path: /
Application Path: C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\foldername443\
Machine name: ServerName

Process information:
Process ID: 1944
Process name: w3wp.exe
Account name: NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE

Exception information:
Exception type: HttpParseException
Exception message: Could not load file or assembly ‘System?Web, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a’ or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified. (C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\foldername443\web.config line 106)

Now, the web.config wasn’t manually edited by anyone, but the modified date matched the date & time when this problem started as well as the beginning of these ASP.NET errors. All the evidence seemed to point to what I can only assume was caused by a hiccup when the settings were being saved from IIS – that corrupted the web.config.

I found 4 or 5 randomly placed “?” in the web.config. I couldn’t just remove the question marks because they appeared to have replaced characters in the file instead of being inserted. I didn’t have a backup, but we did have multiple AAMs for this portal and I was able to look at another web.config. This gave me a better idea of what characters should have been in the file wherever I wasn’t able to make a good educated guess.

Note that I keep WordPress in its own folder to keep the files/folder structure on my webserver clean… It’s key in this upgrade method.

1. Always make a backup of your WordPress database before proceeding!
2. Manually download the WordPress zip file.
3. Open your FTP program of choice and upload the zip file to the same folder level that your WordPress folder resides.
4. Unzip the WordPress zip file on your webserver.
   • This can cause weird problems if you unzip it on your local computer before uploading.
   • It will unzip it to a “wordpress” folder, so make sure that this is not the folder name that you choose to keep your WordPress files in.
5. Compare the wp-config-sample.php of the new version, to your existing wp-config.php.
   • If there isn’t any new content (like new salt/keys, etc.), then copy your wp-config.php to the new folder “wordpress/”.
   • If there is new content, save the new wp-config-sample.php as your new wp-config.php and copy over your settings from your original wp-config.php. Then make any other changes needed for the new content.
6. Copy your theme folder from the old install to the new install location.
7. Copy your plugins files/folders from the old install to the new install location.
   • The new install already has Akismet and Hello Dolly – so you can leave these.
   • It’s a good idea to verify that your plugins are all compatible with the new version before doing this.
8. Copy over any of the other folders & files from your old wp-content (like “uploads”, “cache”, “backup-db”, etc.)
   • Up through this point, you’re still using the old version and have had zero downtime. You can choose to wait and finish later without having any impact.
9. Rename your old WordPress folder to something else, like “wp_old”.
10. Rename the new WordPress folder to the name of your old WordPress folder.
11. Open your browser and go to YourDomain.com/Your-WordPress-Folder/wp-admin.
12. You will be prompted to update your database if necessary.
13. Verify that everything functions.
14. Remove the “wp_old” folder.

Done! It’s not as fast as the automatic upgrade, but it’s great for the paranoid, or those who prefer to just perform the upgrade themselves.

Edit the page in which you would like the button to be displayed, or add a Content Editor Web Part in code view and enter code similar to this:

Click here:
Go to Another Page

Update: Strange. WordPress isn’t displaying the code properly, so until I fix it, just view the page source

I’ve been dyin’ for an Apple tablet PC – even signed the online petition hoping that’d help, but they’re still not making one (I add hopefully, “at the time of this post”). Granted, there is always the Axiotron Modbook, but that’s just not the same. First, it’s a modified MacBook – so you have to pay not only full price for the laptop, but then for the modification. That’s a bit out of my price range. And besides, I would much rather have a modified MacBook Pro. Then there’s the fact that it is strictly a tablet PC – no keyboard. And even though there’s an on-screen keyboard and handwriting recognition, that doesn’t help my efficiency in applications like Photoshop.

I did a lot of research on the various models out there, their specs, their prices. The Modbook, Lenovo, HP, Dell, Gateway. The Modbook was too expensive, but ran my OS of choice. The Dell’s processor was far too slow (about 1/2 the others) and supported the least amount of RAM – while surprisingly it was barely less expensive than the Modbook! So the Dell was right out. The Gateway was too heavy and didn’t have much in the way of redeeming features or specs – at least nothing better than the others. It all came down between the Lenovo & the HP.

I really wanted to give the tablets a try before I made a decision. I just couldn’t find any semi-local stores that had them in stock for me to look at. I called around – nothing. Apparently the tablets were either marketed as either business computers, or “multimedia” computers, and weren’t really popular enough to be kept in stock in stores?

Then one Friday after work on a whim I stopped by my local Best Buy and found the HP out on display! In addition to the display model, they had one left in stock – and it was on sale! I could hardly contain myself. It was a nice little machine, even a little style – and very affordable. So I bought it.

This was just the base model – nothing upgraded. The HP Pavillion tx2500 with a 2.0GHz processor – a little slower than I wanted. 5400rpm hard drive (instead of the 7200rom drive in the Lenovo) – but it did come with 3GB of RAM (upgradeable to 4GB) and Windows Vista x64 SP1. It’s not a bad little machine.

The resolution’s very nice – perfect for the size. The screen rotates/swivels 180 degrees so you can use the keyboard – or not. You can also rotate the display to better orient the way that you’re holding it (vertical/landscape). Very cool. There are ports out the wazoo, a tetherable stylus with its own storage slot in the front for easy access, and a multimedia remote with its own storage as well (I like not having to worry about losing things).

My complaints:
This is definitely marketed as more of a multimedia device than an artistic tool. The media drive is removable to lighten the weight if you don’t need it, but the laptop is a lot thicker/beefier than it needs to be because it has to accommodate it. It’s not really heavy, but borders on it for this size laptop.

It’s too bulky – it’s just really thick. It’s all about proportions. Why do I want to carry around something that’s the thickness of a larger laptop? It just feels wrong. I didn’t think I was going to say this, but I’d rather forgo the DVD drive for a thinner, lighter tablet PC. I just don’t use it to watch movies – I use it to sketch and work on my websites.

Another issue is that it seems to get warm quickly and the fans spin up a lot – and the fan is quite loud. This can get pretty annoying. The vents can kick out some serious hot air too. Sometimes I hibernate or shut it down just to make it stop if I’ve been working for a bit.

My biggest frustration however, is something that not everyone will run into. If you use this tablet PC in a coffee shop, at the office, etc., you’ll be fine. But if you use this say, in your living room to chill out while you work – then there’s a potential problem. It seems as though my Xbox360 remote can control my laptop to some extent. Initially I didn’t make the connection – I thought the laptop was just acting very strangely. One moment everything’s fine, and the next I hear the laptop’s fans spin up and I’m left confused, swearing that I had shutdown the laptop just an hour ago… I’d have to open the display and shut it back down again.

Apparently – if you suspend/hibernate/shutdown the laptop in the vicinity of your Xbox, then decide to play a movie… Simply pressing “play” will power up or resume the laptop! On top of that, Windows Vista won’t simply allow you to disable the IR port – and I’m not about to disable it in the BIOS. Or am I? Sticking a Post-It to the front of the laptop does look a little stupid and can lead to strange papercuts…

Installation
The first hurdle can be installing the templates. Microsoft’s provided directions should be fine, but for some strange reason typing the commands individually didn’t work for me. I had to paste them all into a .bat file and run that for it to work. I’m still not sure why, but it worked. I suggest that if your PATH is correct and you’re receiving an error during the installation, give the batch file method a try.

Once the templates were installed, I created a site using the Helpdesk template. The Call Center template is pretty similar, but the Helpdesk template was a better fit. For the details of the template, Brian Caauwe has a really good writeup on his site here.

Let’s get started!
The terminology, page names, list views, etc., didn’t really fit with our processes so I had to go through and do a bit of cleanup. Some were simple and straightforward. Others weren’t quite so easy. I’ll skip the straightforward updates.

Customizing Choices
First, we don’t like the default “Status” options of the “Service Request” list. We prefer something similar to the “Service Request Tasks” list. So – let’s go ahead and update the “Status” column. Easy! Right? You just go to the List Settings, click on the “Status” column to edit it… and… Hey – wait a minute! Where are the choices listed?!? You know there are choices, but you can’t see them in the settings where you’d normally define or update them. You can’t edit or even delete this column. The “delete” button isn’t even there! But you can change the column name and see that it’s of the type “choice.” So what’s going on?

The column has been Sealed.

If you edit the schema.xml or use PowerShell you can change this flag to Sealed = $false and then it will be open for editing as needed. Don’t forget that there’s a workflow associated with the “Closed” status! I just used some PowerShell. I’m still learning, so it’s probably better that I not give best practice advice on that. You can find some information about using PowerShell here and here.

So now that that’s done, let’s move on to the next task. Let’s start with the easier one first.

Removing Items from the New Form
You’ve probably noticed that there’s a number of columns in the list, but only a small few are actually displayed in the “New” form. How’d they do that? And how can you update that?

We wanted to remove one of the fields from the “New” form so that portal members couldn’t go ahead and assign the tasks when they open their requests. How can you do this? More PowerShell! You can also use the SharePoint Tips Utility Pack (Or, you can manually create new form pages, but we’ll get more into that later.)

As hinted at in the last task, these columns have fields with flags on them that determine the type of column, if they’re Sealed, and also which of the forms and views they’ll be displayed on (New, Edit, List Settings, View, etc.). Sealing the columns help make sure that no one edits an option in a column which may break a workflow. Setting flags on which columns display in each of the forms is a great way to use the default forms rather than having to create your own custom forms. This template has customized the values on these fields for a handful of the columns. You can get the full details here on setting those flags. I set the flag on the “Assigned To” column to ShowInNewForm = $false. Done!

Ok, now for the slightly more complicated part. This is where it starts becoming more of a “choose your own adventure.”

Adding Items to the New Form
Ok, so now that we’ve used PowerShell to set the flags on the fields that you don’t want displayed on the form, why isn’t it working in the reverse? You create a new column, and the ShowInNewForm = $true or $null, but it’s not on the form when you try to create a new form!?! What a headache! Perhaps you should just create a custom new form. Or should you?

Personally, I’d rather not at this point. If I create new columns later on, then I’d have to add those to the custom form. But if the flags are set properly, and I don’t want to create a new form, then how do I fix the problem of adding them to the forms? Two words:

Content Types.

The Service Request items are a custom content type. The relatively simple fix:

1. Remove those new columns from the Service Request list.
2. Go to Settings > List Settings > Advanced Settings
3. Turn on “Allow Management of Content Types.”
   Now you can see the Service Request content type.
4. In the List Settings, browse to the Content Types section.
5. Either “Create Column” or “Add from existing site columns” as appropriate.
   I needed to add some of our own custom site columns along with a “Due Date” column – so they were all site columns in my case.
6. Check your “new item” form.
   If you don’t see the “New” menu item anymore, go back and turn off “Allow Management of Content Types.”

Form Field Order
That should take care of adding your new columns to the “new” form. But now the fields aren’t in the order that you’d like when creating a new service request. Do I need to create a custom new form now? Nope.

1. Go to Settings > List Settings
2. In the “Columns” section, click “Column Ordering”

I don’t believe it’ll effect your custom views too much, but will reorder the columns in the New/Edit/View forms.

Just about done! One last thing to accomplish.

Adding the Current User to a People Picker Field
This is a great one that the portal users will love, since they won’t have to keep typing their own names in the “Requester” field on the new request form.

Ok, so with this one I finally broke down and created my own custom version of the NewForm.aspx page because this required adding code which I didn’t want to change for ALL new items across the portal. But, I was careful in how I did it to prevent future maintenance tasks to a minimum.

First, you need to create a new form. Detailed instructions can be found here. I followed the majority of those instructions with a few modifications.

Cliff’s Notes summary: Open your site in SharePoint Designer, browse to the List, expand the List, find the NewForm.aspx page, right-click, select “New from Existing Page.”

You’ll need to remove the form web part that’s there and replace with a new one. The instructions from above walk you through adding a “Custom List Form” which adds a “Data Form Web Part”. This is not what I want. This will pull in a static list of all of the fields that have the flag set to ShowInNewForm (which you could manually add others if you wished). I want to keep it dynamic so that my options are open in the future. Therefore, I added the List Form web part instead.

The main difference is that this one will show you a generic looking form in SharePoint Designer because the columns that it displays will be pulled dynamically depending on what’s available. This is fine. Now that I have a new page (don’t forget to associate it with the List’s “New” action), I can add the code to pre-populate one of the People Picker form fields.

The code and details can be found in this thread. Someone took the time to write the javascript to handle this. I haven’t been able to get his original code working that he posted on his blog. The code he posted in the forum thread did work – though it’s more of a work-around than a solution. Keep in mind that this code just populates the first People Picker form found on the page.

In Summary
Now you have a request tracking SharePoint portal site with custom statuses, additional columns as required by the business, and a dynamic custom new request form that pre-populates the “Requester” with the current user!

I hope this helped someone out there. Enjoy!