Indexing and Searching PDF Content in WSS 3.0

Starting in V8, the PDF iFilter file is bundled with Adobe Reader. To get the iFilter, you need to install Adobe Reader (8.0 or higher) onto the WSS server that will be doing the indexing.

The procedure below wouldn’t work for 64 bit servers. You can find comments on this in http://workerthread.wordpress.com/2008/07/18/adobe-reader-9-available-works-fine-with-sharepoint/ WSS needs to know what extension to use, so you need to change a few registry entries.

In regedit:

1. 
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0\Search\Applications\{ANYGUID}\Gather\Search\Extensions\ExtensionList
   
   Find the highest number in the list and add the next value with PDF for the value.
   
2. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0\Search\Setup\ContentIndexCommon\Filters\Extension
   
   This is the list of file extensions with a class ID for the iFilter used to index the extension. If .pdf is not listed, add it. It should have a multistring value in which you need to add the CLSID for the iFilter added by Adobe Reader. For version 9 this file is called "AcroRDIF.dll." You can look up its CLSID by doing a Find under the CLSID key (under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\).
   
   CLSID for 9 = {E8978DA6-047F-4E3D-9C78-CDBE46041603}.
   
3. Add its path to the environment variables of the server:
   Start Menu /right click My Computer / select Properties /go to the Advanced tab /click on the Environmental Variables button and scroll down the Path variable, select it and click on the Edit button and add the path ";C:\Program Files\Adobe\Reader 8.0\Reader" then click OK to apply and close.
   
4. Reboot the server. It may take some time until the PDF documents are indexed.
   
   You can also run the search service.  Use run via stsadm -o spsearch... for WSS and SSP Full Crawl for MOSS.

Showing the PDF Icon in a SharePoint Document Library

Out of the box, you won't see the PDF icon in WSS 3.0 document libraries as you see MS Office icons next to office documents.

1. Download the small icon file from adobe. http://www.adobe.com/misc/linking.html#pdficon
2. Save the icon in the c:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\IMAGES folder.
   -You can rename it to match the standard naming convention.
3. Open (in notepad) the DOCICON.XML file located in the c:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\XML folder.
4. In ByExtension -->section add the tag >Mapping Key="pdf" Value="icpdf.gif" OpenControl=""/>-Change the direction of the first > (just left to Mapping) to make the markup work right.
5. Save.
6. Reset IIS.
7. You should now see  all PDF documents with the correct icon.

How can we explain SharePoint?

I always sympathize with SharePoint professionals when reading articles about their difficulties in answering the question: “What do you do for a living”? After thinking it over and over, I decided to rephrase the question. I asked myself, “What will eventually be the TLR (Three Letter Acronym) for SharePoint-like applications?

I have never been satisfied with my own explanations of SharePoint, even with my latest strategy of asking the person about his or her IT knowledge before formulating my response. I see people nodding their heads, but in most cases I feel I didn’t convey the message well enough.

Thinking about a TLR, the first thing that comes to mind is the equivalent ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning). The name is intuitively perceived as a package of related applications that support end-to-end the enterprises’ operations. But it took 10 to 15 years until this TLR became the standard everyone uses and understands. Previously, there had been MRP, Logistics, Shipping, Financial, HR and other disparate applications.

So what do we package here? SharePoint supports several relatively independent processes. It combines what was previously Portal, EDM (Enterprise Document Management), ECM (Enterprise Content Management), WCM (Web Content Management), team collaboration, activity tracking and even connectivity extensions to backend systems. We will probably see more Social Network support coming soon. Since companies usually need more than one of these applications, why not use the same tool and save on maintenance?

What can be a reasonable common denominator for all these processes? I think that the phrase “Knowledge Sharing” is pretty close to what they do. Prefix it with the E for Enterprise which is important, accurate - and also sells, and you get EKS – Enterprise Knowledge Sharing.

Spread the word…

MOSS and WSS 3.0 Installation on Windows Server 2008 R2

If you want to install SharePoint 2007 on Windows Server 2008 R2, you need to take special actions because SP2, which supports this operation, is a prerequisite. If you try to install with SP1 you will receive an error message.

The way to do this is to use a slipstream, something like concatenating several components together to meet the requirements.

In its Team Blog, Microsoft published  KB articles explaining the needed steps.

The slipstream builds can be found here:

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 with SP2 (x86) http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=EF93E453-75F1-45DF-8C6F-4565E8549C2A&displaylang=en
Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 with SP2 (x64) http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=9FB41E51-CB03-4B47-B89A-396786492CBA&displaylang=en
For SharePoint Server 2007, you can follow Create an installation source that includes software updates (Office SharePoint Server 2007) to create one. Or you can also read on. We will go through the complete steps to create a new slipstream build for SharePoint Server 2007.

You can find the article here:
http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2009/10/02/install-sharepoint-server-2007-on-windows-server-2008-r2.aspx

And one more tip: If this is a plain vanilla installation, and you have control over the server type, you need to use the X64. SharePoint 2010 will work on X64 only.