Real World SharePoint® 2007: Indispensable Experiences from 16 MOSS and WSS MVPs

Chapter 3. Understanding SharePoint Administration

by Todd Klindt

SharePoint is fun. SharePoint is great. I started working with SharePoint on a lark years ago when it was still code-named Tahoe, and came bundled with Office 2000. My boss saw it at a Microsoft conference and was smitten. Even then, SharePoint provided us with amazing and much needed collaboration capabilities. When the next version of SharePoint came out in 2003, I was blown away. It had so many more capabilities, and with that came greater complexity. Of course, the 2007 version of SharePoint raised the bar even higher in power, but also complexity.

In this chapter, I cover some of the issues I've encountered in the field as an IT professional moving from Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) v2 to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007/WSS v3. I'll share with you how the tasks I performed in WSS v2 have changed to WSS v3. This includes the new ways that WSS v3 interacts with Internet Information Services (IIS), and how managing WSS is different now. I also cover SharePoint's command-line administration tool, STSADM, and what new functionality it has. Any good SharePoint administrator has to script things from time to time, and STSADM is the way to go for that. Plus, there are a few tweaks to SharePoint you can only do in STSADM. After you read this chapter, your users will thank you.

Central Administration

Although SharePoint v2 was a great product, as an administrator, I saw some places where it could be better. ...