Month: May 2010

Error Using 32 vs. 64 bit SharePoint 2007 DLLs with PowerShell

Brian T. Jackett PowerShell, SharePoint

Next time you fire up PowerShell to work with the SharePoint API make sure you launch the proper bit version of PowerShell.  Last week I had an interesting error that led to this blog post.  Travel back in time a little bit with me to see where this 32 vs. 64 bit debate started.

History

Ever since the first pre-beta bits of Office 2010 landed in my lap I have been questioning whether it’s better to run 32 or 64 bit applications on a 64 bit host operating system.  In relation to Office 2010 I heard a number of arguments for 32 bit including this link from the Office 2010 Engineering team.  Given my typical usage scenarios 32 bit seemed the way to go since I wasn’t a “super RAM hungry” Excel user or the like.

The Problem

Since I had chosen 32 bit Office 2010, I tried to stick with 32 bit version of other programs that I run assuming the same benefits and rules applied to other applications.  This is where I was wrong.  Last week I was attempting to use 32 bit PowerShell ISE (Integrated Scripting Environment) on a 64 bit WSS 3.0 server.  When trying to reference the 64 bit SharePoint DLLs I got the following errors about not being able to find the web application.

PowerShellBitVersion1

I have run into these errors when I have hosts file issues or improper permissions to the farm / site collection but these were not the case.  After taking a quick spin around the interwebs I ran across the below forum post comment and another MSDN forum reply that explained the error.  Turns out that sometimes it’s not possible to run 32 bit applications against a 64 bit OS / farm / assembly / etc.

…the problem could also be because your SharePoint is 64-Bit but your app is running in 32-bit mode

I quickly exited 32 bit PowerShell ISE and ran the same code under 64 bit PowerShell ISE.  All errors were gone and the script ran successfully.

 

Conclusion

The rules of 32 vs. 64 bit interoperability do not always apply evenly across all applications and scenarios.  In my case I wasn’t able to run 32 bit PowerShell against 64 bit SharePoint DLLs.  I’m updating all of my links and shortcuts to use 64 bit PowerShell where appropriate.  I’m quite surprised it has taken me this long to run into this error, but sometimes blind luck is all that keeps you from running into errors.  Lesson learned and hopefully this can benefit you as well.  Happy SharePointing all!

 

-Frog Out

 

Links

http://blogs.technet.com/b/office2010/archive/2010/02/23/understanding-64-bit-office.aspx

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sharepointdevelopment/thread/a732cb83-c2ef-4133-b04e-86477b72bbe3/

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/266255/filenotfoundexception-with-the-spsite-constructor-whats-the-problem

SharePoint Saturday DC 2010 Slides, Demo Scripts, and Pictures

Brian T. Jackett Conference/Tech Event, PowerShell, Presentation, SharePoint

Wow! This past weekend I attended SharePoint Saturday Washington DC (SPSDC) which was quite an event to say the least.  For those unfamiliar, SharePoint Saturday is a community driven event where various speakers gather to present at a FREE conference on all topics related to SharePoint.  This made my fifth SharePoint Saturday attended and fourth I’ve spoken at.  SPSDC was a bit different than most SharePoint Saturdays mostly due to the scale of it.  We had almost 950 attendees, over 80 speakers presenting close to 90 sessions, and dozens of sponsors.  A big thanks goes out to the organizers of this event.  They put in a lot of hard work and time to pull this event off and should be very proud of the end result.

For SPSDC I presented “The Power of PowerShell + SharePoint 2007”.  I want to thank all of the attendees of my session for coming and asking some great questions.  Below you can find the slides and demo scripts for this session.  I also took some photos throughout the day (not as many as usual since so much going on) so check them out.  If you have any follow up questions feel free to drop me a line in the comments or the contact link at the top of the site.

Slides and Scripts

Click here for the demo scripts and slides posted on my SkyDrive.

 

VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: One thing I forgot to mention in my presentation.  In order to run code against the SharePoint API you need to load the Microsoft.SharePoint.dll assembly first.  Run the below command on the PowerShell console line to complete that:

 

[void][System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName(“Microsoft.SharePoint”)

 

Photos

Facebook album

-or-

My album on Windows Live site (higher res shots).

-Frog Out

Stir Trek: Iron Man Edition Recap and Photos

Brian T. Jackett Conference/Tech Event

Stir Trek Logo2     If you’ve noticed my blogging activity has reduced in frequency and technical content lately it’s primarily due to all of the conferences I’ve been attending, speaking at, or planning in the past few months.  This past Friday myself and six other dedicated individuals put on Stir Trek: Iron Man Edition as the culmination of a few months of hard work.  For those unfamiliar, Stir Trek is a web developer conference that was founded last year as an event to showcase content from Microsoft’s MIX conference and end the day with a private showing of the then just-released Star Trek movie.  This year’s conference expanded from 2 to 4 content tracks and upped the number of tickets from 350 to 600.  Even more amazing was the fact that we had 592 people show up day of the event for the lowest drop-off percentage of any conference I’ve been to before.

Nerd Dinner and Swag Bags

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The night before Stir Trek: Iron Man Edition we hosted a nerd dinner at the Polaris Shopping mall food court with about 30 in attendance.  Nerd dinners are a great time to meet others passionate about technology and socialize before the whirlwind of the conference hits.  After the nerd dinner 20+ volunteers headed to the conference location and helped us stuff swag bags.  This in and of itself was a monumental task of putting together 600 swag bags with numerous leaflets, sponsor items, and t-shirts.  A big thanks goes out to all who assisted us that night so that we could finish in just under 2 hours instead of taking all night.  My sleep schedule also thanks you.

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Morning of Stir Trek

After getting a decent amount of sleep I arrived at Marcus Crosswoods theater at 6am to begin setting up for the day.  Myself and Jody Morgan were in charge of registration so we got tables set up, laid out swag bags, and organized our volunteer crew to assist with checking-in attendees.  Despite having 600+ people registration went fairly smoothly and got the day off to a great start.  I especially appreciated the 3+ cups of coffee from Crimson Cup, a local coffee shop.  For any of you that know me you’ll know that I rarely drink coffee except a few times a year when I really need the energy, so that says a lot about how good their coffee is.

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Conference Starts

Once registration was completed the day kicked off with Molly Holzschlag keynoting.  Unfortunately Molly suffered from an ear infection and wasn’t able to fly so she had a virtual keynote and a session later in the day.  I was working behind the scenes on various tasks so I was only able to drop in very briefly on the keynote and rest of the morning sessions.  Throughout the day I tried to grab at least 1 or 2 pics of each presenter.  See my album below for the full set of pics.

IMG_1307     For lunch we ordered around 150 pizzas from Mellow Mushroom, a local pizza place (notice the theme of supporting local businesses.)  Early on we were concerned about Mellow Mushroom being able to supply that many pizzas and get them delivered (still hot) to the theater, but they did an excellent job day of the event.  I wish I had gotten some pictures of the old school VW van they delivered the pizza in, but I was just a bit busy running around trying to get theaters ready for lunch.  We had attendees from last year who specifically requested that we have Mellow Mushroom supply lunch this year and I’m glad everything worked out being able to use them again.

During the afternoon I was able to attend a few sessions and hear some great content from various speakers.  It was also nice to just sit down and get off my feet for a bit.  After the last sessions the day concluded with a raffle.  There were a few logistical and technical issues that hampered our ability to smoothly conduct the raffle.  To those of you that agree the raffle wasn’t the smoothest experience I would like to say that the Stir Trek planning committee has already begun meeting to discuss ways of improving the conference for next year.  We are also accepting feedback (both positive and negative) at the following link: click here.  If you don’t wish to use the Joind In site you can also email me directly and I’ll be sure to pass along the feedback.

 

Iron Man 2 Movie

Last but not least, what Stir Trek event would be complete without the feature movie.  This year’s movie was Iron Man 2.  The theater had some really cool props and promotions (see pic below) for the movie.  I really enjoyed Iron Man 2, but I would recommend brushing up on the Iron Man comics and Marvel’s plans for future movies to understand some of the plot elements that come up.  Also make sure you stay through to the end of the movie credits to see a sneak peak of something special, that’s all I’ll say. IMG_1309

Conclusion

Again a big thanks goes out to all of the speakers, sponsors, attendees, movie theater staff, volunteers, and everyone else involved in making this event great.  Also big thanks to my fellow Stir Trek planning committee members: Jeff Blankenburg, Matt Casto, Carey Payette, Jody Morgan, Rick Kierner, and Sarah Dutkiewitcz.  I am grateful for everything I learned while helping plan this event and look forward to being involved again next year.  For those interested we are currently targeting Thor as our movie theme for 2011 and then The Avengers for 2012.  These are tentative based on release dates that could shift as we get closer, but for now look solid.

 

Photos

Pics on Facebook (includes tagging)

Stir Trek: Iron Man Edition photos on Facebook

Pics on Live site (higher res)

 

 

-Frog Out

Slides and Files from Day of .Net Ann Arbor ‘10

Brian T. Jackett Conference/Tech Event, General .Net, Presentation

    This past Saturday I presented “Real World Deployment of SharePoint 2007 Solutions” at the Ann Arbor Day of .Net conference in Ann Arbor, MI.  Below are my slides and PowerShell demo scripts I used during the presentation.  Thanks to everyone who attended my session, as well as the sponsors, speakers, organizers and all attendees who made this event happen.

 

Slides and demo scripts