December Cumulative Update Re-Released

The December cumulative update that was released on the 18th of December 2008 has been re-released. There were many reports amongst the community of errors involved during the update. I myself ran into the old 'Upgrade failed to initialize' error that ocured after running the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard. Lucky I ran this update in a test environment first. Microsoft have also stated that it is recommended to wait till SharePoint SP2 which will be released early next year.

I found the Cumulative Update a good option if you haven't installed the infrastructure update yet, as this update includes the infrastructure update.

As always make sure you have installed Service pack 1 for WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007 (if you are running MOSS 2007).

Here are the December Updates:

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 December Cumulative Update

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 December Cumulative Update


You can find the Microsoft SharePoint team blog post regarding this here:
http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2008/12/17/announcing-december-cumulative-update-for-office-sharepoint-server-2007-and-windows-sharepoint-services-3-0.aspx

Finally. PDF iFilter 64bit. Tested and Working.

Well it has been a long time coming, but Adobe Labs have finally released a 64bit version of the PDF iFilter. With 64bit Server architecture becoming more and more common, this is clearly essential for your Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Search.

Here is the link to download the ifilter:

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=4025

And the instructions to Install it:

Configuring Adobe PDF iFilter 9 for 64-bit platforms for MS SharePoint 2007 Note: The steps mentioned below are as per suggested by Microsoft. Please refer to links below for appropriate Microsoft KB articles.

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=555209

1. Install Adobe PDF iFilter 9 for 64-bit platforms.

http://blogs.msdn.com/ifilter/archive/2007/03/29/indexing-pdf-documents-with-adobe-reader-v-8-and-moss-2007.aspx

2. Verify that PDF has been added to the registry.

a. Run Regedit by browsing to c:\Windows\system32\regedt32.exe and double-clicking it.

b. Within left-side tree, browse to: \\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office Server\12.0\Search\Applications\{site GUID}\Gather\Portal_Content\Extensions\ExtensionList

c. If PDF extension is present, skip to Step 3 . If PDF extension is not present, continue with Step d.

d. Right click on right-side Extension List pane and choose New > String Value

e. Add a name to the new Registry Key (e.g. “38”)

f. Double click the new Registry Key. For “Value data”, enter “pdf”

Note: This can also be achieved via SharePoint Server Search Administration page by adding ‘pdf’ to list of File Types in Search Administration->File Types. This would automatically add an entry for ‘pdf’ filetype as mentioned above in step 1

3. Verify that PDF has the correct settings in a second registry location.

a. While still in Regedit, within the left-side tree, browse to: \\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office Server\12.0\Search\Setup\Filters\.pdf

b. Verify the following values. If values are not as shown, edit them.

i. Default =

ii. Extension = pdf

iii. FileTypeBucket = 1

iv. MimeTypes = application/pdf

4. Verify that PDF has the correct settings in a third registry location.

a. While still in RegEdit, within the left-side tree, browse to: \\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office Server\12.0\Search\Setup\ContentIndexCommon\Filters\Extension\.pdf

b. Verify the following values. If values are not as shown, edit them.

i. Default = {E8978DA6-047F-4E3D-9C78-CDBE46041603}

5. Verify that pdf.gif is present at the following location:
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\IMAGES

6. Add an entry in docicon.xml for the pdf icon:

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\TEMPLATE\XML

Note: Step 4 & 5 are done in order to have the pdf icon in SharePoint while it displays the search results.

7. Restart all SharePoint services as well as IIS.

a. Launch the DOS Shell (Start > All Programs > Accessories > Command Prompt).

b. Type the following at the prompt: “net stop osearch”. Wait for success message.

c. Type the following at the prompt: “net start osearch”. Wait for success message.

d. Type the following at the prompt: “iisreset”. Wait for success message.
Close the Command Prompt window.

8. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server can now index PDF files. Also, PDF icon should show in File Types list

These above instructions can be found here.

I currently have this working on a production environment as opposed to installing the Foxit 64bit PDF ifilter. Nice work Adobe.