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aval
Honorable But Hopeless Addict
USA
2204 Posts
Status: offline |
 Posted - 06/04/2010 : 5:21:38 PM
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Ok, there probably is such a book out there - haven't looked at Amazon yet.
Anyway, I always thought that Sharepoint was something you had to purchase and that led me to think: "Well, we can just stick with our classic file servers (two)".
But it was revealed to me (yes, revealed!) that there is apparently a free (presumably basic) version that comes with Windows Server (2008?).
Can anyone clarify this - as I look for the above-named book?
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lady_mcse
Old Timer
352 Posts
Status: offline |
Posted - 06/04/2010 : 6:25:22 PM
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SuperquickversionbeforeIleaveforthetrainin10minutes!
Free Version is called "Windows SharePoint Services," a.k.a. "WSS." Requires IIS, ASP, and .NET 3.0 or higher. On Win2003 server disc, includes WSS 2.0. WSS 3.0 downloadable. Unsure what's on Win2008 disc, pretty sure you can stil download regardless of what's on the disc.
WSS 3.0 gives basic website that includes things like announcements, lists, calendars, discussion boards, a fare amount of search capability, and with some time spent on design can look like a fairly decent little website.
WSS 3.0 will look for SQL to already be installed (2000 minimum, 2005 preferred, 2008 OK). If not already installed on same server, then will install SQL Express 2005. That database will be forever limited to not more than 4GB in size. (FYI my current install has thousands of documents, and hitting only about 3GB in size.)
more in a moment, I hope, posting cuz I'm running out of time and having people talk to me ... |
Anne O'Day
MCTS: SharePoint 2007 WSS 3.0 & MOSS
MCAS: Word & Excel 2007
Life Lesson #568: Riding arena dirt is neither soft nor edible. |
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lady_mcse
Old Timer
352 Posts
Status: offline |
Posted - 06/04/2010 : 6:29:31 PM
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NON-Free version is called MOSS (MIcrosoft Office SharePoint Services Server).
MOSS requires a foundation of WSS 3.0 to be installed, which means you're still going to need everything as mentioned above.
I'm about 95% certain that MOSS requires full version of SQL 2000 or above. CAn't get away with the freebie SQL Express that gets installed during initial install of WSS 3.0 if you didn't set it up right to point at your existing SQL instance.
(Hence a big sticky point in planning ... you think you want to set up WSS 3.0 and just do MOSS later, but if you aren't crystal clear about the whole SQL Express\full and installation options at the outset, you can get stuck with users liking a little freebie database that's not upgradeable or easily migrated to that beefier MOSS version later on.)
Sorry, really gotta go!! |
Anne O'Day
MCTS: SharePoint 2007 WSS 3.0 & MOSS
MCAS: Word & Excel 2007
Life Lesson #568: Riding arena dirt is neither soft nor edible. |
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wobble_wobble
Honorable But Hopeless Addict
Ireland
3069 Posts
Status: offline |
Posted - 06/05/2010 : 01:35:35 AM
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http://www.amazon.com/Sams-Teach-Yourself-SharePoint-Hours/dp/0672330008
Sam's Learn WSS3 in 24 hours.
Good book, I have it, been reading it over nad over for the last 4 months, so the 24 hour bit is false...or I'm a bit thick. |
Joe
After everything that has happened during the month of Jan 07, I do believe that pigs fly backwards!
“If you think competence is expensive,try incompetence.” - From a Training Manual |
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lady_mcse
Old Timer
352 Posts
Status: offline |
Posted - 06/05/2010 : 2:44:54 PM
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OK, where was I before I so rudely had to go home? :-)
MOSS 2007 comes in at least two basic flavors: Standard and Enterprise. As with other MS products, you need the server side license, plus the end-user CALs. Standard has a product code, and Enterprise has its own product code. So you can get Standard now and upgrade to Enterprise later. If you go Enterprise immediately, then you'd be buying Standard and Enterprise licenses and CALs anyway.
MOSS 2007 Standard is what we have here, so it's what I'm the most familiar with. All my WSS 3.0 experience comes from online labs I took in 2008 as I was introducing myself to SharePoint. My very limited experience with MOSS Enterprise comes from the fact that my predecessor went and installed a trial version of SP MOSS Enterprise and enabled every stinkin' feature it offers, and I was the one who had to come back and tell everyone, "sorry, you can't use that because we didn't pay for it, so here's your legal version."
Free WSS 3.0 with Free SQL 2005 Express install is about the worst thing you can do. No easy upgrade paths to MOSS later on. Requires a lot of painful manual labor.
Free WSS 3.0 with paid full SQL 2000\2005\2008 backend is a great way to get your feet wet and see what the product is all about. To convert to standard later on, just requires purchase of CALS, and entry of product key. I don't think you have to really install anything all that different, although there are configuration changes to do.
With the Free WSS 3.0 and your full SQL backend, you can configure it as a 180-day trial version of MOSS Standard or Enterprise.
MOSS 2007 Standard going up to Enterprise is even easier. Practically flip of a switch. But if you enable Enterprise, you cannot go back to Standard. (This is why I had such a mess from my predecessor ... It would not let me apply a standard license on a trial version that had been configured as enterprise.)
Here's a pretty good link to what comes in which version:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointserver/FX101758881033.aspx
Really the biggest difference between WSS 3.0 and Standard is inclusion of the Social Networking sites. Allows users to create pages about themselves kind of like linked in or myspace. But with data populated from AD, which is kind of nice. For us it has been a fantastic way to have an immediate up-to-date phonebook as well as an org chart. If I'm not mistaken, with WSS 3.0 you have sort of a standalone SharePoint database of users, but with Standard, the integration with Active Directory is tigher, so that you can use AD groups for security better. (maybe others could speak better to that point.)
Microsoft wants to make you think that they're giving you this cool product for free, and you'll like it so much you'll buy the whole package. Except in my humble opinion, they don't do a very good job of giving you an easy to use and useful product that's very enticing. It's got so much potential and delivers so little that you almost just better plan to go with the paid stuff from the outset and don't waste your time with the freebies and trials.
I like to use cars analogies with computers.
It's like Microsoft is giving you a free car. You eye it suspiciously as you look over the nice paint job, open the driver's side door and slip behind the steering wheel. Hmm, the seat feels good. The controls on the dashboard look bright and shiny and new. It has that new car smell. You start to get excited. You turn the key in the ignition hesitantly, and to your surprise the motor starts up. Wow, this is really nice!
Next thing you know, you're out on the roadway, and you find that the car has a max speed limit of 35mph. But, you figure that's fine, you're not really ready for the highway anyway. So you head out about the town, and pretty soon you realize that the right-hand turn signal doesn't work all the time. But you figure maybe you can live without that as long as you plan your routes carefully. Then you get back home, get out of the car, and reach to lock the door, only to find it doesn't lock. Well, that's alright as long as you're willing to keep it in the garage when you're not using it. It was free, after all.
Then you go and try to use it at night, and you find that it has no headlights. It's not that they don't work, but it's like the door locks, they aren't even THERE. You think to open the hood wondering if maybe they are hidden and might pop out, but there is no hood. Just a molded expanse of metal dropped on top of an engine, with no access to the engine at all.
So now you have a car that's stuck in the garage most of the time that you can't use at night, can't use on the highway, and can't fix without hiring a mechanic willing to start "fixing" things by using a welding torch to cut metal ... damn, shoulda just bought a dang car in the first place.
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Anne O'Day
MCTS: SharePoint 2007 WSS 3.0 & MOSS
MCAS: Word & Excel 2007
Life Lesson #568: Riding arena dirt is neither soft nor edible. |
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aval
Honorable But Hopeless Addict
USA
2204 Posts
Status: offline |
Posted - 06/05/2010 : 7:34:48 PM
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Thanks Anne.
It was of course the free part that interested us (I though all along that is was for purchase, period).
I'll have to determine what we would like to do (after consulting the "stakeholders" and see if the free stuff could do any of that.
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aval
Honorable But Hopeless Addict
USA
2204 Posts
Status: offline |
Posted - 06/08/2010 : 12:51:32 PM
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Anne,
Thank you once again.
quote:
It's got so much potential and delivers so little that you almost just better plan to go with the paid stuff from the outset and don't waste your time with the freebies and trials.
I am wondering if the little the free version offers is enough for us?
For example, after reviewing a list of features, I would like to know if the free version provides satisfactory functionality in these areas:
Anne: I don't expect you to comment everything in detail. If you see something that looks good on paper but only really works with the paid version, that would be nice to know.
- Shared Calendars and contact lists (what more than Exchange?).
- Alerts (can you send email and phone alerts?)
- Document Management (what more than a file server?)
- Room and equipment reservations (Exchange does this too).
- Physical Asset Tracking (cars, buses, lawnmowers, whatever?)
- Project Tracking
- Issue Tracking
- Absence Request and Vacation Scheduling
- Budgeting and Tracking multiple projects.
- Job Requisition and Interview Management.
- Change request management
- Classroom management |
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lady_mcse
Old Timer
352 Posts
Status: offline |
Posted - 06/08/2010 : 1:35:48 PM
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Apologies if I'm too verbose in my responses ... I'm a natural born teacher, and enjoy sharing with others. Unfortunately I have to both learn when to shut up, and sometimes learn to curb my opinions. :-)
- Shared Calendars and contact lists (what more than Exchange?).
Not loads different, just more easily created and managed. Each of our departments likes having a common calendar for tracking schedules, allowing an easier eagle-eye view of who's in the office and who's not on a given day.
Within each calendar, you can add additional columns, so as another example, our IT dept keeps a calendar just for system outages. As a person tries to make an entry on it, they are forced to answer questions like what location, server, length of downtime, etc. That's a benefit over Exchange calendars.
- Alerts (can you send email and phone alerts?)
Email yes, phone, not so sure. I haven't experimented with trying to send alerts to some address otside the company.
- Document Management (what more than a file server?)
Less reliance on file names for documents, and easier searching. When you add columns to the doclib for things that you want to track, people can then filter and view based on that metadata. Having a file name like "Meeting Minutes for the Departmental Meeting Regarding Parking Lot" becomes less important if you can tag that document with metadata like "minutes, departmentX, parking lot, 2010, internal" People could easily search against that file for any of those keywords, or filter the document library list for only documents meeting their filter criteria, and find the doc easily.
For searching, I keep telling people "it's like pointing Google at your documents." They seem to understand that.
- Room and equipment reservations (Exchange does this too).
So far we have left our rooom reservations in Exchange.
- Physical Asset Tracking (cars, buses, lawnmowers, whatever?)
We are tracking our IS equipment with it. It's so-so. Not a lot of advantage over regular old Excel.
- Project Tracking
Not bundled in freebie, but part of the Microsoft "fab 40" download. We are not using it.
- Issue Tracking
Not bundled in freebie, but part of the Microsoft "fab 40" download. We tried to use it for helpdesk, but far more headache than it was worth.
- Absence Request and Vacation Scheduling
Not bundled in freebie, but part of the Microsoft "fab 40" download. My predecessor tried to set this up, but didn't come up with anything people were able to use without a steep learning curve. I have not tried it.
- Classroom management
Not bundled in freebie, but part of the Microsoft "fab 40" download. I've tried using it, and am extremely frustrated with it. It won't handle people with apostrophes in their names. (I wasted two days figuring that out thinking the whole thing didn't work, but no it just didn't work for me, the one employee in the whole agency it wouldn't work for, was the one testing it.) Other major issue is that for people to register for classes, they have to have read\write to the course itself, meaning they can change the course description, location, etc. So 've been reluctant to roll it out. But may do so very soon.
dunno, dunno, dunno ...
- Budgeting and Tracking multiple projects.
- Job Requisition and Interview Management.
- Change request management
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Anne O'Day
MCTS: SharePoint 2007 WSS 3.0 & MOSS
MCAS: Word & Excel 2007
Life Lesson #568: Riding arena dirt is neither soft nor edible. |
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Sharepoint for Dummies
