Options to refresh the content in Staging with Production environment

1. Use STSADM -o backup/restore
2. Use STSADM -o export/import
3. Use Content Deployment Wizard, you can download it from CodePlex SharePoint Content Deployment Wizard 

When you use backup/restore, you get everything - including recycle bin content, running workflows, alerts etc. This may or may not be what you want. Such 'environment-specific' things are not captured in 2 and 3 - the principle difference between 2 and 3 is that you can specify you wish all the objects (e.g. lists) to keep the same IDs. Any customizations made in the 12 or 14 hive  folder, none of these options would capture these. Such customization would need to be deployed  using WSP packages separately.

Get-SPDatabase – How to see the SharePoint content DB size

Get-SPDatabase | ForEach-Object {$db=0} {$db +=$_.disksizerequired; $_.name + " - " + $_.disksizerequired/1024/1024} {Write-Host "`nTotal Storage (in MB) =" ("{0:n0}" -f ($db/1024/1024))}


Get-SPDatabase | Sort-Object disksizerequired -desc | Format-Table Name, @{Label ="Size in MB"; Expression = {$_.disksizerequired/1024/1024}}

User Information List– the hidden list in SharePoint

User info list can be accessed using following URLs. This is a hidden list there is no out of the box option to edit or delete the users from here. Initially I thought it requires custom solution to delete the users from here.

Simple view : ../_catalogs/users/simple.aspx
Detail view: ../_catalogs/users/detail.aspx

However if you delete the user from ‘People and Groups’ (All people view) using the following URL user info list also reflects it :-)

_layouts/people.aspx?MembershipGroupId=0&FilterField1=ContentType&FilterValue1=Person

SharePoint 2013 Free Training videos from Microsoft !!

Developer-focused training, walkthrough videos, if anyone is interested.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/apps/fp123626.aspx

You may also set up Development environment using Office 365 Developer Site on Cloud and start developing ‘SharePoint 2013 Apps’.

Also http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj163980(v=office.15).aspx

Happy learning SharePoint :-)

Cannot start service SPUserCodeV4 on computer – Sandboxed solution

You might get this error while deploying a sand boxed solution

Error    1    Error occurred in deployment step 'Activate Features': Cannot start service SPUserCodeV4 on computer 'XXXXXXXX'.

The above error can be resolved by starting the service below in Central Admin >> System Setting >>Manage services on server

Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Sandboxed Code Service

PowerGUI Error : Microsoft SharePoint is not supported with version 4.0.30319.1 of the Microsoft .Net Runtime

When you are working with Power GUI script editor version 3.2.0.2237 and installed Visual Studio 2010 on the same machine, you will the following error- 

“Microsoft SharePoint is not supported with version 4.0.30319.261 of the Microsoft .Net Runtime.”

To fix this, open “ScriptEditor.exe.config” file which is located in C:\Program Files (x86)\PowerGUI\ and comment the line #4 as shown below.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
    <startup useLegacyV2RuntimeActivationPolicy="true">
        <!-- <supportedRuntime version="v4.0" sku=".NETFramework,Version=v4.0" />-->
        <supportedRuntime version="v2.0.50727" />
    </startup>

Restart the Power GUI editor after making the above change.

The security validation for this page is invalid. - SharePoint 2010

In my case I got this error while activating a feature. You might encounter this error during Feature activation using power shell script or STSADM. The exact error message would be follows

The security validation for this page is invalid. Click Back in your Web browser

, refresh the page, and try your operation again.        

Solution : You need to make sure you have set the AllowUnsafeUpdates to false somewhere in the feature activation code and your code expect it to be true to perform certain actions. You may change it back to False at the end of the feature receiver code.