I have had this "consistent" experience of not being able to delete the Search Service Applicaiton from Central Administration

Remove-SPServiceApplication -id [] should do the trick... but if it doesn't - our good old STSADM will nail it. Thanks to a forum post I had seen then... STSADM works everytime...

Here is the solution

Get -SPServiceApplication

Grab the Search Service Application id -- [for example] 30b15b57-6bec-46b5-990d-541d99bab53b

then use this

Stsadm -o deleteconfigurationobject -id 30b15b57-6bec-46b5-990d-541d99bab53b (Preferred over the next method of PowerShell)

or

Remove-SPServiceApplication -id [id of Search Service Application] -confirm:$false -RemoveData

That's it!

Related posts:

1. SharePoint: Change Service Account Passwords
2. Trial Period Expired in Search Server Express 2010
3. SharePoint: Installation Guide for Application Templates

Delete SharePoint 2010 Search Service Application was published on Alpesh Nakar's Blog

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No worries, you can have OCS/Lync or Lync/Lync work in tandem. This is what I have on my work laptop

What I did was to install Windows XP Mode and configure Lync /Office 2010, the works you know in XP and I was all sorted!

Download  Windows XP Mode and off you go!

Note: Assuming your OS is Windows 7

Related posts:

1. What is Office365?

Using OCS and Lync Together was published on Alpesh Nakar's Blog

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I was using Microsoft BPOS since last couple of months for some of my active domains with limited users and last month, I planned to move them over to Office 365.

Microsoft have a BPOS to Office 365 transition web site, which is pretty useless. Useless since it does not have any tools or guidance that I could use to make a smooth transition. Thankfully I hadn't started using SharePoint in BPOS, so migrating data from BPOS (SharePoint) to Office 365 (SharePoint) is one less headache to take care of... very glad, given the pain I went through to migrate from BPOS to Office 365 for 3 users mailbox and behind the scenes with DNS, etc.

• Create users on generic domain (*.onmicrosoft.com)
• Add your own domain name to Office 365
• Initiate the verification process (txt method preferred) (At Domain Name Registrar)
• Resolve issue that you cannot have domain in BPOS and Office365 -
  • In BPOS change default domain for all users to generic bpos domain *.microsoftonline.com
  • In BPOS delete the  domain name
  • Call up BPOS / FOPE team(s) to make sure the company domain is deleted
• Login in Office365 portal again and complete the domain verification process
• Add/Edit DNS entries for MX records, SRV Records (At Domain Name Registrar)
  • Note: It does not matter what plan you will be using Small  Business or Enterprise. [In forthcoming post I will explain about DNS and Office 365]
• Edit user properties from generic domain (*.onmicrosoft.com) to your domain

That's it, you can send and receive your emails with Office 365.

Hold on, what about my emails/calendar/contacts from BPOS?

Leaving any of third-party products out of the equation, this is what I did

• Setup Outlook with your BPOS email account (Using Microsoft Online Services Sign-In application)..microsoftonline.com">..microsoftonline.com">username@..microsoftonline.com.
• Export all of the mail data into a .PST file.
• Once you have exported the .PST, configure Outlook to with your Office 365 email address username@companydomain.whatever.
• Import the .PST with the Import Wizard and this will sync all of your data back to Office 365.

That's the only way to migrate! Yes you will need to do this for each user... what a pain, but that's the only way for you to migrate, unless you choose to wait for BPOS team to transition you.

I have couple of other Office 365 blog posts scheduled to go live in the weeks to come...

Why can't I sign in to Lync?

Using OCS and Lync at the same time

... that's just a teaser... I have couple of short posts lined up... stay tuned.

Related posts:

1. Why Office 365?
2. Life Before Office365
3. Google Apps or Microsoft Office

Migrating from BPOS Mailbox to Office 365 was published on Alpesh Nakar's Blog

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Thank you Microsoft for introducing the managed accounts, else I would be clicking away for a long time, having to go through each application pool to change the password (map this scenario to MOSS 2007 or WSSv3). With managed accounts associated with application pools, it was a matter of changing the password for the managed account and it would 'cascade' down...

If you have seen my re-imaging VMs on the fly series, you would have seen that I am not using one service account in my SharePoint virtual development environment!

To update the password from the Central Administration GUI > Security > General Security > Configure Managed Accounts and click edit on the relevant managed account and then select Change password now and then select Use existing password. Enter the password that was entered in AD and click OK.

However, in a situation where I had 5 farms and 8 managed accounts per farm, it would mean I would be clicking 40 times at least to get this job done... ( not accounting for the clicks listed in the steps above )

So, I decided to get my hands dirty with PowerShell! Here is the script to use an 'existing password' from the active directory (after it has been changed in the ADS) for my managed account that I am using for all my demo web applications

#Set Execution Policy
Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted -force

#Import SharePoint Module
Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell -EA silentlycontinue

$m = Get-SPManagedAccount -Identity "sharepoint\sa-spcontent"

Set-SPManagedAccount -Identity $m  -ExistingPassword (ConvertTo-SecureString "pass@word2″ -AsPlainText -force) --confirm

iisreset

PowerShell experts, your feedback will be highly appreciated!

This script got the job done, but if there are better ways of doing this, suggestions welcome.

Related posts:

1. SharePoint: Change Service Account Passwords
2. SharePointv2: Access Denied After Changing AD Password
3. PowerShell To Change SharePoint Diagnostic Log File Location

PowerShell Script To Change Managed Account Password was published on Alpesh Nakar's Blog

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In the previous post, we introduced the concept of the 'in the cloud' offering from Microsoft namely Office 365 and what is the offering under the banner of Office 365.

The next question that may pop is "Why Office 365?"

In my opinion, there is no competition for Office 365. Simply nothing. If you start looking at some of the freebies or alternatives, it is not justified at all -- since no one offers what Office 365 offers -- namely

• Office Web Apps  -- Office Suite of Applications in the cloud
• Exchange Online -  Email and Calendar -- in the cloud with Microsoft Exchange 2010
• SharePoint Online - In the cloud using SharePoint! PLUS create your web site with SharePoint Online and you can have a presence in minutes!
• Lync  - Connect, message and meet virtually using Lync Online
• Office 2010 Professional Plus -- licensed per user, pay by the month [plan dependent]

Can there be any comparison? I won't even get 'fruits' in this equation if you know what I mean...

The benefits to move to the cloud with Office 365 are far too many to list here, but if we look at a high level overview, take either Exchange or SharePoint on premise - design, deployment, maintenance and upgrade overheads your head and wallet will go for a spin!

I'll take SharePoint as a micro case study.... without going into the detailed planning, design, deployment .... 

I'll skip the planning, design stages of the project - because you need to do that even if you are moving to the cloud, else it will be more messier then on-premise deployment.

So getting down to the deployment, after planning and design stage - it's very easy to get started with SharePoint Online as compared to SharePoint On-Premise! It's as easy as signing up for the service, provision the site collection(s) / sites (as per the design), add users (pay as you go for the users accessing the services) and off you go... all these in couple of hours, subject to a very well documented plan and design is in place.

Compute the time and costs involved in the case of

• Procuring and commissioning the hardware
• Deployment
• Maintenance

Compare this with getting started with the online solution

• Sign up
• Add Users ( I am not taking the federated route here, to keep it simple)
• Assign Licenses for Services
• Provision site collections / sites

You literally don't have to worry about scalability, reliability and the infrastructure overheads! It's all Microsoft's headache now! If it breaches SLA, you get credit for the same!

Sure, online solution does not offer everything just yet and you could go in for a hybrid solution or wait ...

Check out some of the external resources that will clear out the 'cloud' of doubt as to "Why Office 365?"

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9216887/Why_We_Chose_Exchange_Online_Not_Google_Apps
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/socal-sam/archive/2011/05/12/google-docs-openoffice-versus-office-365.aspx
http://www.lookscloudy.com/2011/05/good-luck-google-docs
http://www.itproportal.com/2011/06/07/office-365-sky-view/

Most geeks I know, have already signed for the small business plan offered in Office 365 -- costs $6.00 per month and the value for money well spent is in

• Office Web Apps -- Office Suite of Applications in the cloud
• Exchange Online - Email and Calendar -- in the cloud with Microsoft Exchange 2010
• SharePoint Online - In the cloud using SharePoint! PLUS create your web site with SharePoint Online and you can have a presence in minutes!
• Lync - Connect, message and meet virtually using Lync Online

Sure, you don't get enterprise features of SharePoint Online, but for $6.00 this is a steal!

I have migrated from BPOS to Office 365 and forthcoming blog posts in a series will help you move to Office 365 from BPOS, because at the time of writing this post, Microsoft don't have any tools or mechanisms in place to help you move! Stay tuned because I already have scheduled the posts to go live over a span of couple of weeks.

Related posts:

1. What is Office365?
2. TechNet Virtual Lab: 2007 Microsoft Office System
3. SharePoint: Download Books for Office SharePoint Server

Why Office 365? was published on Alpesh Nakar's Blog

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The videos are now available to download and view.

Here is the link to download and view all the session videos and presentations.

And here is the link to download and view two sessions that I presented. [Update: Videos are now available]

Session # 1

SharePoint Designer 2010: Top 10 things to know
Download Video
Part1 | Part2 | Part3

Download Presentation

Session # 2

Backup and Restore for SharePoint 2010: Protecting Mission Critical SharePoint Data with new tools and technologies

Download Video
Part1 | Part2 | Part3

Download Presentation

Related posts:

1. I am speaking at Microsoft Tech.Ed India 2011
2. My View of Tech.Ed India 2011
3. Session Slides From Past Conferences

Microsoft Tech.Ed India 2011 Session Videos Available was published on Alpesh Nakar's Blog

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Now that you have captured your bootable virtual hard drive that was prepared for SharePoint Installation, you can apply that to another active partition or a virtual hard drive and then install whichever flavour of SharePoint you please!

As seen in the earlier post, capturing a virtual hard drive to create a Windows Image File is time consuming (compared to taking a snapshot in VMWare or Hyper-V) and memory intensive as well, however the advantage is that you can leverage on bare metal power -- like having dual boot or multi-boot environment on your laptop.

So let's apply the Windows Image File to the virtual hard disk or you could this another partition as well.

This completes the series & I hope it has been of value to you.

Related posts:

1. Capturing VHD To WIM
2. Create a bootable VHD
3. Attach VHD and boot OS in Hyper-V

Applying WIM To VHD was published on Alpesh Nakar's Blog

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