David Adamson's Blog

MCMS integration into Sharepoint in Office 12

Andrew Connell points to an excellent post on the Sharepoint team blog here about how they decided to integrate the MCMS 2002 features and functionality onto the Sharepoint platform, giving birth to what's now called Web Content Management in Office 12.

If you currently work with MCMS 2002 now, you'll find some answers about migration and support for existing APIs in the new version.

Check it out here

MCMS 2002 SP2 Upgrade Guide

Stefan Goßner has posted the availability of Microsoft Content Management Server 2002 SP2 with support for .Net Framework 2.0.

It looks like there are some very specific steps that need to be taken to do perform this upgrade, especially on a developer's machine and for SQL 2005.
Stefan has since posted some follow up links to guide you through the process here:

Knowledge Base articles for MCMS 2002 SP2

• 906142 - How to obtain the latest Microsoft Content Management Server 2002 service pack
• 906145 - Content Management Server 2002 Service Pack 2 installation information
• 894691 - A list of the bugs that are fixed in Content Management Server 2002 Service Pack 2

Glitches with MCMS 2002 Service Pack 2

Free MCMS eBook Downloads

(via Jawad Khan)

Here are few useful online free books listed on MSDN that will get you started with Microsoft Content Management Server before you do your own investment and buy a MCMS 2002 Book or take an official MOC Training.

Note these books are not meant for beginners though. For beginners I will still Recommend the Book Building Websites with Microsoft Content Management Server as per my post here earlier.You can get good deal on this book from Amazon and other online book sellers.

(1) Building, Deploying, and Maintaining Intranet Sites for the Enterprise

           Chapter 1. Setup
           Chapter 2. Examining OTGWeb's Network Architecture
           Chapter 3. Day-to-Day Operations
           Chapter 4. Building OTGWeb with Best Practices
           Chapter 5. Final Thoughts

This book discusses how a small team within the Operations and Technology Group (OTG) at Microsoft uses Microsoft Content Management Server (MCMS) 2002 to build, deploy, and maintain OTGWeb, an internal Microsoft site. OTG uses OTGWeb to provide information and tools to keep Microsoft employees informed and productive. OTGWeb is, as far as we know, the largest intranet site running MCMS today.

(2) Integration Techniques and Strategies for Internet Business

• Using the MCMS .NET-based managed APIs
• Using the MCMS COM-based Site Deployment API
• Creating user controls and dialog boxes within the Web Author
• Creating custom placeholder controls in Microsoft Visual Studio® .NET
• Creating components that communicate with each external system

In Integration Techniques and Strategies for Internet Business, we'll examine a variety of integration options available to you when designing your Web sites. The methodology we present is simple, secure, and extendable. We take the WoodgroveNet sample site which shipped as a sample with MCMS 2002 and build integration components to show integration with search engines, workflow engines, authentication systems, and other software.

(3) Performance Planning and Deployment with Content Management Server 2002

• Explains performance planning for MCMS 2002
• Demonstrates capacity planning with transaction cost analysis for MCMS 2002
• Provides detailed instructions and best practices for installing a sample MCMS 2002 deployment that can be scaled out to meet your needs.
• Provides troubleshooting information and answers to frequently asked questions for getting the best from your MCMS 2002 site.

This Book shows you how to plan your MCMS 2002 deployment to maximize performance, how to estimate site capacity with transaction cost analysis, and provides best practices and instructions for installing an MCMS 2002, 13-computer, 3-tier, sample, secure deployment that can easily be scaled out to meet the needs of your enterprise. Additionally, it provides troubleshooting tips and answers frequently asked questions about installing and using MCMS 2002

Best Practices - Developing MCMS and Sharepoint for the Future

With all the exciting new announcements at the PDC, the futures of both Sharepoint and MCMS have been confirmed. (were they ever in question?)

In line with this, we should all be ensuring that any development work we do will place us in the best possible position for doing an upgrade when the time comes.

Arpan has linked to a couple of MSDN whitepapers to help us out:

Designing Your MCMS 2002 Solution for Reusability 
Summary:  Use best-practice design recommendations for Microsoft Content Management Server 2002 applications and Web sites to help you create your site in a way that prepares it for future versions of MCMS technology.

Best Practices for Ensuring Application Reusability and Upgrade in Windows SharePoint Services
Summary: Revisit key Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services Software Development Kit (SDK) information to know best practices for writing code that will be optimally reusable when software updates, upgrades, or security updates are applied to a deployment.

(via Arpan)

There were several large announcements made at PDC that are very relevant to SharePoint and CMS customers. I'm personally super excited about this and to be part of this. Microsoft revealed Office "12" - client and servers and talked about our investment in ECM. This is great news for CMS and SharePoint customers that there is one integrated architecture for end-to-end document and content lifecyle.

Another huge announcement was the introduction of Windows Workflow Foundation - WinFX. http://www.msdn.microsoft.com/windowsvista/building/workflow/ Office "12" servers will build on this technology to provide some great workflow!

A lot of CMS and SharePoint customers and partners are wondering what they can do to better prepare for the next version of the technology. If you are a CMS customer, take a look at the newly published whitepaper at: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnmscms02/html/CMSDesigningCMS2002Sol.asp.

If you are a SharePoint customer, make sure you follow guidelines published at: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/odc_SP2003_ta/html/WSSSharePointCodeReuse.asp

Chester Releases MCMS Manager 4.0

Chester has released version 4 of his awesome Content Management Server tool, MCMS Manager. This utility provides the functionality that is lacking in the OOTB Microsoft product that some of my users have been crying out for. Features like placeholder content searching and template and resource gallery item usage are really handy for site auditing and maintenance. Previous versions have only been able to run on the MCMS server, but now Chester is using web services to allow it to be used remotely. Well done Chester!

(via Chester)

I want to thank everyone for helping me to make it as a stable version. Also I've added Page properties editor with this release. Hope to see more feedback! You can download it from here. For more information check MCMS Manager Site.

MCMS Manager 4.0