SharePoint 2010 upgrade: BETA to RC1

Hello Friends

Today we are going to upgrade a BETA installation of SharePoint 2010 to the Release Candidate 1 (RC1). Here are the steps and issues that were encountered:

1. The uninstallation via Add/Remove programs worked without a hitch. (wow!)
   
2. Installing RC1 required the download and installation of a million prerequisites (+/- 1 million): PowerShell 2.0, Microsoft Server Speech Recognition Language, etc
3. Install SharePoint 2010
4. Enter Product Key (key gets validated via internet)
   
5. Installed Server Farm version (not StandAlone) since we will use a different server with SQL Server 2008 already installed
6. Pick your database server, database name, and the port number for the Central Administration web site.
7. After the installation is successful, the configuration wizard is launched.
8. After a successful configuration, you are directed to the admin config intro page (adminconfigintro.aspx) for final configuration questions such as participating in the Customer Experience Improvement Program, user accounts, and services.
   
9. Pick the account with which you wish to run the SharePoint services.
   
10. Pick the services which you wish to have enabled on the farm. I chose the default set of services (everything except Lotus Notes).
11. Choose the template type for the main root level site and click Next.
    
12. At the tale end of the process, we now find ourselves at the Central Administration main menu.
13. Add your adminstrator level users to the Farm Administrators group and add them to the Web Application Policy for future SharePoint provisioning.
14. Add any additional users to the site.

Looks good so far!

::zackcat::

SharePoint 2010 vs UAC

Greetings Kode Katz

Why do I get ACCESS DENIED errors when trying to run STSADM on a SharePoint 2010 installation?

The answer is a simple one: you have been punked by the UAC!

To enable access for this, you will want to do the following:
- verify you are logged in as an adminstrator on the box
- verify the local security policy:
- run "secpol.msc" from the Start-> Run
- drill down to "Local Policies" -> "Security Options"
- locate the setting "User Account Control: Behavior of the elevation prompt for administrators..."
- change this setting to "Elevate without prompting"
- reboot your server machine
- after reboot, when launching the CMD prompt, select the "Run as Administrator" option

You should now have the successful and healthy STSADM syntax shpeel dumped gracefully in your command window!

::zackcat::

Greetings fellow codeniks

Zackcat is finally online with his own blog (applause). We will be covering all sorts of SharePoint and .NET related code goodies and knowledge nuggets that you will be able to incorporate into your own bag of tricks and you too can become a Code Hero (not owned by Activision).

If you have any topics that you would like to be covered, please feel free to drop me a line.

::zackcat::