How not to beta (SharePoint 2007)

I've been playing with MOSS and WSSv3 betas quite a bit lately. Most of the time, I do this on my laptop. After MOSS shared services started hogging too much CPU from my development resources, it was time to uninstall it and go back to just WSSv3 (the core framework). Ouch-- that was painful. For those taking notes-- the SharePoint 2007 beta 2 releases of MOSS and WSSv3 have been a great example of instability. They're fine the first time you install them (maybe)-- but uninstalling them leaves a mess that prevents reinstallation. Yes, I know this is why there's Virtual Server-- but that's not a viable development option due to its speed. I did find some new virtualization software from Parallels software that promises near physical hardware performance using a Hypervisor, so I'm hoping that helps out a bit-- but having virtualization software available by no means is an excuse to release unstable installers.

So while I planned on developing SDK components for WSSv3 "Features" and the Features Framework, instead I've been running the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard (again and again and again and again... ). I'm hoping your experience isn't as bad as mine (trust me, I really do), but in case your stuck here are some tips on getting unfubar'ed.

One thing that I've found helps get a target deployment machine un-fubar'ed is to copy the registry hive from a working MOSS server to the target machine. Here's the registry path roots that helped me:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions

and also the language key:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0\ServerLanguage]
"1033"=""

I also found that somehow WSSv3 (after uninstalling MOSS) tried to secure a lot of directories taht didn't exist-- another obvious leftover from the previous MOSS install. To stop WSS from trying to secure these, I had to delete the registry hive:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0\WSS\ResourcesToSecure

After doing this, I again got an error and had to repair the product from the add/remove programs menu, but this was the last step and now its finally reinstalled. Should enterprise software REALLY be this tough to maintain? And should beta (beta 2, mind you) software really be this tough to maintain? Making sure it installs, uninstalls and reinstalls should be one of the first things to get going and keep going in your development shop. Its as important as having a build server-- your code shouldn't be considered accepted until its proven in an installed version (from the setup application). Getting your software deployed is as important as making sure the code runs.

So please, y'all... if you write enterprise software, make sure it installs, uninstalls, and doesn't leave a fubar'ed state. And yes, that means you too, Microsoft.

source:daniellarson.spaces.live.com