Server side solutions

First of all, take a look at this article: Deploy Office Web Apps.

In summary, make sure you’ve done these things:

• Manage services on this server:
  1) Click Start, point to All Programs, Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products, and then SharePoint 2010 Central Administration.
  2) On the SharePoint Central Administration home page, in System Settings, click Manage services on this server.
  3) On the Services on server:<servername>page, start Excel Calculation Services, Word Viewing Service, and PowerPoint Service. The OneNote Web App does not use a SharePoint service.
  .
• Manage service applications:
  1) Click Start, point to All Programs, Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products, and then SharePoint 2010 Central Administration.
  2) On the SharePoint Central Administration home page, in Application Management, click Manage service applications.
  3) On the Service Applications page, click New, and then click Word Viewing Service.
  4) In the Word Viewing Service Application dialog box, in Name, type Word Viewing Service Application. In Application Pool, select Use existing application pool, and then in the listbox, select SharePoint Web Services Default. In Add to default proxy list, verify Add this service application’s proxy to the farm’s default proxy list is selected (default), and then click OK.
  5) On the Service Applications page, click New, and then click PowerPoint Service Application.
  6) In the PowerPoint Service Application dialog box, in Name, type PowerPoint Service Application. In Application Pool, select Use existing application pool, and then in the listbox, select SharePoint Web Services Default. In Add to default proxy list, verify Add this service application’s proxy to the farm’s default proxy list is selected (default), and then click OK.
  7) On the Service Applications page, click New, and then click Excel Services Application.
  8 ) In the Excel Services Application dialog box, in Name, type Excel Services Application. In Application Pool, select Use existing application pool, and then in the listbox, select SharePoint Web Services Default. In Add to default proxy list, verify Add this service application’s proxy to the farm’s default proxy list is selected (default), and then click OK.

Note here that you have to make sure that there is only one Excel, Powerpoint and Word service application running. When I had for example 2 Excel or Word services (no matter that they had different names), I kept getting errors. There were already Word and Excel services created for me, so I kept them and I just created the Powerpoint service application like stated above.

• Activate the Office Web Apps Feature:
  1) In a browser, in the SharePoint site, click Site Actions (for example, go to the central administration page), and then click Site Settings.
  2)  On the Site Settings page, in Site Collection Administration, click Site Collection Features.
  3)  On the Features page, for Office Web Apps, click Activate
  .
• OR with powershell to activate the Office Web Apps Feature on all site collections:
  Click Start, point to All Programs, Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Management Shell.
  $webAppsFeatureId = $(Get-SPFeature -limit all | where {$_.displayname -eq “OfficeWebApps”}).Id
  Get-SPSite -limit ALL |foreach{Enable-SPFeature $webAppsFeatureId -url $_.URL }

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If you are running the Office Web Apps on a DC, then take a look at this article: Installation Notice for SharePoint 2010 Public Beta

In summary, make sure you’ve done these things:

• If you are using SharePoint on DC, the following Windows PowerShell command would need to be run to enable Sandboxed Solutions.
  $acl = Get-Acl HKLM:SystemCurrentControlSetControlComputerName
  $person = [System.Security.Principal.NTAccount]“Users”
  $access = [System.Security.AccessControl.RegistryRights]::FullControl
  $inheritance = [System.Security.AccessControl.InheritanceFlags]“ContainerInherit, ObjectInherit”
  $propagation = [System.Security.AccessControl.PropagationFlags]::None
  $type = [System.Security.AccessControl.AccessControlType]::Allow
  $rule = New-Object System.Security.AccessControl.RegistryAccessRule($person, $access, $inheritance, $propagation, $type)
  $acl.AddAccessRule($rule)
  Set-Acl HKLM:SystemCurrentControlSetControlComputerName $acl
  .
• If you are trying to use Office Web Apps on DC(Office Web Application need to be installed seperately, like a language pack or an update. Please also note that Office Web Application cannot be installed on needs to follow the same edit of config.xml to install on Windows 7), then the following commands need to be run to make the services work. Please note that in different languages, Service Application names could be localized. You can find them out by Get-SPServiceApplications, and then change the names in the script as necessary.
  Please do note that Office Web Apps is not supported on a DC. So this configuration should never be used in production.
  $e = Get-SPServiceApplication | where {$_.TypeName.Equals(“Word Viewing Service Application”)}
  $e.WordServerIsSandboxed = $false
  $e.WordServerIsSandboxed $p = Get-SPServiceApplication | where {$_.TypeName.Equals(“PowerPoint Service Application”)}
  $p.EnableSandboxedViewing = $false
  $p.EnableSandboxedEditing = $false
  $p.EnableSandboxedViewing
  $p.EnableSandboxedEditing 

  #(Please use the below script for PowerPointServiceApplication – You need to enter “Y” for the answer of each cmd)
  Get-SPPowerPointServiceApplication | Set-SPPowerPointServiceApplication -EnableSandboxedViewing $false
  Get-SPPowerPointServiceApplication | Set-SPPowerPointServiceApplication -EnableSandboxedEditing $false
  

• In the server’s c:windowssystem32inetsrvconfigapplicationHost.config
  Add the line below in the end of the dynamicTypes.
  <add mimeType=”application/zip” enabled=”false” />
  IISRESET

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If after that, opening an Excel document in sharepoint gives you this error: “Unable to process the request. Wait a few minutes and try performing this operation again.”

Then try this as a solution:

• Click Start, point to All Programs, Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products, and then SharePoint 2010 Central Administration.
• On the SharePoint Central Administration home page, in Application Management, click Manage web application –> Sharepoint – 80—> click Service connections- check/select that excel service.

Note: also make sure that here you have the word and powerpoint services checked here!

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Also, Check if you are opening your document in protected view. To disable this, follow these steps (from Sharepoint 2010 – how to):

1. Run one of the Office 2010 application (e.g. Word 2010).
2. Click on File menu, and select Options.
3. In the “Options” dialog, select Trust Center in the left pane.
4. Click on Trust Center Settings in the right pane.
5. Select Protected View in the left pane of “Trust Center” dialog.
6. Disable any of all of the protected view options as below by unticking the check boxes:
   • Enable Protected View for files that fail validation
   • Enable Protected View for files originating from the Internet
   • Enable Protected View for files located in potentially unsafe locations
   • Enable Protected View for Outlook attachments

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After this point, most doc, docx and xlsx files will open, though there are still some persistent ones that fail to open.

Opening a Word doc gives this error: “Word Web App cannot open this document for viewing because of an unexpected error. To view this document, open it in Microsoft Word.”

Apparently this happens when the extension isn’t supported by the Web Apps. Yet, the doc format should be supported, since Microsoft says this about it:
“Doc can be viewed in Word Web App. Word Web App converts the DOC-file to a DOCX-file so it can also be edited.”
See an overview of all the supported file types here.

Note that xls is not supported by the Office Web Apps, not for viewing or editing. This format is only supported on their SkyDrive.

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Make sure that you check your permissions. For this, read: Account permissions and security settings (SharePoint Server 2010).
This wasn’t a part of my problem, though.

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Have a look at the logs of Sharepoint.
A very nice way to view them in realtime and record certain action is the ULS Viewer.

In the Logs of Sharepoint (default in C:Program FilesCommon FilesMicrosoft SharedWeb Server Extensions14LOGS), I found this:
Librarian.BeginGetItem(F5a78dec131294bd88974b77dc36ee258mf05929c85d10495083846cfb9519854bm9b1ce232beae4457ab0bc9bbbf4c501fm, Png, docdata.xml)      bdbb85bf-03a5-49c1-ba53-1d24350ceb8e
ViewStore.BeginGetItem(F5a78dec131294bd88974b77dc36ee258mf05929c85d10495083846cfb9519854bm9b1ce232beae4457ab0bc9bbbf4c501fm, Png, docdata.xml)      bdbb85bf-03a5-49c1-ba53-1d24350ceb8e
ViewStore.SetCompleted(F5a78dec131294bd88974b77dc36ee258mf05929c85d10495083846cfb9519854bm9b1ce232beae4457ab0bc9bbbf4c501fm, Png, docdata.xml) – status = ConversionError          bdbb85bf-03a5-49c1-ba53-1d24350ceb8e
Librarian.SetCompleted(F5a78dec131294bd88974b77dc36ee258mf05929c85d10495083846cfb9519854bm9b1ce232beae4457ab0bc9bbbf4c501fm, Png, docdata.xml) – status = ConversionError          bdbb85bf-03a5-49c1-ba53-1d24350ceb8e

So, it seems that my issue is related to a ConversionError.
This seems consistent with what Microsoft says about DOC files: “Word Web App converts the DOC-file to a DOCX-file so it can also be edited.”
I read this about it: “Worker processes: The Word Viewing service application and the PowerPoint service application uses worker processes to convert documents and presentations into a series of PNG images or into XAML (if Silverlight is installed), and temporarily stores output locally on-disk. Administrators can configure worker process settings to optimize performance by using SharePoint Central Administration and by using Windows PowerShell.”

Which makes me next step installing Silverlight. Close IE and Install Silverlight. Afterwards, restart it, then the error will change into:
ViewStore.SetCompleted(F5a78dec131294bd88974b77dc36ee258m1d5b8f44cba04d6d8ea29c2e96ab6c3fmc29170dd4f924af69ed2f40ad4367e83m, Silverlight, docdata.xml) – status = ConversionError       3aa0ec44-999c-46e9-ac1d-24ee6ea878d7
Librarian.SetCompleted(F5a78dec131294bd88974b77dc36ee258m1d5b8f44cba04d6d8ea29c2e96ab6c3fmc29170dd4f924af69ed2f40ad4367e83m, Silverlight, docdata.xml) – status = ConversionError       3aa0ec44-999c-46e9-ac1d-24ee6ea878d7

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Document side

After trying all these thing on the server side, it’s time to have a look at the documents themselves. Why would some of them open without any problems and some wouldn’t? It’s the same extension, so that can’t be an issue.
Turns out that when we save and upload the documents without a header and custom user data, the documents that failed before open nicely in the browser now!!

To inspect a document for user data:

1. Open the document in the office application (for example Word).
2. Click on the big, round Office button in the left upper corner.
3. Click on Prepare.
4. Click on Inspect document.

I haven’t found an article from Microsoft so far that states which features you can include in a document that you upload to sharepoint and which you can’t.  Has anyone come across such an article?

Applying our company’s logo and design to the overall layout of the site turned out to be not as easy as I thought it would be.
Of course, the most basic part was making a new masterpage with Sharepoint Designer 2007. This I did by making a copy of the default.master and adapt it to my own liking. I created a new css style for it so everything would stay a bit clean. This worked great for the public site parts. Our logo was shining all over the place … except … not “all” over the place …

The Sharepoint administration pages don’t seem to like to blend in very much. Turns out that these pages use a different master page: application.master. Whenever you google it everyone seems to scream about how dangerous it is to alter this page and you really shouldn’t mess with it. So you can imagine I wasn’t really jumping on the idea.
So I tried to find workarounds. The homepage administration pages seemed to use the same core.css file as the user pages, so I copy/pasted the css styles in my custom made css into the core.css at the bottom. So this fixed that problem.
But other administration pages seemed to use a totally different core.css file, one located at “…Program filesMicrosoft SharedWeb Server Extensions12templatelayouts1033styles”. So I did the same for that file.

Et voila … my site looks like it should w/o modifying the application.master page itself.Â
Some things you should hold into account:

• make sure your image paths are correct
• my master page didn’t differ that much from an original one. The parts I didn’t want visible I just put the position on absolute and the left tag on -10000px so it wouldn’t show up on my screen. On my own master page I could just delete these parts, but this is another way not to show them w/o editing the master page. This of course is only possible if the application.master page isn’t that different from the one you want to accomplish.
• make sure you check in, publish and approve the master page you created, otherwise other people won’t be able to see it

Some useful links:

• Customize application.master
• All site content page not using master page
• CSS Reference Chart for SharePoint 2007

Good luck I’d say!