Hardik Shah - Trying to be with the Technology

I have been trying all these days to make my hands real dirty with SPS 2007! And I finally suceeded.

I have a machine running Win 2003 R2 and SPS 2007 (Beta 2). The idea was to try and get hooked up with SPS 2007. There are couple of things that need to be done (as pre-requisties) to install SPS 2007. Here are a few of them:

1. .NET Framework 2.0 or later
2. Windows Workflow Foundation Beta 2.

I 'm smart and installed .NET 3.0 RC! (it has released versions of both the components) And bingo - my SPS got installed without any glitch! No additional stuff to be downloaded or installed except for Framework 3.0.

However, couple of days later - I was trying to work on a "Approval" workflow, which is pre-defined in SPS 2007. I give all the parameters, all the options filled up and start the workflow. The workflow on starting says "In Progress" however within moments it changes to "Failed to Start". I tried installing SPS again and the framework as well - but the workflow just couldnt start.

I failed to understand the reason - as all the pre-requisites were installed and the workflow should have run. Infact stuff like Excel services were running great. I failed to get a solution to why this was happening.

Then came a brainwave - I installed Sharepoint again - this time with .NET Framework 2.0 and Windows Workflow foundation 2.2 (Beta). I tried running a workflow on a document library and voila, this time it surely worked! No more errors and the process was as smooth as it can get!

Here is a story behind! SPS 2007 Beta 2 was supposed to work with Windows Workflow Foundation 2.2 Beta! With .NET Framework 3.0 - I got the RC build of WWF. That created the problem. I had hence to download both the components (WWF and .NET Framework 2.0) and reinstall SPS 2007 Beta 2. However, I guess if I had Beta 2 tech Refresh of SPS 2007, .NET 3.0 RC would have work - thats my assumption - though havent tried that out.

Task finally completed - and a Shutdown in process. More about SPS 2007 installation comming up in later posts! Keep blogging :)