I LOVE the idea behind this conference – talking through the *why* we do things instead of only the *how*.  Don’t get me wrong, understanding how to do things with SharePoint is pretty important.  It’s a big platform that keeps getting bigger. 

One challenge that many decision makers, implementers and users run into with SharePoint is that there are often more ways than one to get things done.  While options are sometimes a good thing, it can also be confusing to know which solution is the best for a particular scenario.  The answer to this is understanding *why* a decision is made.  So, that’s what we’re tackling this week. 

There are a lot of experts here and a lot of topics being covered.  It’s going to be a good week.  My topics include:

Lists: Used, Abused and Underappreciated
Lists are used as the core of many things SharePoint but they are rarely used as well as they can be. Learn the top tips and tricks for getting the most of your lists: How to build them smarter, how to display them more clearly, and how to use them in your environment for effectively. Also see how these practices evolve from 2007 to 2010.

SharePoint: The Day After
You’ve deployed your farm, built your customizations and integrated your external systems… now what? How do you make sure your users are informed, educated, trained and supported? How do you measure success? How are you insuring the stability of the platform going forward? And why are answering these questions so important to your success.

I hope everyone has a great week!

I have however seen two potentially exciting references/links in the past day that I wanted to pass on:

1. For TechNet subscribers there is a new SharePoint 2010 Deployment Guide that should be checked out:
   http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/ff798284.aspx

   (There is also an Office 2010 Deployment Guide as well.) 

2. Productivity Hub 2010 – a resource for end-user training.  This looks like a potential replacement for the Learning Kit that we had in 2007.  I need to get this spun up and tested ASAP…
   http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=4aaa9862-e420-4331-8bc3-469d7bae0ff1

What doesn’t seem to be getting as much press are the IT Pro and Developer events that are also happening around the country.  Check out the following link and dig in a bit:

http://www.microsoft.com/business/2010events/ 

We’ll be having a local event in Minneapolis (Bloomington actually) on May 27th – so take a look at the agenda and see if you like to attend with us! 

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/advisory/983438.mspx

Have fun rebuilding!    

By default, I would expect the 64-bit version of Office 2010 to be the latest and greatest.  It IS the latest, but it’s only the greatest if you have some specific needs and don’t need some of the features that DON’T work – features that many people will miss. 

This article gets into the details you need:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee681792(office.14).aspx

Specifically take a look at the ‘Advantages’ and ‘Disadvantages’ sections. 

Some highlights: 

• As you would expect, the 64-bit version allows use of additional memory, which translates into larger Excel 2010 workbooks and big Project 2010 projects.
• As you (at least I) wouldn’t expect – some features like the Edit in Datasheet view DON’T work with Office 64-bit installed.  The details and reasoning can be found in the article but they’re related to ActiveX controls and COM add-ins… 

So, get to know the details before you purchase or plan to deploy Office 2010. 

Sounds like the earliest availability for downloading bits will be on April 27th for Volume License and Software Assurance Customers. 

The official (virtual) launch will be on May 12th – which also happens to be our next MNSPUG meeting.  We’ll be streaming the launch live and working on adding some more fun as well – check the MNSPUG site for more information as we have it. 

• You cannot use SharePoint Designer (SPD) 2010 to manage SharePoint 2007 sites.
• You can’t use SharePoint Designer (SPD) 2007 to access SharePoint 2010 sites. 

So, if you have to maintain both 2007 and 2010 SharePoint environments you need to have both versions of SPD installed somewhere.  Most administrators would probably prefer that they be readily available on the same machine.  

Reportedly, you could only have both versions installed if they were the same bit-level versions – specifically 32-bit since there isn’t a 64-bit version of SPD 2007.

Something I wasn’t aware of until now was that it wasn’t just SPD that in conflict – it’s any office client.  If you intend to install both versions of SPD on the same OS, ALL of your Office client apps will need to be 32-bit (Paul Stork).

-> Something else new that I learned was that you CAN have both versions of SPD installed with 64-bit SPD (all Office) 2010 and 32-bit SPD 2007 as long as SPD 2007 is installed after the 64-bit 2010 clients have been installed (Clayton Cobb). 
(Updated 4/16) – While this is technically possible right now, it is an officially unsupported scenario (see the last statement in the second long paragraph of the article): 
http://blogs.technet.com/office2010/archive/2010/02/23/understanding-64-bit-office.aspx
Thanks to Woody for pointing this out

This information is based on running pre-RTM versions of the 2010 Office clients and therefore should be tested again with the RTM bits when they are available.

It should also be noted that some folks have the opinion that the 2007 clients should not be installed side-by-side with the 2010 clients. (Mike Walsh)  Thankfully with the ease of being able to run Windows XP Mode on Windows 7, one scenario for circumventing this is to install the latest and greatest 2010 bits on the host OS, and then SPD 2007 on the Windows XP mode.  Hopefully there is a scenario that fits your individual or organization’s needs.    

NOTE: Information in this post is based on a TechNet forum thread with the names of the folks providing information tagged with the information they provided…  Thanks guys!

Post:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sharepoint2010general/thread/75697656-6578-48e1-93be-4e335629554f

RTM – April 2010

Launch Date: May 12th, 2010
Register for the launch event HERE

Here’s the official post on the SharePoint Team blog from Arpan Shah – Director, SharePoint.

Now we just need to keep an eye on MSDN and TechNet for when the bits arrive in April. 

Come join us on Saturday March 20th at a new location – the U of M (University of Minnesota!!) Twin Cities campus – on the East Bank in the Computer Science building.  More information about speakers, sessions, maps, etc is available at the SharePoint Saturday official site. 

Click here to register!

We’re also in the midst of moving, building and rolling out a new persistent site that will hold ongoing event schedules, session decks and information, be the main way to contact organizers, etc when all is said and done.  We’ll update this post and send another note out when that page is done.