I recently found in the CodePlex web site, two very interesting and useful tools to ease the process of deployment of a SharePoint 2007 solutions:
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SharePoint Solution Installer – You can get this application here. It’s a Windows application with a friendly user interface to help the deployment of SharePoint 2007 solutions. Here is the list of features:
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Support for all relevant operations:
- Add solution to the SharePoint solution store.
- Deploy solution to one or more web applications.
- Upgrade solution.
- Retract and remove solution.
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Pre-install system check for the following conditions:
- WSS V3 is installed.
- MOSS 2007 is installed (This check can be disabled in config file)
- User has permission to install solutions.
- SharePoint database is online.
- WSS Administration service is started.
- WSS Timer service is started.
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Implements a work around for the following error conditions:
- Another solution deployment job never finished and is now blocking for the creation of a new job. Work-around: Delete old job from the list of Timer job defnitions.
- Timer service is not started: An attempt is made to start it (please note that timer services on other front ends will not be started).
- Database is offline, which will yield an ugly NullreferenceException from SharePoint offering little clue to the root cause of the problem. Work around: Detect NullreferenceException and display nice error message.
- Display EULA. (Can be disabled in config file).
- Web application list where user can select the web apps. to deploy the solution to.
- Rollback after installation errors.
- Configurable Product Title.
- Configurable banner image.
- Configurable logo image.
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- SharePoint 2007 Content Types Viewer – You can get this application here. It’s a Windows application that allows you to view SharePoint 2007 Content Types. It is also extremely useful for solution deployment since it helps building features for Site Columns and Content Types.