Sharepoint 2010 Metadata

SharePoint Metadata is advancing with the versions and if you know how to work with the metadata you can make it easier for the users to search, locate, organise and use stuff within your organization.

The tags and the site columns makes it easier to get what you need within the search query, Below is a video from Sean Bordner who explains sites columns, Content Types, Term Store and Term set with real world examples we really found it useful and think if you spend 21 minutes here you can understand the sharepoint metadata in a better way

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1ZiDWycyfs

Practice question answers for exam 70-332 | Advanced Solutions of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013

If you are looking forward to clear 70-332 paper and looking for practice questions answers like me, here i have combined a set of links which can be useful.

The best place where i could see the questions and answers is mcseananswers.com

I am listing down the links to go step by step these are 12 part series which contains 70 questions and answers which might give you an idea of stuff you can expect in 70-332 paper
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.mcseanswers.com/latest-mcse-70-332-real-exam-download-1-10.html

http://www.mcseanswers.com/latest-mcse-70-332-real-exam-download-part-02.html

http://www.mcseanswers.com/latest-mcse-70-332-real-exam-download-part-03.html

http://www.mcseanswers.com/latest-mcse-70-332-real-exam-download-part-04.html

http://www.mcseanswers.com/latest-mcse-70-332-real-exam-download-part-05.html

http://www.mcseanswers.com/latest-mcse-70-332-real-exam-download-part-06.html

http://www.mcseanswers.com/latest-mcse-70-332-real-exam-download-part-07.html

http://www.mcseanswers.com/latest-mcse-70-332-real-exam-download-part-08.html

http://www.mcseanswers.com/latest-mcse-70-332-real-exam-download-part-09.html

http://www.mcseanswers.com/latest-mcse-70-332-real-exam-download-part-10.html

http://www.mcseanswers.com/latest-mcse-70-332-real-exam-download-part-11.html

http://www.mcseanswers.com/latest-mcse-70-332-real-exam-download-part-12.html

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I will add more links here when I make progress.

More information can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en-in/exam-70-332.aspx

Linked table is unavailable. Microsoft access cannot contact the server.

Linked table is unavailable. Microsoft access cannot contact the server.

We got this error message when we tried to export our big fat list to “open with access”

We recently found this issue coming up for one of our lists and we are still searching for the solution but when I tried googlng for solution. The only part I found was a hot fix. We have users complaining about this list not working since morning and the hotfix would not make any sense at this moment because it used to work and everyone swears no changes were made.  

What should be your check list for such type of issue? I have tried to list what I did, hope it helps you.

1.       What are the statists of the list.

·         Number of columns

·         Number of items

·         Number of lookup columns

This part in my case was way above the ordinary 163 columns and 12 thousand+ items

2.       Does it work with a different view and less columns

3.       Does it work with Access 2007 and Access 2010

4.       Does it work with a other lists in the same site or sub site (this worked for me)

5.       Does export to excel option works ( this one didn’t work for me, it just helped us to drill the problem down further to the list contents)

6.       I saved the list as a template without content and created list again and tried opening with access (this worked – not sure what that really mean)

7.       Can you apply the hotfix http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;2552989

Close assumptions:

According to the kb 270262

You cannot receive data from SharePoint lists in Microsoft Access if the following conditions are true:

• When there is a problem with the health of the Microsoft SharePoint Server (for example, it runs slowly).
• You have a low bandwidth connection.
• You have a large or complex SharePoint list/document library.
• There is a large distance between you and the server.
• There are more than 255 columns in the SharePoint list/document library.

Out of this the large distance to server sounds funny.  The only point I could use to my defense was” You have a large or complex SharePoint list/document library.”

But MS did not specify what that meant so I checked on the threshold section of MSDN  at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262787.aspx

Which says :

SharePoint Server 2013 data is stored in SQL Server tables. To allow for the maximum number of possible columns in a SharePoint list, SharePoint Server 2013 will create several rows in the database when data will not fit on a single row. This is called row wrapping.

To prevent too much load, by default a maximum of six SQL Server rows are allowed Each time that a row is wrapped in SQL Server, an additional query load is put on the server when that item is queried because a SQL join must be included in the query. for a SharePoint item. This limit leads to a particular limitation on the number of columns of each type that can be included in a SharePoint list. The following table describes the limits for each column type.

The row wrapping parameter can be increased beyond six, but this may result in too much load on the server. Performance testing is recommended before exceeding this limit.

And you can find from the table how row wrapping is determined.

For Single line of text SQL Server row wrapping occurs after each 64 columns in a SharePoint list.

So on and so forth. Please check the technet link for more information.

This could be a reason of the error message popping up.

As mentioned I was still not able to determine the cause, will update this article when I can.

Sharepoint level I training.

I was asked to give a Level 1 training to few people and the first thing we need is the range of topics that would be needed and as sharepoint is pretty vast you can get lost easily to dive deep and confuse your audience
 thanks to Microsoft we have a well defined level 1 user training topics that you can stick to.

Lessons:


1. What’s New in SharePoint 2010

2. End User Adoption

3. What is SharePoint?

4. Why SharePoint?

5. New SharePoint Features

6. Site Structure

7. Basic SharePoint Features

8. Understand UI Improvements

9. Use the Create Page

10. Explore the Ribbon

11. Lists

12. List Views

13. SharePoint 2010 Features

Lab : Document Library

• Create a Document Library

• Create Documents and Folders

• Explore JavaScript Dropdowns

• Uploading Documents

• Explorer View/My Network Places

Lab : Forms Library

• Create a Form library

• Create an InfoPath Form

• Publish a Form

Lab : Wiki Pages

• Create Wiki Page Library

• Add Wiki Pages

• Editing Wiki Pages

• History

Lab : Picture Library

• Create a Picture Library

• Upload Pictures

• Picture Views (Thumbnail, Slideshow, Details)

• Referencing Pictures

Lab : Report Library

• Create A Report Library

• Create A Report

• Upload A Report

• Run A Report

• Report History

Lab : Data Connection Library

• Create A Data Connection Library

• Create/Upload an Office Data Connection (ODC)

• Create/Upload an Universal Data Connection (UDC)

Lab : Asset Library

• Create an Asset Library

Lab : Slide Library

• Create a Slide Library

• Uploading Slides

• Publish Slides

Lab : Surveys

• Create a Survey

• Create Questions

• Change question ordering

• Branching Logic

• Fill out the survey

• Anonymous Surveys?

Lab : Custom Lists

• Create A Custom List

• Add One Of Each Column Type

Lab : General Lists

• Create An Announcement List

• Create A Contact List

• Create A Discussion Board

• Create A Links List

• Create A Calendar

• Create A Project Tasks

• Create A KPI

• Create An Issue Tracking List

Lab : Views

• Creating Views (Standard, Datasheet, Access)

• Adding/Ordering Columns

• Sorting Data

• Filtering Data

• Grouping Data

• Totaling Data

• Setting Style

• Item Limits

• Mobile

• Enabling View

Lists:

• Create and use SharePoint Lists (Calendar, Tasks, Issues, etc)

• Create and use SharePoint Libraries (Document, Forms, Picture, etc)

• Add, update and delete list and library items

• Create Views and Survey's

• Describe and use the new Asset Library

• Understand when to use a List and when to use a Database

• How to use and create Document Sets

• Learn to create External Lists

• Advanced List Management

• Basic List Management

Lab : List Management

• RSS Feeds

• Check out/Check In

• Document/Item Properties

• Site Columns

• Content Types

• Document Information Panel

• Versioning/Version History

• Content Approval

Lab : New Features

• Multi-Document Actions

• Turn On Document Sets

• Column Level Validation

• List Level Validation

• Content Ratings

• Audience Targeting

• Metadata Navigation

• Manage Item Scheduling

• Document ID Service

• Generate file plan report

• Record declaration settings

Lab : Email Enabled Lists

• Email Enable A List

• Send an email to A List

Lab : Alerts

• Create a List Alert

• Create an Item Alert

• Use Alerts

• Manage Alerts

Lab : SharePoint Permissions

• Review Default Groups

• Add Users to a Site

• Requests for Access

• Understand Security Trimmed Interface

• Create New Groups

• Create Custom Permission Level

• Explore Site/List/Item Permission Inheritance

• Permission Checker

Lessons

• SharePoint Foundation Sites

• Creating Sites

• Growth Scenarios

Lab : SharePoint Foundation SitesCreating SitesGrowth Scenarios

• Create Sub Sites (Team Site)

• Create/Use a Blog Site

• Create/Use a Wiki Site

• Create A Document Workspace

• Create A Meeting Workspace

• Create A GroupBoard Workspace

• Create A Visio Process Repository

• Delete A Site

Lessons

• Office Integration

• SharePoint Workspace 2010

• Web Applications

Lab : Office Integration

• Offline Document Libraries

• Manipulating Calendars (two-way update, roll-up view)

• Manipulating Tasks

• Manipulating Contacts

• Excel Data Reporting

• Access Data Reporting

• One Note

• SharePoint Workspace

Lab : Office Web Applications

• Explore Office Web Applications

Lab : Access Services

• Explore Access Services

Lab : Visio Services

• Explore Visio Services

Lab : BCS

• Explore External Content Types

• Create a new External Content Type

• Create an External List.

Reference: http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en-us/course.aspx?id=50468b

Downloadable resources about how to plan for SharePoint 2013

Technical diagrams for SharePoint 2013


Planning worksheets for SharePoint 2013 


SharePoint Server IT Pro Reviewer's Guide 


Video demos and training for SharePoint 2013 

Boundaries, thresholds and supported limits in SharePoint 2013

In SharePoint Server 2013, there are certain limits that are by design and cannot be exceeded, and other limits that are set to default values that may be changed by the farm administrator. There are also certain limits that are not represented by a configurable value, such as the number of site collections per web application.

Plan browser support in SharePoint 2013

Supported Internet Explorer versions

The product group makes every effort to validate that SharePoint functionality works correctly with released versions of Internet Explorer. Customers who want a more deeply validated browser interaction experience should strongly consider Internet Explorer.

Internet Explorer 10, Internet Explorer 9, Internet Explorer 8

Other supported browsers

• Google Chrome (latest released version)
  
• Mozilla Firefox (latest released version plus immediate previous version)
  For example, if the latest released version is 10, then version 9 would be supported.
  
• Apple Safari (latest released versions
  
  
  Ref: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263526.aspx#browserdetail  

Browser support with SharePoint Foundation 2010

SharePoint Needs optimal browser for best performance and you would need to know the supported browsers before you plan to use it for your company, no points for guessing that Microsoft would support their own Browser much more than the other popular ones available in the market.

• IE6 is not supported by Microsoft as it’s an outdated version
• IE 7 to 11 are supported in both 32 and 64 bit flavors.

ActiveX controls


Some functionality in SharePoint Foundation 2010 requires the use of ActiveX controls. This produces limitations on browsers which do not support ActiveX. Currently only 32-bit versions of Internet Explorer support this functionality. All other browsers have the limitations.



Mobile browser support

• Windows Phone 7.0 Internet Explorer
• Apple iOS 4.0 Safari
• Google Android 2.1 Android Browser
• Research in Motion (RIM) Blackberry 4.0 Blackberry Browser
• Nokia Symbian 3 Nokia Browser

Is SharePoint 2007 really outdated?

If you are one amongst the people who joined this amazing product in 2007 when it was in full boom and were comfy working with the Central Admin and the SSP and then when you rubbed your soul into it you got the new ribbons and stuff around ...I know how it feels.


MOSS is classy, its seems like your working on something.. a website ... the ribbons in 2010 just makes everything look like Office but yes we do need then so the end users can explore all the functionality of options available.

But we have to move on as everyone does .. Still there are organizations stuck with 2007 because the cost of upgrade is something they need to think upon. For the 2007 Share pointers I have something here.



Here is downloadable content for 2007 that you can read and use as per your needs.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262788(v=office.12).aspx

How to change image library location in SharePoint Blog site?

First of all it depends on which method you are using to publish blog?

Is it using MS Word?

Or you are directly creating posts on blog site?

If you are using MS Word

If you are using MS Word to publish post to SharePoint Blog site then it will automatically publish images to "Photos" picture library.

Below are the steps to change the default location

• Open MS Word > New > Blog
• Manage Accounts > Select the account and click on change
• Click "Picture Option", this will give you 3 more option - SharePoint Blog, My Own Server and don't upload images
• Select the second option
• Provide URL of another picture library where you want to upload images into source and upload URL, click OK.
• It will give you pop up after successful registration

Or

Direct posting on SharePoint Blog site

If you are directly creating posts inside blog site then you have to first create another picture library and while you are inserting an image it will give an option where to save this image.

SharePoint Optimization: ADC Implementation Tips & Methodologies

Optimize SharePoint deployments – dramatic performance improvements. White Paper:SharePoint Performance Optimization Download this step-by-step guide for SharePoint optimization through implementation of application delivery controller (ADC). Information Systems professionals can increase user productivity while also reducing the computational and budget resources needed to provide mission critical applications. Learn about: Obtaining high availability for SharePoint Servers Distributing client traffic seamlessly across multiple SharePoint WFE Servers to improve site scalability Supporting higher connection throughput and faster end user response times, and reduce WFE CPU utilization by initiating SSL offload, HTTP Compression, RAM Caching and Connection Reuse Improving site performance and reliability to end users and more! Click here to get this limited guide today. Check out SharePoint Pro Resources to see a full listing of available eBooks, white papers and essential guides.

Windows could not start the SharePoint 2010 administration service on local computer.

Complete Error Message

Session state can only be used when enableSessionState is set to true, either in a configuration file or in the Page directive. Please also make sure that System.Web.SessionStateModule or a custom session state module is included in the <configuration>\<system.web>\<httpModules> section in the application configuration.

Before you start your troubleshooting, make sure that the State Service service application is running. How you will check this?

Session state can only be used when enableSessionState is set to true, either in a configuration file or in the Page directive- SharePoint2010

Complete Error Message

Session state can only be used when enableSessionState is set to true, either in a configuration file or in the Page directive. Please also make sure that System.Web.SessionStateModule or a custom session state module is included in the <configuration>\<system.web>\<httpModules> section in the application configuration.

Before you start your troubleshooting, make sure that the State Service service application is running. How you will check this?

The security validation for this page has timed out. Click Back in your Web browser, refresh the page, and try your operation again

Problem Description
The security validation for this page has timed out" error message when a user submits data to Windows SharePoint Services

Error Message
The security validation for this page has timed out. Click back in your Web browser, refresh the page, and try your operation again.

If you are facing this error message then Microsoft has already published an article on this which is very useful and resolves your issues. Million thanks to Microsoft for publishing this detail information along with root cause.
Thanks to MS

Resolution
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/888828

Content databases contain orphaned items

Problem Description
The SharePoint Health Analyzer detected an error. 

Content databases contain orphaned items.

EXECUTE permission was denied on the object 'proc_putObject', database 'SharePoint_Config', schema 'dbo'

Problem Description
While I was deploying my solution , got an exception as follows

Error MessageEXECUTE permission was denied on the object 'proc_putObject', database 'SharePoint_Config', schema 'dbo'

Reference links for March Public Update for SharePoint 2013

• http://blogs.technet.com/b/stefan_gossner/archive/2013/03/21/march-public-update-for-sharepoint-2013-available-and-mandatory.aspx  

http://blogs.technet.com/b/praveenh/archive/2013/03/19/march-2013-public-update-pu-for-sharepoint-server-2013-is-here.aspx

http://blogs.technet.com/b/mspfe/archive/2013/04/05/sharepoint-2013-march-2013-public-update-required-for-future-cumulative-updates.aspx

http://www.toddklindt.com/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=398

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/chhopkin/archive/2013/04/04/sharepoint-2013-updates-as-of-april-2013.aspx

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/russmax/archive/2013/04/01/why-sharepoint-2013-cumulative-update-takes-5-hours-to-install.aspx

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/jj891062.aspx

http://www.microsoft.com/en-in/download/details.aspx?id=36987

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2767999

Adding an Email Link in SharePoint site page

There was a requirement raised by one of my user to add Email lnk to the SharePoint site page, I followed below steps to achieve this

Add Content Editor Web Part on the page and in source editor insert following code

<a href="mailto:abc@xyz.com">Email Us</a>

or 

open a site page in SharePoint Designer, select the location where you have to put the link and then insert above code

or 

if you want users to directly open email link on a page when they click on "Email Us / Contact Us" button then assign "OnClick" event to Contact Us button / tab with above code 

<INPUT TYPE="button" VALUE="Email Us" onClick="parent.location='mailto:abc@xyz.com'">

hope this helps

Cannot open the excel files in Sharepoint 2010

Issue :
Users cannot open excel files in SharePoint 2010 from the Library and get an error

"This workbook cannot be opened because it is not stored in an Excel Services Application trusted location. To create an Excel Services Application trusted location, contact your system administrator"

Initially what users do - They contact SP admins and ask them to add library to trusted file location (as error says) but in SP 2010 it's not the case

Cause :
By default the files are designed to open in browser . So it is checking for trusted location  

Resolution : 

• Go to the Library
• On the top click on Library and go to Library settings .
• Under General settings you will find Advanced settings
• Over there you will find the option which by default is set to open in Browser
• You need to set it to Open in Client and there you go .
• Click OK and you are done

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SharePoint 2013 Technical Diagrams

A very good Microsoft article on SharePoint 2013 Technical Diagrams

Office Web apps Overview

Some important feature included in SharePoint 2010.

Microsoft Office Web Apps is the online companion to Office Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote applications that enables users regardless of their location to access documents and edit documents. Users can view, share, and work on documents with others online across personal computers, mobile phones, and the Web. Office Web Apps is available to users through Windows Live and to business customers with Microsoft Office 2010 volume licensing and document management solutions based on Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products.

New Features in SharePoint 2013 Preview

If you've not had time yet to work with SharePoint 2013 Preview, here's a look at what's new so far. Your assessment of the value of said new features will vary, depending on your mileage and usage.

Authentication

Microsoft says that SharePoint 2013 Preview has been improved to make claims-based authentication easier to use. It extends support for application authentication via Open Authorization 2.0 (Auth) as well as for server-to-server authentication.

Users can grant apps in the SharePoint store and catalog access to certain resources and data. Server-to-server security tokens that contain user identity claims enable cross-server authenticated access between, say, SharePoint 2013 Preview and Exchange 2013 Preview. (See also Microsoft's architecture posters website for the one labeled  "Extranet with Dedicated Zones for Authentication" and to see full views of the image excerpts below.)

Business Connectivity Services

Microsoft added a bunch of new features to BCS in SharePoint.

You might like these: Support for OData Business Data Connectivity (BDC) connections, in addition to connections for WCF, SQL Server, and .NET assemblies. Automatic generation via Visual Studio 2010 of BDC models for OData data sources. An event listener with an event subscriber on the SharePoint 2013 Preview side, to enable SharePoint users to receive notifications of changes to the external system. Self-contained apps for SharePoint.

But wait--there's more: Enhancements to external lists that bring them to functional parity with other SharePoint lists. The exposure of the REST APIs for web and mobile app developers to use. Six new Windows PowerShell cmdlets specifically for OData. And the ability, via Business Connectivity Services Client Runtime, to have side-by-side installations of Office 2010 and Office 2013 Preview on the same client computer.

eDiscovery

Showing SharePoint's increasing presence in the world of litigation, eDiscovery improvements have been added that, unfortunately, are probably sorely needed. They include a new site template, the eDiscovery Center, which creates a portal for managing cases—you can access cases to search, hold content, and export content.

Microsoft has added improvements to in-place holds, including site-level preservation; the ability for users to work with content that's preserved; and the ability to define the scope of preservation via a query filter.

You can also now take the results of your eDiscovery search—including documents, wiki pages, Exchange email messages and tasks-- and export them into a review tool.

Mobile devices

Optimized viewing for mobile device users was a no-brainer addition to SharePoint Server 2013 Preview—it had to be done.

Other new features include the following: The ability to render a single SharePoint published site in multiple formats for different devices. The ability to enable a push notification service on a SharePoint site to send device updates to a Windows Phone device.

We're not done yet: A new geolocation field type for use in mobile app development. The ability for some devices to display PerformancePoint Web Parts, Excel Services reports, and SQL Server Reporting Services reports. And finally, enhanced viewing of Office Web apps (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint) via mobile browsers.

Records management and compliance

Reflecting perhaps not a dearth of added features, but the distance SharePoint 2010's records management features had improved from SharePoint 2007's, you'll find that SharePoint 2013 Preview has enhanced compliance simply by extending retention policies to SharePoint sites.

This also applies to any Exchange Server 2013 Preview team mailboxes associated with those sites.

Business intelligence

SharePoint 2013 Preview adds tons of new features, including the following: New features in Excel for business intelligence (BI): In-Memory BI Engine (IMBI) for near-instant analysis of millions of rows of data; Power View Add-in for Excel, which offers visualizations, animations, and smart querying to enable users to visualize modeled data; decoupled PivotChart and PivotTable reports allowing for the creation of PivotChart reports without having to add a PivotTable report on the same page; and the ability to do trend analysis from cells in PivotTable reports that use OLAP data.

It also adds Excel service enhancements such as an updated Business Intelligence Center site template, and improved timeline controls.

Visio Services improvements include the ability for users to add comments to a Visio drawing on the web via Visio Services.

And PerformancePoint improvements include the ability for users to copy dashboards and dependencies to other users or site collections; an enhanced UI; support for Analysis Services Effective User feature, which eliminates the need for Kerberos delegation for per-user authentication; and support for PerformancePoint on the Apple iPad.

Social computing

It's no surprise that Microsoft wanted to beef up the social computing features in SharePoint, and with SharePoint 2013 Preview, it's on track for doing so. Basically, it's enhanced the administration and user experience, and added ways for enterprise users to collaborate more fully and naturally using social media features.

One way is by enhancing the ability create discussions—via two new templates called Community Site and Community Portal. Microsoft also redesigned the UI for MySites, and added Microblog and Newsfeeds features, and improved features users need around saving, synchronization, sharing, and moving content.

Because of the new MySites features, you'll also find Microsoft made several changes to the User Profile service application settings in Central Administration around configuring permissions, privacy, micro-blogging and newsfeeds, and more.

Web content management

Microsoft improved the video upload process for content authors, and improved image display and performance of a site with its image renditions feature, which reduces the size of an image file that is downloaded to the client.

It added an integrated translation service that gives content authors or managers the ability to choose which content will be exported for human translation and which for translation by machine.

And cross-site publishing does just as it says, giving you the ability to display content in one or more publishing site collections. You can also designate any library or list as a catalog, enabling content to be reused on publishing site collections.

It added managed navigation, which lets you use term sets to define and maintain navigation on a site. And it added the ability to create more user-friendly URLs.

In the area of branding, Microsoft made it less mysterious, and now designers use such tools as Adobe Dreamweaver, Microsoft Expression Web, or another HTML editor, rather than having to use SharePoint Designer or Visual Studio 2013 to brand a SharePoint site.

And it added the ability for designers to design sites for display on different devices, such as tablets, smartphones, and desktops. Additional features enhance search, authoring, and publishing.

Workflow

Microsoft made architectural changes in SharePoint Workflow. If you want to have the nearly identical experience of building workflows in SharePoint 2013 Preview as you do in SharePoint 2010, you simply install SharePoint Server 2013 Preview.

But if you want the SharePoint 2013 workflow platform, you need to install and configure Windows Azure Workflow to communicate with your Preview farm. SharePoint Designer 2013 Preview includes new functionality designed specifically for Windows Azure Workflow, and called the SharePoint 2013 Workflow platform.

These new features include a visual workflow that uses a Visio 2013 Preview add-in, the ability to enable no-code web service calls from inside a workflow, new actions for the task process, the ability to start a workflow built on SharePoint 2010 from a workflow built on SharePoint 2013, and new workflow building blocks called Stage, Loop, and App Step.

Note that to manage and monitor the Windows Azure Workflow in SharePoint 2013, you must use Windows PowerShell. (To get a head start on working with PowerShell, consult our latest SharePoint and PowerShell article "Exploring and Inventorying SharePoint Using Windows PowerShell.

Reference: www.sharepointpromag.com by Caroline Marwitz