It turned out that the problem was caused by an expanding log file created by Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. I’ve updated my WSS-on-SBS instructions to acknowledge the problem and point people toward the fix, but I don’t have step-by-step instructions for fixing (or better yet, preventing) the problem quite yet.

If there’s another WSS-on-SBS’er who’s already got a fix for this and who wouldn’t mind contributing to the instructions so I don’t have to write them up from scratch, I’d love to hear from you.

ATTENTION: Please delete the entry [in your hosts file] after the testing. Or you will by pass the public DNS record and might direct you to the wrong server, and unmoral behavior might come out.

If that happens, I’ll try to capture it on video. I’m particularly curious about exactly where that unmoral behavior will be coming out from. The USB port, perhaps? Or the PCMCIA card slot?

Please note that since this is a new account, you may not be able to reach your site just yet. It can take from 24 – 48 hours before your domain name information has been updated at your ISP, which is required before you can view and manage your site using your domain name.

To view your site, while your domain is being setup or transferred you will need to make an entry into your local host file to resolve your server address. Your host file can usually be found in the following location on a Microsoft Windows operating system: C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\ but this will vary based on the operating system. If you can’t find it, do a search for ‘HOSTS’.

Once you have the file open, you will see an entry like this:

127.0.0.1 localhost

You will need to add this second line

168.xxx.x.x yyy.yyy.com [real IP and hostname concealed to protect the innocent]

Once you’ve completed this step and re-saved the host file you will be able to view your site, but only on the computer where you have made this modification. We recommend that you remove this entry once your domain name has been transferred and subsequently use your yyy.yyy.com for access.

That’s all well and good, but they didn’t anticipate that I would be using Vista. Because changing the hosts file is a common malware practice, Vista makes it really hard to do, even for users with administrative credentials. Instructions for getting around the restrictions are provided here.

Another thing that bugs me about WH4L is their slogan: “Same Value, Much Better Price.” Sorry, but since price is a component of value, that slogan is mathematically impossible.

Because these clients have access to Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 for internal use, though, it makes sense to me that they should build their extranets on the same platform. Why should they have to learn two different interfaces?

There are probably dozens of SharePoint hosting companies to choose from. A Google search for “hosted sharepoint” yields 42,800 hits. Here are some providers that I’m aware of, along with their advertised features and prices as of September 7, 2007:

Some of these vendors have more expensive plans as well. Microsoft has its own version of hosted SharePoint (not surprising, since they wrote the software to begin with), known as Office Live Premium. It runs $39.95 a month for 50 user accounts and 2 GB of space. I didn’t include above because it includes more than just hosted SharePoint, so it’s hard to do an apples-to-apples comparison.

I don’t see a clear winner in the table above. If you think you’ll have a lot of users but disk space isn’t an issue, then Mail2Web’s offering looks most attractive. If space is more of an issue, though, 1&1 offers the best $/GB ratio (but see update below). The Webhost4life Business plan seems to offer a good compromise between the two (but see this update).

There are a couple of important features that are not shown in this table: ease of use (in terms of building a new site, adding users, and so on) and quality of technical support.

My company’s web site is currently hosted at Mail2Web. However, it is built in SharePoint 2.0, and there does not seem to be an easy way for me to migrate it to SharePoint 3.0. I originally picked Mail2Web because I imagined that I might want to give a user account to every one of my clients’ employees. So the unlimited user account option was particularly attractive. However, that hasn’t happened — not yet, anyway. So if I had it to do all over again, I might go with a different hosting company.

Do you have any other hosted SharePoint providers who should be added to the list? Any particularly good or bad experiences with site administration or tech support? If so, please post a comment.

*Update, 9/20/07: I learned today that 1&1 will not let you host a SharePoint site as a stand-alone subdomain. You must host your entire account there in order to get a SharePoint site. What I wanted to do is create sharepoint.mydomain.com with a SharePoint host while leaving www.mydomain.com untouched at its existing host. This is possible at Mail2Web and WebHost4Life, but not at 1&1.

**Update, 10/20/07: Mail2Web has recently increased their monthly hosting price from $14.95 to $22.95. This is partly a result of the recent decline of the American dollar (which they use to bill their customers) vs. the Canadian dollar (which they use to pay their bills).

Goal: create a Windows SharePoint Services application via the Internet based on a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. Simple enough, right?

Process: Start with basic procedure described here. From WSS home page, click Site Actions button and choose Create. Under Custom Lists, click Import Spreadsheet. Fill in Name and Description boxes, click Browse and navigate to file location. Click Import.

Problem #1: you forgot to close your spreadsheet before importing it:

Close the spreadsheet. Continue to select data range as described in article linked above.

Click Import.

Problem #2: You’re using Excel 2007, not Excel 2003. You get an error:

Note: you may not get this error if you are doing the import on a local network; that is, it may be Internet-specific. I’m not sure yet. Anyway, enter the text of the error message into Google. Find this solution.

Cancel the import procedure. Locate and open EXPTOOWS.XLA.

Problem #3: Microsoft doesn’t trust its own code:

Click Enable Macros. Press Alt-F11 to see the code. Open the publishForm (Code) window. Edit the code by commenting out lVer = Application.SharePointVersion(URL) and adding lVer = 2 underneath. (That’s a lower-case “L,” by the way.)

Save the file.

Problem #3: You can’t save the file. It’s read-only:

Cancel the Save As action. You don’t want to save it as a different file. Close EXPTOOWS.XLA. Open its folder location (probably C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\1033). Right-click the filename and choose Properties so you can uncheck the Read-only box.

Problem #4: It’s already unchecked:

Scream at the computer, “What do you mean, it’s not read-only? You just TOLD ME it was read-only!!!!” Take a deep breath. Open the Security tab. Note that Administrators have full control of this file, but as a lowly “User” in Vista, you have only Read / Read & execute rights:

Curse Microsoft for creating the bug in the first place and then thwarting your efforts to fix it. Click the Edit button so you can give yourself the permission to modify your own damn file. Hit Continue to get past the annoying User Access Control prompt (can’t show you that one — the screen capture program is disabled while that prompt is displayed). Assign Full Control for Users (hey, maybe you get get away with just Modify rights but at this point why take the time to find out?).

Open the .XLA file again, clicking through the same annoying warnings. Try to save it.

Problem #5: You still can’t save it. You must have had some other spreadsheet open:

Get completely out of Excel. Open the file again, make the change again, try to save again. Get the same viking error. Ask yourself what the hell is going on. Close Excel. Go back to Internet Explorer and close the SharePoint window you had open to do the import. Try again. No, that wasn’t it either. Close all the programs you have open — all of them! Try again. Do I even have to say it? Same error. Reboot your computer. Try again. Fail again. Go back and read the error message closely. Wait a minute … It’s not a file that Excel can’t access, it’s the entire viking 1033 folder! Why didn’t it just say so? Give Users full control of the 1033 folder, too.

Try saving again. Don’t be too suprised when it doesn’t simply work, but instead you get another security warning:

Consider getting a Mac, but think better of it. Click “Save changes and discard signature,” hoping this doesn’t come back to screw you later on. Close Excel. Go back to your SharePoint window. Try the import process again. View the results:

Like I said, simple enough.

Event Type: Error
Event Source: Windows SharePoint Services 3 Search
Event Category: Gatherer
Event ID: 2424
Date: 7/10/2007
Time: 7:25:47 AM
User: N/A
Computer: SBS
Description:
The update cannot be started because the content sources cannot be accessed. Fix the errors and try the update again.

Context: Application ‘Search’, Catalog ‘index file on the search server Search’

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

If so, here’s how to fix it.

Update: One minor problem — the fix doesn’t seem to work. I’m still getting the errors, along with several others. More information to follow once I’ve got it figured out ….