Joel's SharePoint Architecture Blog

SharePoint Server, SharePoint Online and Office 365 Training, Architecture, Administration and Development

Archives for November 2011

STSADM copyappbincontent vs. Install-SPApplicationContent

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The purpose of STSADM’s “copyappbincontent” command is:

stsadm –o copyappbincontent

Copies Web application–specific files, such as page resource (*.resx) files from their respective locations in the 12\CONFIG folder to the correct location in each Web application on the computer.

According to TechNet, there is no equivalent PowerShell cmd-let http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff621081.aspxt:

No PowerShell Equivalent to stsadm -o copyappbincontent

However, there is a PowerShell cmd-let called Install-SPApplicationContent:

Install-SPApplicationContent

Copies shared application data to existing Web application folders.

Now that sounds pretty similar.

I’ve tried this out – making a custom layouts.sitemap.xml file, and invoking Install-SPApplicationContent. It copies/merges the sitemap into the correct place under inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\*\_app_bin.

So, how dissimilar are they? I’ve heard it said that the PowerShell version won’t apply your changes to the whole farm, only the current server. But surely, that’s what stsadm does too?

Let’s use the rather fantastic open-source ILSpy replacement for Reflector to reflect over the code,

STSADM’s copyappbincontent decompiled

// Microsoft.SharePoint.StsAdmin.SPCopyAppBinContent
public override void Run(StringDictionary keyValues)
{
    SPServiceInstance sPServiceInstance = SPWebServiceInstance.LocalContent;
    if (sPServiceInstance != null && sPServiceInstance.Status == SPObjectStatus.Online)
    {
        SPWebService contentService = SPWebService.ContentService;
        contentService.ApplyApplicationContentToLocalServer();
    }
    sPServiceInstance = SPWebServiceInstance.LocalAdministration;
    if (sPServiceInstance != null && sPServiceInstance.Status == SPObjectStatus.Online)
    {
        SPWebService administrationService = SPWebService.AdministrationService;
        administrationService.ApplyApplicationContentToLocalServer();
    }
}

Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell’s Install-SPApplicationContent decompiled

if (sPWebServiceInstance.Status == SPObjectStatus.Online)
{
  SPWebService administrationService = SPWebService.AdministrationService;
  ServiceHelper.TryToControlService("W3SVC", false, out flag, out flag2);
  administrationService.ApplyApplicationContentToLocalServer();
}
if (null != SPWebServiceInstance.LocalContent)
{
  if (SPWebServiceInstance.LocalContent.Status == SPObjectStatus.Online)
  {
    ServiceHelper.TryToControlService("W3SVC", false, out flag3, out flag4);
    SPWebService contentService = SPWebService.ContentService;
    contentService.ApplyApplicationContentToLocalServer();
  }
}

Conclusion

So, there you have it. Like two completely dissimilar things… in a pod.

To be clear: you need to invoke either of these methods on each server in your farm to deploy content from the 14 hive to the IIS virtual directories.

Or have I missed something?

Uninstall All SharePoint 2010 Solutions via PowerShell

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I frequently need to tear down and rebuild the SharePoint 2010 environment I use for demonstrations.

One action I need to perform pretty much weekly is removing all the installed SharePoint solutions I built to demo development topics over the previous week.

Here’s my PowerShell script. It saves me a great deal of time, I hope it save you some too!

The Script

function Uninstall-AllSPSolutions {
    param (
        [switch] $Local,
        [switch] $Confirm
    ) 

  Start-SPAssignment -Global;
  foreach($solution in (Get-SPSolution | Where-Object { $_.Deployed })) {
    write-host "Uninstalling Solution " $solution.Name;
    if($solution.DeployedWebApplications.Count -gt 0) {
      Uninstall-SPSolution $solution –AllWebApplications -Local:$Local -Confirm:$Confirm;
    } else {
      Uninstall-SPSolution $solution -Local:$Local -Confirm:$Confirm;
    }
    do {
      Start-Sleep 5;
      $solution = Get-SPSolution $solution;
    } while($solution.JobExists -and $solution.Deployed) 
  } 
  Stop-SPAssignment -Global;
}

function Remove-AllSPSolutions {
    param (
        [switch] $Confirm
    ) 
    Get-SPSolution | Where-Object { !$_.Deployed } | Remove-SPSolution -Confirm:$Confirm
}

Usage

If you’re saving the script to a file, say “Remove-AllSPSolutions.ps1” then remember to load the script before invoking it with:

. .\Remove-AllSPSolutions.ps1

You can uninstall all deployed solutions with the following command:

Uninstall-AllSPSolutions -Confirm

And then remove them with:

Remove-AllSPSolutions -Confirm