Sharepointer

Installing SharePoint solutions using a batch file

I'm currently comparing some different reporting and statistics applications for MOSS and WSS and thought I would share some thoughts on that. I'm going to start off with a product from MAPILab called MAPILab Statistics which is available as a 30-day trial from the MAPILab website: http://www.mapilab.com/download/crm/?MAPILabSharePointStatistics

This post covers the installation of the solution package and some tips on how to use batch files to simplify deployment and activation of SharePoint solutions.

Included in the download from MAPILab are the MAPILab solution package called MAPILabSharePointStatistics.wsp, some deployment guides and licensing documents. The install guide is a PDF file which describes how to add, deploy and activate the solution using the stsadm.exe tool. These steps are very easy to follow from the command prompt, and if you know for sure that you're going to install the solution one time only, there's not really much to gain from using the batch file technique outlined below. For the rest of us, that plan on trying this solution in a few different virtual farms and hopefully deploy it to a lot of customer sites, this might be a good idea.

Create a batch file with the following stsadm commands:

1^st row - stsadm -o addsolution -filename MAPILabSharePointStatistics.wsp

2^nd row - stsadm -o deploysolution -name MAPILabSharePointStatistics.wsp –allowgacdeployment –immediate

3^rd row - stsadm -o displaysolution -name MAPILabSharePointStatistics.wsp

4^th row - add a PAUSE to have the process paused and make sure that the solution has been deployed properly. Hit any key to continue.

5^th row -stsadm –o copyappbincontent (This row copies some files to the Config folder in the 12-Hive.)

6^th row - stsadm -o activatefeature -name MLSiteActions –url http://moss01 (change the URL to match your environment)

When combined the batch file should look like this:

More on the MAPILab Statistics application is coming to this blog soon.