Sharepoint Configuration Wizard's "CREATE DATABASE permission denied" Error

When creating a new Sharepoint website with the "Sharepoint Products and Technology Configuration Wizard", you may get the error "CREATE DATABASE permission denied in database 'master'."

You may then recall that earlier in this wizard you were prompted to enter a set of SQL Server login credentials to be used. You may then think that it was because this SQL Server login does not have the permission to create a new database. You give this login all of the SQL Server administrative rights, and you may still get the same error.

Here the problem is that when creating the new database, this Wizard does not use the credential that you provided, instead it uses the Windows login credentials that you used to log into Windows to run the Wizard itself.

So you need to make sure that whatever Windows login that you used to get into Windows to run this Wizard, say "yourdomain\yourlogin", then "yourdomain\yourlogin" must be a valid login for the SQL Server in question as well, and it must have the permission to create a new database. The login that you entered in the Wizard itself is not even used during the creation of this new database.

Fix for Outlook 2007 Not Showing Contacts in Addressbook

After migrating a Windows user to a Vista machine, I noticed that none of the contacts in the Outlook contact folder are showing in the address book. When sending an email, email addresses have to be typed in. When I went to the "Properties" of the Outlook Contacts folder to setup the address book, the check box for "Show this folder as an e-mail Address Book" was unchecked and grayed out. There is no way to check it.

The fix is simple: use a new Outlook profile. Exit Outlook, and go to Windows' Control Panel, and go to "Mail". If you are using 64 bit Windows, you will need to go to the 32 bit Control Panel to find "Mail" because Microsoft Office 2007 applications are 32 bit.

Click on the "Show Profiles..." button, and then click "Add...". You will need to re-enter your email server account information all over again here. Once you finish creating the new profile, select it from the drop down list for "Always use this profile".

Because I use Exchange Server inbox to store mail, all my mail messages are available from the new profile automatically. You can always open old mail stores from the "File", "Open", "Outlook Data File..." menu in Outlook, and keep it open, or move old messages into the new mail stores

Microsoft Outlook Anywhere Setup

When setting up Outlook Anywhere in Exchange Server 2007, all the steps described in "Exchange Server 2007 End-to-End Scenario" are not enough. You need to run the following command in the Exchange Management Shell:

Get-AutodiscoverVirtualDirectory set-AutodiscoverVirtualDirectory-ExternalURL https:// your-iis-server.yourdomain.com /AutoDiscover/Autodiscover.xml

Here "your-iis-server" is the IIS server name where you have your Exchange "AutoDiscover" Web application hosted. Besides this extra step, all the steps described in "Exchange Server 2007 End-to-End Scenario" must be followed exactly. You can get to "Exchange Server 2007 End-to-End Scenario" by clicking on the root node in the left pane of the "Exchange Management Console". The "End-to-End Scenario" is on the second tab.

On the client side, as long as your local LAN setup works, you can leave it alone, even if you use domain names that are not publicly accessible since virtual RPC over HTTPS will take care of that automatically. All you need to do is to check the "Connect to Microsoft Exchange using HTTP", and setup "Exchange Proxy Settings". This is located in the email account setup dialog box. Click on "More Settings...", and then go to the "Connection" tab. Outlook Anywhere settings is at the bottom of this tab. Your Exchange server IIS external URL should be entered in the "Exchange Proxy Settings" dialog box as the proxy server URL.One thing you should do is to keep all your authentication protocol consistent. If you choose to use NTLM, use it at every step. Otherwise use "Basic Authentication" everywhere.

Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and Microsoft CRM 4

Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 uses security certificates for client connections. This complicates the situation for Microsoft CRM 4.0 Email Router that needs to access the Exchange Server to route emails.

Microsoft CRM 4.0 Email Router is very buggy. One of the problem is that you can give it an HTTPS Exchange server address, it will try to use HTTP to access user email inboxes regardless. This will cause the access to the Exchange Server to fail.

One remedy is to use IIS 7.0 URL Rewrite Module to redirect all HTTP traffic to HTTPS. When you do this, you have to make HTTPS as "NOT REQUIRED" in IIS. This way the Rewrite Module will actually get a chance to redirect the traffic. The net effect is virtually the same as requiring HTTPS, since no meaningful responses are sent via HTTP.