Visiting weird ports with Chrome

As a security measure, Chrome doesn’t allow by default to visit any not known web port (eg not 80,443, 8080 etc).

I had to debug site hosted on port 102 so I made the following bat file to fire up Chrome and test the website:

cd "%AppData%\..\Local\Google\Chrome\Application"
chrome.exe --explicitly-allowed-ports=102

Note that AppData lands you to the Roaming profile, while Chrome installs (if you select to install it only on your account) in the Local folder.

Hope this helps.

Unable to create a site based on the “Enterprise Search Center” template

I have run into a site collection which couldn’t create a search site (they were trying to create one using the “Enterprise Search Center” template) although you could create one in the same sharepoint farm if you created a new site collection (based on the existing templates and even blank). The only obvious difference was the template they created the site collection from, which was the root of all evil.

Setup sharepoint server 2010 on an sql server 2012 using local account

To avoid installing the sqlserver express 2008 engine that is bundled with sharepoint server 2010, you must manipulate the installation a bit. First and foremost, install sql server 2010.  Then start the SP 2010 installation as part of a farm. When the installation reaches the final step, uncheck the “configure server” option. Install sharepoint 2010 sp1 (in order to drop the system stored procedure sp_dboptions dependency). Only then, can you configure the server to connect to the already installed sql server.