Microknowledge

Adding images to master pages used in SharePoint 2007 site templates

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 provides a simple way for power users to create a customized site and save it as a site template file (STP) to reuse on the site.  By default, the template is installed in the Template Gallery for the site collection. 

Master pages are heavily used in SharePoint 2007.  Master pages provide a central point for configuring look and feel, among other things.  However, graphic files can be a sticking point in master pages used in templates.  Since the template files may be attached to multiple servers, absolute links to images stored in a central repository may not work in a different environment.   Similarly, relative links to images may have variable paths since the pages that call the master page can live at different levels in the hierarchy – for example, default.aspx and list edit pages.

So this kind of image link can be problematic:

<img src="MyLogo.png">

Unless you go about putting copies of your graphic file in every directory of your site, this lihnk won’t work consistently. 

So let’s assume that you have a Picture Library already created on your site, called “Site Images”, and you’ve added your logo file there.  Two tricks can help.  The first is the runat tag.   This tag tells the server the interpret the link on the server relative to the location of the master page, not the actual page itself, so the link will be interpreted consistently throughout the site.

The second is using the ".."   relative reference to move up a level.    Since master pages, by default, are stored in the /_catalogs/masterpage directory, two iterations of this will get us back to the root of the site.  And we wind up with the following link code:

<img src="../../SiteImages/MyLogo.png" runat="server">

Migrating to Hyper-V -- Removing Virtual Machine Additions

A quick tip for folks who have used Microsoft Virtual Server/Virtual PC to work with server images, especially  in development and staging environments.  Although Microsoft’s Hyper-V offers significant improvements over Virtual Server, there’s a trick or two to remember when migrating to the newer technology.

 

 

If you remember back to your first virtual server image, you may recall that you had to hunt around for an ISO image to install Virtual Machine VPC) Additions.  This adds additional Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) support to the guest operating system that allows for the host system to direct orderly shutdown, and allows mouse control to flow seamlessly between guest and host windows.

 

Hyper-V provides a simpler way to add its own support to new virtual servers from its Virtual Machine Connection.  You can use the menu option to Insert Integration Services Setup Disk.  However, this installation will complain if you copied the hard disk and configuration data over from the older Virtual Server environment.  Specifically, it won’t install until the Virtual Machine Additions are uninstalled.  But Hyper-V then won’t let you uninstall the older software.

 

The workaround is to shutdown the new Hyper-V installation and mount the system virtual hard drive (VHD) under Virtual PC or Virtual Server 2005.  (Either copy or share the VHD file!)  This will allow you to remove the Virtual Machine Additions from the VHD image.  Close down Virtual PC and then restart or recopy the VHD back to the Hyper-V environment.  You should now be able to install the new Integration Services from the Hyper-V console.  Good luck!