Beware! .Net Framework 3.5 sp1 and share Point Portal Server 2003

Here is a kick in the f@%’in shin for ya. The credits go out to an esteemed team member @ work for messing up our share point 2003 production server by accident. It is ok we were only down for a 20 minutes. Beware if you install .net 3.5 sp1 with this configuration:

Sharepoint Portal Server 2003
Windows 2003
.Net 2.0 sp2
.Net 3.0
.Net 3.5

Now when you install .Net 3.5 sp1…. because you need to use the entity framework (because you love the pain, feel the pain, love the pain!!!!), because for some insane reason we use the MOSS server as web server as well (Not really insane, but money issues)!

This is what happens to every webpart on every site you have created. They will no longer render correctly and this is all you see in every webpart frame!
Web Part Error: A Web Part or Web Form Control on this Web Part Page cannot be displayed or imported because it is not registered on this site as safe.

AAAHH sh@t! It is end of day and I just want to go home and play some metal \m/. Anyway ….. you panic, you hope users haven’t noticed and you pull your team of two together to solve the issue. After some quick frantic google searches the great people on the share point blog have the solution here:
Check it out! and in case the link disappears for some reason here are the steps to get share point 2003 working again:
1. Uninstall In Add/Remove Programs remove Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 SP 1
2. Uninstall Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0
3. Uninstall Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0.
4. Then reinstall .NET Framework 2.0 Service Pack 1 (I repeat sp1 not any other service pack). Check it out

So yeah, phew fixed production. Some information I have read blame .net 2.0 sp2 for the error. We no longer have .net 2.0 sp2 after this fix. So we will do some testing and see if we reinstall .net 3.5 sp1 if everything is cool.

I will update this blog post as soon as we try it. TTYL Y’ALL

Update: May 1st 2009
So we tried the update @ work on our internal server everything went well, a big thumbs up! We have .net 3.5 sp1 and all is well! However on our external facing server we cannot get 3.5 SP1 on it. We keep getting the dreaded – Web Part Error: A Web Part or Web Form Control on this Web Part Page cannot be displayed or imported because it is not registered on this site as safe.. This server has had other issues as well, it was around before me and had a number of people mess around with it. We install up to .net 2 SP1 then for some reason when we do the install of .net 3.5SP1, .net 2 SP1 gets updated to the version that has a conflict with 3.5SP1. This doesn’t happen on the server that works with 3.5SP1. *Shrug* have no idea why this is happening, can only say it is some kind of windows voodoo. Very annoying as it works on one server and not the other.

 

Note and Disclaimer: This is test code and may contain bugs and/or improper error handling, it is for academic purposes only, for sharing knowledge, and collaboratively coming up with better solutions. Please always practice proper security, error handling, and coding best practices in production. I am not liable for any code used here; use @ your own risk. Have fun and share the experience and knowledge. Remember, no question is a stupid question, and failure gives us insight.

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