Run Virtual PC at maximum speed

I was executing my deployment scripts in one of the Test virtual machine. The deployments scripts includes uploading form templates,site template,Installing and activating the features and creating the site collection. This was taking lot of time to execute. So the issue was whenever i change my focus to the host operating system the VPC was not executing at its full speed, because of this the deployment scripts were getting time-out errors. So i had to stay focused in the virutal machine to execute all the deployment scripts it will run more than 2 hours.

I was trying various settings of VPC to get rid of this problem and found the following settings to correct this problem .

From the the virtual PC Console window click on the File-->Options. Select Performance from the left menu and choose the "Run Virtual PC at maximum speed". This resolved my problem.


However, the host machine will be bit slow after applying this settings. It was not a big difference to me and it was manageable.

Save site as template link is missing

I was trying to create the site template from a site where the "Office SharePoint Server Publishing" feature was activated for some reason. But the issue here is after activating the "Office SharePoint Server Publishing" feature the "Save site as template" link from the "Look and Feel" section of site settings is missing.

I understand that its disabled because the functionalities part of "Office SharePoint server Publishing" can't be included in the site template(.stp) file. But i have applied lot of customization which are not related to publishing feature, I will be requiring those changes in a template file.

So if we have the core template we can apply the publishing related changes on top of the site created with the core template.For that we need the core template...we can still get the template by calling the "_layouts/savetmpl.aspx" page from the address bar. We should also make sure we will be applying the publishing related changes on top of it.

The template you have chosen is invalid or cannot be found

I was trying to create a site collection in my Virtual machine using a site template taken in a test server. But i was keep getting the weired error "The template you have chosen is invalid or cannot be found". I checked the publishing features of the source site and confirmed those are turned off while taking the template. I was able to understand some features available in the test server might be missing in my virtual machine.

There were lot of features installed in the test server. It was bit difficult to trace the missing feature. Other issues was, using the Site Collection features list I couldn't trace the features which will be installed as part of SharePoint infrastructure updates. However to track the missing features the following tool[STPInspector] http://www.codeplex.com/STPInspector developed by Madhur ahuja was very helpful. It showed the features missing in the source machine. The best part was, i was able to identify the search related features which will be installed as part of the SharePoint Infrastructure updates.

I installed the following Infrastructure updates after the service pack installation.

• http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=256CE3C3-6A42-4953-8E1B-E0BF27FD465B&displaylang=en
• http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=3811C371-0E83-47C8-976B-0B7F26A3B3C4&displaylang=en

It resolved my problem and I was able to create the site collection using the template.