Configure and customize SharePoint Workspace 2010

 

Applies to: Office 2010

Topic Last Modified: 2011-11-11

Banner stating end of support date for Office 2010 with link to more info

Microsoft SharePoint Workspace 2010 enables you to access designated SharePoint sites and create Groove peer workspaces and Shared Folder workspaces.

SharePoint Workspace 2010 is a client to Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 and Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010. It is included with Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010. SharePoint Workspace 2010 provides anytime interactive access to document libraries and lists on designated SharePoint sites and options for creating Groove peer workspaces and Shared Folder workspaces. However, you can customize the installation to prohibit peer activity or to deploy other configuration settings.

For an overview of SharePoint Workspace 2010, see SharePoint Workspace 2010 overview.

To watch a video that covers the customization and test process end-to-end, see Video - How to support offline use of SharePoint sites.

In this article:

  • Before you begin

  • Review customization options for SharePoint Workspace 2010

  • Customize SharePoint Workspace 2010 by using Active Directory Group Policy objects or the Office Customization Tool

  • Verify installation

Before you begin

Before you start deployment, address the following prerequisites:

  • Confirm that your setup meets required hardware and software requirements, which are specified in System requirements for Office 2010.

  • Address the planning steps in Plan for SharePoint Workspace 2010.

  • Confirm that Internet Explorer, version 6, version 7, or version 8 is installed on client computers that have a 32-bit browser.

  • Confirm that SharePoint Workspace port settings comply with the specifications in Plan for SharePoint Workspace 2010. SharePoint Workspace 2010 is installed with Windows Firewall turned on and exceptions enabled to support SharePoint Workspace server and client communications. To review or change these settings, open Control Panel, click System and Security, click Windows Firewall, click Change notification settings, and then change or review the settings.

  • If you use Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) and want to customize SharePoint Workspace deployment for Active Directory system group members, make sure that you have appropriate administrative permissions on the Active Directory system and identify the group to which you want to deploy SharePoint Workspace policies.

  • Review customization options in Review customization options for SharePoint Workspace 2010, later in this article.

  • If you are integrating SharePoint Workspace with SharePoint Server 2010 sites, prepare SharePoint Server 2010 as follows:

    • Open incoming port 80 to support client/server communications.

    • Consider configuring Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protection for the SharePoint Server-SharePoint Workspace communications port. This configuration is strongly recommended, because no default encryption security is in place.

    • Install Remote Differential Compression (RDC) on SharePoint Server. RDC supports offline synchronization protocols, and optimizes performance during document transfer between SharePoint Workspace and SharePoint Server. To verify RDC status, open Windows Server Manager on the SharePoint Server system and then click Add Features. In the Add Features Wizard dialog box, make sure that the Remote Differential Compression check box is selected. Click Next, and then follow the Wizard instructions to install RDC. Or, you can install RDC from a Command Prompt window by typing the following: servermanagercmd -install rdc. For more information about RDC, see About Remote Differential Compression (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=162305).

    • Ensure that offline availability of content is enabled for SharePoint sites (the default condition). SharePoint site administrators can configure this setting by clicking Site Actions, Site Settings, Site Administration, Search and offline availability, and finally, in the Offline Client Availability section, selecting Yes. This allows SharePoint content to be taken offline for offsite work.

    • Configure access control settings for designated SharePoint sites to enable access by SharePoint Workspace users and groups. Note that users must have at least Read permission in order to synchronize SharePoint content with a SharePoint workspace. For more information about how to configure access to SharePoint sites, see Managing Site Groups and Permissions (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkID=162300).

    • If your organization uses Line of Business Interoperability (LOBi) lists (for connections to external databases instead of to the server database) and if users have to take these lists offline, ensure that Offline Synchronization of External Lists is enabled on the SharePoint server. You can configure this setting from the Central Admin interface by clicking System Settings and looking under Manage farm features. This setting can also be configured at the site level under Site Actions > Site Settings > Site Actions > Manage site features.

Review customization options for SharePoint Workspace 2010

Customizing the SharePoint Workspace installation enables you to decide how SharePoint Workspace will be deployed and used. The following sections describe settings that you can configure to customize SharePoint Workspace 2010 installation.

Control use of Groove workspaces

This setting lets you prevent Groove workspaces and Shared Folders from being used in SharePoint Workspace, therefore limiting SharePoint Workspace usage to SharePoint workspaces exclusively. You can configure this setting by using the Office Customization Tool (OCT) or by deploying a Group Policy object (GPO), as described in Customize SharePoint Workspace 2010 through Active Directory Group Policy objects or Office Customization Tool settings.

Enable IPv6

This setting lets you enable IPv6 for SharePoint Workspace installation. You can configure this setting by using the OCT or by deploying a GPO, as described in Customize SharePoint Workspace 2010 through Active Directory Group Policy objects or Office Customization Tool settings.

Prefer IPv4

This setting lets you specify that IPv4 is preferred over IPv6 for SharePoint Workspace 2010 on client computers. You can configure this setting by using the OCT or by deploying a GPO, as described in Customize SharePoint Workspace 2010 through Active Directory Group Policy objects or Office Customization Tool settings.

Remove legacy files and registry settings

This setting removes previous installations of SharePoint Workspace (Microsoft Office Groove 2007). You can also use this option if you have special requirements that can only be configured through the Windows Registry (such as removing a Office Groove 2007 device management registry setting). You can configure this setting by using the OCT, as described in Customize SharePoint Workspace 2010 through Active Directory Group Policy objects or Office Customization Tool settings.

Prevent Windows Search crawling for SharePoint Workspace

This setting prevents crawling of SharePoint Workspace paths by Windows Search. By default, crawling (creation of indexes) for Windows Search 4.0 is enabled for the following SharePoint Workspace content:

  • Metadata for SharePoint workspaces and Groove workspaces for SharePoint Workspace 2010

  • Metadata for all Groove workspace tools for SharePoint Workspace 2010

  • The following Groove workspace content for SharePoint Workspace 2010: discussions, documents, Notepad entries, chat transcripts, member messages, and custom lists.

Users can start Windows Search 4.0 from SharePoint Workspace by clicking Search on the Home tab of the ribbon, unless prevented from doing this by administrative policy. Setting this policy prevents Windows Search from crawling and searching SharePoint Workspace content, overrides any user search settings, removes Search from the ribbon in SharePoint Workspace, and cleans the Windows Search index of any previously crawled SharePoint Workspace data.

To configure this setting, use a Search GPO, as described in Customize SharePoint Workspace 2010 by using Active Directory Group Policy objects or the Office Customization Tool .

For more information about Windows Search, see Windows Search Administrator Guide (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkID=164567) and Windows Search IT Guides (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=163450).

Require Secure Socket Layer protection for external client connections

This setting blocks SharePoint Server connections from SharePoint Workspace clients that are outside an organization’s intranet, unless the connections are over a Secure Socket Layer (SSL)-protected port. To configure this setting, use a SharePoint Server GPO, as described in Customize SharePoint Workspace 2010 by using Active Directory Group Policy objects or the Office Customization Tool .

Customize SharePoint Workspace in a managed environment

If you use Microsoft Groove Server 2010 to manage SharePoint Workspace, you can further customize installation to make administrative tasks easier. For example, you can use Group Policy to configure policy settings, such as a Microsoft Groove Server 2010 assignment, that apply to an organizational unit in Active Directory. Or, you can configure an Office Resource Kit setting to require SharePoint Workspace users to automatically configure SharePoint Workspace user accounts for management in an environment that does not include Active Directory. For more information about how to deploy SharePoint Workspace in a Groove Server-managed environment, see Deployment for Groove Server 2010.

Customize SharePoint Workspace 2010 by using Active Directory Group Policy objects or the Office Customization Tool

You can customize SharePoint Workspace installations by deploying Active Directory Group Policy objects (GPOs) or by including an Office Customization Tool (OCT) .msp file together with the SharePoint Workspace installation kit. The method that you choose depends on the following deployment conditions:

  • If intended SharePoint Workspace clients are members of an in-house Active Directory group and are connected to the Windows domain, you can configure Active Directory GPOs to customize client installations, as described in To customize SharePoint Workspace installation via Active Directory Group Policy objects.

  • If your organization does not use an Active Directory server or if intended SharePoint Workspace clients are outside your Windows domain, use OCT settings to customize installation as described in To customize SharePoint Workspace installation via Office Customization Tool settings.

Note

Decide on one customization approach to help ensure a smooth deployment. Do not use both GPOs and OCT settings. For more information about these customization options, see Group Policy overview (Office system) (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkID=162307) and Office Customization Tool in the Office system (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkID=162306).

If you use Groove Server 2010 Manager to manage SharePoint Workspace clients, you can use a combination of Groove Server 2010 Manager policies and GPOs or OCT settings to customize SharePoint Workspace installations. For information about Groove Server 2010 Manager policies, see Deploying policies to SharePoint Workspace users. For information about how to customize SharePoint Workspace in a Groove Server 2010-managed environment, see Deploy SharePoint Workspace 2010.

To customize SharePoint Workspace installation through Active Directory Group Policy objects

  1. Address the requirements in Before you begin.

  2. Determine which Group Policy object (GPO) that you need to customize SharePoint Workspace for the management environment, based on the information in Review customization options for SharePoint Workspace 2010.

  3. From the Active Directory server, access the required policies by downloading the AdminTemplates.exe file for Office 2010, available at the Microsoft Download Center (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkID=162268).

  4. Double-click the AdminTemplates.exe file to extract the Administrative template files that enable you to configure Group Policy settings that apply to an Active Directory unit. The spw14.admx file (or .adml file for language-specific versions) contains SharePoint Workspace-specific policies.

  5. If you are using a Windows Server 2008 computer, copy the ADMX\ADML files to folders as follows:

    1. Copy the ADMX files (.admx) to your computer’s Policy Definitions folder (for example, <systemroot>\PolicyDefinitions).

    2. Copy the ADML language-specific resource files (.adml) to the appropriate language folder, such as en-us; for example, <systemroot>\PolicyDefinitions\[MUIculture].

      For more information about Group Policy object editing requirements and steps, see Requirements for Editing Group Policy Objects Using ADMX Files (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=164568) and Managing Group Policy ADMX Files Step-by-Step Guide.

  6. From the Active Directory server, use the Group Policy Management Console (GPMC), which you can access from gpedit.msc in the Microsoft Management Console, to change the policy settings that are contained in the .adm files.

  7. In the tree view, locate Group Policy Objects, click the policy that you want to configure, and then in the details pane fill in the required fields to enable or change the policy. See Group Policy for SharePoint Workspace 2010 for more guidance.

  8. When you are finished editing the GPO in the GPMC, save the policy settings. The policy settings are saved in the registry.pol file, which the Group Policy program uses to store registry-based policy settings made by using the Administrative template extension.

For more information about Group Policy technology and use, see Group Policy overview (Office system) (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=162307) and Use Group Policy to enforce Office 2010 settings (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkID=78176).

To customize SharePoint Workspace installation through Office Customization Tool settings

  1. Address the requirements in Before you begin.

  2. Determine how you want to customize SharePoint Workspace, based on the information in Review customization options for SharePoint Workspace 2010.

  3. You can run the Office Customization Tool (OCT) from the Start menu. Click Run, and then type cmd. At the command prompt, go to the Office 2010 installation directory, and then type setup/admin. This opens the OCT.

    Or, you can download the OCT from the Office 2010 installation media.

  4. In the OCT tree view, locate Features, and then click Modify user settings. In the navigation pane, click SharePoint Workspace, SharePoint Server, or Search Server, depending on the kind of setting that you want to configure.

  5. In the list pane, double-click the setting that you need, and change its properties as needed. See Office Customization Tool settings for SharePoint Workspace 2010 for more guidance.

  6. When you are finished, click the File drop-down menu and then click Save to save your updated settings in a Microsoft setup customization file (.msp). For example, enter spw.msp as a file name.

  7. Include the .msp file in the SharePoint Workspace deployment.

For more information about how to use the OCT, see Office Customization Tool in the Office system (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=162306).

Verify installation

Test SharePoint Workspace connections and synchronization as described in Test SharePoint Workspace connections.