I was working on getting SP2 installed so that I could write this post and then I saw that my buddy Todd Klindt beat me to the punch: http://www.toddklindt.com/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?List=56f96349%2D3bb6%2D4087%2D94f4%2D7f95ff4ca81f&ID=127. But, as Todd only listed the new commands I figured I’d continue with what I was planning which was to show the commands and the new parameters added to existing commands.

To do this I threw together a quick PowerShell script which parses the output of running stsadm -help and then calls the help for each of the commands listed, saving the results to a file. I did this for my MOSS 2007 with the IU (Infrastructure Update) installed (my baseline), installed SP2, and then ran the script again. I then used Beyond Compare (great tool) to compare the two files. I’ll start as Todd did, with the new commands (in no particular order):

New Commands

enumallwebs

This command is interesting because it doesn’t take in an URL like the enumsubwebs command does (note that Todd references an enumwebs command – he’s referring to enumsubwebs). Instead it takes a database name and optional database server. So what’s going to happen is that the command will look at the database provided and dump out all the site collections in that database along with every web within that site collection. Here’s the help for the command:

stsadm.exe -o enumallwebs
           -databasename <database name>
           [-databaseserver <database server name>]

Running the command for one of my databases produces the following results:

 1<Sites Count="1">
 2  <Site Id="f26a9beb-6a70-470e-82b1-4c3f6b34b19a" OwnerLogin="SPDEV\spadmin" InSiteMap="True">
 3    <Webs Count="6">
 4      <Web Id="93f63c3a-25b9-49d1-a315-2cbcf0b30614" Url="/" LanguageId="1033" TemplateName="SPS#0" TemplateId="20" />
 5      <Web Id="36f63321-d475-4786-adcf-4d43cfd3eb32" Url="/Docs" LanguageId="1033" TemplateName="BDR#0" TemplateId="7" />
 6      <Web Id="f0106227-339a-48a8-80f4-f9feeef9b840" Url="/News" LanguageId="1033" TemplateName="SPSNHOME#0" TemplateId="33" />
 7      <Web Id="1db29e75-2e73-4453-a517-a2b657a80680" Url="/Reports" LanguageId="1033" TemplateName="SPSREPORTCENTER#0" TemplateId="38" />
 8      <Web Id="51bf7973-c692-45f6-a5d8-81fa682cce42" Url="/SearchCenter" LanguageId="1033" TemplateName="SRCHCEN#0" TemplateId="50" />
 9      <Web Id="a4e50ce6-a527-4269-a590-45f78ea7bf30" Url="/SiteDirectory" LanguageId="1033" TemplateName="SPSSITES#0" TemplateId="34" />
10    </Webs>
11  </Site>
12</Sites>

Pay attention to the results above because the information provided can be used to help delete orphaned site collections using the updated deletesite command (see below for details).

exportipfsadminobjects

If you deploy custom InfoPath Forms you might be interested in this command – Export InfoPath Forms Services Admin Objects. Running this command will create a CAB file containing all your deployed objects. If you deployed the objects via a Feature then they will not be exported. As Todd points out, there is no corresponding import but as the output is just a CAB file you can easily crack it open and use it manually re-add any of your objects. Here’s the help for the command:

stsadm -o exportipfsadminobjects -filename <path to file>

forcedeletelist

This isn’t actually a new command – it’s name change for the previously incorrectly named forcedeleteweb – you’ll notice that forcedeleteweb no longer exists.

listqueryprocessoroptions

This command is used to identify the current search query processor options. The command itself isn’t very useful as a standalone but rather to help when using the setqueryprocessoroptions (shown below) command. Here’s the help for the command (see http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd789568.aspx for more details):

stsadm -o listqueryprocessoroptions -ssp <ssp name>

Running the command in my VM environment shows the following:

C:\>stsadm -o listqueryprocessoroptions -ssp SSP1

        securitytrimmingcachesize     10000
        securitytrimmingmultiplier    <default>
        nearduplicatemultiplier       <default>
        joinmultiplier                10
        sdidjoinmultiplier            <default>

preupgradecheck

This is perhaps one of the coolest new commands as it helps to give us some insight as to what is going to be coming with the next version, albeit not much in the grand scheme but hey, anything is helpful. You can find more information here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd793605.aspx. Here’s the help for the command:

stsadm.exe -o preupgradecheck
                   [ -rulefiles <rule files delimited by comma or semicolon.]
                   [ -listrulefiles ]
                   [ -localonly ]

             The preupgrade checker does not perform any repairs, but instead only checks for issues and outputs the list of issues and possible remedies to the issues.

Running this command in my single server VM environment produces the fo

C:\>stsadm -o preupgradecheck

Processing configuration file: OssPreUpgradeCheck.xml
        SearchContentSourcesInfo... Information Only
        SearchInfo... Information Only
Processing configuration file: WssPreUpgradeCheck.xml
        ServerInfo... Information Only
        FarmInfo... Information Only
        UpgradeTypes... Information Only
        SiteDefinitionInfo... Information Only
        LanguagePackInfo... Information Only
        FeatureInfo... Information Only
        AamUrls... Information Only
        LargeList... Information Only
        CustomListViewInfo... Passed
        CustomFieldTypeInfo... Information Only
        CustomWorkflowActionsFileInfo... Passed
        ModifiedWebConfigWorkflowAuthorizedTypesInfo... Information Only
        ModifiedWorkflowActionsFileInfo... Passed
        DisabledWorkFlowsInfo... Passed
        OSPrerequisite... Passed
        WindowsInternalDatabaseMigration... Passed
        WindowsInternalDatabaseSite... Passed
        MissingWebConfig... Passed
        ReadOnlyDatabase... Passed
        InvalidDatabaseSchema... Passed
        ContentOrphan... Passed
        SiteOrphan... Passed
        PendingUpgrade... Passed
        InvalidServiceAccount... Passed
        InvalidHostName... Passed
        SPSearchInfo... Information Only

Operation completed successfully.


Please review the results at C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\Logs\PreUpgradeCheck-20090501-105935-359.htm.

The report that it generates is also very useful – I’d recommend running this guy and saving off the report somewhere even if you are not currently thinking of upgrading – it lists all your details about your topology, Features installed, web applications, databases, site definitions installed, custom field types that won’t be upgraded (note that there are some ootb ones), etc., etc., etc.

setqueryprocessoroptions

This is the sister command for the listqueryprocessoroptions command. You can use this command to change the values identified by the list command. The command is detailed here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd789632.aspx. Here’s the help for the command:

stsadm -o setqueryprocessoroptions
    -ssp <ssp name>
    [-securitytrimmingcachesize <security trimming cache size>]
    [-securitytrimmingmultiplier <security trimming overfetch multiplier>]
    [-nearduplicatemultiplier <duplicate removal overfetch multiplier>]
    [-joinmultiplier <join discard overfetch multiplier>]
    [-sdidjoinmultiplier <missing security descriptor overfetch multiplier>]

variationsfixuptool

If you’re doing any kind of variations work then you should be very interested in this tool. It basically does what my gl-fixvariationrelationships command does which is to repair the relationships between sibling pages in your various labels. The command is detailed here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd789658.aspx. Here’s the help for the command:

stsadm -o variationsfixuptool
	  -url <absolute web URL>
  	 [-recurse]
  	 [-label <label to fix or spawn>]
  	 [-fix]
  	 [-scan]
  	 [-spawn]
  	 [-showrunningjobs]

New Parameters

So we’ve gone through all the new commands, no lets look at the commands that have been updated with new parameters.

backup

The backup command has been updated to include two new parameters: nositelock and force. The nositelock parameter is specific to site collection backups and was added to mimic earlier behavior of not locking the site collection during a backup. I don’t recommend you use this behavior but it might be useful if you have scripts that are already using the setsitelock command to make the database read-only (the backup stores the lock state so doing a restore could end up with the wrong state if you are setting the lock then doing your backup). Details about the issue can be found here: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/967568.

The force parameter is specific to doing catastrophic backups and is used to ignore the disk space check.

deletesite

The deletesite command introduces 4 new parameters: force, siteid, databasename, and databaseserver. These new parameters are specific to deleting orphaned site collections. These parameters are detailed here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc288016.aspx.

The key thing is that when adding a content database to an existing web application it is possible that the content database contains a site collection that is mapped to an existing site collection. This results in the site collection being orphaned (not site mapped). You can use the new enumallwebs command (detailed above) to get the list of site collections in a database along with the whether the site is site mapped (InSiteMap attribute) along with the site ID.

deleteweb

Like the deletesite command the deleteweb command introduces 4 new parameters: force, webid, databasename, and databaseserver. These commands serve the same purpose as those for the deletesite command but with regards to subsites instead of site collections. The details for the command are here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc287710.aspx. Note that the wording in this document is a bit confusing as they seem to interchange site, subsite, web, and site collection for the same thing – I think the document fell victim to some copy and paste.

getproperty/setproperty

The getproperty and setproperty commands introduce three new parameters (or properties): change-log-expiration-enabled, change-log-retention-period, event-log-retention-period.

The first property, change-log-expiration-enabled (detailed here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263361.aspx), specifies whether change logs are deleted after the time span defined by the change-log-retention-period.

The second property, change-log-retention-period (detailed here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc261921.aspx), specifies the amount of time to preserve the change logs. This property is equivalent to the “Change Log” setting on the Web Application General Settings page.

The third property, event-log-retention-period (I couldn’t actually find any documentation on this one), obviously has to do with how long the event logs are retained but what I can’t figure out is what event logs? I did find that the property maps to the SPWebApplication’s EventLogRetentionPeriod property but as that property is also not documented it didn’t really tell me much.

osearch

The osearch command introduces one new parameter: reprovisionindex. I couldn’t find anything about this parameter other than a short paragraph from the SP2 changes list. Essentially this is just useful if you have more than one SSP as the following describes:

“In a farm with multiple SSPs, the administrators can use the new stsadm command to re-initialize the query servers for one of the SSPs while the other SSP continues to serve the query request. The command is the following, where SharedServices1 is the name of the SSP whose query servers are being re-initialized: “stsadm -o osearch -reprovisionindex -ssp SharedServices1””

updatefarmcredentials

The updatefarmcredentials command introduces one new parameter: resume. I couldn’t find any documentation about this parameter but think of it as a force parameter (that’s how it’s used internally). I suspect this was added to get around various encryption errors that people get now and again when using this command. If anyone has more information on this please share 🙂