Wednesday 24 August 2011

Can't able to save Office File to SharePoint Document Library onWindows Server 2008

Using SharePoint 2007 on Windows Server 2008 might bring additional steps to configuration that didn't exist in Windows Server 2003. On of the most questioned area is "why I can't able to save Office Document to the SharePoint Document Library"?

On Windows Server 2003 you can create new Office document via Document Library toolbar and save this document back to Library directly from the Office. However, in the SharePoint instance on Windows Server 2008 you will be asked to save the document to the File System(hard drive). You won't see SharePoint Lists and typing the url of the sharepoint server in the "Save" dialog box will generate the error "Path doesnt hot found".

The issue of this is that WebDav access and functionality to browser the site structure is incorporated to "Desktop Experience" feature of Windows Server 2008. It's a new feature and not enabled by default. So, to have ability save document to SharePoint from Office you need to add  "Desktop Experience" feature to Windows Server 2008 manually (unfortunately, server restart is required).

SharePoint 2010 is affected as well.

Steps To install Desktop Experience in Windows Server 2008
  1. go to server manager
  2. features--> Add Feature
  3. select Desktop Experience
  4. Click on Install
Note: Make sure that you remove the WebDAV module in IIS 7.5 also if you're on Windows Server 2008 R2

3 comments:

  1. Hi,

    I am also having same issue with SharePoint 2010. When i browse the sharepoint document libraries(created out of custom OOTB document library definition without any customization) it is showing "web page no longer exists" error. For default document libraries this problem is not there. This looks strange as it not even working for custom document library definition.
    This is only with Windows 64 bit OS. I have Desktop feature enabled in my windows server 2008 machine.

    Your help is appreciated.

    Thanks,
    Shreecanth

    ReplyDelete
  2. I hope this following url will helps you

    http://sharepoint.stackexchange.com/questions/16938/why-is-word-document-created-from-template-saved-locally-instead-of-to-the-docum

    ReplyDelete
  3. I have Desktop feature enabled in my windows server 2008 machine, but for some reason it doesn't work only for cusom document library defintion instances. For default libarary - Shared Document it is working perfectly.

    Thanks,
    Shreecanth

    ReplyDelete