SharePoint 2013 discontinued features and functionality

SharePoint 2013 has a number of changes since SharePoint 2010. This is a list of some of the features and discontinued functionality. If you want a quick look at what has been discontinued or modified – read further.
Some of the features that have been discontinued may continue to operate in SharePoint 2013.

Some of notes:

• When you create a site, all Meeting Workspace site templates (Basic Meeting Workspace, Blank Meeting Workspace, Decision Meeting Workspace, Social Meeting Workspace, and Multipage Meeting Workspace) are not available. I know some environments that heavily use workspaces and I’m keen to inform them about this change.
• FAST for SharePoint has now been integrated into SharePoint 2013. So a lot of features have changed in this space. One of them is the Search RSS feeds being discontinued and another is the Web Analytics are part of the Search service.
• Office Web Apps server has sort of divorced from SharePoint 2013. 2 years ago with SharePoint 2010 they were inseparable! So a lot of functionality has changed in this space. In case you didn’t know, you cant install Office Web Apps on the same server as SharePoint 2013, it doesn’t allow you to. It has to reside on a separate server.

Click here for more info:Discontinued features and modified functionality in Microsoft SharePoint 2013

Reference: JeremyTaylor.net

Question: Is it possible to set my newly created custom page in my SharePoint site as the home page.

Ans. Yes, it’s possible to use a custom page as a home page. You can set it in multiple ways:

• If you have enabled the Publishing features on your site, or your site was created from a Publishing template, then you can just go to Site Actions, Site Settings and click Welcome Page, then select a page.
• You can open the site in SharePoint Designer, right-click any .ASPX page, and select Set as Home Page.
• If you're a developer, you can set the home page by using code. See the MSDN page "SPFolder.WelcomePage property" for more information.
• If you're a SharePoint administrator, you can use a Windows PowerShell script to select a master page:

$site = Get-SPSite http://yourserver/sites/yoursite

$web = $site.RootWeb

        (or $web = $site.OpenWeb("yoursubsite")

$folder = $web.RootFolder

$folder.WelcomePage = "SitePages/home.aspx"

        (or  $folder.WelcomePage = "default.aspx")

        (or  $folder.WelcomePage = "Shared%20Documents/mycustomwebpartpage.aspx")

$folder.update()

$web.Dispose()

$site.Dispose()

SharePoint Security: Server Hardening

Find the right balance between security and convenience.

This article discusses some of the things your SharePoint server needs to be secure. Even if you've taken security measures in the past, this article might open your eyes to more ways in which you can improve SharePoint security.

A very good article on SharePoint Security: Server Hardening by Todd O. Klindt of SharePoint Pro Magazine.

SharePoint 2013 IT Professional reviewers guide

A very good article by Jeremy Taylor. If you are looking to introduce a new SharePoint 2013 farm or an upgrade to SharePoint 2013 in your organization and need to get some quick information put together to your manager or CIO, then suggested is the following guide from Microsoft:

Click here: SharePoint 2013 IT Professional reviewers guide

Some of notes:

• It’s not as comprehensive as you might want it to be. Consider it a good start to whet the appetite of your technical managers, infrastructure managers or CIO.
• It’s not a full-on ‘marketing SharePoint features’ document. It is intended for a technical audience who have the role as ‘decision makers’ with you as an ‘influencer’
• Broadly with three headings – Manage Cost, Manage Risk and Manage Your Time, it neatly presents some of the new and improved offerings of SharePoint 2013.
• If you want to gather more features and dive deeper, you might want to consider another document.

What others are downloading:

• Downloadable eBook: Explore SharePoint 2013›
• Downloadable eBook: Deployment guide for SharePoint 2013›
• SharePoint 2013: presentation: IT pro training›
• Topologies for SharePoint 2013›
• SharePoint 2013 Technical Library in Compiled Help›
• SharePoint 2013 Upgrade Process›

Planning and architecture for SharePoint Server 2010

Downloadable resources

• Technical diagrams
• Planning worksheets for SharePoint Server 2010
• Video demos and training for SharePoint Server 2010
• Downloadable planning guides:
• Planning for sites and solutions, Part 1   Subjects include site security, governance, and enterprise content management.
• Planning for sites and solutions, Part 2   Subjects include business intelligence, site creation, web content management, and enterprise search.
• Planning for server farms and environments   Subjects include system requirements, authentication, and business continuity management.
• Capacity planning   Subjects include sizing, performance testing, software boundaries, and capacity case studies.