Sharepoint Woes

[yanni85.livejournal.com]

I work for an company that provides IT for small to medium sized businesses. We also do downstream IT for companies with a small IT department that could benefit from our larger resources. This ticket came in this morning from one such client.

I was trying to prepare our SharePoint 2007 Server to be backed up by our new MS Data Protection Management Server and now it is screwed up.
* I installed KB941422 hotfix for SharePoint Services on my SharePoint 2007 Server.
* During the install I received a message stating: After this updates completes run the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard to finalize the update.
* After the hotfix installed I ran the SharePoint Products and Technologies configuration Wizard.
* Toward the end of the wizard's run I received a message stating: Failed to start service SPSearchService Instance on this server. After completing upgrade please start it manually.
* Then at the end of the end of the wizard's run I received a failed message which referred me to the log file which turns out to be over 200 pages long.
* I tried to manually restart the SPSearch Service but could not find it.
* I went to TechNet and researched SPSearch and kept seeing SharePoint Service appearing. It appears that SPSearch is part of SharePoint Services but not part of SharePoint 2007 Server
* I read the information about the update that I had installed and it said not to install on SharePoint 2007 Server but to install a different hotfix (KB937832).
* I installed the new hotfix then launched the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard. It failed. I think it is trying to install the first hotfix and will not install the second hotfix until the first is installed.
* I tried uninstalling the first hotfix but it cannot be installed.
* I have no back up of this server. It does have a small amount of production data.

What are my options? Attached is the 200-some log file that I was referred to

Oops.

And now I am waiting for a callback from a Microsoft Sharepoint Tech. Not a call I'm looking forward to.

EDIT: P.S. Here is the first line of the KB article in question

Important The update that is described in this article has been replaced by the updates that are described in the following Microsoft Knowledge Base articles:

Comments

[deusmetallum.livejournal.com]

Ouch.
Rule one of upgrading: back it up!

[kitschicat.livejournal.com]

They are forcing ShitPoint here at work and a bunch of us are very, very displeased with it. But it's the owner's son pushing it, and that's a hard thing to fight.

And just think, one of the things they are considering is making me an admin on it as part of my transfer out of user tech support. I'm not sure if I'd be going out of the frying pan and into the fire. :P

[yanni85.livejournal.com]

We've been using sharepoint in our office for a while now and it's actually grown on me in the time we've been using it. I'm still not a huge proponent of it or anything but it's not completely terrible. Also, I have not had any issues using it in Firefox which surprised me.

[pixelchik.livejournal.com]

Yesterday..all my troubles seemed so far away.. :)

[kallell.livejournal.com]

well at least its detailed and not blaming you

[yanni85.livejournal.com]

Indeed. Client fully admits that the issue has occurred because they are sick and were not thinking clearly, thus didn't read what they were doing. Also why they're paying us to call Microsoft for them, so someone who is "with it" will be working on the issue.

Admining under the influence (of anything) is a bad idea!

[sunnylioness.livejournal.com]

He gets 5 bonus points for at least writing some articulate notes that don't displace blame or strategically leave out details like "and the server bluescreened during the install, but it came back up just fine so I continued".

Until I just saw your P.S.: -5 points for not reading the KB notes...

[yanni85.livejournal.com]

Exactly. I was so pleased with the wonderful write-up of everything and then I looked at the KB article and saw that and was sad. So close, and yet...

[yanni85.livejournal.com]

Now it looks as though they're here to stay..

[yanni85.livejournal.com]

No kidding.

[the-reda.livejournal.com]

...get a big big magnet and start over ...

[wxgeek.livejournal.com]

As usual, XKCD has an appropriate answer.

[yanni85.livejournal.com]

XKCD knows all.

[wxgeek.livejournal.com]

It's true.