I just spent a couple days in a class last week for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (WSS3) and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS). I went because my boss (Jon Goodyear — MS Regional Director) thought it would be good for some more of us (ASPSOFT consultants) to develop some SharePoint skills… especially in light of some of the changes in SharePoint. The biggest change, in my mind, is that MS Content Management Server is no more. Also, in case you’ve missed it… FrontPage is no more as well… Long live SharePoint! (well, until its replacement comes along)
So what’s the difference between the 2 similarly named products (Sahil had a rant about this awhile back… I can’t find the link… hopefully Sahil will see this and provide the link)? This is what I understand… MOSS includes some advanced searching features, the Excel Calculation engine, the InfoPath forms engine (you no longer need InfoPath to use InfoPath created forms), and a bunch more templates for creating sites/subsites.
WSS3 can host files and has some searching capabilites (just not as strong as MOSS’). Basically it’s the “lite” version.
I believe (but don’t depend on me on this) that WSS3 is a windows-licensed product (which means that it’s license is tied to windows licensing), and MOSS will require a separate license.
For my purposes, MOSS is really cool, but the size of clients I usually work with will not necessarily require something like MOSS. So I have been working on getting a WSS3 beta2 Technical Refresh instance up and running on VirtualPC 2007 (it’s all betas here, baby).
As you read the Microsoft instructions for setting up a new instance Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Beta 2 Technical Refresh (WSS3 B2 TR) you are told in step 2 to install Beta 2 of WSS3. When you start searching on MS’ site you will find that you can’t find the bloody thing ANYWHERE! You can get downloads for MOSS, but as mentioned above MOSS != WSS3 (or if you are a VB guy/gal MOSS <> WSS3). So where do you get the install??
Well, I found this page — http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2006/05/25/606800.aspx — which is from the SharePoint blog where they provide links to the WSS3 beta 2 bits, and promise that they will get it all linked up in the MS site (soon)… I’m guessing that in the busy-ness of building a product they forgot to do this (or there is some other holdup). Not to worry though, I’m sure we’re near another release which will not have these instructions.
[Windows Sharepoint Services, Sharepoint, Sharepoint beta 2, Sharepoint Technical Refresh,wss3]