Windows Server 2008 developing SharePoint – Can’t connect from Office clients

Posted on April 19, 2008 by Andrew Woodward

Now that Windows 2008 Server is out SharePoint developers (and I’m sure lots of others as well) will start to move their development machines onto the new platform.  For SharePoint  developers tend to work in Virtual Machines and develop on the Server OS directly as the XP/Vista development story is not that good right now. 

I have such a configuration (Windows Server 2008, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, SQL 2005, Office Suite 2007, Visual Studio 2008) and have been working through some Excel Services development tasks when I discovered I had a problem with my setup.

In Excel I often need to Publish workbooks to the server to enable parameter configuration and the like,  however this was not possible running in the VM (on Windows Server 2008),  when trying to enter a network path I always got the ‘Path does not exist.  Check Path and try again” error.

Path Not Found

I proved the problem was not IIS or SharePoint related as I was able to connect happily from the Host Vista installation and upload the files from Office.

Having crawled the web and tried out various enabling and disabling of services and settings I was pointed to the solution by Dan Homle who I had the pleasure of meeting this week at the MVP Summit in Seattle. Dan is a fellow SharePoint MVP living in Maui (How cool is that!).

The problem is down to Windows Server 2008 adopting the don’t install anything approach which is great for its primary target – i.e. as a server – but less so for dev’s who need to know what to turn on where.,  The key missing Feature is the Desktop Experience

Add Desktop Feature

Enabling this will require you to restart the server,  and although it says things like Media Player – it doesn’t enable them so shouldn’t add much bloat.

Now when you enter the url in the Save As dialog you get access to SharePoint sites and libraries.

Save to SharePoint

 

[Update] The Microsoft From the Field also posted on something very similar, enabling WedDav  for the client when this is Windows Server 2008. 

http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/blogs/fromthefield/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=51

This entry was posted in SharePoint and tagged , . Bookmark the permalink.
  • Ike

    Excellent post! I ran into the same problem a week ago and have been struggling to get past it. Thanks!

  • Paul

    THANK YOU! This one was driving me nuts, and there’s about a hundred different sites and forums discussing this problem, all with different fixes to try.

  • Chris

    THANK YOU! I have been pulling my hair out trying to resolve this issue. Excellent post.

  • Bahman Kazemian

    Andrew, you saved me from taking another panadol! Thanks man.

  • http://sharepoint.blogg.se/ Jenny

    Thank you very much! This was exactly what I needed. =)

  • darrie

    Well apparently this server setting is not such a good approach. Windows hosting should allow installations otherwise we'll keep bumping into this kind of errors and it can become really annoying.

  • Omar

    Thanks, its a great post . any idea , even after installing desltop exp i still can not see my sharepoint sites in save in dialog box .
    http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-U…

  • Omar

    Its a great post . Thanks for sharing . But i dont think this is the exact reasonfor the issue you mentioned above . I enable this feature but still i am having same problem .using win 2k8 R2.office 2007 and SQL 2008 with MOSS.
    If you have some other solution please post .Thanks

  • http://www.21apps.com AndrewWoody

    Perhaps you also have to disable the loopback adapter?

    http://www.21apps.com/sharepoint/ie8-beta-2-ntl…

  • omar

    WOW Thanks for a quick reply . LoopBackchek is disabled already . I even build new machines both have the same issue..

  • umar

    I am still working on it. There are some features that stop server from integrating with office . i had this issue , iwas unable to see my sharepoint sites in save in dialog box even with desktop experiencefeature turned on . what i did i had all the featuresinstalled on the machines its more than 20 . now i have only 5 features installed and every thing is working fine so it has to be one of he features we dont need on the server with sharepoint , I will try to narrow down this issue and post again

  • sagnik mukherjee

    thanks …………….a lot !!!

  • SandraMillhouse

    If I get the “Path does not exist” error again, I might smash my computer. I really hope your trick works. I'm gonna try it later in the evening. If it does work, I'm taking you out to lunch!
    Sandra Millhouse | cheap virtual server

  • Omar

    Before you smash your machine try 1-ading desk top feature

    2-Remove web dev pub feature if installed on the server

    3- try to copy and paste URL of your doc lirary in save in dialouge box (URL up to the site name and doc library name )
    let us know

  • Sandramillhouse

    Omar, you are a life saver! Actually, you saved my computer not my life…So thank you for that!

  • Parag Mahalley

    SP2010 on W2k08 R2
    SSL
    Office 2010
    Desktop feature enabled
    WebDAV role uninstalled

    I get the save as dialog but can’t save the file, whether its a new one or in edit mode.
    Regular upload works. Any ideas?

    Thanks!

  • Pingback: Path does not exist. Check Path and try again | Experience & Solution 410