Corey Roth [MVP]

Now that the NDA has been lifted, I am excited to talk about some of things that I have noticed are new, interesting, or changed in SharePoint 2010.  This post today is just a bullet list of random things that I thought were worth mentioning. Standard disclaimer: any of these items are subject to change, errors, omissions.  They are in no particular order.  I will detail many of these items more through out the next couple of weeks.  As I will state with all posts on this topic, everything discussed here is subject to change. 

• As everyone knows SharePoint 2010 is 64 bit only.  For development, SharePoint 2010 will install on Windows 7 x64 and Windows Vista x64.  Good bye Virtual Machines!
• SharePoint runs on .NET 3.5 SP1 not .NET 4.0
• People Search has built-in support for wildcard searching
• Keyword query syntax supports or/and as well as wildcards using an asterisk (*)
• Search has built-in filters now (RefinementWebPart) with exact document counts – Think faceted search
• The Enterprise SharePoint CAL includes Fast Search
• Solution packages (.wsp) can now be deployed to the farm or to a sandbox on a site collection
• Sandboxed solutions run under partial trust with permission only to ASP.NET web controls and the SharePoint object model
• Sandboxed solutions cannot do certain privileges operations such as create site collections or elevate privileges
• Most site definitions are now based upon wiki pages
• You can deploy web parts directly inside a wiki editable section
• The 14 Hive replaces the 12 Hive.  Referred to as the “SharePoint Root” now.
• Stsadm is effectively considered dead and has been replace with PowerShell commands
• The Shared Services Provider is gone.  Functionality exposed through Services Archicture
• There are many new site definitions
• Visual Web Parts are just user controls with a regular web part loading them with Page.LoadControl
• Application Resource Files now work correctly out of the App_GlobalResources folder
• Site Columns have a place to enter a validation formula in the UI
• Lists have a place to enter a list-wide validation formula in the UI
• Content Types may now be marked readonly in the UI
• There is a new SharePoint Web Services site in IIS which hosts several services
• A lot of items have been added to Services on Server
• WSS Search has a failover database option now
• Farm Solutions can’t be uploaded in Central Administration but Sandbox solutions can be uploaded to the site collection
• Granular backup in CA allows export of sites or lists.  Options available to export security, versions, and data
• Most postbacks have been removed from the UI
• Obviously you already have heard about the Ribbon Bar
• Most forms edit as an AJAX modal popup
• New pages in CA to manage service accounts
• Patch Management screens in CA
• New folders in 14 Hive UserCode, WebClients, and WebServices
• A new page to edit column default value settings in List Settings
• List Settings –> Advanced: New options to allow offline, turn off the datasheet, or mark as the site asset library
• New Ratings Settings in List Settings
• New Metadata Navigation Settings in List Settings
• New Per-Location View Settings in List Settings
• Explorer View has been removed
• XsltListViewWebPart replaces all previous data view web parts
• New Events: WebAdding, WebProvisioned, ListAdding, ListAdded, ListDeleting, ListDeleted, WorkflowStarted, FeatureUpgrading
• Event Receivers can be created in Visual Studio with a Wizard
• You no longer have to implement all events in an Event Receiver
• Support for relation lists using lookup columns
• SharePoint now supports 50 million items in a list
• SharePoint now allows a user to query 5,000 items in a view.  Replaces 2,000 (later 3,000) item recommendation in MOSS 2007
• Queries in excess of the list throttling limitation will not be executed for normal users.  Throttle limits are configurable at a web application level.
• Visual Studio 2010 still lags forever when opening Visual Web Parts or Application Pages
• Application Pages now use the site master page.
• Collaboration Portal site template has been replaced with Enterprise Wiki
• CoreResultsWebPart still doesn’t support wildcards with built-in Search Center
• You can now have multiple index servers
• Content Sources can specify priority for crawling (normal or high)
• Document Set is a new content type that allows you to add child content types to it and work with the set of documents as one item
• Workflows no longer require list items.  Can be assigned to a site or document set
• The progress of a particular workflow can be viewed in Visio
• External Data Exchange can be used to wake up workflows externally
• The Site Actions menu has been moved to the left side
• SharePoint now has built-in web analytics
• Cross-Browser Support: Tier 1: Internet Explorer, Firefox.  Tier 2: Safari.  No idea about Chrome and Opera.
• Word and PowerPoint documents can now be edited directly in a browser (separate install)
• Application definition files for Business Connectivity Services can be created with SharePoint Designer
• SharePoint Designer no longer hard codes GUIDs into everything
• Folders are now supported in Page List for WCM publishing
• What’s Popular web part displays popular content, search queries, and results
• Enterprise Content Types – allows content types be defined in one site collection and get replicated to other site collections
• Document Sets allow you to manage multiple documents of varying content types together
• In Place Records Management feature allows for documents to be marked as records directly in existing document libraries
• Hold and eDiscovery feature allows you to place holds on documents in existing document libraries without having to export documents to a separate records center
• New Document Id Service adds a unique ID to all documents which can be used if the document is ever moved
• The breadcrumbs control has changed and may take some getting used to (especially in administration pages)
• New compliance details link on document properties page.  Allows viewing of holds, exemption, record status, and audit log
• CoreResultsWebPart has methods you can override to affect query execution and results display
• All other search web parts are still sealed
• BDC now equals Business Data Connectors.  BCS = Business Connectivity Services (the old BDC)
• Bulk operations can now be performed on list items
• Content Type new/edit forms can be built in InfoPath
• Detached seems to be the new term for customized (ghosted) pages
• Can now specify Joins and Projected Fields in CAML queries
• Can add a column constraint in lists now to not allow duplicate values
• Solutions can have dependencies on each other now (validated at deployment time)
• Workflow associations can be specified via feature

I’ll keep adding to this list as I observe things.  I’ll also add links to posts with more detail as I write them.   If you see any errors please let me know.