Comparison of key features

Article
01/10/2017

Applies To: Office SharePoint Server 2007

This Office product will reach end of support on October 10, 2017. To stay supported, you will need to upgrade. For more information, see , Resources to help you upgrade your Office 2007 servers and clients.

Topic Last Modified: 2016-11-14

In this article:

New concepts and terminology
New or changed processes in the server administration experience
New or changed features for searching
New or changed features in the authoring and site management experience
Changes to areas
Other changes

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 has a new architecture and includes many new capabilities. Because of these changes, some of the ways that you worked with your sites and pages in previous versions might not work or might not be as effective in Office SharePoint Server 2007. The following tables list some of the key changes to terminology and features that immediately affect the administration and site management process after upgrading. For more information about changes to Office SharePoint Server 2007, see What's new for IT professionals in Office SharePoint Server 2007.

New concepts and terminology

The concepts and terminology that are listed in the following table have been updated or added to reflect the new architecture and design of Office SharePoint Server 2007.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 concept or term	Office SharePoint Server 2007 concept or term	Comments
Virtual server	Web application	Change in terminology.
Site groups	Permission levels	Change in terminology.
Cross-site groups	Groups or SharePoint groups	Change in terminology.
Shared services	Shared Services Providers (SSPs)	The architecture behind shared services has changed quite a bit, to allow easier and more flexible sharing of resources. For more information, see Plan Shared Services Providers.
Areas	Subsites	SharePoint Portal Server 2003 areas are upgraded to subsites in the new version. To manage your site, on the Site Actions menu, click Manage Content and Structure.
Portal security	Windows SharePoint Services security	Portal security is now managed by using the new Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 security model. The groups and users are upgraded to this model. For more information about the new security model, see Plan site and content security (Office SharePoint Server).
Custom authentication	New authentication choices	You can now use ASP.NET authentication methods, such as forms-based authentication, with Office SharePoint Server 2007 instead of having to create a completely custom authentication solution. For more information, see Plan authentication methods (Office SharePoint Server).
	Rights management	Now available for documents stored in document libraries.
SharePoint Portal Server 2003 backward-compatible document libraries	Office SharePoint Server 2007 document libraries	SharePoint Portal Server 2003 backward-compatible document libraries are not supported in Office SharePoint Server 2007. You can move any content stored in these libraries into standard document libraries in Office SharePoint Server 2007. A tool that you can use to migrate this content is under development. For more information, see Perform post-upgrade steps for a gradual upgrade (Office SharePoint Server) or Perform post-upgrade steps for an in-place upgrade (Office SharePoint Server).

New or changed processes in the server administration experience

The server administration experience has been enhanced and redesigned to make delegation and auditing easier, as described in the following table.

SharePoint Portal Server 2003 process	Office SharePoint Server 2007 process
Create Internet Information Services (IIS) Web sites by using IIS tools.	Create and configure IIS Web sites in Central Administration instead.
Determine which tasks are high priority and must be performed first.	New Task List in Central Administration directs you to high priority tasks that must be completed before you proceed to create or configure sites.
Server administrators have access to site content by default.	Server administrators must take ownership of a site collection — an action that is logged — to view site content.

New or changed features for searching

The search functionality has been updated and revised. The following table lists and explains many of these changes. For more information, see How search features are affected by upgrade.

SharePoint Portal Server 2003 feature	Office SharePoint Server 2007 feature	Comments
"This Portal"/"Non-Portal" content sources	Default content source	Scope has changed from Portal Administration to SSP.
Custom content sources	Content sources	Scope has changed from Portal Administration to SSP.
Best Bets	Best Bets	Scope has changed from Portal Administration to site.
Schedules	Content sources	Scope has changed from Portal Administration to Schedules.
Indexes	Indexes	In Office SharePoint Server 2007, there is only one index per farm, rather than multiple indexes with aggregated results as in SharePoint Portal Server 2003.
SharePoint Portal Server 2003 administrative object model		The SharePoint Portal Server 2003 administrative object model has been deprecated in Office SharePoint Server 2007. This means that any custom applications that rely on the Customers SharePoint Portal Server 2003 administrative object model will have to be rewritten to use the new object model in Office SharePoint Server 2007.

New or changed features in the authoring and site management experience

Much has changed in the authoring and site management experience. For example, the changes described in the following list are immediately apparent when you open and edit your site in Office SharePoint Server 2007.

The Pages library In Office SharePoint Server 2007, all landing pages, including default.aspx, are stored in the Pages library, and their URLs have changed to "http://site_name/pages/default.aspx" instead of just "http://site_name/default.aspx". This is expected, and is because of the addition of the publishing capabilities of Office SharePoint Server 2007. With this change, landing pages are simply documents that you can check out, edit, and then republish.
Page layouts and master pages In Office SharePoint Server 2007, all ghosted (non-customized) pages are updated to use master pages and page layouts to control the page design. If you have unghosted pages in your site (pages that were customized by using Microsoft FrontPage 2003), you can update these pages to use master pages and page layouts for a consistent look throughout your site. For more information, see Reapply customizations in the browser and Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007.
Version control Version control for pages in the pages library is turned on by default, so you must check pages out before making changes.

Note

Version control can help manage your changes, so you can recover if someone makes a mistake. However, if you want to turn off version control, you can do so. Version control is highly recommended if you have multiple people making changes to your site.

For more information about the publishing capabilities in Office SharePoint Server 2007, see Plan Web pages and Plan content approval and scheduling.

The following table lists changes that you might notice when you author or manage the site.

SharePoint Portal Server 2003 feature	Office SharePoint Server 2007 feature	Comments
Default.aspx	Pages/default.aspx	Pages are a new construct in Office SharePoint Server 2007. Landing pages are stored in a list called Pages. You can schedule, approve, and publish pages. For more information about site content management, see the topics under Web Content Management in the Office SharePoint Server 2007 Help system or the topics under Page layouts and publishing sites in the Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007 Help system.
Listings Web Part	Content Query Web Part or Summary Links Web Part	By default, Listings are upgraded to the Content Query Web Part. This Web Part uses a query to display items in a Links list. The query is configured through Web Part properties. For more authoring and presentation control, consider manually moving Listings links to the Summary Links Web Part after upgrade.
Listings approval status	Approval status values	The status values for SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Listings items will be upgraded as follows: Expired — changes to Rejected Yet-to-appear — changes to Pending Approved — no change Pending — no change Reject/Archived — changes to Denied
Targeting areas	Targeting pages	To target a site after upgrade, you must enable targeting on the Welcome page of a site. For more information about targeting, see Plan for personalized content and sites.
Site directory	Site directory	The site directory has new pages after upgrade to show organizational categories.
News Listings	Links list items and pages	News Listings are upgraded to Links lists or pages.
Apply Themes and Borders permission (not included in the Site Designer site group)	Design permission level can now include Apply Themes and Borders permission	If you want to enable upgraded users with the Design permission level to use this permission, you must edit the Design permission level to include the permission. (This permission is included for new users, but not for upgraded users.) For more information, see Manage permission levels (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=106026) in the Office SharePoint Server 2007 Help system.

Changes to areas

The following table explains how areas have been redesigned to be easier to edit and manage.

Change	Comments
Areas are now subsites.	During upgrade, areas are converted to subsites of the portal. The home area becomes the top-level site in the site collection, and the next-level areas become subsites of that site, and so on. This changes the physical hierarchy for the portal to match the logical area hierarchy of the SharePoint Portal Server 2003 portal site, and also affects the URLs, as discussed in the following row in this table.
Portal site URLs might have changed.	URLs for sites and subsites in Office SharePoint Server 2007 are updated to match the physical hierarchy of the portal site. Rather than seeing http://portal_name/c2/area_name, you'll see http://portal_name/area_name or http://portal_name/sites/site_name.

Areas are now subsites.

During upgrade, areas are converted to subsites of the portal. The home area becomes the top-level site in the site collection, and the next-level areas become subsites of that site, and so on. This changes the physical hierarchy for the portal to match the logical area hierarchy of the SharePoint Portal Server 2003 portal site, and also affects the URLs, as discussed in the following row in this table.

Portal site URLs might have changed.

URLs for sites and subsites in Office SharePoint Server 2007 are updated to match the physical hierarchy of the portal site. Rather than seeing http://portal_name/c2/area_name, you'll see http://portal_name/area_name or http://portal_name/sites/site_name.

Other changes

In addition to the changes discussed in the previous sections, you might notice changes to your environment that are listed in the following table.

Change	Comments
Client applications have trouble with the redirects.	The Microsoft Office client applications do not work with the 302 redirects used to redirect users from an old URL to the new URL. For example, if users attempt to open a document directly from their Office Word application by using the original URL, they might get an error message. However, the browser does work with the 302 redirects, so if users are having trouble with the client applications, they can instead use the browser to retrieve the files they need.
The MySites have a new look and new features.	During upgrade, the MySites are upgraded to include the new look and new features available in Office SharePoint Server 2007.
The Microsoft Office 2003 Web Components and MSNBC Web Parts have been deprecated.	The Office Web Components will continue to work in the new version if you used an in-place or a gradual upgrade. However, the database migration approach does not work for these components, because they can only be installed in a Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 or SharePoint Portal Server 2003 environment. If you are upgrading to the Office SharePoint Server 2007 Enterprise Client Access License (CAL), consider using the Excel Services capabilities in your new environment instead of the Office Web Components. The MSNBC Web Parts have been deprecated and will no longer be available to use. Consider using the RSS Viewer Web Part to connect to an RSS feed, or use an XSLT in conjunction with the XMLS Web Part to render an RSS feed from MSNBC instead.

Client applications have trouble with the redirects.

The Microsoft Office client applications do not work with the 302 redirects used to redirect users from an old URL to the new URL. For example, if users attempt to open a document directly from their Office Word application by using the original URL, they might get an error message. However, the browser does work with the 302 redirects, so if users are having trouble with the client applications, they can instead use the browser to retrieve the files they need.

The MySites have a new look and new features.

During upgrade, the MySites are upgraded to include the new look and new features available in Office SharePoint Server 2007.

The Microsoft Office 2003 Web Components and MSNBC Web Parts have been deprecated.

The Office Web Components will continue to work in the new version if you used an in-place or a gradual upgrade. However, the database migration approach does not work for these components, because they can only be installed in a Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 or SharePoint Portal Server 2003 environment. If you are upgrading to the Office SharePoint Server 2007 Enterprise Client Access License (CAL), consider using the Excel Services capabilities in your new environment instead of the Office Web Components.

The MSNBC Web Parts have been deprecated and will no longer be available to use. Consider using the RSS Viewer Web Part to connect to an RSS feed, or use an XSLT in conjunction with the XMLS Web Part to render an RSS feed from MSNBC instead.

Download this book

This topic is included in the following downloadable book for easier reading and printing:

Upgrading to Office SharePoint Server 2007

See the full list of available books at Downloadable content for Office SharePoint Server 2007.

Share via