28.1. Overview of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (WSSv3 for short or WSS for even shorter) was included in Windows Server 2003 R2 as an installable server application, much like IIS 6 or the DNS Service. The original Windows Server 2003 sans SP/SP1 product did not have WSS embedded, but the installation programs could be easily downloaded from Microsoft. In Windows Server 2003 R2, it was embedded. Therefore, in the early betas of Windows Server 2008, all the way up to Beta 3, there was hope that SharePoint would continue to be included in the OS. Alas, there must have been some parting of the ways between the SharePoint team and the Windows Server team because unexpectedly Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 was dropped from the Windows Server 2008 OS just prior to release. However, SharePoint presents such a superior mechanism to file shares for storing and accessing shared data that it just had to be included in any intelligent narrative on Windows Server 2008, which is why we've included this chapter.

WSSv3 offers free document management services that can be downloaded from Microsoft and installed on Windows Server 2008 or 2008 R2. And although WSSv3 is so much more than simply a document management utility (see Table 28.1), for the purpose of this chapter we will examine the features of WSS that make it a uniquely qualified candidate to replace traditional file shares for individual file/document storage.