Monthly Archives: November 2013

Recently I brought the patch level of an Office Web Apps server up to March 2013 PU. Microsoft updates the Office updates listing here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/ee748587.aspx

There is a cardinal rule when applying updates to an Office Web Apps 2013 farm and if you get one thing from this post make sure it is this..Remove the machine from the farm (Using PowerShell: Remove-OfficeWebAppsMachine) prior to patching. This means that after applying the updates you must “recreate the farm” using the New-OfficeWebAppsFarm PowerShell command. The updates apply really fast..for a PROD environment I only took 4 minutes!

For a normal Office Web Apps update this is ALL that is needed (SharePoint’s binding to the office web apps farm is based on the server name so usually you do not have to even log on to a SharePoint server). Pretty simple..unless there are more servers and Office Web Apps needs to be HA (See this post if that is the case: http://www.wictorwilen.se/office-web-apps-2013-patching-your-wac-farm-with-no-downtime).

Since the March 2013 PU is not just your average update (See list of changes/added functionality here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2767967) you need to do slight configuration on the SharePoint servers. I know the KB article was for February CU, but we are applying March PU – which only has a few incremental changes plus it’s a PU, which means it was more thoroughly tested.

Steps to follow for March 2013 PU to add WordPDF functionality:

1. After applying the update, you need to log into a SharePoint server to add a binding for the new PDF viewer:
   PowerShell

   New-SPWOPIBinding -ServerName "<ServerName>" -Application WordPdf

   1	New-SPWOPIBinding -ServerName "<ServerName>" -Application WordPdf

   Note: This seems to place a binding in the internal-http(s) zone, which is no good in scenarios (such as ours) using external-https. In this case I needed to remove all bindings and then add all bindings and everything will be updated to external-https as it should. I tried changing the zone name property, but it is a read only field (and the –allowhttps=$true only switched it from internal-http to internal-https)

   1. After applying this new binding you need to create a new result type for PDF Files:
      1. Site Settings > (Search) Result Types and then finding the PDF Result Type. Choose to Copy the Result Type.
      2. Give the new Result Type an appropriate name, “PDF with Preview” for instance. Then scroll down to Actions and in the “What should these results look like?” drop-down, choose to use the Word Display Template.

    Here’s a couple of sweet PowerShell scripts I came across (From Wictor Wilén) to obtain the version number for Skydrive/O365 Office Web Apps Server:

   US (Current Version is 16.0.2130.1021):

   PowerShell

   (Invoke-WebRequest -Uri https://powerpoint.officeapps.live.com/p/ppt/view.svc/jsonAnonymous/GetSlide -Method POST).Headers["X-OfficeVersion"]

   1	(Invoke-WebRequest -Uri https://powerpoint.officeapps.live.com/p/ppt/view.svc/jsonAnonymous/GetSlide -Method POST).Headers["X-OfficeVersion"]

   EUC (Current Version is 16.0.2130.1021):

   PowerShell

   (Invoke-WebRequest -Uri https://euc-powerpoint.officeapps.live.com/p/ppt/view.svc/jsonAnonymous/GetSlide -Method POST).Headers["X-OfficeVersion"]

   1	(Invoke-WebRequest -Uri https://euc-powerpoint.officeapps.live.com/p/ppt/view.svc/jsonAnonymous/GetSlide -Method POST).Headers["X-OfficeVersion"]

   Just to put things in perspective – March 2013 PU is version number 15.0.4481.1005