Microsoft KB Archive/885652

= Metadata of non-Office documents is not retained after you copy documents to a document library in SharePoint Portal Server 2003 or in Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 =

Article ID: 885652

Article Last Modified on 10/18/2007

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003
 * Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 2.0

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SYMPTOMS
In Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 and in Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 2.0, when you copy a document from one document library to another document library or when you copy a document from a folder on the hard disk to a document library, you experience the following symptoms:
 * Metadata of non-Office documents is not retained after you copy non-Office documents to the document library.
 * Metadata of Microsoft Office documents is retained after you copy Office documents to the document library.

The following is an example of a scenario where you experience these symptoms:
 * 1) You upload a Microsoft Office Word 2003 document and a text document to a document library on the portal site.
 * 2) You specify information in the Title, Owner, and Description boxes for both documents.
 * 3) You open both documents, save the documents to a folder on the hard disk, and then upload the documents to a different document library on the portal site.

When you connect to the document library that you copied the documents to and then view the properties of the Word document, the information in the Title, Owner, and Description boxes is retained. When you view the properties of the text document, the Title, Owner, and Description boxes are blank.



CAUSE
This behavior occurs because a non-Office document, such as a .txt file or a .zip file, does not store metadata in the file itself. The metadata for non-Office documents is stored in the Microsoft SQL Server database. When you copy a non-Office document from one document library to another document library or when you copy a non-Office document from a folder on the hard disk to a document library, the file is copied to the document library. However, no metadata is associated with the file.

An Office document stores metadata in the file itself. When you copy an Office document from one document library to another document library or when you copy an Office document from a folder on the hard disk to a document library, SharePoint Portal Server 2003 and Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 interpret the metadata that is stored in the file and update the information that is stored in the Microsoft SQL Server database.

By design, SharePoint Portal Server 2003 and Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 work this way.



WORKAROUND
To work around this behavior, create a custom program that can retrieve and copy the metadata for non-Office documents. For more information about how to create solutions that are based on Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies, see the Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies 2003 Software Development Kit (SDK). To obtain the Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies 2003 SDK, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=aa3e7fe5-daee-4d10-980f-789b827967b0&displaylang=en



MORE INFORMATION
For more information about SharePoint Portal Server 2003, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

http://technet.microsoft.com/office/sharepointserver/bb267364.aspx

For more information about Windows SharePoint Services 2.0, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

http://technet.microsoft.com/windowsserver/sharepoint/bb267377.aspx

Keywords: kbsavefile kbopenfile kbprb kbtshoot KB885652

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