September, 2014 | Michal Foltyn

Description

Drag&Drop feature for uploading multiple files does not work in Internet Explorer in SharePoint 2010 environment. For some users this feature is disabled/hidden. However, it’s avalaible for other users in the company.

Things to check

It works only in IE
Internet Security is too high (doesn’t allow to run ActiveX controls)
Microsoft Office is not installed on the computer

There is a KB from Microsoft that sums it up.

However, I experienced one other issue. These computers had one thing in common, they all had Office suite reinstalled (from 2003 to 2010). As a consequence, in Internet Explorer there was an old version of ActiveX control library (STSUpld UploadCtl) registered. You can check it by:

Open Internet Explorer
Tools | Manage add-ons
From drop down list choose All add-ons
Find STSUpld.UploadCtl | right click on in and choose More information
Compare Version and Folder.

Version should start with 14.* (or 15.* in case of Office 2013). Folder path should head to Office14 or Office15 folder.

Solution
It’s necessary to fix old reference and replace it with current one (based on the version of Office installed).

It can be done by:

Completely uninstalling old version of Office and reinstalling current one
If it’s enabled, then in window More Information click on Remove
Using RegSvr32 command to re-register DLL StsUpld.dll

I was looking for a nice way how to force browsers to refresh its cached version of files and reload script files after the change occured.

Usually we link JS files or CSS files like this:

<script type='text/javascript' src="/_layouts/js/myJavascriptFile.js"></script>

1	<script type='text/javascript' src="/_layouts/js/myJavascriptFile.js"></script>

If you want to force refresh, you can amend parameters to url, ie.

<script type='text/javascript' src="/_layouts/js/myJavascriptFile.js?version=1"></script>

1	<script type='text/javascript' src="/_layouts/js/myJavascriptFile.js?version=1"></script>

Well, this is manual way, so how do it in automated way, so I do not have to care about it? There is several ways how to do it, I will just mention one, which is simple and reliable and you do not have to remember to increase anything upon deployment. (it’s not my idea, thanks to Adam Tegen and his answer in stackoverflow). I took the liberty to change it so it’s possible to use in ASP.NET webforms as well.

public static class VersionLinkHelper
{
    public static string GetVersion(string fileName)
    {
        var context = HttpContext.Current;

        if (context.Cache[fileName] == null)
        {
            var physicalPath = context.Server.MapPath(fileName);
            var version = "?v=" +
                new System.IO.FileInfo(physicalPath).LastWriteTime
                .ToString("yyyyMMddhhmmss");
            context.Cache.Add(physicalPath, version, null,
                DateTime.Now.AddMinutes(10), TimeSpan.Zero,
                CacheItemPriority.Normal, null);
            context.Cache[fileName] = version;
            return fileName+version;
        }
        else
        {
            return fileName + context.Cache[fileName] as string;
        }
    }
}

public static class VersionLinkHelper

{

public static string GetVersion(string fileName)

{

var context = HttpContext.Current;

if (context.Cache[fileName] == null)

{

var physicalPath = context.Server.MapPath(fileName);

var version = "?v=" +

new System.IO.FileInfo(physicalPath).LastWriteTime

.ToString("yyyyMMddhhmmss");

context.Cache.Add(physicalPath, version, null,

DateTime.Now.AddMinutes(10), TimeSpan.Zero,

CacheItemPriority.Normal, null);

context.Cache[fileName] = version;

return fileName+version;

}

else

{

return fileName + context.Cache[fileName] as string;

}

In ASP.NET page link the file as:

<script type='text/javascript' src='<%= VersionLinkHelper.GetVersion("/_layouts/js/CS/myJavascriptFile.js") %>'></script>

1	<script type='text/javascript' src='<%= VersionLinkHelper.GetVersion("/_layouts/js/CS/myJavascriptFile.js") %>'></script>

Michal Foltyn

My blog about SharePoint development, Apps and Office 365.

Monthly Archives: September 2014

Upload Multiple Documents is disabled in SharePoint 2010

How to force browsers to get latest script files on ASP.NET pages in automated way