What's a MOSS 2007 vs. WSS v3 Feature?

Have you installed the MOSS 2007 beta yet? If so, taken any time to understand what Features are?

If not, check out Ted Pattison's "What Are Features?" post... his first sentence nails it: "Features are awesome." I've got a few more links on features on my WCM linkfest: http://andrewconnell.com/blog/articles/MossWcmResources.aspx#Features

Let's say you've poked under the hood to see all the Features you get when you install MOSS. Where will you find them? In the 12 hive of course: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATES\FEATURES.

One thing to note is that Features aren't a MOSS-only thing... they are an inherit addition to the foundation of SharePoint: WSS. I'm guessing most people out there have installed the MOSS 2007 beta bits and not played with the WSS v3 beta bits without MOSS. So, if you've installed MOSS 2007, how do you know which Features are included with the free part of SharePoint (WSS) and which ones are added by MOSS (see Figure 1 below)? Some are easy to spot as MOSS only Features.. for example, the ExcelServer* Features are obviously part of Excel Services, a component to MOSS... the MySite* Features deal with My Sites, another MOSS-only thing... OSearch* Features are for the advanced search functionality in MOSS... and finally the Publishing* Features deal with Publishing Sites (aka: Web Content Management). But what about all the others?


Figure 1 (click for larger image)

Instead of having to always compare my MOSS Beta 2 Technical Refresh virtual machine & my WSS v3 Beta 2 Technical Refresh virtual machine, I decided to document them for my own reference and share them here, on my blog, for anyone else to use as a reference.

Windows SharePoint Services v3 Features:
33 Features in WSS v3 AdminLinks
AnnouncementsList
BasicWebParts
ContactsList
ContentLightup
ContentTypeSettings
ctypes
CustomList
DataSourceLibrary
DiscussionsList
DocumentLibrary
EventsList
fields
GanttTasksList
GridList
IssuesList
IssueTrackingWorkflow
LinksList
MobilityRedirect
NoCodeWorkflowLibrary
PictureLibrary
SiteSettings
SPSearchFeature
SurveysList
TasksList
TeamCollab
UpgradeLinks
WebPageLibrary
WikiWelcome
WorkflowHistoryList
WorkflowProcessList
XmlFormLibrary


Microsoft Office SharePoint Services 2007 Features:
107 Features Added in MOSS 2007* AddDashboard
Analytics
AnalyticsLinks
BaseSite
BaseSiteStapling
BaseWeb
BaseWebApplication
BDCAdminUILinks
BDR
BizAppsCTypes
BizAppsFields
BizAppsListTemplates
BizAppsSiteTemplates
BulkWorkflow
BulkWorkflowTimerJob
DataConnectionLibrary
DataConnectionLibraryStapling
DeploymentLinks
DMContentTypeSettings
EawfSite
EawfWeb
EnhancedHtmlEditing
ExcelServer
ExcelServerSite
ExcelServerWebApplication
ExpirationWorkflow
FeaturePushdown
GlobalWebParts
GradualUpgrade
Hold
ipfsAdminLinks
IPFSAdminWeb
IPFSDocumentConversion
IPFSSiteFeatures
IPFSWebFeatures
LegacyDocumentLibrary
ListTargeting
LocalSiteDirectoryControl
LocalSiteDirectoryMetaData
LocalSiteDirectorySettingsLink
MasterSiteDirectoryControl
MigrationLinks
MySite
MySiteBlog
MySiteCleanup
MySiteHost
MySiteLayouts
MySiteNavigation
MySiteQuickLaunch
Navigation
NavigationProperties
OffWFCommon
OSearchBasicFeature
OSearchCentralAdminLinks
OSearchEnhancedFeature
OSearchPortalAdminLinks
OSearchSRPAdminLinks
OsrvLinks
OsrvTasks
OssNavigation
OSSSearchSearchCenterUrlFeature
OSSSearchSearchCenterUrlSiteFeature
PageConverters
PortalLayouts
PremiumRootSite
PremiumRootSiteStapling
PremiumSite
PremiumSiteStapling
PremiumWeb
PremiumWebApplication
ProfileSynch
Publishing
PublishingLayouts
PublishingPrerequisites
PublishingResources
PublishingSite
PublishingStapling
PublishingWeb
RecordsManagement
RedirectPageContentTypeBinding
RelatedLinksScopeSettingsLink
ReportCenterCreation
ReportCenterSampleData
Reporting
ReportListTemplate
ReviewWorkflows
SearchAndProcess
SearchWebParts
SharedServices
SignaturesWorkflow
SitesList
SkuUpgradeLinks
SlideLibrary
SlideLibraryActivation
SpellChecking
SPSDisco
SpsSsoLinks
SRPProfileAdmin
StapledWorkflows
TranslationWorkflow
TransMgmtFunc
TransMgmtLib
UpgradeOnlyFile
UserMigrator
ViewFormPagesLockDown
WebPartAdderGroups


* Two additional features are installed when you upgrade from MOSS 2007 Beta 2 to MOSS Beta 2 Technical Refresh: PublishingB2TRHop2SiteFilesUpgrade & PublishingB2TRSiteFilesUpgrade. These two Features, as their names imply, are used to upgrade some of the publishing files from Beta 2 to Beta 2 Technical Refresh. This also explains why you may have experienced some problems with your existing Publishing sites created in Beta 2 after upgrading to Beta 2 Technical Refresh, as outlined in this post. Because they are upgrade Features, and not likely to be present in the RTM release of MOSS 2007, I am not including them in the count.