A task that Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS 2007) administrators often perform is to create a custom 404 error page to specify reporting or contact information to public users. The Microsoft article "How to point to a custom 404 error web page in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 or in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007" discusses how to create this page. One step involves using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 to create a custom console application. However, not all administrators are trained in how to write a .NET application.
One workaround is to use the SharePoint Manager 2007 utility, which you can download from the CodePlex website. After you install this free utility on your MOSS 2007 machine, follow these steps to create a custom 404 error page:
- Using an account that has administrative permissions, log on to your MOSS 2007 machine.
- Open Windows Explorer. Navigate to the %SystemDrive%\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\LangID folder, where LangID is the ID of the language that you use. The language ID for U.S. English is 1033.
- In the LangID folder, create an HTML file that contains the reporting or contact information you want to provide to public users. This page can be as simple as
<HTML>
<Body>
<H1> Reporting or contact information goes here. </H1>
</Body>
</HTML>
- Launch SharePoint Manager 2007 and connect to the SharePoint web application for which you're creating the error page.
- Update the FileNotFoundPage property with the name of your HTML file. For example, if you named your file Custom404.html in step 3, you'd enter it this way:
After you update the property, click file, then select the Save Changes to SharePoint option.
- To test your error page, launch Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) and enter an invalid SharePoint URL, such as http://SharePointServer/aaaa.aspx. Your error page should appear.