1. yes, even if the content database is turned “off” any users accessing a site collection that uses that content database as the back end will still be able to add, edit or delete docum,ents from that site collection.

2. Aside from querying the database to see what sites are there I don’t think so but could be wrong. Also it’s very important to remember that Microsoft is adamant about not “touching” the databases outside of SharePoint.

Lets take another approach here. Take the following steps and lets see if it solves the problem.

1. Save your custom master page to your local hard drive.
2. Uninstall the feature you created
3. Using SharePoint Designer delete the custom master page. You may have to create a temp folder and move the custom master page there before you can delete it.
4. As a SOP I would usually reset IIS at this point if you can.
5. Import the custom master page from your local hrad drive to your site collections _catalogs/masterpage folder.
6. Set the site collection to use the custom master page in the administrative UI on the site.

Let me know what happens after you’ve done that.
6.

Off the top of my head I would say that when you deployed the feature the master page wasn’t deployed to the masterpage directory on your server. As an alternative to using the feature try accessing your site collection using SharePoint Designer and click through to _catalogs/masterpage.

Once you have done that click on any one of your master pages in the masterpage directory and then from the file menu select Impoart > File and import your custom master page that way. If you don’t at least click on one file you’ll end up impotring your custom master page into one of the sub-folders.

Once you have done that go back into your site from the browser and navigate through Site Settings > Modify All Site Settings and under the Galleries heading access the “Master pages and layouts” gallery.

Find your custom master page and make sure that you have checked it in and approved it. Once you’ve done that you should be able to set it as your master page under the “Look and Feel” heading.

Let me know if that works for you or not.

Sorry for the delay in replying.

- Jay

So do I understand this correctly? Lets say I have a content database called WSS_Content_Old and I build a WSS_Content_New, and turn off WSS_Content_Old long enough to build my new site collection. While “old” is off, if someone uploads something to a document library on a site already associated with “old”, this document is still going into “old” and not “new”?

On a related note, I built some databases called WSS_Whatever_Legacy for temporarily moving items into new places. I’d like to delete these now that the moves are done but fear new content may have accidentally gone into them (by users) sometime when I was turning databases on and off. Is there a way to tell what sites are using it?

Thanks again for this article, it was helpful.

It save me a lot search time.

Salu2 – JavierJz

I have the VHD running on two machines, both dual booting Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2

Desktop

Dell Optiplex 755
Intell Core 2 Duo E8600 @ 3.3GHz
8GB of Crucial PC2 – 6400 memory

Laptop

Dell Studio 1537
Intel Core 2 Duo T9600 @ 2.8 GHz
8GB of Mushkin Enhanced Essentials PC2 6400