Microsoft Sharepoint Products and Technologies Resource Kit eBook

812 Part IX: Maintaining a Server in Windows SharePoint Services
■ One copy of the Help files is installed per server into the virtual
directory_vti_bin \HELP\LCID\STS\\ so that users from all sites hosted by the
server see the same Help files.
Any changes to files in these directories will affect all site collections hosted on
the server and will be at risk of being lost during the application of service packs
and hotfixes. By changing files once, you can have your corporate identity set on all
sites. If you want to have a different identity per virtual server, you could create a
copy of these directories and alter the mapping using the IIS Manager, as described
earlier in this chapter.
To change the picture on the home page
If you wanted a different logo for a portal site home pages, do the following:
1. Open the Local_Drive\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web
Server Extensions\60\template\images directory. This assumes the default
mapping of the virtual directory is http:///_layouts/images.
2. Copy the images that you want to appear on the home pages of your websites
to this directory.
3. Rename the image files home.gif and homepage.gif to home.org.gif and
homepage.org.gif, respectively. These files contain the logos used on the left
and right sides of the home page, respectively.
4. Rename the new image files home.gif and homepage.gif.
All sites with the appropriate virtual directory mapping now display new logos
on their home pages. Portal sites use the spshome.gif by default. The name of this
file can be changed on a portal site by portal site basis using the browser, as
described later in this chapter. To find the name of the .gif file you want to customize,
navigate to a page that displays the logo, right-click the image, and then click
Properties. Notice the file name at the end of the URL, as illustrated in Figure 30-5.
Caution If you change any of the default files, you might lose your customization
on an upgrade or on the application of a hotfix or a service pack. To
prevent this loss, use FrontPage 2003 to change the URL of the image file
to one you have stored in a document library or place an image file in the
same physical directory as spshome.gif, but use a unique file name.