Import Spreadsheet issue in Sharepoint

I was recently exploring some of the list features in Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) 3.0 and ran in to a couple of snags that were easily resolved after a few newsgroup searches so these aren't my hard earned solutions but I figured I would post them anyways and they resolved both issues in my case.

Issue 1. Adding new items to a list results in an Error Code: 500 Internal Server Error. The request was rejected by the HTTP filter. Contact your ISA Server administrator. message in your web browser. From this message you can tell I'm running Microsoft ISA Server and in my case, version 2006. This is not a problem with WSS but rather a modification to the HTTP Filter settings on the Web Server Publishing Rule relevant to accessing your WSS 3.0 server. To resolve the issue, modify the HTTP Filter settings and uncheck the Verify Normalization option under URL Protection.

Issue 2. Importing lists from Excel 2007 returns a Method 'Post' of object 'IOWSPostData' failed dialog. Again, not really a problem with WSS 3.0 but rather the result of a failed Application.SharePointVersion() call in the Excel Add-In which results in Excel attempting to use the IOWSPostData.Post() method to publish the Excel range which is used with SharePoint Team Services 1.0. By forcing the version lookup result variable to 2 or greater, Excel will use SOAP to communicate with WSS 3.0 and the publish request will be successful. To make this change, open the Excel Add-In EXPTOOWS.XLA locate in C:/Program Files/Microsoft Office/Office12/1033 by default. Press Alt+F11 to display the Visual Basic code editor and search (Ctrl+F) for the line lVer = Application.SharePointVersion(URL). Comment out that line with a single quote and add the line lVer=2 so your Intialize() method should now look like this:

Sub Initialize(List, Title, URL, QuickLaunch)

strQuickLaunch = QuickLaunch

aTarget(iPublishURL) = URL

aTarget(iPublishListName) = List

aTarget(iPublishListDesc) = Title

'lVer = Application.SharePointVersion(URL)

lVer = 2

End Sub

If the Application.SharePointVersion(URL) method is successful then lVer for WSS 3.0 will equal 3. Save your changes and try importing your list in to WSS 3.0 again.