Sharepoint 2010, templates and Features

Question

I have been trying to create site templates from a local SP2010 server that can be used by a client for some custom content. The problem is all the "the site template requires that the feature be activated in the site collection" errors.

For most features, I am able to activate them, and then the error guid changes. But now I am stuck on a few that dont exist at all -anywhere- on my site. Not the farm features, site collection features or site features.

An example of this is error guid 5eac763d-fbf5-4d6f-a76b-eded7dd7b0a5.

From multiple blog sites, I see this is the Search Extensions feature, allowing for FAST Search functionality. But I dont see any feature called 'Search Extensions'. Is it part of some other feature? How can I find which one?

I ran into a similar problem for 'My Sites Blog' feature... which I also dont have.

I have full administrator access to this sharepoint server, and have looked everywhere I can think of....

Any suggestions? Up against the wall on this one.

Answer 1

Features, at any scope, can be hidden from the user interface (Property SPFeatureDefinition.Hidden)

It seems to be your case with your feature with Guid "5eac763d-fbf5-4d6f-a76b-eded7dd7b0a5". A quick Google search reveals this is "FAST Search site collection features" (SearchExtensions), which includes the Visual Best Bets webpart and some site setting pages for FAST Search management.

Take a look at this blog article to see how to find the feature name, and activate it using Powershell on a given site.

Side note: If your template is trying to activate this feature, it will mean FAST search will also need to be licensed/activated on whatever client farm you deploy it on. Is this intended? Perhaps what you need a site definition instead, that you can edit and customize fully.