If you are working with SharePoint 2010 Enterprise features, you probably know that the Site Directory template is missing.

Looking around in Central Administration, I noticed that we still have the Site Directory configuration settings. It looked just like 2007. So, how do we get the Site Directory back?


1. Firstly, browse to the following path on your SharePoint server C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\TEMPLATE\1033\XML.

Now open “webtempsps.xml”.


2. Secondly, find the site directory template name “SPSSITES” and change the “Hidden” value from “true” to “false”.


3. Thirdly, go to Central Administration and create a new site collection from the template you can see under the enterprise site templates, the “Site directory” template. Select this template and create a new site.


Sometimes, when we want to create a new site, it may not show in the available templates. In xml file, there is “VisibilityFeatureDependency= 5F3B0127-2F1D-4cfd-8DD2-85AD1FB00BFC” shown behind Site Directory configuration. So we activate that feature on the Site Collection where we want to host our Site Directory with:
stsadm -o activatefeature -id 5F3B0127-2F1D-4cfd-8DD2-85AD1FB00BFC -url http://*****(by the way, the feature’s name is Portal Layouts, it is used in a site collection that uploads all the layouts to the master page gallery).

Below is a comparison between “before feature activation” and “after feature activation”.

Before feature activation


After feature activation


4. Finally, when the site creation is complete, go to the newly created site URL and confirm the site template as you can see in the picture below