Sharepoint Designer - Layout folder?

Question

I have been told to edit this file in Sharepoint Designer:

/_layouts/KWizCom_WikiPlus/CreateNew.aspx

I found it in the Windows File Explorer at:

\12\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\KWizCom_Wikiplus

I can't seem to find it in Sharepoint Designer?

Answer 1

This file is effectively present in every site at http::/{site url}/_layouts/KWizCom_WikiPlus/CreateNew.aspx. To change it across all of them you would edit the file from the file system.

There are many reasons why editing the file on the file system may be a very bad idea. At minimum you might save a copy of the original and the updated file. Better still, you could put any file you're editing this way under version control.

Answer 2

The _layouts folder is protected by SharePoint Designer because changing the OOTB files in that directory puts SharePoint into an unsupported state. For more information, see here and here.

For custom or third party files under _layouts, if you try to open them directly with a URL (http://myserver/_layouts/KWizCom_Wikiplus/CreateNew.aspx), you will receive an error: Files in the _layouts folder are not available for editing. You can open them in SharePoint Designer with an UNC path rather than a URL (\\myserver\c$\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\KWizCom_Wikiplus\CreateNew.aspx), but at this point SharePoint Designer is not any different than Visual Studio or Notepad as you will probably only have Code View available since ~/ and virtual directory URLs will not be resolved.

I have not used Wiki Plus, but note that not only will this change affect all web applications and site collections on the server, but any changes you make will be wiped out if an updated version of Wiki Plus is deployed to the server.