Sharepoint Site Template: How do I set the default Site Template

Question

I created a subsite using the "Publishing Site with Workflow" site template in Sharepoint.

I then created a page in the subsite using a custom page layout and set that page as the default page for the subsite.

I then exported this subsite as a site template by going to this page under my subsite. http://domain/mysubsite/_layouts/savetmpl.aspx

I checked the include content button when creating the template

This template works great, i.e., when I create a new subsite (mysubsite2) using it the site has a default page with my custom page layout as intended.

The problem is that if I try to create a third subsite under mysubsite2 the only site template available by default is the "Publishing Site with Workflow".

I can go back to the root of the site collection and tell it to allow users to only see my custom site template when creating a site and inherit this down through all subsites but ideally the subsite would automatically be created with a custom template I created through the earlier described process. How do I modify/create a site template which uses itself as the default template for all subsites? What do I need to set in the onenet.xml "AvailableWebTemplates"? How do I refer to my custom site template.

Answer 1

How did you install the site template, did you use stsadm.exe -o addtemplate? I have created site templates this week, and to use them, I ran stsadm. When I create a new subsite, my site template appears in the list.

As a plan B, you could use stsadm.exe -o createwebsite, passing it the name of the site template. To get the name of the template, use stsadm.exe -o enumtemplates. This will list all the site templates available. You should see your custom template appear, with a name like "GLOBAL#5" or something like that.

Use that "GLOBAL#5" name in the params for createwebsite.

Hope this helps.