How to rename the automatically generated task form in SharePoint Designer workflow

In SharePoint Designer click on All Files in the Site Objects. In the All Files tab navigate to Workflows and click on your workflow. You should see the xoml file, the rules file, the xsn forms and a wfconfig xml file.

To rename the xsn form, update the wfconfig xml file. Replace the old name with the new one. That xml file contains the content type related to that task, so you can also change the contenttype name as the 'WorkflowForm' name. After saving the wfconfig xml file you need to restart SharePoint designer and you should see your form with the new name.

You need to be the site administrator in order to see the All Files link un Site Objects. 

Also it looks like that Lookup type does not work in Task Form Fields, i.e., you can't have lookup type field in task form. If you do, you may see "SharePoint Designer encountered an error generating the task form" error message.

SharePoint Designer Workflows Process Identity

When a SharePoint Designer (SPD) workflow runs, it runs in the context of the workflow initiator. This is important to know if the initiator may not have permissions to everything that the workflow does.

See SharePoint Designer Workflows – what user identity?

SharePoint Designer 2010 introduces the new impersonation step. Please note that the impersonation step can be run only as the user who authors the workflow. The author of the workflow, most likely, is not the same as the identity of the SharePoint timer job. 

Change SharePoint Designer Workflow task list

When creating a SharePoint Designer 2007 workflow, the workflow uses the first task list available, based on the name of the task list, sorted alphabetically.

2 ways to use a specific task list for your workflow:

•   create a new task list with a name which makes the new task list the "first" task list available. After the workflow is associated with this new task list, then you can go ahead rename the task list to your liking.
• modify the *.wfconfig.xml in SharePoint Designer. Specifically, change the TaskListID to the tasklist id of the task list you want the workflow to use.

External Content Types Error Message

Using SharePoint Designer 2010, whiling trying to create a new External Content Types, I got the following error message while trying to expand the Tables/Views under the database:

"Can't complete refresh"
"Skipping the following table because it is not configured for use"
"Line 1: Incorrect syntax near '('".

The Routines folder expands fine.

The data source type is SQL Server,  For SQL Server Connection, I have "Connect with User's Identity"
What could be wrong? Is there a minimum SQL Server version requirement? The version for this SQL Server is 8.0.2050, SQL Server 2000 SP4. I can connect to another sql server with version "9.0.3054", SQL Server 2005 SP2.

I unerstand that there is a minimum requirement for SQL Server for SharePoint. SharePoint Server 2010 requires that its database server must be a 64-bit version of one of the following: Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2, SQL Server 2008 with Service Pack 1 (SP1) and Cumulative Update 2, or SQL Server 2005 with SP3 and Cumulative Update 3.

It does look like the minimum requirement for SQL Server for BCS purpose is SQL 2005 or higher, according to this post. Also you  can work around this problem by using stored procedure or web services wrapper.

Or maybe it is time to upgrade that sql server.