November 2004 - Posts
1. Read and follow each and every step mentioned in Microsoft Visual Studio® 2005 Team Foundation Server Installation Guide. This guide is available in Visual Studio 2005 Beta 1 Refresh DVD in the following location
<DVDDrive> \docs\default.htm
Following are the pre-requisite for installing foundation server. Details about each pre-requisite are explained in the Installation Guide.
· The prerequisites for the database tier computer:
a. Install Windows Server 2003 Enterprise or Standard Edition.
b. Install Internet Information Services.
c. Install SQL Server 2005 Beta 2.
· The prerequisites for the application tier computer:
a. Install Windows Server 2003 Enterprise or Standard Edition.
b. Create a user account for the Team Foundation Server application pool identity.
c. Install Internet Information Services and enable ASP.NET.
d. Install Windows SharePoint Services.
e. Install Active Directory Application Mode (ADAM).
f. Install .NET Framework 2.0 Beta
- Don’t have Database tier and Application tier in same machine. Due to incompatibilities between the builds of .NET 2.0 used by Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Beta 2 and this particular CTP release of Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation, these products must be installed on separate computers. For more details refer this link, http://blogs.msdn.com/askburton/archive/2004/09/01/224397.aspx
- You can have Database server and Application server in Virtual Machines. VSTS Foundation Server will work in Virtual Machines. But this is not support by Microsoft. For more details refer this link,
http://blogs.msdn.com/askburton/archive/2004/09/01/224474.aspx
- Don’t Install Visual Studio foundation server on top of VS.NET 2005 Beta1. For more details refer this link, http://blogs.msdn.com/askburton/archive/2004/09/01/224392.aspx
If you face any problems in uninstalling VS.NET 2005 Beta 1 in your application tier, then refer this link.
http://samgentile.com/blog/archive/2004/09/03/12187.aspx
- Don’t run Application tier and Database tier under Local Machine Administrator account. Before you start the foundation server installation, verify both database tier and Application tier runs under domain account which is the administrator of both the machines.
- If the installation fails and you want to install it again in the same setup. You need to remove the databases added by previous installation setup and delete the VSTS folder (c:\VSTS) created by setup in database tier. Though the installation rollbacks after any problem, it won’t clean up the database tier. Database added during Foundation Server Installation are BISDB, BISDWDB, CurrituckDB, ELEadDB, pssshared, VSSTeamSCC and VSSTEAMSCCAdmin.
- If Installation rollbacks, it will give you the error number and description. Sometimes you might not get any error message, but the setup will rollback. To find out exactly what is the error, you need to check the log file of VSTS Installation. The log file is created in the following location,
C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\Temp\dtEntServer***.txt
- If you get any one of the following error message during installation,
Then check out this link for solution.
http://blogs.msdn.com/askburton/archive/2004/09/03/225386.aspx
- For Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team System Readme, verify this link
http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/vs2005/teamsystem/readme.aspx
- After installation to configure Visual Studio to use Team Foundation Server functionality, you must connect to a Team Foundation Server
Note: At a minimum, Visual Studio users should be a member
of the Power Users local security group.
To connect to a Team Foundation Server
· On the Tools menu in VS.NET 2005 Beta 1 Refresh, click Connect to Team Foundation Server. The Team Foundation Server dialog box appears.
Note: Connect to Team Foundation Server menu option is there only in VS.NET
2005 Beta 1 refresh and not VS.NET 2005 Beta1
· Click Add. The Add Team Foundation Server dialog box appears.
· In the TFS Name box, type the name of the application tier server hosting Team Foundation Server.
· In the TFS URL box, type the following URL (replacing ServerName with the name of the application tier server hosting Team Foundation Server):
http://ServerName:8080/BIS/registration.asmx
· Click OK to return to the Team Foundation Server dialog box.
Have you guys wondered what is .mspx extension, why some of the contents of microsoft.com site are of .mspx extension.
.mspx extension is like an .aspx extension registered in IIS with custom web handler written by Microsoft to generate content for that request. This article "Developing a Worldwide UI Framework" explains about this.
This article describes how a common presentation framework—including XML-based design templates, centralized control of common user interface (UI) elements, and a custom Web handler and rendering engine built on the Microsoft® .NET Framework—is leading to a consistent, reliable experience for visitors to Microsoft.com.
If you are interested to know the internals of Microsoft.com site, then it is a interesting article.
My PC got affected by one of the Popup virus. Whenever I access internet, a popup window will open with some junk site. I just did some googling to fix this problem. In some blog i got a pointer to this tool - HijackThis. Fantastic tool, it clearly mentions what are the unwanted stuff in a machine. It also has an option to fix that problem.
This popup virus came because of one browser plugin, I don’t know how it got installed in my browser. This tool correctly pointed me that plugin. I removed that plugin and all unwanted application from my machine(same tool pointed me that also). Now i am escaped from that popup. But I am still thinking how that plugin got installed in my machine??
Brian Goldfarb (Product Manager for ASP.NET) explains design changes from ASP.NET Whidbey Beta1 to Beta2 in his blog .
He talks in detail about following two changes,
ASP.NET 2.0 Directory Naming Changes
ASP.NET 2.0 Compilation Model Changes
To know about other changes in ASP.NET Beta2 from Beta1, read this article
I took a session on “Caching Enhancements and Client Callback in ASP.NET Whidbey” last week in Bangalore .NET User Group. You can download the presentations from here
Caching Enhancements and Client Callback in ASP.NET Whidbey
Best part in this session was discussion on how to implement these feature in exisinting ASP.NET 1.x applications.
Few links related to session.
On Caching
- Caching Improvements in ASP.NET Whidbey
- Improved Caching in ASP.NET 2.0
- Implement Custom Cache Dependencies in ASP.NET 1.x
- Supporting Database Cache Dependencies in ASP.NET 1.x
On Client Callback
- Client Callbacks in ASP.NET Whidbey
In .Net framework 1.x, cookieless support was there only for sessions. But in whidbey, you can have forms authentication without the support of cookie's. You can enable it in machine.config or web.config similar to cookieless sessions,
<configuration>
<system.web>
<authentication mode="Forms">
<forms name=".MYASPXAuth"
loginUrl="login.aspx"
protection="All"
timeout="30"
defaultUrl="Default.aspx"
cookieless="UseUri"/>
</authentication>
</system.web>
</configuration>
When compared to cookieless property in session element, cookieless forms authentication property has more options. Following are the various options,
- UseUri: Authentication tickets will be stored in the URL itself. Similar to session state cookieless option.
- UseCookies: Default option, will use cookies for forms authentication.
- AutoDetect: It will automatically detect whether browser support cookies or not
- UserDeviceProfile:Chooses to use cookies or not based on the device profile settings in machine.config
OutputCache profiles is a new feature in whidbey, which allows you to centrally maintain outputcache settings of all your cached files. In ASP.NET 1.x, if you want to change duration for your cached files. You need to open all the files and change the duration property in the output cache directive. But in ASP.NET 2.0, you can just change it in one central place(web.config). It will be reflected in all the cached pages. You need to mention a new Cacheprofile property in outputcache page directive of all the cached pages for this to work. For example,
<%@ OutputCache CacheProfile="CacheFor60Seconds" VaryByParam="name" %>
Other properties like duraction for Outputcache is mentioned in web.config,
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<configuration>
<system.web>
<caching>
<outputCacheSettings>
<outputCacheProfiles>
<add name="CacheFor60Seconds" duration="60" />
</outputCacheProfiles>
</outputCacheSettings>
</caching>
</system.web>
</configuration>
This duration value(60 seconds) is reflected in all the pages where outputprofile name is mentioned as “CacheFor60Seconds”. Like this you can create many outputprofile's in your web.config depending upon your requirements. Then you can group your caching file and set the Cacheprofile property for that pages correspondingly.
For those in India, if you want to meet steve ballmer in person. Here is a chance for you.
Details:
Steve Ballmer Live! In Bangalore
At The Leela Palace
On November 15, 2004
To attend this meeting, you need to register yourself. Go and register yourself in this link
http://www.microsoft.com/india/steveballmerlive/
Are you participating in newsgroups actively? If you want to know exact statistics about your participation in newsgroups. Check out this url,
http://netscan.research.microsoft.com
Go to Author profile menu, and then give your newsgroup email address. It will give you the exact data about the following details
1. How many days you were active
2. How many threads you have touched.
3. How many newsgroup you have touched.
and many more... Check out and have fun..
Note: Data collected might not be up to date. There is a delay in data collection, it is also clearly mentioned in that site.
In Whidbey you can persist cache into disk like sessions. Now you no need to worry about memory problems when you store lots of items in cache. If the memory is full, it will be automatically moved to cache. Also cache can be retained across appdomain restarts. By default diskcaching is enabled and disk quota per application is set to 2 MB. You can change this setting in .config file. For example,
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<configuration>
<system.web>
<caching>
<outputCache>
<diskCache enabled="true" maxSizePerApp="2" />
</outputCache>
</caching>
</system.web>
</configuration>
You can also enable or disable diskcaching at Page level by setting “diskcacheable“ property in page directive like this,
<%@ OutputCache Duration="3600" VaryByParam="name" DiskCacheable="true" %>