Updates
Updates
Finally decided to get my own website and blog on Community Server 2.1.
Please update your bookmarks to
http://community.dynacx.com/blogs/sashidhar
Thanks to all for their support at DNJ.
I started off my career supporting MS all the way......basically am still in the same team. But apparently, and again....most of the big service companies(eg.insurance, healthcare,etc) turn in a sad face when they are told that their data will be hosted on SQL Server 2000. For some reason, they still think that only DB2 or Oracle are qualified enough to even think of hosting so much data. Honestly, I am not biased, I don't know too much of Oracle....and know nothing in DB2....but know a decent length in SQL server 2k.
And just when I started to read up on SQL server 2005, and try to convince my boss to implement it as soon as it releases, the management decides that all data from now on will be hosted on Oracle (hosted in a linux environment). damn...i hate linux soo much from a developer's perspective.
Ah well...stole a PL/SQL book from my collegue, got to start reading up on it now.
Ok...that title was a bit misleading....however....I am not alone when I say that I have had trouble integrating my web-applications successfully with E.Lib 1.0 and deploying them on a win 2003 server. Each time, they just give me errors of the weirdest nature. Most of my googling led to making some registry settings and using the “Install Services“ feature.
While there is no “switch” or “config” element that i cud change to enable or disable the performance counters....there certainly is an alternate way....just dont have them at all in ur EntLib. That would mean... No more instrumentation options..... No more perfomance logging....etc.In a way, I think it speeds up your application....
Cutting to the chase.....we need to recompile the whole Enterprise library with these options disabled. So..herez what I managed to do...went through the source code of the libraries....and found a few parameters set up in the build config that when changed could dothe trick just fine.
1. Open Start->programs->MS Patterns and Practices -> Ent Lib -> App Blocks -> Ent Lib.Sln.
2. Take your own sweet time to minimize all the folder(s) in ur solution window.
3. Rt Clk on the “Common” project and go to “Properties”
4. In the “Configuration Properties” go to the “Build” option.
5. In the Conditional Build section of the property grid, remove everything except “DEBUG;TRACE”

6. Close everything and recompile.
Remember...on compilation nothing will go to your common bin folder. I just plainly used the “Copy Assemblies to bin directory” option in my Start->programs->MS Patterns and Practices -> Ent Lib part of my menu.
Now...just to be sure....de-reference your existing references to the entlib and add references again.....and woala.....you are done.
I tried installing the recompiled version on windows 2003 server and ran my web apps from there...(using mostly the data access block and the config block) and so far it works like a charm.
Windows Update Client gives problems if you shut down the machine whilst it is downloading the updates. So, I change the settings for the updater to download and notify me of the updates and not to install them. The issue here being that for some reason, the update client keeps trying to download something that has already been downloaded. Remember that this happens when you shut down the system when the updater is downloading something in the background. Like that was not enough, it hogs the system resources so much that even a regular copy operations takes ages. Obvious course of action was to kill the update client process...but NO...it wont allow me to kill the process either. Access Denied...even for admin.
Turns out my roomie also encountered this same issue a while ago...and he ended up formatting his system. That time I blamed it on his system being slow....but it was not to be the same case for me.
Well...Norton Ghost to the rescue. Made an intial back up of my system..when I first installed it....and it came to about 20G...ya ya...it is almost all the software a developer would ever need...well..most of it atleast. Using my breaks from TV to backup my MyDocuments and my favorites, (which literally took 5-6hrs on a machine with 1.5G RAM)... I tried for the first time ever to load my backup image from Norton Ghost 9.0....and wolla....15 mins....my machine was back up and running. Well...turned off the automatic updates this time....and everything seems to be working like a charm again.
Moral of the story:
Allowing Windows to automatically manage updates.....3-4hrs of torture.
Trying to back up while the update client is running in the background.....5hrs.
Using Norton Ghost to restore your system in 15mins....PRICELESS.
I worked on the Updater Block before ... and by the looks of the symptoms, it sure looks like a polished implementation of the UAB. Looking forward to it being implemented properly with ClickOnce.
Ok people.....exactly 4 (FOUR) invites.......please......not more than 4 requests.....
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-S