Starting a couple of days ago I was suddenly unable to sign into Windows Live Messenger. The signin graphic would just spin endlessly, or I’d get a “service not available” message.
In case you have also run into this (many have), Microsoft did a bad thing (supposedly now fixed), and the effect is that bad data may have been cached on your PC, which prevents you from being able to log in.
Here’s some info on the problem.
The solution if you are using Windows Live Messenger 8.0.x is to delete the registry key HKCU\Software\Microsoft\MSNMessenger\Policies. As always, don’t attempt this if you are not comfortable editing the Windows registry.
Another related issue they describe is specific to ZoneAlarm firewall users, and that one is pending a fix as of this writing. They suggest dropping back to an older version of Messenger until that fix is available, so hopefully the registry key will fix it for you.
Thanks again to everyone who attended my session entitled “Effective Techniques for Handling Large Messages in Service Oriented Solutions” at the Microsoft SOA & BP Conference. The session covered the difficulties of working with large messages in service-oriented environments, then provided general strategies and specific guidance for both BizTalk Server 2006 and ASP.NET Web services.
Here’s the PowerPoint presentation from the session. I’m still debating how to release the Slice/Splice BizTalk pipeline component code. One option is to create a new community project at either CodePlex or GotDotNet. Another option is to use a GPL or similar open-source license. Any ideas? Please let me know what you think.
soa04_abraham.zip
It’s the last day of the Microsoft SOA & Business Process Conference and just about time to head for home. I’ve had a great week in Redmond and have had a chance to talk with many other members of the BizTalk community. The conference has more than 700 attendees, and I was surprised to discover that 40% or more were international. QuickLearn has been running some great training classes on BizTalk, WCF, WF and Atlas both before and after the conference.
Thanks to everyone who attended my session on working with large messages in BizTalk and ASP.NET Web services! The session was well attended and, not surprisingly, a lot of people are having these issues. As soon as I get approval from Microsoft, I’ll get a post together with the PowerPoint slides and the pipeline component code.
Overall, the conference was worthwhile, but I would have preferred much more detail in the sessions and greater presence from the MS product developers. Hopefully that will be improved for next year. No real news from the conference other than the limited availability to partners of an ESB guidance package for BizTalk.
Thanks for reading and please stay tuned for the session materials.