Thomas F. Abraham – On Technology

A while back Microsoft copied some of the biggest and most in-demand software downloads for MSDN Subscribers to the Akamai content distribution network.  If you haven’t heard of Akamai, it operates a worldwide network of content distribution servers with the goal of offloading download activity from web servers and moving the content as close to your physical location as possible.  It’s all about getting data to you faster.

There are now two ways to get some popular software from MSDN Subscriber Downloads.  The first, and familiar, way is to log into the Subscriber Downloads website as usual, and use the Microsoft Download Manager ActiveX control to download the software.  The newer, Akamai way is (I believe) only available from one web page here.  You will still need to log in as usual.

In order to use the Akamai downloads:

1. Allow pop-ups from http://msdn2.microsoft.com.
2. Visit the downloads link, log in, and when the page comes up, look down to the “Top Subscriber Downloads” area.  These are the Akamai download links.
3. Determine if the software you want is in the list.  If not, you’ll have to go through the normal Subscriber Downloads site.
4. If the software you want, like VS 2008, is in the list, click the link to begin the download.  A pop-up will appear, and you will have to allow the Akamai Download Manager ActiveX control to install.  You may need to re-click the link after the control installs.
5. The Download Manager will ask for a folder to store the file in.  You’ll have to keep its window open while the download takes place.
6. If you are on Vista with default configuration, there is one little catch: the Download Manager will not be allowed to download to most directories on your hard disk, and it will be forced into a Vista virtualized folder system.  That’s where Vista points an application to a folder in a temporary location (not the folder the application thinks it is pointing to) for security with Internet applications.  Once you have downloaded a multi-GB file and it is not in the folder that you selected at the start of the download, you are probably not going to be a happy camper.  It’s there, just not where you expect.  Look for a folder like this: C:UserstabrahamAppDataLocalMicrosoftWindowsTemporary Internet FilesVirtualizedCUserstabrahamDocuments.  In this example, I pointed the Download Manager to C:UserstabrahamDocuments and that is where it ended up.

I hope that helps.  Some of the downloads are a lot faster from Akamai — if they happen to be popular enough to be on the Top Subscriber Downloads list.  Visual Studio 2008 RTM is up there as I write this, and my download just finished.  Time to install!

The next major release of Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5 have quietly been released to manufacturing over the weekend, along with .NET Framework 2.0 SP1 and .NET 3.0 SP1.  This is an important release of Visual Studio because it fully integrates the tooling for the technologies released in .NET 3.0 (Windows Communication Foundation, Windows Presentation Foundation, Windows Workflow Foundation and CardSpace) and, for the first time, can target multiple versions of the .NET Framework.

Our team has been building experience in the .NET 3.0 technologies for most of this year and playing with the betas, and we’re looking forward to working with the improved tooling in the RTM release.

Download .NET Framework 3.5 here.  The .NET 3.5 installer will install the 2.0/3.0 Framework and 2.0 SP1 and 3.0 SP1 automatically.  The service packs are also available separately for 2.0 and 3.0.  As for Visual Studio 2008, I think the MSDN subscriber downloads site is having issues already, probably due to high demand.

I just finished installing .NET Framework 3.5 RTM on my laptop running Vista Enterprise.  The install took a long time, about 30 minutes, but succeeded.  Along with 2.0 SP1 and 3.0 SP1, it also installed two Vista hotfixes, KB929300 and KB110806.  This release, like 3.0, is more of an additive release that requires and builds upon 2.0 and 3.0, unlike the 1.1 to 2.0 transition.

There is also a big new training kit (120 MB) that includes presentations, demos and labs.  You can get that here.  There are also 3.5 whitepapers by David Chappell and a 3.0 common namespaces and types poster.

I’ve been working with 3.0 and the 2008 betas for about 10 months now, so I’ve been a bit negligent with my blogging!  It has just ended up to be another really busy year.  I hope to get some new posts out about 3.0/3.5 soon.

From Microsoft:

.NET Framework 3.5 builds incrementally on the new features added in .NET Framework 3.0. For example, feature sets in Windows Workflow Foundation (WF), Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and Windows CardSpace. In addition, .NET Framework 3.5 contains a number of new features in several technology areas which have been added as new assemblies to avoid breaking changes. They include the following:

• Deep integration of Language Integrated Query (LINQ) and data awareness. This new feature will let you write code written in LINQ-enabled languages to filter, enumerate, and create projections of several types of SQL data, collections, XML, and DataSets by using the same syntax.
• ASP.NET AJAX lets you create more efficient, more interactive, and highly-personalized Web experiences that work across all the most popular browsers.
• New Web protocol support for building WCF services including AJAX, JSON, REST, POX, RSS, ATOM, and several new WS-* standards.
• Full tooling support in Visual Studio 2008 for WF, WCF, and WPF, including the new workflow-enabled services technology.
• New classes in .NET Framework 3.5 base class library (BCL) that address many common customer requests.

I’ve written before about installing .NET Framework 1.1 and 2.0 side by side (SxS) on the same box.  Microsoft recently added to the mix .NET Framework 3.0, so it’s about time to clear up any confusion on the newest release.

Above all, you should understand that the version designation of 3.0 was strictly marketing-driven.  At the most basic level, .NET Framework 3.0 equals .NET Framework 2.0 plus a bunch of new DLLs.  If you install .NET Framework 3.0 on a box that does not already have .NET Framework 2.0, the installer installs Framework 2.0.  Therefore, if you already have .NET Framework 2.0 installed on a box, you should not be too concerned that installing 3.0 will break existing applications.  In fact, you will find that in the ASP.NET tab in IIS Admin, .NET 3.0 is not even a choice.

It is worth noting that .NET Framework 3.0 is pre-installed on Windows Vista and will be pre-installed on “Longhorn” Server.  However, .NET 3.0 may be installed on any Windows XP SP2 or Windows Server 2003 SP1 box.

If you’re working with a mission-critical server then you should, of course, be cautious and do some planning and testing anyway.  Just be aware that the 1.1 to 2.0 story is identical to the 1.1 to 3.0 story, because 3.0 is in effect 2.0 with more files.

By now you may be asking what .NET Framework 3.0 is good for if it is essentially Framework 2.0.  .NET 3.0 delivers a number of long-anticipated and important features, though mostly of interest to application developers rather than server administrators.  The list includes Windows Communication Foundation, Windows Workflow Foundation, Windows Presentation Foundation and Windows CardSpace.  You can read more about them on the official .NET Framework 3.0 site.

In summary:

• .NET 3.0 is not a major change to the core .NET Framework as was 1.0/1.1 to 2.0
• If you currently have only .NET Framework 1.0 or 1.1 and you are looking to install 2.0 or 3.0, see my side-by-side post
• If you currently have .NET Framework 2.0, installing .NET Framework 3.0 is not a major change as the version numbers would suggest
• If you currently run .NET 2.0 applications, they will not know or care that you have installed .NET 3.0

Please feel free to contact me with questions and your own experiences with the upgrade.  Thanks for reading!

You’re already familiar with the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) if you’ve ever opened Computer Management, IIS Administration or any of the other Windows management tools.  The most common version today is 2.0, found on Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP.  Back in March 2006, Microsoft released MMC 3.0 without much fanfare.  The big changes in 3.0 are a new programming model for .NET-based snap-ins and reliability improvements.  MMC 3.0 can isolate snap-ins from each other, at least if they are .NET-based, and do a bit better job of error handling and logging in general.

If you have not already installed MMC 3.0, you’ll need it before too long.  BizTalk Server 2006’s Enterprise Single Sign On Admin tool requires MMC 3.0, and there will be many more in the future.

There are freely available versions of MMC 3.0 for the various editions of Windows, but you need to get the right one for your OS.  Search Microsoft Downloads for ‘MMC 3.0′ to find the one you need.  You’ll need Windows XP SP2 or later, or Windows Server 2003 SP1 or later.  If you’re running Vista, you can stop reading now, because you already have MMC 3.0 and it is pre-optimized!

Once you have MMC 3.0 installed, you may find that snap-ins that rely on it (and you generally won’t know which ones do) start up slowly.  You may find yourself staring at the screen for a long time each and every time you start up one of those snap-ins.  The reason is that a bunch of code in MMC 3.0 is written in .NET.  No, that in itself does not make it slow!  For some unknown reason, Microsoft does not optimize the MMC 3.0 .NET code upon installation as it does with the .NET Framework itself.  (For you developers, the DLLs aren’t automatically GAC’d, nor are native images generated.)

There’s a very easy fix for this.  Speed up your MMC 3.0 snap-in startup times by opening a Command Prompt and running ‘mmcperf.exe’.  It’s in your Windows\System32 directory.  This will create ready-to-run versions of the MMC .NET code (native images).  You’ll notice a big difference in startup time — and we may never know why Microsoft didn’t just do this out of the box!  Note that this does not speed up the snap-ins once they are actually running.  This is related only to the startup time when you run MMC and load a .NET-based snap-in.

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.

One of the coolest resources that Microsoft employees have is an internal website filled with hundreds and hundreds of small but useful apps and utilities, many of which were written by Microsoft employees.  Sadly, few of the tools are made available outside of Microsoft, but here are a bunch that have made it out and places to look for more.

Fiddler: In the author’s own words: “Fiddler is a HTTP Debugging Proxy which logs all HTTP traffic between your computer and the Internet. Fiddler allows you to inspect all HTTP Traffic, set breakpoints, and “fiddle” with incoming or outgoing data. Fiddler is designed to be much simpler than using NetMon or Achilles, and includes a simple but powerful JScript.NET event-based scripting subsystem.”

Sandcastle: This is the actual tool that Microsoft uses to generate the .NET Framework’s MSDN-style documentation.  NDoc works fairly well, but Sandcastle is the new tool of choice for building help files.

FxCop: The same tool behind “Code Analysis” functionality in select Visual Studio 2005 Editions, this is one of the most important tools for .NET software developers. This outstanding tool analyzes managed code assemblies for over 200 types of defects, and will point out all kinds of “gotchas” that you never would have noticed on your own.

LogParser: A truly amazing tool, LogParser allows you to write SQL queries against data stored in random files in all kinds of different formats, including XML, CSV and various IIS log formats, and it can write the results to lots of different formats — all without loading the data into a database! If it doesn’t support the format you need, you can write an extension for it.

WiX: One of the first, if not the first, internal Microsoft tool to go open-source.  A set of command-line utilities that build MSI/MSM files from XML command files.  Great for building installers in an automated build process.

RoboCopy and much more: RoboCopy is a very powerful and reliable file copy/move tool that also includes directory synchronization.  It is packaged with dozens of other great tools in the Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools package.  (Many of the tools do not require Windows Server 2003.)

One of the newest and fastest-growing places to find Microsoft-created tools is CodePlex, Microsoft’s newest “community development” website. There is no good way to determine exactly which projects originate from Microsoft, but some are clearly stated. One of the tools you will find here is the Team Foundation Server Administration Tool.

Some tools turn up on the official Microsoft website as unsupported downloads.  For example, Lookout, released in early 2005, is an Outlook add-in that lets you quickly search all types of Outlook and file system data.  Not very useful, perhaps, in this age of Windows Desktop Search and Google Desktop, but it’s an example of what you can find if you dig around in Microsoft Downloads.

Browse the GotDotNet User Samples area — look for the Microsoft logo next to the sample title.  XML tools and Web Service tools are also available on GotDotNet.

Know of more useful tools that originated inside Microsoft?  Please share them!

If you’re ready to install SQL Server 2005 SP1, you should also be aware of the recently-released cumulative hotfix package (build 2153).  Unfortunately, Microsoft has created an unusual situation that is bound to lead to confusion.

SQL Server 2005 SP1 was released less than a month ago, yet we already have a post-SP1 hotfix package that includes a significant number of additional fixes (33+).  There are two things that stand out with this release.

First, the update files are available for public download, whereas in normal practice the article describes the fixes and says “contact PSS to obtain this update.”  Second, the article does not contain the usual disclaimer of “install this update only if you are experiencing the problem described.”  However, it also notably lacks a statement recommending its installation.  As a result, there is neither a negative nor a positive statement about whether it should be widely installed.

So what do you do?  My recommendation is to always install SP1 and this cumulative update package together (and in that order).

As I had suspected, this odd timing was just a result of Microsoft’s release schedule, and the updates in this rollup didn’t quite make the SP1 cutoff.  You don’t need to take my word for it — Euan Garden of the SQL Server product team anticipated the confusion.

How to install?  This should go without saying, but it’s worth the time to back up your databases first, including the master and msdb databases, and to install these updates on a test server before updating your production server.  Install SP1 first, reboot if required, then install the cumulative update and read the directions first.  This update comes in six separate files that must be installed in a specific order, namely, the top-to-bottom order in which they are listed in the KB article.

Microsoft continues to be the software industry’s leading producer of inept marketing strategies.  Where do their marketing “experts” come from, and how do they keep their jobs?  Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer are brilliant, yet they appear just as clueless about marketing by allowing these ridiculous plans to see the light of day.

With Windows XP we have Home Edition, Professional, Media Center and Tablet PC Edition.  Media Center never should have existed, because it is simply XP Professional with another application (called Media Center) installed, and a few extra device drivers for the infrared receiver and TV tuner cards.  Media Center is only available with a new PC.  Is there any logic behind this whatsoever?

In Windows Vista, Media Center functionality is integrated into most of the product line, and can be purchased after the fact.  I guess someone at Microsoft couldn’t figure this one out sooner.  (And by the way, if you’re buying a new PC and have a choice between Professional and Media Center, always choose Media Center because it literally is Professional — without the higher price tag.)

Now, to just make things even more convoluted, Windows Vista is arriving with SIX versions!  Yes, SIX!  They are: Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, Enterprise, and of course Ultimate, because the goal is to confuse your customers as much as humanly possible!  Oh, and there are two more versions just for European customers that don’t include Media Player, but you can thank the EU antitrust courts for those.  For at least some of these versions, when Joe Consumer gets it home and installs it, then realizes that he doesn’t have the feature that he wanted in the first place, he can hop online and buy it as a download direct from Microsoft.  Gee, thanks!

Visual Studio 2005 and Team Foundation Server (altogether known as Team System, not to be confused with Team Suite. Sigh…) packaging and licensing is a complete and utter disaster.  Did you know that there is a 50+ page whitepaper for partners that attempts to describe how the licensing works?  It is THAT complicated and THAT convoluted.  The products are overpriced and on a path to failure unless Microsoft gets its act together.  Your average development shop is not going to be able to afford TFS, leaving Fortune 1000 sized corporations as the main customers.  Microsoft’s own (highly valued?) partners, even at the Gold level, do not get licenses for TFS.  Instead, we get a 180 day trial version and a full version of Visual SourceSafe 2005.  Terrific.

There are four different “Editions” of Visual Studio 2005 – “for Software Architects,” “for Software Developers,” “for Software Testers” and “Team Suite” which puts the three former editions together in one box – and is the only one worth buying.  I’m an architect and a developer, and the only way I can use the new architect tools while taking advantage of developer tools like unit testing is with Team Suite, which naturally costs a lot more.  Since my client doesn’t have Team Suite, I had to go with the “for Software Developers” edition and forgo all of the new architecture tools.  I could have used them to design the system we just finished building.  Thanks Microsoft.

You must be thinking that it couldn’t get any worse.  Rest assured that it does: BizTalk 2006 and Windows Workflow Foundation (WWF).  Microsoft just got done putting a huge marketing push behind BizTalk, even including it in the massive VS 2005/SQL 2005 product launch.  At about the same time, they started making a big deal about WWF.  Brilliant timing.

Everyone knows that WWF is going to handle some of the same things that BizTalk does, primarily “orchestrations,” and be easily extensible.  The perception is that WWF is new and cool and the future direction for workflow apps, so why use BizTalk?  BizTalk already had a bad reputation for ease of use in the development tools.  To compound the problem, all of the BizTalk bloggers/authors/speakers dropped BizTalk in a flash, and most are now writing and speaking about WWF.  There are already multiple WWF books coming out.  In contrast, only one BizTalk 2004 book has ever been published, and the main author was Microsoft’s (at the time) product manager for BizTalk.

I believe that BizTalk Server 2006 is going to go nowhere except to those companies already using BTS 2004 or older.  Microsoft’s skilled marketers killed any potential growth for BizTalk 2006 with WWF.  The only hope is that in BizTalk v.Next, when WWF replaces the orchestration engine, it will still be alive as a viable product.

You can look beyond all of these examples to Office, .NET (remember when every new product was announced as XYZ.NET Server?), ActiveX and any number of other cases in Microsoft’s history to see the continued incompetence of their marketing departments.  It’s frustrating to watch, and it never ceases to amaze me that even Gates and Ballmer don’t get it.

With Microsoft buying up companies and not always merging them into the Microsoft brand, it’s easy to miss some great Microsoft services.  In November 2005, Microsoft purchased FolderShare, a service for synchronizing and sharing files across multiple devices.  FolderShare was a subscription service, but no more — Microsoft made it free.

FolderShare seems like a terrific service.  No more ZIPping and emailing large files!  No more burning CDs and then tossing them!  Forgot your USB key?  No problem.  FolderShare lets you share files up to 2 GB in size, and at least for now, there are no limits on quantity or size of files transferred.  Hard to believe it’s really free.  Maybe Microsoft will eventually make it a Windows Live subscription service.  Until then, enjoy!

Microsoft released SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Service Pack 2 (SP2) in October 2005, following the weeks-earlier release of Windows SharePoint Services Service Pack 2 (SP2).  I was hoping to get .NET Framework 2.0 installed on our SPS Web server for other purposes, so I was hoping that Microsoft addressed the .NET Framework 2.0 incompatibilities with SP2.  It looked promising because WSS SP2 specifically mentioned ASP.NET 2.0 support.

After reviewing the release notes and backing up the portals and sites with the SharePoint Portal Server Data Backup and Restore tool, I installed WSS SP2.  It installed cleanly with no issues, so I was off to a good start.

Next was the SPS SP2 install.  Microsoft’s Office team has produced a lot of complicated service packs in the past.  They should know how to do it right.  Clearly this is a different team, because the folks that signed off on QA and user experience for this one deserve to be fired.  Running this service pack produces the familiar Windows Installer progress dialog, which runs for a while and then disappears.  There is no confirmation when it finishes — no matter whether it succeeds, fails, or falls somewhere in between.

It turns out there are two phases to the SPS 2003 SP2 installer.  The first phase upgrades SharePoint Portal Server’s program installation with SP2 files.  The second phase goes through each of your portal sites and attempts a database upgrade on each one.  This is where my four hour struggle began.

The only way you can tell if your SP2 install succeeded, or to what degree, is to read the event log.  You MUST do this.  Search the Application event log for an event that contains text similar to this:

Attempted to apply update to SharePoint Portal Server 2003 portal sites.
Number of portal sites: value
Number of portal sites attempted: value
Number of portal sites successfully updated: value
Not run: value

In my case, this is what I found:

Attempted to apply update to SharePoint Portal Server 2003 portal sites.
Number of portal sites: 1
Number of portal sites attempted: 1
Number of portal sites successfully updated: 0
Not run: 0
Consult the ReadMe file included with this patch, or *_spsadmin.log for more details.

Once again, looking for this “successfully updated” mismatch with “attempted” in the Event Log is the only way you will know the result of your SP2 install.

Next stop was \Program Files\SharePoint Portal Server\Logs, where I found logs that contained the same text and some unhelpful .NET exceptions.  In order to make SPS retry the database upgrade, you have to edit the registry.  [WHAT?!?  Yes, it's true.]  Here’s a KB article that describes the registry modification.  I probably made this change 30 times over the next 3-4 hours.

I eventually found an obscure WSS/SPS KB article or two (unrelated to SP2) while grasping at straws, ended up restoring my sites and portal from the backup, and eventually managed to get it to upgrade the database successfully.  It was not a pleasant experience.  After all that work, it looks like SP2 may have added or modified one app.exe.config file for Framework 2.0 compatibility.  It’s possible that there were other changes, but SPS portals remain incompatible with ASP.NET 2.0.  Do not run your portal sites under ASP.NET 2.0 (I tried for a while).

Please do not skip your backups before these upgrades, and be ready for possible troubles.