Yonathan Masovich

Visual Studio 2011 features (beta preview)

yonathanm — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 10:02:00 GMT

Hello guys! Last days I was playing and learning a bit about the new Microsoft Visual Studio, the Visual Studio 2011 (beta, developers preview). Nice IDE with enhanced properties, much alike to VS 2010, with many new features. Here I place some of these features, I hope you would find them as useful and cool as I do.

Common Features:

1. New .Net Framework 4.5

2. Asynchronous programming, here is an article

3. Browsing of class objects in *.cs files. While browsing – you can double click on an object, and go directly to object/method definition.

4. Edit of code in an execution time

5. The IDE is changed: some buttons (which have had place in VS2010) have gone, some have changed their place - and now they are above the solution explorer. For example – there's a new button "Collapse all" for collapsing the solution tree, very useful if you have large and very large scale projects

6. Instead of "Website" button for configuration asp providers, there's one called Asp.Net configuration Gone:

Newcomer:

Web Dev Features:

1. Support of HTML 5

2. MVC .Net 4

3. Intellisence CSS creation: for example, on selection of color pops up a color palette

4. Support of CSS 3.0

5. Snippets with different browser compatibility: for example adding property in CSS called "border-radius" and pressing tab-tab, will create next snippet:

And on changing the radius from 2px; to let's say 5px; automatically changes to 5 in all three of them.

6. Built in support for IIS express (no more CASSINI)

7. Automatic matching of tags, i.e. if you change the tag <H3> in your HTML, by <H5> - the closing tag will be changed (no more forgotten tags to be, which is redice of bugs and developing time)

8. Support of development for next Windows 8 Metro style

9. Support for code outline for Java Script, brace matching

10. Creating package of a project, which allows exporting/importing an application in a easy way

11. Support for web sockets

Sharepoint 2010 fails "Mount operation has failed as application..." error

yonathanm — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 11:27:00 GMT

Hi,

While I tried to crawl external sites, I got "Access Denied". After googling, I have found that there's an CU needed to be installed. Ok, did that again, and another exceptions started to jump out. As a 99.99% nub in SPS 2010, desperatlry was googling again and again, but finally found solution. So, if you see:

This: Mount operation has failed as application 'SomeGuid' did not meet backwards compatibility check with the admin database.

Or this: Application 'SomeGuid' - The 'Search' database version is less than the minimum backwards compatibility schema version supported for this component. The component will not be mounted. To resolve this problem: Please upgrade this search database.

After trying to make all by-the-book actions, finally I have solved the problem. The machine, with SPS 2010 was installed without latest upgrades, and after I did install reuired upgrades - still, I saw those errors.

So, first of all - you need to install next upgrades:

1. SharePoint Foundation 2010 SP1: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2460058/en-us

2. SharePoint 2010 SP1 : http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2510766/en-us

3. Sharepoint 2010 CU June release (966 MB)

4. Download this hotfix.

5. After running one by one installations, run Configuration wizard. Please, pay attention: if the configuration wizard fails - try to look in install logs, and see for errors: in my case, in dev environment - the configuration was failing once again and again - because I have created couple of web sites in Central Administration with different cridentials (not SharePoint Administrator - but one, with lower permissions.) After I have deleted those sites - all went smooth and causy.

6. Hope this post helped you.

Yonathan Masovich

BizTalk. Where? When? What?

yonathanm — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 20:42:00 GMT

Hi all, I've just read an article from Richard Seroter, about whether BizTalk Server would stay with us for a long time. Check it out - it worth your time. I feel a little bit sad about it - the potential dead end of a nice product, but, looking at the bright side of it - I'm happy with it. It's a nature way of life - to stay on move, to change.
Is BizTalk Server Going Away At Some Point? Yes. Dead? Nope.
The Future of Middleware and the BizTalk Roadmap
BizTalk Server still has a pulse: Kent Wear's article
Have a nice day :)
Yonathan.

Sharepoint Search services: FAST 2010

yonathanm — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 09:07:00 GMT

This post is quite different from all I was involved in, from a technical point of view, it's about Sharepoint 2010.

Lately I was interested in FAST 2010 - a search engine/service for Sharepoint 2010.

While playing with the server, and a code - I've found that there's a problem to perform a crawling on some external (public) internet sites.

The error was "Access denied" - with suggestions to make a certian credentials specifications.

After googling couple of minutes, I've discovered the issue cause: Sharepoint 2010 installed on Windows server 2008 R2. Well, it's strange a bit, not allowing to search public sites, they are there for public, no?

I've found useful posts: here and here .

The problem of crawling external websites, can be solved by installing SP1 for Sharepoint 2010 from here .

After running an SP1, the machine needs restart, yet it's not finished.

In an event log, you possibly would see the next event:

"The mount operation for the gatherer application "Some Guid" has failed because the schema version of the search administration database is less than the minimum backwards compatibility schema version supported for this gatherer application. The database might not have been upgraded."

If so - perform next steps as described in Aaron Long's link:

1. Open an Administrative command prompt.
2. Change directory to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\BIN
3. Run PSConfig.exe -cmd upgrade -inplace b2b -force -cmd applicationcontent -install -cmd installfeatures

Pay attention please, it wasn't mentioned, but on 64bit environment you must go to C:\windows\SysWow64 and run the cmd.exe as administrator.

Thanx in advance Yuval Korin for given tips.

Have a nice crawling.

Hosting published orchestration as WCF in-process of Biztalk

yonathanm — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 11:37:00 GMT

Hello,

Couple of days ago, I've been requested to make a little POC, about hosting published orchestration as WCF - in biztalk process, instead of on IIS.

After looking for a solution, I've created a tiny orchestration - "GetRequestMessage-BuildResponseMessage_WithHardcodedValue-SendResponseMessage".

The orchestration received an incoming message through Request-Response port, with direct binding. The subscription was on the Incoming Message type, or any suitable for your purposes value.

The desired adapter was WCF-Custom, with wsHTTPbinding, or basicHTTPbinding (it didn't really matter for me on this stage).

So, after deploying an application, restarting services etc' - I have changed the generated port (by wcf publishing wizard) - from basic http binding, to WCF-Custom binding, suited all configuration (such as adding in binding the basicHTTPBinding, and adding in a tab "Behavior" an extension "exposeMetadata, httpGetEnabled = true").

On the same advance, I have created a WinForm application - with an "Invoke WCF" button, added service reference to the WinForm project, and... - Here, I should tell you couple of words about exposing schemas/orchestrations as WCF:

1. While you're publishing an orchestration as WCF, the wizard allows you to choose between only three adapters: WSHttp, BasicHttp, and CustomIsolated. All of them allow the exposed service to run on a IIS.

2. When you wish to add a Service Reefrence in a Client - the VS generates objects suitable for your process - those objects are actually schemas (input/output), ServiceClient (the proxy), and operations - all of them as objects.

3. While you change configuration on Receive port - to host the WCF service in-process, the only things you will see after adding ServiceReference - are (at list it was in my case) - two interfaces, and a ServiceClient, with "BizTalkSubmit" method, which gets as a request a system.servicemodel.channels.message - which is generic message to be build.

4. When trying to invoke the method with a built request (you must to supply also a suitable data, such as Envelope, Binding etc') - you will get an error: NotSupportedException . On a MSDN site - there's plenty of explanation about this thingie (This method throws a NotSupportedException duhh :) )

So, what is the solution and how do I do it anyway?!

- I've found a nice article from a guy named Richard Seroter, and there was a link in comments to that article. Reading carefully, I've found that before you change Recieve Port configuration - you should generate a class with all objects, with SvcUtil.exe (can be found in C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.0A\bin , or other SDK version in your case). just open the exe in a cmd, as a parameter give it an URL to WCF's WSDL - and that's it. After the *.cs generated - add the class to your client project, and for invoking WCF - call created objects in that class (an Operation - which is a "Method" to invoke, Request - which is an incoming schema, and get Response, which is outgoing schema).

After generating *.cs, you can change the adapter to use WCF-Custom type, binding for example to be a basicHttpBinding, don't forget to add an extension "exposeMetadata", and start using WCF hosted in-process.

If you will check WSDL before and after changing port type from generated type to WCF-Custom, you will see that the WSDL is very different. In a generated version - it has all definitions of your objects (schemas, Action/s etc'), and after you change the port type to a WCF_Custom - the only thing you find in a WSDl - are generic method BizTalkSubmit, and an "any" schema (which we can find later as a Message to be transferred to BizTalkSubmit method).

So, clearly not "out-of-the-box" solution, very not intuitive - but still works nice.

Good luck in a hosting WCF in-process :)

Yonathan.

Biztalk: how to create custom filename on output

yonathanm — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 19:43:00 GMT

Today I will tell you how to implement some cool option with BizTalk and send port macros.

Lately we were requested to build one of our subsystems, which is responsible for creating reports once a day. Actually, the data is taken from DB, and transformed with a map to a flat file.

The trick we needed to implement - was creating a file with a name, built partly of permanent part, and partly to be a date of creation "File_Name_ddMMyyyy.ext"

In BTS (for those who don't know) - there's an option to create some template names using macros in send port (as mentioned in link above). For example - in a file adapter, the default %MessageID%.xml - the "message id" is a macro too. But unfortunately, there is no template suitable for our needs. Well, there is a solution anyway.

While creating an output message, (which would be written to file system), in a construct shape, add next row to your outgoing message context:

msgOutgoingMessage(BTS. ReceivedFileName) = "TakenFromConfigPermanentPart_" + System.DateTime.Now.ToString("ddMMyyyy");

In a send port (using the file adapter) - add in a file name text box:

%SourceFileName%.yourextention

Where the macro will be replaced with the value which you constructed in an orchestration, and the extention will be what you need.

Also, you can combine the out-of-the box macros, and custom name for files.

And, for a summary: though we have no "received file" - because the data in our files comes from DB - the context property works well, and lets us play with output files as we desire.

Good luck :)

Yonathan.

How to save Filestream in SQL 2008

yonathanm — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 07:31:00 GMT

Hi,

Recently, one of our customers demanded to save BLOBs we work with - in a file system. Well, if they want it - they get it ;)

Easy step for those, who will need

Increased performance
Saving BLOBs above 1 MB
Maximum size of BLOB limited by a size of your Hard Drive
And many others goodies can be found here

Another thing to say: when you need to BackUp-Restore your DB - and if usually you save your *.mdf & *.ldf in a special place - don't forget to save path for that "special" directory for saving BLOBs too :)

Have a nice week,

Yonathan

SQL: how to find table by column name

yonathanm — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 18:13:00 GMT

Hi,

What happens if you have about a hundred tables in unknown database, and all you know - it's column name in a table you look for? - The trick is quite simple: run next stored procedure, while replacing "THE_COLUMN_NAME" with your column name.

SELECT name FROM sysobjects WHERE id IN ( SELECT id FROM syscolumns WHERE name = 'THE_COLUMN_NAME' )

This one is good for a case, while you know only a part of column name:

SELECT name FROM sysobjects WHERE id IN ( SELECT id FROM syscolumns WHERE name like '%PART_OF_NAME%' )

Thanx for the tip to Linoy ☺

IIS7 error 400.17, or 400.3

yonathanm — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 16:50:00 GMT

Hi,

After installing new machine (Windows server 2008 32 bit), VS 2008, BizTalk 2009, etc', we tried to run some WCF service (which works on other machine), and got this very error: 400.17.

First time I saw this error a year+ ago, and forgot about it. Now, scratching my head, started googling, and (at least I do admit) forgot how to solve the error.

But! When started reproduce all installation actions of a new machine for our team-work, I asked:

-Did you run some magic code?

- What code?

- Yeah, the one with reg-something, don't actually remember but it's with regmodel? ServiceReg?

-Well, no, we didn't.

-So let's run it! (words for googling "install wcf IIS7")

Start-Run-CMD, cd "C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.0\Windows Communication Foundation", there run ServiceModelReg -i

After this action, you should see in your command line - running some output about installing wcf thingies, and your service should start running.

UPD: 31.08.2010.

This post also applies to error 403.3 :) - Thank you Nir.

Good Luck :)

Yonathan.

Creating BizTalk orchestration as Project Template item

yonathanm — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 16:42:00 GMT

Hi,

New thing I learned not long time ago:

You actually can create template of some orchestration you commonly use in your projects. Can't say it is useful in every and each project, but those who find it suitable for their needs - cool.

Steps:

1. Create an orchestration you commonly use, and save it.

2. Go to : C:\Program Files\Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006\Developer Tools\BizTalkProjectItems.

3. Create a folder named [Your Orchestration name].

4. In the folder put a file named : [Your orchestration file name].vsdir.

5. Open the file with notepad, and insert in one row next text:

..\[your orch file name].odx|{fg7e327e-cd33-11d4-8326-00c04fa0ce8d}|#125|127|#126|0|232|0|#127

(Instead of what you see in square brackets - should be your orchestraion file name, including extention )

6. Put the orchestration file in the folder C:\Program Files\Microsoft BizTalk Server 2009\Developer Tools\BizTalkProjectItems

7. Open VS and and add new item to a biztalk project.

This defenition of new template is also works with BizTalk 2006. I think it should work with BizTalk 2010 (it is very similar to 2009, exept little things, but, though I didn't test it).

The thing you should care of: Namespace in orchestration is same namespace of a project you created a template in. If you find solution to make the name space of new project get to template, I'd like to hear and learn about it.

This solution is created with help Daniel Ben-Zikry., Thank you Daniel ☺

Yonathan.

Biztalk 2009 starting configuration fails with error "0x80131700 error code"

yonathanm — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 12:23:00 GMT

Hi,

Today I'd like to share some problem we met. We got new machine, (happy for that one who got it finally ;) ), and on the machine was installed Windows server 2008 32 bit with prerequisites for Development environment BizTalk 2009.

We installed BizTalk, started configuration wizard and hhooop! Not working!

After Googling couple of miniutes, the solution was found :

If there's .Net Framework 4 on machine installed (yes, we installed it for future work) - you need download and install this nice hotfix from Microsoft.

Run the hotfix, start configuration wizard over again, it shloud (shloud, ;) ) work.

Good luck,

Yonathan.

BizTalk error : 0xC0C01B4C suspended orchestration with direct ports exposed as WCF

yonathanm — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 18:28:00 GMT

I've exposed an orchestration as WCF with direct port, and this orchestration consumed another one, which also was exposed as internal service with direct port. After running first test - the described below errors appeared.

1. From Administration Console you can see a Zombie guy - with this error:The instance completed without consuming all of its messages (even if you get correct response on client side). The instance and its unconsumed messages have been suspended.

2. In EventVewer - another pal: A response message for two-way receive port "here your Request Response Port for a WCF" is being suspended as the messaging engine could not correlate the response to an existing request message. This usually happens when the host process has been recycled.

After googling I've found a short solution on this location: http://www.biztalkgurus.com/forums/p/10087/28995.aspx#28995

msgOutgoingToAnotherService(BTS.EpmRRCorrelationToken ) = System.Convert.ToString(System.Guid.NewGuid());

Well, what can I say? BizTalk ;)

BizTalk 2010 beta installed

yonathanm — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 18:57:00 GMT

Hey!

I've downloaded couple of weeks ago a beta of BTS 2010. After reading a list of prerequisites, I've mention that the install guide was shortened. Is that right? Intsalled the beta on VPC, Windows server 2008 SP1, SQL 2008 with SP, VS 2010.

Looks neat, especially new mapper with zoom in ;) Very similar to BTS 2009, but main difference I saw it was mapper and new administration console. And of course support of new Microsoft OS, SQL, and VS.

Nice :)

SQL 2008 throws an error while attempting to save data to file system

yonathanm — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 06:36:00 GMT

Hi to all again, long time no see :)

Yesterday I begane to receive an error from my BTS application. Strange error - never seen before. The error was about "Operating System" which could not save file etc' (down here). At a first glance I coudn't get - where it comes from, but after couple of debugs I've found that: have no free space on hard drive, of phisycal server, where SQL resides., - we defined that files we save in an application DB, will be saved in file system. And, because the application is still been developed - we use some "dirty" SQL - which belongs about to everyone in company :)

So, hard drive is full and I receve this error (in triangle braces - will be your data):

Timestamp: 09/06/2010 08:19:42
Message: HandlingInstanceID: 076332f6-9f5b-471d-aa12-aff576938d5b
An exception of type 'System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException' occurred and was caught.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
06/09/2010 11:19:42
Type : System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException, System.Data, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089
Message : The operating system returned the error '112(failed to retrieve text for this error. Reason: 15105)' while attempting 'FsLogMgr::LogInternal:CreateFile' on '\\?\<Partition>:\<FolderName>\<DBName>.mdf\$FSLOG\ffffc2b5-ffffec1e-fff8.00003d4a-000013e1-0003.1c510342-0970-4de7-99bc-bdbd78c83489~c53fb7af-e2f8-4baa-b27b-9733a3dc653c~00003d4a-000013e1-0003.142a4e-0.1000011'.
The statement has been terminated.
Source : .Net SqlClient Data Provider
Help link :
Errors : System.Data.SqlClient.SqlErrorCollection
Class : 16
LineNumber : 25
Number : 3634
Procedure : <Stored Procedure Name>
Server : <SQL Server Name>
State : 1
ErrorCode : -2146232060
Data : System.Collections.ListDictionaryInternal
TargetSite : Void OnError(System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException, Boolean)
Stack Trace :    at Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.ExceptionHandling.ExceptionPolicyEntry.IntentionalRethrow(Exception chainException, Exception originalException)
   at Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.ExceptionHandling.ExceptionPolicyEntry.RethrowRecommended(Exception chainException, Exception originalException)
   at Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.ExceptionHandling.ExceptionPolicyEntry.Handle(Exception exceptionToHandle)
   at Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.ExceptionHandling.ExceptionPolicyImpl.HandleException(Exception exceptionToHandle)
   at Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.ExceptionHandling.ExceptionPolicy.HandleException(Exception exceptionToHandle, String policyName, ExceptionPolicyFactory policyFactory)
   at Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.ExceptionHandling.ExceptionPolicy.HandleException(Exception exceptionToHandle, String policyName)
   at <DAL namespace>.ExecuteScalar(String SP_Name, SqlParameter[] DbParamColl)
   at <Business Logic Namespace and method where catch happens>(<Object FileStorage> fileParams)

Additional Info:

MachineName : <Machine name where application runs>
TimeStamp : 09/06/2010 08:19:42
FullName : Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.ExceptionHandling, Version=4.1.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35
AppDomainName : __XDomain_3.0.1.0_0
ThreadIdentity :
WindowsIdentity : <UserName>

Category: General
Priority: 0
EventId: 100
Severity: Critical
Title:Enterprise Library Exception Handling
Machine: <Machine name where application runs>
Application Domain: __XDomain_3.0.1.0_0
Process Id: 3372
Process Name: C:\Program Files\Microsoft BizTalk Server 2009\BTSNTSvc.exe
Win32 Thread Id: 4976
Thread Name:
Extended Properties: HelpLink.ProdName - Microsoft SQL Server
HelpLink.ProdVer - 10.00.1600
HelpLink.EvtSrc - MSSQLServer
HelpLink.EvtID - 3634
HelpLink.BaseHelpUrl - http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink
HelpLink.LinkId - 20476

The solution to problem is very simple - free more space on your hard drive.

Find current app.config's file path

yonathanm — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 07:44:00 GMT

Hi,

From time to time I want to check where my app config resides in. For this action I add to executed code (external assembly, or windows service) next line of code:

string sFilePath = AppDomain.CurrentDomain.SetupInformation.ConfigurationFile;

sFilePath keeps the path to current config used by your process.