Wednesday, October 22, 2008

IIS 7 - virtual directory on Framework 1.1 can fail if Default Website on 2.0

I have seen a couple of failures in IIS 7 on Vista when running a virtual directory on Framework 1.1 under the Default Website, when the default site is on Framework 2.0.

The most recent failure occured after upgrading the source for the virtual directory. Yesterday the same site worked fine, after today's upgrade the mappings for Framework 1.1 were lost. Did not delete the directory, just an in-place upgrade of a few ASPX files.

Restored the 1.1 mappings by running aspnet_regiis from the 1.1 directory. To be safe I put the default directory on 1.1 as well.

Maybe this is documented somewhere? I have not run into anything mentioning this yet, but in hindsight it seems prudent to have both on 1.1.

Monday, October 20, 2008

Visual Studio 2008 - what's in what version

At this point in time Microsoft has contradictory information posted about what features are included in the Standard versus Professional editions of Visual Studio 2008. The main page says one thing, and the downloadable 35 page PDF comparison of features says another.

The 35 page comparison where 98% of the items agree is virtually useless. Is MSFT trying to bury us in useless info so we just throw up our hands and buy the more expensive edition? Certainly looks like it.

Two things I could not clarify: are the menus redacted in Standard? Are you limited to a single (ClickOnce) deployment method in Standard?

The template for web unit testing is NOT included in Pro, for that you need Test Edition.

Friday, October 17, 2008

Windows service recovery - enable actions for stops with errors checkbox

I'm baffled by the meaning of the check-box on the windows service recovery tab with the text "Enable actions for stops with errors"

The only Microsoft documentation I can find on it says "Select Enable actions for stops with errors in order to trigger the recovery actions that the service stopped with an error". What a great example of Ambiguish, a sub-type of English

The requirement is to have the service restart every time. A nightly anti-virus scan seems to be conflicting with the service occasionally, perhaps while accessing the DB or the logfile. Given the recurring but temporary nature of this conflict we need to be sure there's nothing blocking the service from restarting.

I ran some tests where I blocked access to the log file to trigger service failure. Bottom line, the service recovers the same whether or not the checkbox is selected. Maybe I need to reboot the PC to see the effects? At this point I'm just happy to confirm that the service restarts as many times as needed, and will move on.

Configuration Manager: the specified device instance handle does not correspond to a present device

Working with a service created in Visual Studio 2008 I started getting this cryptic error message. Can't recall exactly when it first appeared but it was probably after manual edits to the registry to add a dependency or to recreate the service. No loss of functionality so I put off fixing it for a couple days.

The solution is very simple, in the registry delete the "Enum" subkey for the service, then close and re-open the services console and the message should be gone.

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Visual Studio 2008 setup project says it requires .NET Framework 3.5

Just did my first setup project on visual studio 2008 from scratch rather than upgrade. The msi on the target machine said "this setup requires the .NET Framework version 3.5", even though the solution targets 2.0 exclusively.

Solved by right-clicking on the setup project, View, Launch Conditions. Then edit the properties of the Requirements on Target Machine=>Launch Conditions=>.NET Framework node. Default is 3.5

Upgraded setup projects defaulted to 2.0 after I selected that as the default general behavior for upgrading projects targeting 1.1