Joteke's Blog

Repairing SQL 2005 Business Intelligence Studio after uninstalling VS2005

joteke — Fri, 16 May 2008 16:48:00 GMT

I've lately crushed on SQL2005's business intelligence. See, it's nice to learn the greatest features of a product when new version is almost out there. :-)

Well, as probably many others, I almost instantly uninstalled VS2005 after VS2008 was in RTM and running on my machine. Of course, because I also had SQL2005 Developer Edition on here, this meant that SQL Server's BI Studio shortcut wasn't working anymore. Now, fixing that became a priority.

With quick Googling for step-by-step best practise instructions, how to repair the SQL2k5 BI installation, I found some information on Leon Zandman's blog. Unfortunately those steps didn't work for me, it did install VS2005 Premium Partner Edition, but the product itself didn't work. It complained about corrupted packages etc. So instead what I did was:

- I went to edit the SQL2005 installation (in XP: Add/Remove programs, picking SQL2005 and Change)
- I chose SQL Server 2005 Common Components->Workstation Components
- On to change the installed components, I picked first the Business Intelligence Development Studio to be removed and let the installer do the job
- Then same steps and switching the BI Development Studio back to be installed (Entire feature on the local hard drive)

E.g basically simple uninstall/install steps for the specific part of the product and voila, all was working fine. Yes, it means that SQL2k5 BI doesn't work within VS2008, but in VS2005 "shell". I suppose this is fine till SQL2008 comes out.

VS2008 and .NET 3.5 Service Pack 1 Beta now available

joteke — Mon, 12 May 2008 17:08:00 GMT

See: http://blogs.msdn.com/somasegar/archive/2008/05/12/visual-studio-2008-and-net-fx-3-5-sp1-beta-available-now.aspx

Edit: ScottGu has also a post about the SP: http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2008/05/12/visual-studio-2008-and-net-framework-3-5-service-pack-1-beta.aspx

There are lots of stuff in that SP...

Summary

Web

-ASP.NET Data Scaffolding Support (ASP.NET Dynamic Data)
-ASP.NET Routing Engine (System.Web.Routing)
-ASP.NET AJAX Back/Forward Button History Support
-ASP.NET AJAX Script Combining Support
-Visual Studio 2008 Performance Improvements HTML Designer and HTML Source Editor
-Visual Studio 2008 JavaScript Script Formatting and Code Preferences
-Better Visual Studio Javascript Intellisense for Multiple Javascript/AJAX Frameworks
-Visual Studio Refactoring Support for WCF Services in ASP.NET Projects
-Visual Studio Support for Classic ASP Intellisense and Debugging
-Visual Web Developer Express Edition support for Class Library and Web Application Projects

Client

-Application Startup and Working Set Performance Improvements
-New .NET Framework Client Profile Setup Package
-New .NET Framework Setup Bootstrapper for Client Applications
-ClickOnce Client Application Deployment Improvements
-Windows Forms Controls (Printing, DataRepeater...)
-WPF Performance Improvements
-WPF Data Improvements
-WPF Extensible Shader Effects
-WPF Interoperability with Direct3D
-VS 2008 for WPF Improvements

Data

-SQL 2008 Support
-ADO.NET Entity Framework and LINQ to Entities
-ADO.NET Data Services (formerly code-named "Astoria")

General

-WCF Development Improvements
-VB and C# Improvements
-TFS Improvements

A word of warning related to Session variables

joteke — Fri, 09 May 2008 21:18:00 GMT

I see a lot on forums and newsgroups that Session variables are constantly recommended to pass state between ASP.NET pages. Yes, it is simple mechanism, reliable with out-of-process modes and really nice to customize with the providers. Session is very familiar for developers working with various web technologies (not just Microsoft ones), and one could say that Session is one of the (few) true friends of the web developer.

But have you ever thought that Session variables can also be dangerous if you aren't careful? That's because Session variables are global in users context - the very same feature you usually take advantage of - and if you have small bug or something which allows the same page to be opened twice, you can overwrite variables in manner that you didn't really expect.

Consider this simple ASP.NET page:

<%@ Page Language="C#" %>

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

    protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        //This type of line (IsPostback check and setting to Session) is already a warning sign!
        if (!Page.IsPostBack)
            Session["demonstrationvalue"] = Guid.NewGuid().ToString();
    }
</script>

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head runat="server">
    <title>Untitled Page</title>
</head>
<body>
    <form id="form1" runat="server">
    <div>
    <a href="sessiondemo.aspx" target="_blank">Open this same page to a new window</a><br />
    Session["demonstrationvalue"] = <%=Session["demonstrationvalue"].ToString() %>.<br />
     <asp:Button ID="btnShowWhatsOnSession" runat="server" Text="Update the view." />
    </div>
    </form>
</body>
</html>

That's a simple page. Now follow these steps:

1. Run the page in your VS2005 or VS2008 so that it opens in your favorite browser and shows you something like:

Open this same page to a new window
Session["demonstrationvalue"] = 9cefe013-59b8-4273-abc5-6ef4ae591a67.

2. Click the link which opens the same page in a new window, you'll see that the session variable now has another value, for example
Session["demonstrationvalue"] = a00de96a-0417-48bd-b8df-9ed26f2d955c.

3. Now switch to the browser window you opened in step 1 and click the "Update the View" button, you'll see that page too now shows
Session["demonstrationvalue"] = a00de96a-0417-48bd-b8df-9ed26f2d955c.

Ok, so what? Well, think if your page would do something like that but having temporary ids whatever in session variables. Yeah, if you haven't thought it out, maybe not your fault but having some legacy code given to you by the boss as previous employee just left, that *is* dangerous. And if your page would have logic to update something to database directly based on that session id, you could be in trouble, updating something that you didn't expect that could happen.

I just want to mention that that one of the worst bugs in my early career was caused by missing this type of little thing (not getting all the possible execution paths of the page clear to myself) :-). A page just got bit complicated eventually, and it was legacy code with lousy structure - which I got for modification - , which made it really, really difficult to spot. Nevertheless, it was 100% my fault, as I should have noticed it (well, I *really* should have done the full rewrite of the application instead of letting it be as it was, but that's another story...).

Now, I hope you don't make the same mistake as I did by then.

I have Framework 3.5 installed, why does my IIS show only ASP.NET 1.1/2.0?

joteke — Sat, 03 May 2008 13:03:00 GMT

I've replied a lot to these questions lately.

I'm not going to go to very deep with this, Scott Hanselman has excellent post covering this, see that:

How to set an IIS Application or AppPool to use ASP.NET 3.5 rather than 2.0
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/HowToSetAnIISApplicationOrAppPoolToUseASPNET35RatherThan20.aspx

Simple way is also to think that 3.0 and 3.5 bring "a few more" dlls to 2.0 runtime (which is 2.0 SP 1 in practise). So basically 3.5 is not really that big upgrade to vanilla ASP.NET 2.0, although it certainly isn't any minor upgrade.

DDD Ireland

joteke — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 19:27:00 GMT

I promised to spread the word. :-)

Phil and his peers have a developer event, DDD Ireland, in Ireland on 3rd of May. And here's the "official poster" :-)

Developer Event? Ah go on, go on, go on.

Check it out at www.DDDIreland.com

Unspecified Error with MSDN Library for VS2008 in IE7

joteke — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 09:43:00 GMT

My MSDN for VS2008 started suddenly to raise this error.

and I had no idea why. This occurred on my home machine which is XP Pro with latest upgrades.

I tried following steps:

- I uninstalled and reinstalled entire MSDN Library for VS2008
- I tried to repair IE (basically by reinstalling IE7)
- I even deleted everything from C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Help and C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Help9 and then un/reinstalled help

Nothing helped.

But I got help on a private discussion list, to try to delete all Temporary Internet Files. And doh! It started to work again...

Trying to clear all the IE temp file content didn't cross my mind although I've seen weird issues related to it before this. For example hyperlinks sometimes link in totally weird way when IE has "enough" those temporary files, frames might open inside themselves (repeating the opened content) or nothing just happens. Clearing temporary files solves that with no exception.

Did you know Red Gate gives SQL Log Rescue for free?

joteke — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 12:56:00 GMT

I thought I mention this, since these types of tools are rarely needed, but when they are, they are also seriously saving your ass. :-)

SQL Log Rescue is basically undo tool which analyzes transaction logs of your SQL Server database and allows you to undo and redo transactions. You can for example restore the 100 million rows you just accidentally deleted from your customer's database :-)

Feature set of SQL Log Rescue:

- Automatically generate the SQL scripts to undo and redo transactions.
- View and analyze SQL Server transaction logs.
- View large objects (e.g. ntext and image columns).
- View and recover deleted and modified data.
- Group and sort information in a custom-written, high performance grid.
- Search transactions.
- View row history – understand all the activity on a row-by-row basis

And what's amazing, this tool is now free!

You'll find more information at: http://www.red-gate.com/products/SQL_Log_Rescue/index.htm

NOTE: it doesn't work in SQL 2005 (explained at: http://www.red-gate.com/messageboard/viewtopic.php?t=5983) part of why it's now free

Visual Studio 2008 and IIS 7.0

joteke — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 17:20:00 GMT

Mike Volodarsky has put up a nice article about VS2008 and IIS 7.0 together. Check it out: http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/387/using-visual-studio-2008-with-iis-70/

A few more solutions to the dreaded "Validation of ViewState MAC failed"

joteke — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 16:39:00 GMT

I posted about this some time ago.

My previous post:

Potential solution for "Validation of viewstate MAC failed"
http://aspadvice.com/blogs/joteke/archive/2007/08/14/Potential-solution-for-_2200_Validation-of-viewstate-MAC-failed_2200_.aspx

And the original one:

ASP.NET 2.0 and "Validation of ViewState Mac failed" exception
http://aspadvice.com/blogs/joteke/archive/2006/02/02/15011.aspx

Now there's a few more solutions listed and explained with a nice sample code at:

Validation of viewstate MAC failed error
http://blogs.msdn.com/tom/archive/2008/03/14/validation-of-viewstate-mac-failed-error.aspx

by an ASP.NET Engineer.

Peter Blum's Peter's Data Entry Suite

joteke — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 14:12:00 GMT

Peter Blum has upgraded his web control suite. He previously had Professional Validation and More and also Peter's Date Package which are the two most popular of his products.

Now Peter has come up with Peter's Data Entry Suite which merges both of these products into a single set containing over 70 ASP.NET web controls.

Here's an overview of the contents

Data entry controls – 11 greatly enhanced textboxes, including numeric, date and time. Plus the unique MultiSegmentDataEntry control, a Calendar, MonthYearPicker, and TimePicker.

Validation – A powerful replacement to the ASP.NET validators, providing 27 validator controls. It overcomes the many limitations of the native controls, improving how you assist your users and eliminating most custom validation code.

Submitting the page – Enhanced buttons and ways to extend other submit controls with features like confirm messages, disable on submit, and enabling after the form is changed.

Interactive pages – Numerous controls and tools that respond as the user clicks or types, much like desktop applications. Includes interactive hints, enhanced tooltips, on-screen calculations, a text counter, and more.

Input Security – Best practice security against SQL Injection and Cross Site Scripting attacks.

Learn more at: http://www.peterblum.com/DES/Home.aspx

From Dave Reed's blog: TRULY Understanding ViewState, the comment index

joteke — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 17:59:00 GMT

A reader of Dave Reed's blog (a great source of ASP.NET knowledge btw) has created an index of Dave's replies to questions/comments in Dave's "Truly Understanding ViewState" blog post.

ViewState and dynamic controls are major FAQ in ASP.NET, they might be one of the most misunderstood aspect of ASP.NET. Personally, I've probably answered to thousands of forum and newsgroup posts which have somthing to do with these issues.

Therefore this index document, plus of course Dave's own posts, bring a lot of desperately needed knowledge available for everyone working with ASP.NET.

See: http://weblogs.asp.net/infinitiesloop/archive/2008/02/19/truly-understanding-viewstate-comment-index.aspx

Microsoft Dreamspark: MS supports students all over the world by giving free developer tools

joteke — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 16:56:00 GMT

See: http://microsoft.blognewschannel.com/archives/2008/02/19/microsoft-giving-away-free-developer-software-to-students/

"Microsoft is announcing right now DreamSpark, a new program that gives free developer, designer and related software to college students in 11 countries. DreamSpark goes live today in Belgium, China, Finland, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States, and gives away free stuff like Visual Studio, Expression Studio, and even Windows Server."

(link by http://blogs.msdn.com/walterst/archive/2008/02/19/dreamspark-microsoft-giving-away-free-developer-software-to-students.aspx)

And in Finnish: Ja suomalaiset opiskelijat, huomatkaa, tämä koskee myös Suomea. Testasin itse äsken mitä oppilaitoksia löytyy ja aika moni iso oppilaitos - erityisesti yliopistot - siellä jo oli listoilla. Ei ihan kaikki amk:t todellakaan, mutta toivottavasti tämä tulee mahd. monen ulottuville!

Direct link/Suora linkki asiaa käytännön tasolla käsittelevälle sivulle: https://downloads.channel8.msdn.com/

Kommentoi tekniikanihmelapsi.com-sivustolla, voit voittaa Buffalo Linkstation Live-verkkolevyn

joteke — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 19:31:00 GMT

Työkaverini Sami Laakkonen on pyörittänyt tekniikanihmelapsi.com-sivustoaan jo jonkin aikaa. Aiheena viihde-elektroniikkaan ja multimediaan liittyvät ajankohtaiset uutiset ja tarinat höystettynä omalla kokemuksella

Nyt Samilla on viime metreillä käynnissä arvonta, jossa hänen blogiviestiään kommentoiva voi voittaa Buffalon Linkstation Live (500gt)-verkkolevyn. Säännöt menevät Samin kirjoitusta lainaten näin:

"
Kilpailuun osallistuminen on helppoa. Teidän täytyy vain lähettää kommentti tähän kirjoitukseen. Kommentissa haluan vastauksen muutamaan helppoon kysymykseen:

Mistä löysit tämän blogin ensimmäisen kerran?
Mistä kuulit tästä kilpailusta?
Mikä on sinun oma suosikkisivusi netissä tällä hetkellä?

Siinä kaikki. Kommentilla ja kysymyksiin vastaamalla olet mukana arvonnassa yhdellä osallistumisella, mutta jos kirjoitat tästä kilpailusta omassa blogissasi /sivustossasi, niin saat arvontaan mukaan kolme osallistumista."

Vastaanpa tässä omassa viestissäni samalla näihin kysymyksiin. :-)

1. Samin sähköpostista omasta Inboxistani vai oliko se mesekeskustelun pohjalta :-)
2. Lukemalla Samin blogia
3. forums.asp.net

Kommentoipa sinäkin: http://tekniikanihmelapsi.com/2007/12/03/kilpailu-voita-buffalo-linkstation-live-500gt/

VS2008: Targeting ASP.NET 2.0 and ASP.NET Ajax 1.0

joteke — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 16:28:00 GMT

MS has released ASP.NET 2.0 Ajax templates for VS2008. See: http://blogs.msdn.com/brada/archive/2007/12/19/using-vs2008-to-target-net-framework-2-0-with-asp-net-ajax.aspx

Generic Controls in ASP.NET pages

joteke — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 06:23:00 GMT

Eilon has demonstrated a nice way to allow you to have generic controls in ASP.NET pages. Check it out.

http://weblogs.asp.net/leftslipper/archive/2007/12/04/how-to-allow-generic-controls-in-asp-net-pages.aspx