Never assume anything, test everything All these years I assumed that Assembly.Load() would respect version numbers if specified in the FullName string.   As I’ve been adding more test coverage to Microsoft.Activities I found that Assembly.Load does not work that way. Suppose you have an assembly named ActivityLibrary and you deploy V1 but you try to load V2 // This call will succeed and happily load V1 if it finds ActivityLibrary.dll Assembly.Load( "ActivityLibrary, Version=2.0.0...

In my previous post , I’ve been exploring how changing the version of an ActivityLibrary affects a workflow.  In this post I want to explore how Workflow Services behave. The good news – as far as I can tell, they behave exactly as they should behave loading the assembly version they were built with.  For this test I have a Workflow Service that uses an activity from ActivityLibrary1 and we will run through a similar set of scenarios deploying a Workflow Service (.xamlx) to a web site hosted...

In my last post I showed you how the _XamlStaticHelper class uses different semantics when loading assemblies referenced by XAML files. Today I’m going to show you a solution I’ve built into the Microsoft.Activities library that can help you apply standard CLR behavior when loading referenced assemblies. endpoint.tv - How To Make WF4 Load the Assemblies You Really Want   Strict Assembly Resolution for Compiled Workflows Step 1: Download and reference Microsoft.Activities.dll Download the latest...

In agile software development , a spike is a story that cannot be estimated until a development team runs a timebox ed investigation. The output of a spike story is an estimate for the original story. - SearchSoftwareQuality.com Definitions Update 1/8/2011: For a solution to these problems see this post .  Special thanks to Krisragh for his help with this post. For this spike I want to answer the following questions What happens when a V1 workflow loads a V2 activity? What happens when a V2...

Our team is busily working on some great new stuff to bring first class support for Workflow to Windows Azure.  We want to hear from you so we can be sure to deliver on what you need. Drop me a line if you want to chat and you Have workflow (WF3/ WF4) solutions running on Azure or other cloud systems today Have workflow (WF3/ WF4) solutions on-premises and moving that solution to Azure in the next 3 months Have solutions running on Azure today and are contemplating adding Workflow to your solution...