BizTalk Server 2006 R2 installation or configuration fails when you download the CAB files that contain the dependency software

by community-syndication | Sep 7, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Saw an interesting note come through and thought forward it out.

BizTalk Server 2006 R2 installation or configuration fails when you download the CAB files that contain the dependency software (942181)

When you try to install or configure Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 R2, the installation process or the configuration process may fail unexpectedly.

This problem occurs if you downloaded the redistributable CAB files that contain the dependency software that is required by BizTalk Server R2 before trying to install or configure BizTalk Server 2006 R2.

Note This issue does not occur if you start the BizTalk Server 2006 R2 setup and then automatically download the CAB files during the installation.

BizTalk Server 2006 R2 installation or configuration fails when you download the CAB files that contain the dependency software (942181)

Pre-conference training at the upcoming SOA BPM conference

by community-syndication | Sep 7, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Jon Flanders, Aaron Skonnard and I are going to be doing a two-day workshop just before Microsoft’s SOA and BPM conference at the end of October.  This will be two days chock full of training content on the latest tools coming out of the Connected Systems Division at Microsoft including BizTalk Services, WCF/WF integration, and BizTalk Server R2.  Check out our official page and sign up if you’ll be attending the conference or if you are in the area.  This will be a great way to start your week and maximize your travel. 

Awesome new BizTalk Database Optimization Whitepaper

by community-syndication | Sep 6, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

One of the most tricky aspects of developing BizTalk applications can be the performance tuning and optimization phase. A great new whitepaper has just been released to MSDN that has extremely deep and thorough coverage on how to configure, install and tune the a BizTalk database tier. This is a must have paper for anyone dealing with high load, high performance BizTalk applications

 http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb743398.aspx

 Great work done by John B. Brockmeyer and team.

 Cheers and keep on BizTalking

Speaking Tonight at the Dallas C# SIG

by community-syndication | Sep 6, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

In case you’re in Dallas and free this evening, I will be speaking at the Dallas

C# SIG tonight and discussing C# 3.0. This should be a great chance to discuss

C#’s future with people who are passionate about the language. All

the relevant details can be found here.

SharePoint Feature: Add Column from Existing Site Columns menu item

by community-syndication | Sep 6, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Question: what is the easiest way to add a column to a list or document library in SharePoint 2007?
Answer: navigate to the list, from the Settings menu, choose Create Column.

Question: how do you add an existing Site Column to a list or document library?
Answer: navigate to the list, from the Settings menu, choose List/Document Library Settings, scroll down to the Columns section and click Add from existing site columns.

In the beta versions of SharePoint 2007 there was an easier way to add an existing Site Column to a list or document library because there was another menu item in the Settings menu: Add column from existing site columns. For those of you who are nostalgic about the beta’s of Office 12, and want to have the menu item back: I’ve created simple feature to add the menu item:

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”utf-8″?>
<Elements xmlns=”http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/”>
    <CustomAction
        Id=”{F32CD702-0391-4b55-A8D6-7653650DEF95}”
        Location=”Microsoft.SharePoint.StandardMenu”
        GroupId=”SettingsMenu”
        RegistrationType=”List”
        Sequence=”0″
        ImageUrl=”_layouts/images/menuaddcolumn.gif”
        Title=”Add column from existing site columns”
        Description=”Add an existing site column to store additional information about each item.”
        Rights=”ManageLists”
        >
        <UrlAction
            Url=”javascript:window.location= ‘{SiteUrl}/_layouts/AddFieldFromTemplate.aspx?List={ListId}&amp;Source=’ + window.location”/>
    </CustomAction>
</Elements>

The feature uses the Javascript tric which I explained yesterday (this feature was actually the reason for it). If you want to download the complete feature, packaged in a nice SharePoint Solution (WSP); just click here!

Here’s a screenshot of the result:

BizTalk 2006 R2 – RFID: Weird Error in sample

by community-syndication | Sep 5, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

I’ve spent the last couple of days digging into the new RFID technology that is included with BizTalk 2006 R2. I removed BizTalk 2006 from my standard VPC image and I dropped the new RFID components on the server. This VPC image was build on Windows 2003, SQL Server 2005 – SP2, VS 2005, ASP.NET 3.0 and WSE 2.0. It would turn out that the WSE 2.0 would turn out to be the problem for me.

I successfully completed the core install and configuration and eagerly tried to setup the Contoso sample that is included. This sample includes a sample Device Provider, a Reader Simulator and a Sample process to handle the simulated tag reads. However, when I ran the ContosoSetup.cmd file that is suppose to install, configure and startup the demo, I received the following error.

This request operation sent to net.tcp://<server_name>:7891/rfid/service/ProviderManager did not receive a reply within the configured timeout (00:01:00).  The time allotted to this operation may have been a portion of a longer timeout.  This may be because the service is still processing the operation or because the service was unable to send a reply message.  Please consider increasing the operation timeout (by casting the channel/proxy to IContextChannel and setting the OperationTimeout property) and ensure that the service is able to connect to the client.

Being fairly new this, I had no idea what this meant, so I decided to skip the sample and just try to manually add in the Contoso provider by using the RFID management tool. However, I didn’t have any luck with this either. So I dug deeper into the Help files and fortunetly there is some pretty good advice for debugging and resolving this issue. Basically, when you register a new provider, a new virtual directory is created in IIS. A number of issue were preventing this VD from running correctly. The biggest issue was the Windows SharePoint Services was including the new directory in its list of managed paths. Therefore I had to go into the SharePoint Administration sites, select “Manage Virtual Server”, select “Default Website”, select “Manage Defined Paths” and then manually add in the virtual directories to the “Excluded Paths” list. Once I had done this, then I was at least able to get the website to load in the browser.  I had placed a basic test.html file in the directory and I was able to view the HTML contained within it.

However at this point, I still couldn’t register my new provider. I dug deeper into the docs and they recommended browsing directly to the hosting.svc file that is contained within the virtual directory. When I did this, I got the ever helpfull “Server Error” message in my browser and nothing more. Thankfully, I have run into this issue enough that I had a couple of ideas of what to do. I started by opening the web.config file in the root c:\inetpub\wwwroot folder. Inside this file, there is a <Trust> tag that by default had a setting of “level=WSS_Minimal”, I needed to change this to “Full”.  Also, the RFID engine requires Anonymous Access to be setup on the virtual directory, so I loaded up the directories settings and checked for this. While I was in there, I noticed that the Contoso Installation Script had tried to set the default user account to “Administrator” (this was the account I was logged in under). However, the account name was misspelled as “Administartor” and this had caused the Application Pool to fail and shut down. I changed the spelling error and restarted the new App Pool that was setup during the sample installation

After making these changes, I tried to browser the hosting.svc file again and I received another error.  An error occurred loading a configuration file: Access to the path ‘c:\inetpub\wwwroot\web.config’ is denied.  Fortunetly, the fix for this issue is included in the help docs. To resolve this issue, grant the IIS_WPG group Read permissions to the web.config file.

After I made this last change, I was able to view the hosting.svc file in my browser. I once again tried to manually register the Contoso provider using the RFID administration tool and everything worked.  I re-ran the Constosetup.cmd file and then went in and re-did all of my manually fixes to correct all the issues with all of the virtual directories it created. I used the RFID management console to manually startup the provider, device and process. Once I did this, I was able to successfully receive tag events from the Contoso Device Simulator.

A bit of a bumpy ride based on the WSE 2.0, but it was nice to see almost all of my issues outlined and documented in the core Help Docs.

Cheers and keep on BizTalking

Developing SharePoint 2007 Web Parts – Book Excerpt

by community-syndication | Sep 5, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

The nice guys over at WROX have published an excerpt of my web part chapter from the Real World SharePoint 2007 book. It’s only a small piece of the complete chapter, discussing the basic web part development stuff.

Web Parts are the building blocks of pages in SharePoint sites. Users of SharePoint sites can make use of those building blocks to determine what should be displayed on a specific page in a particular SharePoint site.

When you install SharePoint, you can make use of some out-of-the-box Web Parts straight away. Depending on whether you have Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) as your SharePoint installation, you’ll have more or less. Additionally, every SharePoint list and document library will have a Web Part counterpart that can display the contents of the corresponding list or document library.

Of course, the out-of-the-box Web Parts are not the only ones that you can use! Developers can build their own Web Parts as well and deploy them to the SharePoint server. End users won’t notice the difference between the custom Web Parts and the out-of-the-box Web Parts, so Web Parts are a great way to extend SharePoint.

This article takes you through the basic steps to create your own Web Parts in various ways.
(read full excerpt here)

You can read an excerpt of Andrew’s WCM chapter overe here.

BizTalk Accelerator for SWIFT 2007 Message Pack is Released

by community-syndication | Sep 5, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

BizTalk Accelerator for SWIFT 2007 Message Pack has Released To Web!

This new release provides industry-standard compliance with the SWIFT 2007 Standards Release Guide (SRG) specification, required for communication across the SWIFT network starting in October 2007.   New features include:

%u00b7         Complete re-packaging of all SWIFT FIN Flat File message types and business rules.

%u00b7         Updates to all message schemas and business rules for compliance with SWIFT 2007 Certification requirements.

%u00b7         Support for SWIFT Net Phase 2 PKI header information.

%u00b7         Roll-up of all schemas and business rule Hotfixes not superseded by 2007 requirements.

Regards,

Marjan Kalantar

Expression Encoder now available for trial and purchase

by community-syndication | Sep 5, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

The Expression Encoder was released this morning and is available for trial and purchase here. Since the previous beta Live Production has been added… also I have been testing the Silverlight Streaming Plug-in Preview that is almost ready for prime time and will be made available shortly.

Check out Ben’s videos.

Also I have noticed that the Around The Clock event is being promoted on the Expression front page (above the Silverlight on Linux news no less!!)

Check out the global  Expression around the Clock site featuring rock stars like Bill Buxton and make sure that if you are in Auckland on the 4th of October that you register for the New Zealand leg of the journey… we are close to half full already!

Send Port Schedules and a Retry Gotcha

by community-syndication | Sep 5, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

A colleague ask me earlier today about the Send Port Service Window and its interaction with retrying messages – I honestly didn’t know what would happen (although I had a rough idea), so I decided to run some tests; the outcome was interesting and I certainly didn’t expect to encounter one particular gotcha.
Background
Imagine a scenario […]