Practical Microsoft

While I was working on a SilverLight 4 demo I found out that Entity Framework is not supported directly through the .NET provider or ODP tools. In order to make them work you need to either write a wrapper of your own (wouldn't chance it) or else use a provider like DataDirect or Quest's upcoming tool. So far, I've been very happy with the DataDirect tool (found here http://www.datadirect.com/products/net/index.ssp). As I get a little farther along I'll post more on SL4, RIA, and EF.

I was stumped for a little while until running across this article. For those without a background in Oracle development, this was a nice introduction for beginners.

http://blogs.msdn.com/kaevans/archive/2009/07/18/connecting-to-oracle-from-visual-studio.aspx

So, while trying to start services on my new MOSS dev server I ran into a couple of problems this week that are worthy blogging material.

Problem #1: The first is that when I created applications for my Default SSP these applications were not showing up in the application drop down in the SSP creation process.

The solution? It turns out that System accounts like Local System and Network Service are not allowed as valid application pool identities in MOSS for SSP applications.

Problem #2: When I went to start services in the operations tab I got an exception error when I tried to start search services.

This was was a little easier, but I read several blogs that said you can't run MOSS without AD (which is exactly what I wanted to do on a dev box). You CAN run all MOSS services without AD, but you still have to put the accounts in as LOCALHOST\AccountName. Unfortunately, only the search services throw and error when you don't do this which is what originally confused me.

Hope this helps some of you out there.

For those of you who had to struggle with this like I did there is a great article on CodePlex here:

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/dotnet/targetnet2fromvs2008.aspx

So, I was trying to build a datagrid control in SharePoint designer today off of (what I thought) was a fairly simple query with a couple of parameters. So I used the GUI (might have been my first mistake, but what are you going to do in designer). I built my query using the ASP.NET SQLDataSource Control (very similar to Visual Studio). I specified my parameters after they were auto-detected by the wizard and I got rows returned when I tested my query (so I assumed it was working...). Then I dropped a simple data grid control on it and did a couple of formatting things (not the problem) and tried to load the page. The thing was completely broken, so I ran back through the wizard for the SQL Data Source control and noticed that it was asking for parameter types when I tried to load the page. So, I was forced to <gasp> look into the code created by SharePoint designer and I discovered that when it creates the control using the HTML tags it leaves out two very important tags (depending on what you're doing obviously) in my case I was populating my parameters with values then evaluating those values in my primary select statement. So, this is what I had to do to correct:

In the <Select Parameters> tag you get this by default from designer once you're done with the wizard:

<asp:querystringparameter QueryStringField="GETDATE()" Name="currTime"  /> \\broken

What you need for the data grid to work (if you are already populating you parameters, is this:

<asp:querystringparameter QueryStringField="GETDATE()" Name="currTime" Type="DateTime" Direction="Output" />

\\ Adds the return type of your parameter and the output method which may not be output in your case, but was in mine.

Anyway this caused me a few minutes of confusion this morning and I wanted to pass it on for those of you who might be struggling with the same thing.

Thanks,

Toby

So after searching in vain for a 64 bit driver (of any kind) and on the verge of giving up I decided to just try the 32 bit driver and had success. Vista 64 made the appropriate adjustments and away I went. Obviously, this is not a guarantee for others out there using this TV tuner who are also trying to run Vista in 64 bit, but if you are, I have copied the link to the driver (for those of you with Gateways) below.

http://support.gateway.com/support/drivers/getFile.asp?id=21603&uid=185155986

So, in the past when I wanted to allow a user to impersonate using the .NET framework, I had to go into the frameworks directory (i.e. "C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727") and grant the impersonating user rights to read and write to the correct directory. However, in Windows Vista the rights to these directories are locked down and you might get an error such as the following...The current identity (DOMAIN\USERNAME) does not have write access to 'C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\Temporary ASP.NET Files'. The way to get around this error (if you are using .NET 2.0 or higher is to use the aspnet_regiis utility. I first read about this process here in a response to this blog (http://www.troolean.nl/blog/index.php?entry=entry071023-224210), but there are some gotchas, the biggest being that this only works for ASP.NET 2.0 and higher. The steps to doing this are as follows:

1) Go to your command prompt and runas Administrator

2) Run the following commandline "aspnet_regiis -ga "DOMAIN\USERNAME"

and you should be set...bear in mind that when you're using the utility that you are also giving rights to the metabase as well. You should be very careful to ensure that you are using the lowest possible privelages possible. The link to the aspnet_regiis utility is here (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/k6h9cz8h(VS.80).aspx).

Happy Hunting,

Toby