SharePoint 2007 Content Deploy Quick Start Guide

And there was I working my 455 off preparing for teach Microsoft´s 50149 SharePoint Operations training when...

A word of advise: stay away from this training. The author tries to show EVERYTHING about SharePoint operations but there's no details on *any* of the topics shown. The result is frustrated and/or distracted students, and that's a saddening thing to me as an instructor - not to mention to the students...

Well, there I was studying the module on Content Deployment when I stumbled upon this guide from Stefan Gossner (great SharePoint blog!). It gives a quick and straightforward view on the main points about Content Deplyment on SharePoint 2007. Nice reading if you are new to the subject. Till now, the guide covers the following:

Part 1 - The Basics
Part 2 - The Basics continued
Part 3 - Configuration
Part 4 - Communication
Part 5 - Quick Deployment
Part 6 - Logging
Part 7 - Change Token Basics
Part 8 - Job and Change Token

Part 1 has an link index to the other parts. Enjoy!

Windows Virtual PC: Where is it?

Windows Virtual PC is Microsoft Virtual PC next version. It runs on Windows 7, but it is NOT part of it - you have to download it. The download page is http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx, although the page title is "Download Windows XP Mode". You have to fill in the two dropdowns, and the page shows you two links. If you don't want Windows XP Mode, just click the second link, download and install the update to Windows 7 - it's Windows Virtual PC that's being installed.

Before you download it, you have to check if your's computer processor supports hardware virtualization technology (check out the links on Intel and AMD on the article). Most of the newer processors (post 2006-) ship with it. Some don't (for example, the T6670 on my Dell Vostro 1310 does not :-P). You can run the Hardware-Assisted Virtualization Detection Tool from Microsft to confirm that your processor supports VT (virtualization technology). If it doesn't, download Virtual PC 2007, the previous Windows Virtual PC version. It has less features, but it's disks are compatible with Windows VPC.

Disk space used by an Windows 2003 Clean Install

Old one, but just for the record: a fresh Windows 2003 Standard + IIS + SP2 takes 5.74 Gb on the disk. In case you need to build a VM with that.

SELECT * FROM Table JOIN... ListBox???

A Linq way to retrive rows from one table based on rows from a related table whose lines are loaded into a listbox.

The ASP.NET test WebForm:



I want all products related to the selected categories (ListBox.SelectionMode = Multiple). The project is an ASP.NET Web App on VS 2010 Beta 2, and it contains an Entity Data Model on the Northwind sample database.

The LinkButton code:

    Protected Sub LinkButton1_Click(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As EventArgs) Handles LinkButton1.Click
        Dim data As New NorthwindEntities
        Dim selectedCategoriesProducts As New List(Of Products)
        selectedCategoriesProducts = _
            (From line As Products In data.Products
             Join item As Integer In (From x In ListBox1.Items Where x.Selected = True Select x.value)
             On line.CategoryID Equals item
             Select line).ToList()
        GridView1.DataSource = selectedCategoriesProducts
        GridView1.DataBind()
    End Sub

The Linq (to Entity) query joins the Products table (data.Products) to a integer list (Join item As Integer). The integer list is generated by a Linq (to Objects) query that selects the values (Select x.value) from the listbox options (ListBox1.Items) that are checked (Where x.Selected = True). The returned Products object list is then shown on the GridView.

In other words, we joined the Products table on Nortwind database with the ListBox selected items from an webform. Well, talk about data source abstraction... :-)

"Linq Is Fun!!!"

Buda On Using Linq To Query Data

Visual Studio: how to target different .NET Framework versions

We are creating a WPF application on Visual Studio 2010 (beta 1), but Blend 3 doesn’t load .NET Framework 4.0 assemblies. So on the designer’s machine we had to compile the solution targeting .NET Framework version 3.5.

(quick thought: our development team is made up of one designer, one product manager, and one project manager. So, WHO IS CODING???)

We found an article on MSBuild – Microsoft’s build engine – about the /toolsversion option, that targets specific .NET Framework versions. We built a .bat file that recompiles all projects in the solution. Following is some of it:

msbuild StorageClient\StorageClient.csproj /toolsversion:3.5 /verbosity:quiet
if ERRORLEVEL 1 goto erro

MSBuild recognizes Visual Studio project files, and activates the corresponding compiler. The /toolsversion option selects the target .NET Framework version (allowed values are 2.0, 3.0, 3.5 and 4.0), and overrides the selected version on the project file. The following “if” checks if MSBuild returned 1, which signals an error, so you can stop the build job (using good(?) old goto).

A lot less painful than I thought. The same batch will be used to generate a 3.5 version of the solution when building the tables on Azure Development Storage, because DevTableGen – the utility that builds the tables – also does not support 4.0 .NET Framework assemblies.

MSBuild location is not included on the standard command prompt path, so use Visual Studio 2010 command prompt (VS 2010 program group > Visual Studio 2010 Tools).

INSERT's inside transactions

Are you a geek? Then read on. :-)

Reading Inside SQL Server 2005: Query Tunning and Optimization, I stumbled upon this beaultiful code sample. The guy (yes, a guy - it seems Ms. Delaney is subcontracting for some chapters...) creates a big sample table with 250,000 rows on it.

And there's not a single shred of comment about the code. He's doing 250,000 INSERT's on a table. In order to optimize it, he opens a transaction right before the loop starts, and on every 1,000 INSERT's he does a COMMIT then opens another transaction. This prevents SQL Server from opening a transaction on each INSERT. (Yes, Luke. When a data modification command to SQL Server you send, a transaction it automatically opens if the command is not already inside one. This allows you, for example, to change your mind and issue a ROLLBACK inside a trigger - even without a preceding BEGIN TRAN).

By using the explicit transactions around the INSERT's, the code runs them on 250 transactions, instead of 250 thousand ones. As I've said before, beaultiful. Simply beaultiful.

And in case you didn't notice: yes, I'm a geek. :-)

SQL Server Compact is not intended for ASP.NET development

SQL Server Compact is a very restricted SQL Server edition in terms of features. But it runs in-process, wich means it does not run as a service being accessed from your application, like others SQL Sever editions. It runs inside your app. This allows for simplified deploy (non-administrative accounts can install an application using SQL Server CE databases), and reduced RAM, CPU and disk usage. It runs even on Windows Mobile!

Well, if you try to use it on an ASP.NET site, you end up with the error "SQL Server Compact is not intended for ASP.NET development". The reason is, like the message says, SQL Server CE is not made to be used on a multi-user environment like a web aplication. But if you want to use it anyway, for exampe for a quick test, place the following code on Global.asax:

Sub Application_Start(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As EventArgs)
AppDomain.CurrentDomain.SetData("SQLServerCompactEditionUnderWebHosting", True)
End Sub

This way you are "taking full responsability" for using SQL Server CE on the ASP.NET site, and the error won't show up again.