Following launch, we again continue our ongoing FAQ series with the most common questions from our BTS 2006 Technology Adoption Program (TAP) customers over the last month.  Please join us in discussion and feedback on the private beta newsgroup!

Regards,
Doug Girard

Note: This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Question Response Area
     
What adapters will be available out of the box in BTS 2006? This link explains the adapters that are planned to be made available with BizTalk Server 2006. Adapters
Are any of these adapters available for testing today? Yes, four of our LOB are already available for Beta testing.  After downloading the CTP and unpacking the EXE, you can find the installation files under %INSTALL_DIRECTORY%\LOBAdapters.  They are the Oracle Application Suite Adater, the Oracle Database Connector Adapter, our PeopleSoft adapter, and our Siebel adapter. For more information about our LOB adapters and their TAP program, contact bpidcp[-at-]microsoft.com. Adapters
How do I enable tracking in BTS 2006?  I don't seem to be able to do this from HAT as I did in 2004. You can do this now through the Admin MMC Console.  For example, if you need to be able to track properties of a custom schema, you can go to the schemas node under your application and go to the schema's properties for tracking.  Then at the corresponding receive or send port, you can enable document or property level tracking.  For BizTalk context property tracking, you can click on the System.BizTalk application and follow the same guidance with the BizTalk property schemas. Administration
How can I share BizTalk artifacts between different BizTalk applications, such as a schema or a receive port? You can add references between applications from within the Application's properties in the Admin MMC Console.  For example, if both App A and App B need to reference App S which contains a common schema, both A and B can add a reference to S. Administration
What are the pre-req's for BAM? This really depends on how you intend to use BAM, the complexity of your topology, and which version of SQL you are using.  For complete information, consult the Installation Guide and latest BAM documentation. BAM
What is the BPA? The BPA, or Best Practice Analyzer, is a tool to be made available for the BizTalk Server 2006 release which analyzes your BizTalk environment and makes suggestions for improving it, as per the best practices we have developed internally. BPA
Can orchestration web service ports be easily staged? If an orchestration is published as a web service, this is automatically recognized by the MSI generator and associated VDIRs are created on the install machine.  If like-named application pools are pre-created on the target machines, these will be used, otherwise the default application pools will be chosen. Deployment
Can I add additional bindings files to an MSI package? Yes.  By default, when files of type "BizTalk:Binding" are added as Resources, they are assigned an "All" property which means that they will be applied in any environment to which the application is imported.  However, they can also be given a particular "TargetEnvironment" property, such as "Staging" or "Production".  When an application is imported, the user will be prompted to specify the TargetEnvironment, and the associated binding will be applied.  This allows you to create one monolithic MSI package which will contain bindings for every environment that it will be staged to. Deployment
Are passwords saved in the bindings of exported applications? No.  For security purposes, we do not export any password fields of transport properties in bindings.  If you export bindings for an application, passwords will have to be updated after importing these bindings.  The same is true in the case of exporting an application to an MSI, and then importing this MSI package. Deployment
What is a routing failure report?  How is this related to inbound suspensions? One case of inbound suspensions is that there are no subscribers to the message being published.  This is known as a routing failure, and a routing failure report will be generated by the Message Box.  This failure report appears as a non-resumable suspended message in the Admin Console and you can view the message properties and message body of the associated message if you like.  There will also be a second suspended message, although this will be a resumable instance.  You’ll notice this appears in the MMC console but has more limited message properties.  This is because this message is resuamble from the point before the pipeline and the message you are seeing is identical to the message immediately passed off by the adapter.  If this is resumed, it will be processed through the pipeline (and inbound map, if specified) before handed off to the MessageBox if successful.

Be aware that the “routing of failed messages” and “recoverable interchange processing” messaging features make this behavior slightly more elaborate if enabled.  See previous FAQs for more information about these features.		 Messaging
How are other customers using the 2006 features? See http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/2006/prodinfo/case-studies.mspx for several case studies on the early success of our early adopters. Miscellaneous
What is the CTP version and how can I download it? The CTP is an interim build between BTS 2006 Beta-1 and Beta-2.  This is compatible with Visual Studio 2005 RTM and can also be used with SQL Server 2005 RTM.  It can be downloaded by joining the Beta program.  For more information, see this previous post. Platform
How do I get copies of VS 2005 RTM and SQL 2005 RTM? Trial copies of the RTM versions can be found here: Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005. Platform
What is the best way to remove previous Beta versions of VS and SQL to prepare my machine for the RTM versions? See this previous post. Platform
With the CTP, can I use MSIs from previous Beta versions of BizTalk Server 2006? No, due to changes in the .NET Framework you will not be able to import MSIs created with previous versions of BizTalk Server 2006.  You can move over BizTalk artifacts manually, but MSI import operation will not work.  It is also advisable to remove earlier MSI applications from "Add/Remove Programs" before upgrading the machine to the latest .NET Framework versions. Platform
I am getting errors in Internet Explorer and when trying to use HAT I get “Object doesn’t support this property or method” errors.  Any ideas?

If you have ever installed the Beta-1 of BTS 2006 you may experience some ActiveX errors after installing recent security patch (KB896688) from Windows Update.  Symptoms include: (1) Many web sites don’t work and report errors. Windows Update web site fails to scan for updates. (2) services.msc MMC snap-in shows ActiveX error when “Extended” tab is clicked on the bottom. (3) HAT reports ActiveX errors.  There is a newsgroup post on the private beta newsgroup with complete details.  Creating a .reg file with the following and then running it will resolve this:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\CLSID]
@="{0000031A-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}"

UPDATE: See KB Article 918320 for complete information.

 Platform

Note: These answers are accurate as of the day of this post and subject to change.