Free eLearning from Developer eLearning on MSDN

benmiller — Mon, 18 Apr 2005 18:57:00 GMT

Check this out. http://msdn.microsoft.com/elearning/

First course is about Windows Server : Taking Advantage of 64-Bit Computing. This is your opportunity to take advantage of some Free Developer learning that is free and available 24/7. On that page there is a description of the courses and best of all, YOU COULD WIN SOME COOL PRIZES :-). Rules for the sweepstakes are on the site through a link.

Grand Prize Sony 50" Plasma WEGA High Definition TV ultimate home theater package
2nd Prize Nikon D70 SLR Digital Camera package
3rd Prize Bose Acoustic Wave 5-CD Music System
4th Prize Bose Acoustic Noise Cancelling Headphones

Now how is that for some cool prizes. Get out there now and take a course. This learning will cover some key new technologies in Visual Studio 2005. There will be more courses planned in the near future, but for now, go get involved. You deserve it.

Have a great day and go see the site for details.

Installing VS 2005 Beta 1 Refresh with Team Server

benmiller — Sat, 30 Oct 2004 04:35:00 GMT

I spent the better part of my day a couple of days ago helping out someone having problems installing Visual Studio 2005 Beta 1 Refresh with Team System.

It was such an experience that I decided to blog about it.

I began with 2 VPC images (cause I found out that you could install it on 2 machines and could not install it on 1) with Windows Server 2003 on them. The first thing I recommend is to become familiar with the Installation Roadmap that is on the DVD’s. This illustrates that you need a DB Server (for the DB Tier) and a Application Box (for App Tier, and Client Tier). On the DB Tier machine (VPC) I created a domain controller and Active Directory. I allowed the installer to create a DNS server so that I could have name resolution between the 2 VPC’s. I then added the Server Role of Application Server (IIS and ASP.NET Enabled). I then installed SQL Server 2005 Beta 2 that came with the VS 2005 Beta 1 Refresh DVD, and configured it as the DEFAULT instance (as this is required for this version of TS).

Then I turned to the other VPC. I joined it to the domain I just created and then added the Server Role of App Server (IIS and ASP.NET but NOT Frontpage Server Extensions as it will break the install). Then created a User that is a domain account and gave it admin rights. This will be used for the Application Pool identity. Then the key was to install the components that were on the list of components to install from the Roadmap. (included .NET Framework 2.0, Sharepoint Services 2.0 – link is in the Roadmap, and ADAM.)

These are the short steps, but the key is to follow the Roadmap and I highlighted the main points that cannot be missed or you will not succeed in installing it (from my experience).

1. DB Server must be installed as the Default Instance.

2. App Server Role on AppTier cannot have FrontPage Server Extensions enabled.

3. IIS Installed before the SQL 2005 Beta 2 is installed on the DBTier.

What you will see that may alarm you when you install is when you go to install Team Server on the App Tier is that the install will hang installing the newbanner.gif file and it will continue to bring the blue bar across as it is installing. There will be no visual indication that it is connecting to the DB Tier to create databases, etc. but that is what it is doing. I found out this by when I installed the Database Server as a named instance, it would continue to go after the newbanner.gif and then it would fail with a 26205 and a 26201 and a 26204 error. In the event logs, I found that it indicated that it could not connect to the server (db). When I changed the DB Tier to be a default instance of SQL, then it succeeded (and it took a while, so be patient).

Hope this helps people out there that may run into problems. I did this on VPC using Virtual Server 2005 on 1 box with 2 VPC’s each with 256 MB RAM. More would have been better, but it worked at least.

Have a great one.

New CTP versions of Visual Studio 2005 Express

benmiller — Fri, 22 Oct 2004 00:24:00 GMT

If you have not yet, you can go here http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/vs2005/downloads/default.aspx and get the latest Community Tech Preview of the Visual Studio 2005 Express Versions.

Love that ASP.NET and SQL Server : Visual Studio

Free eLearning from Developer eLearning on MSDN

Installing VS 2005 Beta 1 Refresh with Team Server

New CTP versions of Visual Studio 2005 Express