aWorkBlogByGus

Windows Azure Tools and Live Framework Tools Refreshed

2009-03-21T05:41:00Z

We’ve just refreshed the MIX releases of the Windows Azure Tools and the Live Framework Tools. The updated versions address an issue that would cause Visual Studio to close unexpectedly if run on specific language editions of Windows (e.g., German). In addition, the Windows Azure Tools refresh includes a fix that allows targeting a different instance of SQL Server other than SQL Server Express.

There’s no reason to upgrade to the new versions if you’re not affected by these issues but we felt they were worth addressing for those who have encountered them.

These updates address the issues described in Jim’s post and Danny’s post.

Note that these were *just* posted to MSDN and sometimes take a few hours to propagate across all download servers. To make sure you're getting the latest bits, please make sure the "Date Published" on the download page is 3/20/2009.

Just updated my Windows Azure Links page

2009-01-20T02:41:00Z

I've just posted an updated set of Windows Azure resources I've come across over time. While some of these sites are just getting started (and therefore don't have much content), I figured I'd include them since they seem to be targeting the Windows Azure space specifically. If I've missed any, feel free to contact me (via email or DM me on Twitter) and I'll consider them the next time I update the page.

Silverlight Debugging in Windows Azure Web Roles

2009-01-16T20:09:00Z

In the latest release of the Windows Azure Tools for Visual Studio, one of the new things you'll find is that we've added support for Silverlight debugging (i.e., hitting breakpoints in your Silverlight code). I originally posted some quick steps but have decided to just point everyone to a much more thorough post by Jim that has all the details one needs.

Windows Azure SDK and Windows Azure Tools Updated - Jan 2009 CTP

2009-01-15T00:30:00Z

We've just released the latest version of the Windows Azure SDK and the Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio. For the most part, we've concentrated on making things more robust, improving performance, and fixed plenty of bugs.

The areas you should mostly see improvements on are:

Code/Build/Run/Debug cycle
Support for Silverlight debugging on Web Roles
Improved Development Storage Service integration
Service definition and configuration file errors are now detailed in VS
Bug where publishing a package that was above a certain size would fail has been fixed as well

As always, the best place to post questions is on the Windows Azure Forum on MSDN as members from both the SDK and Tools teams monitor it.

Jim, has also posted about the release with some more details as well.

Created a Windows Azure Links page

2008-11-13T20:19:00Z

After yesterday's post, I've decided to create a single page that I'll update whenever I get a chance with links to sites that are focusing on Windows Azure. It includes both Microsoft and Community sites. Here's a link to it and I'll be adding it to my sidebar in a few minutes. Feel free to contact me with any other sites you think are worth adding to the list and I'll check them out and get them on there if it seems like the right thing to do.

Azure community off to a great start...

2008-11-12T20:26:00Z

While we're busy planning and working on the next release of the tools it seems a vibrant community has begun to rise around Windows Azure and other related services. It's been really fun to watch this happen as quickly as it has and with great quality. We had been working on all of this for some time eager for the PDC to arrive to see how customers and the community as a whole would respond once everything was announced and made available. It's been a couple of weeks now and there is plenty of goodness going on out there and I figured I'd give some link-lovin' to those that are clearly working pretty hard on getting content out there and helping people get started and go well beyond. Here's a list of links I've run across and will continue to check out going forward:

AzureCoding.net seems to be off to a great start run by Brownie and co.
Tanzim Saqib has been posting some great articles recently.
MyCloudApp.net is a wiki that covers Windows Azure as well as the rest of the stack.
AzureJournal.com is also worth visiting and subscribing to.

Of course, if you're not already doing so, definitely subscribe to our PM Jim Nakashima's blog who's clearly not sleeping more than a few minutes per day lately.

If there are any others out there that I missed (I'm sure I did), I apologize, but feel free to contact me and let me know as I'm sure I'll post again in the future in an effort to help folks starting out with Windows Azure find more resources online. Thanks all! Back to work now...

Install blocked on Visual Studio SP1?

2008-11-03T20:48:00Z

The Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio runs on top of either Visual Studio 2008 Standard (or above) or Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition. However, it requires the SP1 version of these and the installer will block if either of these are not at SP1 level with the following message:

Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio requires Visual Studio 2008 SP1 or Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition SP1. If you installed pre-SP1 components after upgrading to SP1, please reinstall SP1 and try again.

We're finding that some users that have both of these installed on their machines are left wondering what's wrong when they see this error message for a variety of reasons: some installed the Express version a long time ago and didn't remember they still had it, some weren't aware that installing the SP1 update for Visual Studio doesn't actually update the Express versions on the machine (a separate SP1 update exists for each of those), and some are expecting that it would work if only one of them was updated.

In the end, we require any versions you have be at SP1 level to reduce confusion and problems in the future. That said, we'll work on improving the error message (more specific and more actionable) in our next release.

In the meantime, if you're seeing this error with our October CTP, make sure you've applied the SP1 update for whatever versions of Visual Studio 2008 you have on your machine. You can find the updates here:

Visual Studio SP1
Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition SP1 (read this before upgrading)

Also, if you're one of those folks that are using a non-Express version of Visual Studio full time now and no longer plan on using the Express Edition, uninstalling the Express Edition should also get you past the installer error.

User name with spaces?

2008-11-03T19:52:00Z

Turns out there's a bug in the October CTP of the Windows Azure SDK having to do with user names that contain spaces. It looks like the right folks are on it at this point and it will hopefully get addressed in our next release (still figuring out our release frequency story). The best way to get around it and have everything work is to actually run under a user name without spaces. But if that's really not an option for you, you can try the following:

Open up an elevated command prompt.
Navigate to the directory where the Windows Azure SDK is installed (e.g., C:\Program Files\Windows Azure SDK).
CD your way into .\v1.0\bin\devfabric.
Start the dfservice.exe process as follows 'dfservice -sp <path_without_spaces>' where you replace the last argument with a directory that doesn't contain any spaces.

Next time the Development Fabric starts up (either from running your app from Visual Studio) or launching csrun.exe from the command-line, things will work reasonably but there will be problems around clean-up logic.

F# Worker Role type available now too!

2008-11-01T00:55:00Z

I'm not quite sure anymore who was first (doesn't really matter anyway) but I just noticed Luke from the F# team recently posted an MSI that will install an F# Worker Role template that will work against our CTP bits. You can find Luke's post with the details here and you can download the actual bits from here.

Windows Azure enabled Windows Live Tools CTP is now available

2008-10-31T20:38:00Z

Check out the first release to extend to our set of "Role" projects one can use for developing Windows Azure services. Vikas, a PM on the Windows Live Developer Platform team, just posted the details on their latest release. It includes instructions on how to create a "Windows Live Web Role" with our tools.

Windows 7 Support

2008-10-30T17:40:00Z

Yesterday I spoke to two folks trying to get the Windows Azure SDK and our tools working on Windows 7. Unfortunately, we've found that there's something around the time when you try to run your Azure service locally that fails. The right folks are looking into it now and we hope to have everything working in an upcoming release. In the meantime, the only supported OS' are Vista and Windows Server 2008 (32 or 64-bit of either).

Danny introduces the other side of our team...

2008-10-30T01:39:00Z

Our team, the Cloud Computing Tools team, is responsible for the bits I've been talking about so far but our team is also responsible for delivering the Live Framework Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio. Here's a link to his post and be sure to check out their tools as well! To do so, just follow the steps in the "Getting Started with the Live Framework" of our Dev Center page.

Windows Azure Gallery

2008-10-30T01:33:00Z

Steve Marx has shared out a link to the Windows Azure Gallery. If you've got a cool app that you want to share and already received a token (i.e., you can deploy your app), feel free to submit it to the Gallery.

PDC 2008 Hands On Labs are now available

2008-10-30T01:02:00Z

Jim, our team's PM, points to the Hands On Lab walkthroughs folks have been getting through at the PDC. Here's a link to the details. If you didn't get a chance to do it at the PDC (either because you saw the lines and didn't have the time or you're not at the PDC) these are a good way to get your hands dirty with our new bits.

Video streams of PDC sessions on Windows Azure

2008-10-29T01:59:00Z

If you weren't able to attend the PDC or did but missed any of these keynotes/sessions, the video streams for some are already up and actually really good quality (go Silverlight!). I'll update the links as they come on live but for now feel free to check out the ones with live links below.

Day 1 Keynote - (stream) - Demo happens around the 35 minute mark.
A Lap Around Windows Azure - (stream)
Developing and Deploying Your First Windows Azure Service - (stream)
Essential Cloud Storage Services - (stream)
Day 2 Keynote 2 (The Don & Chris Show) - (stream)
Modeling Data for Efficient Access at Scale - (stream)
Windows Azure: Programming in the Cloud - (stream)
Cloud Service Development Best Practices - (stream)

You can find all of the sessions and keynotes here also--tons of good stuff.

Update (10/31 @ 10:25am): Updated the rest of the links.