MSDN Managed Newsgroup Support Team Blog

All-In-One Code Framework (CodeFx) lands on MSDN China homepage

2009-09-22T16:50:00Z

CodeFx lands on MSDN China homepage to benefit Chinese developers. As the MSDN headline reads, “CodeFx makes learning and using Microsoft technologies easy and productive”. You can download the latest release of CodeFx on http://cfx.codeplex.com/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx.

All-In-One Code Framework

2009-03-11T13:53:00Z

Dear Friends. Have you ever needed a quick understanding of a technique, e.g. ActiveX or VSX, but been daunted by the few or too many samples and documents that are available on the Internet? Have you ever downloaded or created a good sample, e.g. a named pipe sample for IPC, but forgotten where the sample was placed after a few days? Have you ever wanted a simple test environment, e.g. a COM object or a DLL, but become tired of frequently creating such projects and naming them as "ClassLibrary1", "ClassLibrary2", "ClassLibraryABC"?

If your answer is YES to any one of these questions, this All-In-One Code Framework will be of assistance to you.

We recently created a sample-code project All-In-One Code Framework (codename CodeFx) on CodePlex.

All-In-One Code Framework delineates the framework and skeleton of most Microsoft development techniques (e.g. COM, Data Access, IPC) using typical sample codes in different programming languages (e.g. Visual C#, VB.NET, Visual C++). For instance, the code example ATLActiveXDll shows the skeleton of an ATL ActiveX DLL as its name implies. Each example is elaborately selected, composed, and documented to demonstrate one frequently-asked, tested or used scenario based on our experience as support engineers. If you are a software developer, you can fill the skeleton with blood, muscle and soul. If you are a software tester or a support engineer like us, you may extend the sample codes a little to fit your specific test scenario or refer your customer to this project if the customer's question coincides with what we collected.

Project Scope

The target of the project is to sketch the skeleton of most Microsoft development techniques using typical sample codes that are frequently-asked, tested or used. You can imagine each technique as a building. The foundation of the building (the basics of the technique) and the facilities inside the building (the details of the technique) are not in the scope. Instead, you fill find the structure of the building (the framework and skeleton of the technique) in the scope.

Features

All-In-One

All examples for all Microsoft development techniques are in one Visual Studio solution. All source codes, documents, and reference materials can be viewed or tested in one instance of Visual Studio.

Uniform

· All examples follow a uniform naming convention. The convention applies to the name of the projects, variables, methods, types, etc.

· All examples have a uniform style of coding, commenting and documentation. For instance, each code example has a ReadMe.txt file that documents the example. The content of ReadMe.txt follows this structure: Use (the purpose of the example), Project Relation (the relation between the current example and the rest), Build (how to build the example), Creation (the detailed steps to create such an example) and References (the reference materials).

· All examples of the same technique manage to provide a uniform output or export. For instance, ATLActiveXDll, ATLActiveXExe, CSDllCOMServer, VBDllCOMServer, MFCActiveX, MFCSafeActiveX, CSActiveX, VBActiveX are COM components in different forms. However, they export a uniform set of methods, properties and events.

Mutually Dependent

The code examples are mutually dependent or related, and many are efficiently reused by other examples to demonstrate the techniques. For instance, CppDllExport is a sample C++ DLL that exports the symbols of data, functions and classes. CppImplicitlyLinkDll depends on CppDllExport to demonstrate the implicit link of a DLL; CppDelayloadDll delay-loads the DLL; CppLoadLibrary dynamically loads the DLL; CSPInvokeDll uses CppDllExport to show the use of .NET Platform Invocation Service.

Source of Examples

The sample codes are refined out of our supports for developers in the newsgroups and the forums. You can think of the project as a collection of most frequently requested test scenarios in contrast with FAQs.

The above four features are highlighted because most sample code sites like www.codeproject.com and MSDN lack them. Besides, the code examples in All-In-One Code Framework are typical, extensible, structured, complete, and easy to understand.

Current Stage

In the pilot phase of the project, we focus on five techniques: COM, Library, IPC, Office and Data Access. Today is March 8, 2009. There have been 36 code examples in the project. The collection currently grows at a rate of seven examples per week.

The following examples are the epitome of CodeFx on 2009-3-1. For an up-to-date list, please refer to All-In-One Code Framework Examples.

Examples for COM and ActiveX:

Name	Description
CSDllCOMServer	A COM server written in C#
VBDllCOMServer	A COM server written in VB.NET
ATLActiveXDll	An in-process ATL COM Server
ATLActiveXExe	An out-of-process ATL COM Server
MFCActiveX	A MFC ActiveX Control
MFCSafeActiveX	A MFC ActiveX Control Safe for Scripting and Initialization
CSActiveX	A C# ActiveX Control
VBActiveX	A VB.NET ActiveX Control
CppCOMClient	Use COM servers in a C++ application
CSCOMClient	Host ActiveX controls use COM servers in C#
VBCOMClient	Host ActiveX controls and use COM servers in VB.NET
MFCCOMClient	Host ActiveX controls and use COM servers in MFC
HTMLEmbedActiveX	Host ActiveX controls in HTML

Examples for Data Access:

Name	Description
CSUseADO	Use ADO in a C# application
CppUseADO	Use ADO in a C++ application
CSUseADONET	Use ADO.NET in a C# application
CppUseADONET	Use ADO.NET in a C++ application

Examples for Library:

Name	Description
CppDllExport	A C++ dynamic library export symbols
CppImplicitlyLinkDll	C++ implicitly links a DLL
CppDelayloadDll	C++ delay-loads a DLL
CppLoadLibrary	C++ dynamically loads a DLL
CSLoadLibrary	C# dynamically loads a native DLL
CSPInvokeDll	C# P/Invokes a native DLL
CSClassLibrary	A C# Class Library
CppHostCLR	C++ hosts CLR and loads a .NET assembly
CSReflection	C# dynamically loads and uses the types of a .NET assembly
CSEmitAssembly	C# emits an assembly with types in runtime
CppStaticLibrary	A C++ Static Library
CppStaticallyLinkLib	C++ statically links a static library

Examples for IPC and RPC:

Name	Description
CppNamedPipeServer	A named-pipe server written in C++
CppNamedPipeClient	A named-pipe client written in C++
CSNamedPipeServer	A named-pipe server written in C#
CSNamedPipeClient	A named-pipe client written in C#
CppMailslotServer	A mailslot server written in C++
CppMailslotClient	A mailslot client written in C++
CppFileMappingServer	Create shared memory in C++
CppFileMappingClient	Access shared memory in C++
CSRemotingServer	A .NET Remoting server written in C#
CSRemotingClient	A .NET Remoting client written in C#
VBRemotingServer	A .NET Remoting server written in VB
VBRemotingClient	A .NET Remoting client written in VB

Feedback

We look forward to hearing your feedback. Please post your suggestions and ideas in Discussions or contact us directly. Your comments on this project are appreciated.

Thank you!

How to bind a DataGridView column to a second-level property of a data source

2007-01-19T11:29:00Z

This is a frequently asked question. Suppose that we have a class Person which has a property of type Address(another class). The class Address has its own properties. Now we create a collection of Person objects, e.g. List<Person> and would like to bind a DataGridView to the collection.

The following is the code for class Person and Address.

class Person

{

private string id;

private string name;

private Address homeAddr;

public string ID

{

get { return id;}

set { id = value;}

}

public string Name

{

get { return name;}

set { name = value;}

}

public Address HomeAddr

{

get { return homeAddr;}

set { homeAddr = value;}

}

class Address

{

private string cityname;

private string postcode;

public string CityName

{

get { return cityname;}

set { cityname = value;}

}

public string PostCode

{

get { return postcode;}

set { postcode = value;}

}

As we all know, DataGridView columns could only be bound to the first-level properties of class Person, e.g. the ID, Name or HomeAddr properties. The following is the code to bind a DataGridView to a collection of Person objects.

List<Person> persons = new List<Person>();

// add some Person objects to the collection

...

dataGridView1.DataSource = persons;

dataGridView1.Columns[0].DataPropertyName = "ID";

dataGridView1.Columns[1].DataPropertyName = "Name";

dataGridView1.Columns[2].DataPropertyName = "HomeAddr";

When a DataGridView column is bound to the HomeAddr property, the name of the class Address will be displayed under the column, i.e. projectname.Address.

If we set the DataPropertyName property of a DataGridView column to "HomeAddr.CityName", an empty text will be displayed under the column, because DataGridView could not find a property called "HomeAddr.CityName" in the class Person.

Is there a way to bind a DataGridView column to the CityName or PostCode property of the HomeAddr property? The answer is YES!

.NET Framework 1.x can implement ICustomTypeDescriptor interface for the class Person. When a Person object in the collection is going to be displayed in a control, data binding calls ICustomTypeDescriptor.GetProperties method to get the object's properties. When implementing ICustomTypeDescriptor.GetProperties method, we could create PropertyDescriptor instances for the second-level properties and return them with the original PropertyDescriptor instances of class Person.

There're two problems here. One problem is that if there's no object in the collection, the ICustomTypeDescriptor.GetProperties method won't be called so that DataGridView couldn't 'see' secondary-level properties of class Person. The other problem is that it requires modifying the class Person because the class Person needs to implement the ICustomTypeDescriptor interface.

To work around the first problem, we could resort to ITypedList interface, i.e. implement the ITypedList interface for the collection. If a data source has implemented the ITypedList interface, data binding calls ITypedList.GetItemProperties to get the properties available for binding. In the ITypedList.GetItemProperties method, we could create an instance of class Person and then call TypeDescriptor.GetProperties(component) method passing the Person instance as the parameter, which in turn calls ICustomTypeDescriptor.GetProperties of the class Person implementation.

.NET Framework 2.0 way is to make use of TypeDescriptionProvider and CustomTypeDescriptor classes, which expand support for ICustomTypeDescriptor. It allows you to write a separate class that implements ICustomTypeDescriptor (for convenience, we could derive the class directly from CustomTypeDescriptor which provides a simple default implementation of the ICustomTypeDescriptor interface) and then to register this class as the provider of description for other types.

Even if a type is added a TypeDesciptionProvider, data binding won't call the custom type descriptor's GetProperties method to get the object's properties. So we still need to implement ITypedList interface for the collection and in the ITypedList.GetItemProperties method, call TypeDescriptor.GetProperties(type) which in turn calls the custom type descriptor's GetProperties method.

To take advantage of this new functionality, we first need to create a TypeDescriptionProvider, which simply derives from TypeDescriptionProvider and overrides its GetTypeDescriptor method. GetTypeDescriptor returns the ICustomTypeDescriptor implementation or the derived CustomTypeDescriptor that TypeDescriptor should use when querying for property descriptors.

When creating providers that are only intended to augment or modify the existing metadata for a type, rather than completely replace it, a recommended approach is to call 'TypeDescriptor.GetProvider' method in the new providers' constructor to get the current provider for the specified type. This base provider can then be used whenever you need to access the underlying type description.

As for PropertyDescriptor, it is an abstract class that derives from another abstract class, MemberDescriptor. MemberDescriptor provides the basic information for each property, and PropertyDescriptor adds functionality related to changing a property's value and determining when that value has changed. To create a PropertyDescriptor on the class Person for each second-level property, we first need to create a custom class that derives from PropertyDescriptor. Pass the original PropertyDescriptor of the second-level property in the new PropertyDescriptor class's constructor, and then use the original PropertyDescriptor whenever we need to query the information of the second-level property.

The following is the code of a custom class that derives from PropertyDescriptor.

public class SubPropertyDescriptor : PropertyDescriptor

{

private PropertyDescriptor _subPD;

private PropertyDescriptor _parentPD;

public SubPropertyDescriptor(PropertyDescriptor parentPD,PropertyDescriptor subPD,string pdname)

: base(pdname,null)

{

_subPD = subPD;

_parentPD = parentPD;

}

public override bool IsReadOnly { get { return false; } }

public override void ResetValue(object component) { }

public override bool CanResetValue(object component) { return false; }

public override bool ShouldSerializeValue(object component)

{

return true;

}

public override Type ComponentType

{

get { return _parentPD.ComponentType; }

}

public override Type PropertyType { get { return _subPD.PropertyType; } }

public override object GetValue(object component)

{

return _subPD.GetValue(_parentPD.GetValue(component));

}

public override void SetValue(object component, object value)

{

_subPD.SetValue(_parentPD.GetValue(component), value);

OnValueChanged(component, EventArgs.Empty);

}

The following is the code of a derived CustomTypeDescriptor class.

public class MyCustomTypeDescriptor : CustomTypeDescriptor

{

public MyCustomTypeDescriptor(ICustomTypeDescriptor parent)

: base(parent)

{

}

public override PropertyDescriptorCollection GetProperties()

{

PropertyDescriptorCollection cols = base.GetProperties();

PropertyDescriptor addressPD = cols["HomeAddr"];

PropertyDescriptorCollection homeAddr_child = addressPD.GetChildProperties();

PropertyDescriptor[] array = new PropertyDescriptor[cols.Count + 2];

cols.CopyTo(array, 0);

array[cols.Count] = new SubPropertyDescriptor(addressPD,homeAddr_child["CityName"],"HomeAddr_CityName");

array[cols.Count + 1] = new SubPropertyDescriptor(addressPD, homeAddr_child["PostCode"], "HomeAddr_PostCode");

PropertyDescriptorCollection newcols = new PropertyDescriptorCollection(array);

return newcols;

}

The following is the code of the custom TypeDescriptorProvider.

public class MyTypeDescriptionProvider : TypeDescriptionProvider

{

private ICustomTypeDescriptor td;

public MyTypeDescriptionProvider()

: this(TypeDescriptor.GetProvider(typeof(Person)))

{

}

public MyTypeDescriptionProvider(TypeDescriptionProvider parent)

: base(parent)

{

}

public override ICustomTypeDescriptor GetTypeDescriptor(Type objectType, object instance)

{

if (td == null)

{

td = base.GetTypeDescriptor(objectType, instance);

td = new MyCustomTypeDescriptor(td);

}

return td;

}

At the end, we adorn TypeDescriptionProviderAttribute to the class Person.

[TypeDescriptionProvider(typeof(MyTypeDescriptionProvider))]

class Person

{...}

Then we could bind a DataGridView column to the second-level properties in the class Person as follows:

dataGridView1.Columns[2].DataPropertyName = "HomeAddr_CityName";

dataGridView1.Columns[3].DataPropertyName = "HomeAddr_PostCode";

Linda Liu

What’s new in Microsoft Visual SourceSafe 2005?

2007-01-11T12:35:00Z

As you all know, Microsoft Visual SourceSafe 6.0(VSS 6.0) was first shipped in 1998. Although there are 4 versions from 6.0a to 6.0d, it had been about 7 year before the next version VSS 2005(VSS 8.0) was released. You may be curious on how many things have been changed in this big step. Here, I listed some major ones.

1. Internet Access

The most obvious and vital change might be the Internet Access. This feature enables you to connect to VSS database when you’re outside your office. It’s normally much faster that connecting through VPN. VSS 2005 can expose web service to perform most of the work we do in the LAN. In the 6.0 version, we can only achieve this by using some 3^rd party tools like SourceOffSite from SourceGear.

Since it is a web service, it requires that you have IIS installed on your machine. Here is an MSDN article about detailed steps of how to setup this web service.

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/ko-kr/library/ms181057(VS.80).aspx

In Visual Studio 2005, you can specify the source control provider from Tools/Options dialog in the main menu.

However, in VS.NET 2003 and older versions, there is no integrated way for us to set the active provider. We have to do this by manually registering the source control provider .dll file: regsvr32.exe RemoteVsScc.dll or you can use some 3^rd party tools like Scc Switcher.

http://www.codeproject.com/tools/sccswitcher.asp

Of course, manually modifying the registry key will be another option. Here is a KB article with detailed steps to do this.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;319318

2. LAN Booster Service

Another improvement is called LAN Booster Service.

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms181058(VS.80).aspx

After enabling it with the steps shown in the above link, a new service SSService.exe will be running under the LocalSystem account on the server machine. This service compresses all the files that are going to be transferred through the network on the wire, which will improve performance at about 3-5 times. However, from name of it, we can know that this service is only available for LAN provider. (NOT for internet provider)

3. Better Visual Studio Integration.

Now VSS 2005 has better integration with Visual Studio. An obvious example is that users don’t need to select “Open From Source Control” to open solutions from VSS database. This function has been put into the Open Project/Solution dialog.

4. Migration Tools Needed?

The database format is not changed from VSS 6.0 to VSS 2005. So no migration tool is needed for you to upgrade databases. You can simply copy them to the new server.

5. Asynchronously File Retrieval

When you get files in VS.NET IDE, there will be a dialog box popped up, indicating that files will be retrieved from server asynchronously. This means if you have a large solution/project, you can start working when some of the files have been retrieved. And file transfer from server will not block your IDE.

6. Programming Interfaces(Automation)

Like previous versions, VSS 2005 has a complete set of interfaces (known as SCC API) developed for us to program on it. It also has been ported to interop assemblies for .NET development.

Furthermore, the Visual Studio SCC API forward with a new 1.3 version. 1.3 includes all existing 1.1 and 1.2 methods plus some new methods to help support asynchronous Open from Source Control and propagation of Renames and Deletes from Visual Studio.

7. No Longer Supports SQL Server Objects Versioning

Unfortunately the earlier support in VS.NET 2003 for versioning SQL server objects will no longer be supported in VS 2005. However, we can find some workaround like saving the script (.sql) files in VSS, since all SQL Server creations and modifications can be translated to SQL scripts.

Here I just listed some most important changes. If you have other stuff that is not included here, welcome for your comments.

How to troubleshoot the COM Add-ins loading issues

2006-12-28T12:10:00Z

1. What is the unmanaged COM Add-ins loading process?

Here is a COM Add-in registry example.

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\Excel\AddIns\UnmanagedAddin.Connect]

"FriendlyName"="UnmanagedAddin"

"Description"="Composed in ATL 8.0"

"LoadBehavior"=dword:00000003

HKEY_CURRENT_USER: this is user level COM-Addin

Excel: This is an Excel COM Addin

UnmanagedAddin.Connect: This is progid of the COM Add-in

LoadBehavior: control how the Add-in will be loaded.

You may refer the link below about LoadBehavior

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=824251

a) Check the registry for the available COM Add-ins

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\Excel\AddIns\

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Excel\Addins\

HKEY_CURRENT_USER one: stored the COM Add-ins for the current user only. (i.e. when we installed the Add-in, we checked “just for me”, user level)

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE one: stored the COM Add-ins for all users. (i.e. when we installed the Add-in, we checked “Everyone”, machine level)

b) Found an entry of Add-in (UnmanagedAddin.Connect) of LoadBehavior 3.

c) Attempt to locate the COM DLL of progid “UnmanagedAddin.Connect”(Common COM Load procedure)

i. Found HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\UnmanagedAddin.Connect\CurVer

Default Value is “UnmanagedAddin.Connect.1"

ii. Found “HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\UnmanagedAddin.Connect.1\CLSID”

Default Value is “{F51126A7-472D-4D3D-A011-8D1467F6BAFD}”

iii. Located the registry key below.

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{F51126A7-472D-4D3D-A011-8D1467F6BAFD}

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{F51126A7-472D-4D3D-A011-8D1467F6BAFD}]

@="Connect Class"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{F51126A7-472D-4D3D-A011-8D1467F6BAFD}\InprocServer32]

@="c:\\users\\username\\documents\\visual studio 2005\\projects\\comaddins\\unmanagedaddin\\debug\\UnmanagedAddin.dll"

"ThreadingModel"="Apartment"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{F51126A7-472D-4D3D-A011-8D1467F6BAFD}\ProgID]

@="UnmanagedAddin.Connect.1"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{F51126A7-472D-4D3D-A011-8D1467F6BAFD}\Programmable]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{F51126A7-472D-4D3D-A011-8D1467F6BAFD}\TypeLib]

@="{A5A5FD6A-2A19-4DB6-AB8F-51735C47CDAD}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{F51126A7-472D-4D3D-A011-8D1467F6BAFD}\VersionIndependentProgID]

@="UnmanagedAddin.Connect"

iv. Loaded the DLL with Win32 LoadLibrary API.

2. What is the managed COM Add-ins loading process?

a) The steps are similar except for step 1 c) iii

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{5E5E6110-C49E-41FD-891B-7693500F0EC4}]

@="ManagedAddin.Connect"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{5E5E6110-C49E-41FD-891B-7693500F0EC4}\Implemented Categories]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{5E5E6110-C49E-41FD-891B-7693500F0EC4}\Implemented Categories\{62C8FE65-4EBB-45e7-B440-6E39B2CDBF29}]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{5E5E6110-C49E-41FD-891B-7693500F0EC4}\InprocServer32]

@="mscoree.dll"

"ThreadingModel"="Both"

"Class"="ManagedAddin.Connect"

"Assembly"="ManagedAddin, Version=1.0.2552.27634, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null"

"RuntimeVersion"="v2.0.50727"

"CodeBase"="file:///C:/Users/username/Documents/Visual Studio 2005/Projects/COMAddins/ManagedAddin/bin/Debug/ManagedAddin.dll"

b) In a managed scenario, the mscoree.dll will be loaded instead of the Add-in DLL directly. Then, it is the mscoree.dll which loads the managed Add-in DLL.

3. General troubleshooting steps are based on the COM Add-ins Load Process.

a) Disable all the other COM Add-ins and restart Office Product

b) Go through the COM Add-in Load Procedure.

i. If the registry key existed (refer to 1 a)), did the LoadBehavior set to 3?

ii. Follow the steps that how COM DLL is Loaded (refer to 1 c))

4. Some general approaches.

a) By default the .NET CAS (Code Access Security) setting is OK for COM Add-ins, but this is a new security check added by .NET. When you develop managed COM Add-ins, you may try to add “Full Trust” permission set for the Add-in DLL when you have no idea.

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/930b76w0.aspx

b) Embrace your code in a “try…catch” block and write Log when error occurred.

c) Isolate the problem.

Comment out all of your code, and put the simple code as below in your OnConnect method. Once this is called, we should consider the Add-in loading to be OK.

e.g.

STDMETHODIMP CConnect::OnConnection(IDispatch *pApplication, AddInDesignerObjects::ext_ConnectMode /*ConnectMode*/, IDispatch *pAddInInst, SAFEARRAY ** /*custom*/ )

{

::MessageBoxW(NULL,L"Hello",L"Test Dialog",MB_ICONINFORMATION);

return S_OK;

}

d) Leverage the tools Filemon/Regmon to track the registry/file security setting.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/filemon.mspx

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/regmon.mspx

Manage database of ASP.NET 2.0 Membership & Role services in non-ASP.NET context

2006-12-16T18:12:00Z

One question I’ve seen asked a few times by people in the NG is “how do I manage ASP.NET Membership, Role Management database in non-ASP.NET application/context”. This blog entry walks you though a few simple steps on how to-do this.

Quick Review: What are the new ASP.NET 2.0 membership & role management Services?

The ASP.NET version 2.0 membership feature provides secure credential storage for application users. It also provides a membership API that simplifies the task of validating user credentials when used with forms authentication. Membership providers abstract the underlying store used to maintain user credentials. ASP.NET 2.0 includes the following providers:

ActiveDirectoryMembershipProvider. This uses either an Active Directory or Active Directory Application Mode (ADAM) user store.
SqlMembershipProvider. This uses a SQL Server user store.

Here I’ll concentrate on the SQL Server provider since it is used mostly for FormsAuthentication based ASP.NET web applications. By default ASP.NET SqlServer membership/role provider use SQL Express database file(aspnetdb.mdf) as the storage, however, you can easily change it to your own SQL Server database in a certain server instance. What you need to do is simply override/customize the membership setting in the application web.config file. E.g.

</connectionStrings>

<system.web>

...

<add

name="SqlProvider"

type="System.Web.Security.SqlMembershipProvider"

connectionStringName="MySqlConnection"

applicationName="MyApplication"

enablePasswordRetrieval="false"

enablePasswordReset="true"

requiresQuestionAndAnswer="true"

requiresUniqueEmail="true"

passwordFormat="Hashed" />

</providers>

</membership>

How do I manage ASP.NET Membership, Role Management database in non-ASP.NET application/context?

Sometimes you may want to manage the SQL Server membership/role database in non-ASP.NET application/context(such as winform or console application) for some certain reasons:

l Need to add some initial data(users/roles) in the setup program of the application

l Want to create a non-ASP.NET application to manage the membershp/role database offline

l Create a non-ASP.NET application that can help create a membership/role database as template(used in other ASP.NET application).

Well, this is certainly supported by the ASP.NET 2.0 membership/role(also some other) providers and you can do this follow these steps:

1. add the connectionstring to your SQL Server membershp & role provider database into the winform/console application’s App.confg file. e.g.

<add name="ProfileAppDB" connectionString="Data Source=localhost;Initial Catalog=ProfileAppDB;Integrated Security=True"

providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />

</connectionStrings>

2. copy the membershp & role setting fragment from your ASP.NET application into the winform/console application’s App.config file. e.g.

…………..

<system.web>

……………

<add name="NewAspNetSqlMembershipProvider"

type="System.Web.Security.SqlMembershipProvider, System.Web, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a"

connectionStringName="ProfileAppDB" enablePasswordRetrieval="false" enablePasswordReset="true" requiresQuestionAndAnswer="true" applicationName="/" requiresUniqueEmail="false" passwordFormat="Hashed" maxInvalidPasswordAttempts="5" minRequiredPasswordLength="7" minRequiredNonalphanumericCharacters="1" passwordAttemptWindow="10" passwordStrengthRegularExpression="" />

</providers>

</membership>

<add name="NewAspNetSqlRoleProvider" connectionStringName="ProfileAppDB" applicationName="/"

type="System.Web.Security.SqlRoleProvider, System.Web, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a" />

</providers>

</roleManager>

</system.web>

……………

3. Use the built-in façade classes to manage the membership users and roles. E.g.

/// <summary>

/// Dump the users and associated roles from membership database

/// </summary>

private void Dump_Users()

{

MembershipUserCollection users = Membership.GetAllUsers();

txtOutput.Text += "\r\n=========Total User Count: " + users.Count + "==========";

txtOutput.Text += "\r\n\r\n";

foreach (MembershipUser user in users)

{

txtOutput.Text += "\r\n\tUsername: " +user.UserName + "\t, Creation Time: " + user.CreationDate;

string[] roles = Roles.GetRolesForUser(user.UserName);

txtOutput.Text += "\r\n Roles: " + string.Join(", ",roles);

}

/// <summary>

/// create a new membership user

/// </summary>

private void btnCreate_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)

{

MembershipCreateStatus ret;

MembershipUser user = Membership.CreateUser(

txtUsername.Text,

txtPassword.Text,

txtUsername.Text + "@test.org",

"who am i?",

txtUsername.Text, true, null, out ret);

MessageBox.Show(ret.ToString());

}

Winform App UI

Additional common questions here:

Q1: What shall I do if I can not add an App.config file for the program at design-time(used in a setup program)? How can I provide the connectionstring and membershp provider configuration info?

A1: You can dynamically create an app.exe.config file for your program in the initialization/startup time. Use built-in API to get the runtime main exe path and create a config file on the fly, then write the configuration info into it(load from resource or any other place).

Q2: How can I programmatically install the membership & role services into an empty SQL Server database(in a certain server instance)?

A2: You have two options here:

ü Call the aspnet_regsql.exe utility the install the services in your database

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/x28wfk74.aspx

ü Directly use the System.Web.Management.SqlServices class to install the services into your SQL Server database

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.web.management.sqlservices.aspx

Q3: How can I do programmatically create a SQL Express database file which has the membershp & role services installed

A3: Well, you can find that ASP.NET Sqlmembership provider will automatically create a mdf file if you’ve configured to use the default SQL Express connectionstring. Thus, you can inspect it through reflector and find out the SqlConnectionHelper.CreateMdfFile method which include the complete code for creating such as database file on the fly

Hope this helps.

Steven Cheng

Use your ASP .NET WebControl in MOSS 2007 with Sharepoint Delegate Control

2006-12-08T10:45:00Z

In the new release of Sharepoint Server (MOSS 2007), a very interesting control is provided, "DelegateControl", under Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.SPControl. With this control we can easily reuse our ASP.NET control on SPS pages. Now, an ASP .NET programmer can name himself a "part time SPS Web part developer" :)

Here is sample on how you can use DelegateControl on a sharepoint page:

1. Create an ASP .NET WebControl (ASPNETControl.ascx) file as following:

<%@ Control Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" ClassName="ASPNETControl" %>

protected void Button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)

{

TextBox1.Text = System.DateTime.Now.ToShortDateString();

}

</script>

<asp:TextBox ID="TextBox1" runat="server"></asp:TextBox>

<asp:Button ID="Button1" runat="server" OnClick="Button1_Click" Text="Button" />

2. Create a folder "ASPNETControl" under:

\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\CONTROLTEMPLATES

And Copy the file (ASPNETControl.ascx) to this folder.

3. Create two xml file feature.xml (fixed name, must be feature.xml) and Control.xml:

Feature.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>

<Feature Id="62D5F317-A793-4328-A250-50CBE1F5B70E"

Title="ASPNETControl"

Scope="Farm"

Description="Test ASPNET control"

Version="1.0.0.0"

xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/" >

</ElementManifests>

</Feature>

Control.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>

<Control Id="ASPNETControl"

ControlSrc="~/_ControlTemplates/ASPNETControl/ASPNETControl.ascx"

Sequence="100" >

</Control>

</Elements>

4. Create a folder "ASPNETControl" under following folder:

\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\FEATURES

And copy the two XML files into it.

5. Execute stsadm.exe to run following command:

Stsadm -o installfeature -filename ASPNETControl\feature.xml -force

6. Open Sharepoint 3.0 central Administration, in

Central Administration>Operations>Global Configuration>Manage Farm Features

You will notice this new feature has been enabled by default

7. Open your site with SharePoint Designer 2007, and add following line in the default.aspx:

<SharePoint:DelegateControl ControlId="ASPNETControl" RunAt="server" />

Save the page, and view your site again. You will see the control has been updated on it.

Additionally, for those ASP .NET controls with code behind, you need to copy the .cs or .vb file with the .ascx file

Row Size limitation in SQL 2000 and 2005

2006-12-01T08:17:00Z

When you creating a table, you may encounter the following information: ' Table <table name> has been created but its maximum row size(11038) exceeds the maximum number of bytes per row (8060). INSERT or UPDATE Of a row in this table will fail if the resulting row length exceeds 8060 bytes.

The reason for the error is that maximum size of a row on your table exceeds 8kb. This restriction is by SQL 2000 design. SQL Server engine stores it's data on 8kb pages & a single record must fit in a single page and cannot be spanned to multiple pages. You may want to reduce number of

fields on your table or shorten the field length of some columns.

Data pages are the structures that contain all data that is not text or image. As with all other types of pages in SQL Server, data pages have a fixed size of 8 KB, or 8192 bytes. They consist of three major components: the page header, data rows, and the row offset array. The following is the structure of a data page in SQL Server.

In SQL Server 7.0 and SQL Server 2000 we are allowed to create a table that contains variable columns with a total length GT. 8060 (the total sum of fixed length columns must be LT 8060 as well as the length of an individual column).

However when executing an inset or an update statement SQL Server may fail if the actual length is greater than 8K. You may want to try the following statements in SQL 2000 to see this behavior:

CREATE TABLE mytab ( col1 varchar(8000), col2 varchar(8000) )

-- Warning: The table 'mytab' has been created but its maximum row size (16025) exceeds the maximum number of bytes per row (8060). INSERT or UPDATE of a row in this table will fail if the resulting row length exceeds 8060 bytes.