Microsoft Deprecates Its Oracle Data Provider for .NET - Now What?

Microsoft announced it is deprecating Microsoft OracleClient, a Microsoft-built .NET data provider for the Oracle Database because third-party providers, such as Oracle, offer superior ADO.NET providers.

If you have been using this provider with your applications, ask yourself: “What do I do now?”

For existing Microsoft OracleClient developers, this is an opportunity to take a fresh look at the Oracle Data Provider for .NET (ODP.NET), which is free to download from OTN. In recent years, Oracle has added new features to ODP.NET for performance tuning, user-defined types, advanced queuing, RAC connection pooling, and supporting multiple ODP.NET client versions simultaneously on the same machine.

Check out the ODP.NET for Microsoft OracleClient Developers page to learn why developers are choosing ODP.NET for their Oracle .NET projects, and how using ODP.NET makes .NET applications for Oracle Database more stable, flexible and faster.

The page will also provide a step-by-step Microsoft OracleClient to ODP.NET migration tutorial in the near future.

Hope it helps...

Paul

End of free support for some Microsoft products…

This April, 14 marks the end of free support for Windows XP and Office 2003, so in the same way to Windows Server 2003 SP1, “meaning it will no longer provide support for that four-year-old release”.

Microsoft is offering paid, extended support for XP Professional users (who also have Software Assurance licensing contracts) until April 8, 2014. It also will provide paid, extended support for Office 2003 through August 4, 2012.

In case you’re wondering about support deadlines for other Windows and Office products, here is the link.

So according some calculations of Mary Jo Foley, about the support deadlines, the following list is a good start if you’re interested:

Windows 2000: Free support ended June 30, 2005; paid support ends on July 13, 2010. Service Pack 3 was retired on June 30, 2005. No more SPs planned.

Windows XP SP2: Service pack will be retired on July 13, 2010.

Windows XP SP3: Service pack due to be retired two years after SP4 (if there is one) releases or in  April 2014, whichever comes first.

Windows Vista Business: Free support ends on April 10, 2012; paid support ends on April 11, 2017.

Windows Vista SP1: Service pack will be retired two years after the release of SP2 (which is expected in April 2009), so likely in April 2011 (?).

Office 2003 SP3: Service pack will be retired one year after SP4 (if there is one, which is doubtful) is released or in August 2014, whichever comes first.

Office 2007: Free support ends on April 10, 2012; paid support ends on April 11, 2017.

Office 2007 SP1: Service pack will be retired a year after SP2 debuts, so likely in April 2010 (?).

Windows Server 2008: Free support ends September 7, 2013; paid support ends October 7, 2018.

This month also marks the final release for Vista SP2 and Office 2007 SP2.

Among the new features slated for Office 2007 SP2 are previously announced file-format changes — specifically support for Open Document Format (ODF), Microsoft’s own XML Paper Specfication (XPS) and PDF. SP2 also is expected add improvements to Outlook calendaring reliability and improved Outlook performance overall; improvements to Excel’s charting mechanism; the ability for Visio to export UML models to an XML file compliant with the XMI standard; and an uninstall tool for Office client service packs.

Vista SP2 is anticipated to include a new capability for recording data on to Blu-Ray media natively in Windows Vista; the addition of Windows Connect Now for simpler wifi configuration; fixes for DRM issues from WMP upgrades; the Vista Feature Pack for Wireless; functionality for reducing resources required for sidebar gadgets; and more.

So I hope this information extracted of a post of Mary Jo Foley should be interested for you…

Best regards…

Forcing Sharepoint Server 2007 Uninstallation

Hello everyone...

This is a hot post...a few minutes ago I was trying to forcing a SharePoint Server 2007 uninstallation, the reason...well the farm totally crashes...well I have all the responsibility over the fault, because I detach the ContentDB for the Central Administration Site, I tried to attach it again, but with no success.

So in my test environment I decided to restart the process, but for my surprise I can’t remove the MOSS installation, well the reasons are so clear, I destroy the farm, but why the uninstallation program fails...?

Surfing over the internet, I found a post a little strange for my, but after a while of thinking on it…is so logical, the way to force the uninstall…

To force the uninstallation of both products to get back to a stable state, this is what I did.

I had no data to save, this was only a test environment, I’m so lucky!!

I renamed the DSN in the registry for a moment:

HKLM >> Software >> Microsoft >> Shared Tools >> Web Server extensions >> 12 >>Secure >> ConfigDB >> DSN to DNS1,for example…the name is not important.

Then you can:

- Uninstall MOSS 2007.
- Delete the web applications and their respective AppPools.
- Delete the SQL databases.

After this you can rebuild the farm as you desire.

As a little note related with this, in some cases this problem occurs after the installation of KB 932091, update to WSS 3.0. The system was rebooted (by mistake) before the update was finished.

After that the system was unstable:

- I could not run the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard (Upgrade in progress).
- I could not uninstall Project Server 2007 or MOSS 2007, they both failed.

Log files indicated that the operations could not be completed because an update was in progress…

I hope that this helps, as I tested this procedure works in any case that the program fails or the system becomes unstable.

Best regards…

Paúl…

Office 14, will be available in 64 bits version

Anyone who made the change to a 64 bits operating system, can told you, that most of the applications still don’t have native support for this kind of systems.

However during the last years, the number of people who made the change, is still growing. The computer manufacturers offers 64 bits systems with more and more RAM and Microsoft expects that the most of Windows 7 installations will be of 64 bits. Is for this reason that the company has decided to take this road with these applications.

As we saw in previous Office applications Microsoft will offer 32 & 64 bits editions with their respective upgrades from Office 2003 or 2007 with a single installation package.

This Office version surely will be available in the first months of 2010.

MVC Pattern for ASP .NET RC2

Hello…

So a quickly post, a few weeks ago I told about Oxcite an open source CMS, ASP .NET & MVC based solution.

Well now Microsoft releases the RC2 with a little corrections and enhancements for design and developed large business sites.

Give an eye on this…

Bye…

Internet Explorer 8 is finally here…!!!

Well an older post said…IE 8 was coming up, but I leave you with some questions, like IE 8 was part of Seven…?

Well apparently is true, Windows 7 Beta, already have IE 8 as default browser, and of course as a separate download for XP, Server 2003 & Server 2008.

Is so fast, more secure, and many improvements that are most welcome for this version of the popular browser.

But that doesn't mean users and developers are satisfied. Instead, many are champing at the bit to get Microsoft to commit to their favorite missing features for IE 9.

Well the updates maybe include some improvements….

Regards…

Paúl

Removing Visual SourceSafe Bindings

Hi everyone, in the early years of .NET platform Visual SourceSafe rules, concerning with ensure the code and version management. Now we have Team Foundation Server and the things are so much better in some aspects, on the other hand no, nothing and nobody is perfect.

Today I have a little problem, remove the SourceSafe bindings, and really I can’t remember how to do it, so after a little while here is the solution.

Some of you maybe told me that SourceSafe is no longer the best solution in our days, but believe me…SourceSafe really does the job…Here is the workaround the source code consists of a solution (MySolution) containing a single project or projects (MyProject). 

You attempt to open the solution and find that it has SourceSafe dependencies.  You need to remove all the VSS stuff from the solution/project files, follow these steps:

1 - Go to the folder containing the solution files and delete the following:
          mssccprj.scc
          MyProject.vssscc
          vssver.scc

2 - Open MyProject.sln in your favorite text editor and remove the following section:
          GlobalSection(SourceCodeControl) = preSolution
                     ...
          EndGlobalSection

3 - Go to the folder containing the project files and delete the following:
          MyProject.vbproj.vspscc
          mssccprj.scc
          vssver.scc

4 - Open MyProject.vbproj in your text editor and remove the following lines:
          SccProjectName = "SAK"
          SccLocalPath = "SAK"
          SccAuxPath = "SAK"
          SccProvider = "SAK"

Now you can open the solution/project with no source control errors.

Hope it helps for the fans of source safe…jejeje :P

Say goodbye…Windows Messenger!!!

Hello…

After a little while I return to posting…In this while I was closing a project in my office, fiuuuuuu al last…!!! :P.

In one of these long nights when I was rebooting my PC…and surprise!!! My old and not lovely Windows Messenger appears, after almost 8 years of my first usage of this program.

I already have installed Windows Live Messenger with Live Essentials and beyond…jejeje…but the old Messenger made an entrance…

I surfed the internet a little while and found a little page with a definitive solution…uninstall the old Messenger. Uninstalled if from Add or Remove Programs option in Control Panel is not enough…I thought it was, I was wrong, and the appearance of the programs probes that.

The option remains active indeed I’ve uninstalled it, so I found this little command to finally remove it.

RunDll32 advpack.dll,LaunchINFSection %windir%\INF\msmsgs.inf,BLC.Remove

You can just copy/paste the command above in the Open: box from the Run command.

Note: If you have Windows XP Service Pack 1 installed, you'll receive this error message:

Just click OK, Windows Messenger will still be removed.

Hope it helps….

Paul

Oxite: CMS Open Source ASP .NET & MVC based

Hello everyone…

“Webeando”…is a popular word in my country that means, surfing over the internet :P, in one of these days I found in the blog of my sensey “Edgar Sanchez” a CMS Open Source ASP .NET based.

Oxite is already rocks in internet in the site VisitMix, the site looks great, but the important things about Oxite are:

1. ASP .NET based, but with a little feature extra, it uses the architecture MVC over the page controllers of the ASP .NET forms.
2. Oxite is 100% open source.

Well is true that MVC is an architecture so flexible and scalable, but a little complex to learn and use, but now with Oxite we can test and learn MVC in order to implement it over test sites or production sites.

In a future post I describe the Microsoft ASP .NET – MVC proposal.

Paul

Developing OpenSource software with C#

Hello,

Since 2007 it is the policy of some countries to use OpenSource software within their ministries, coordination, or units that they want to call in each of their countries ...

The question is, can only develop software OpenSource with Java or PHP or any of those languages?

There is the an option for C# developers, Mono project, an OpenSource platform that allows you to run applications developed using C # environments in both Windows, Linux and Mac, which I think is an excellent choice for developing Web applications and desktop.

Now, if this option exists, it is feasible to use it to develop software with C # and OpenSource able to compete with companies that use Java or PHP?

Norton 360 3.0 Beta & Kaspersky Anti-virus 8.0 Beta…both for Windows 7

Well…

After a clean installation of Windows 7, the system is so stable and more faster than Vista. I’ve test 7 in the same machine that I used to work with Vista, and the resources, memory management and look & feel are better, more flexible and useful.

As the post says Norton & Kaspersky for 7, so these are the facts: I decided to test this suites for two aspects, performance and protection.

Norton 360 3.0 Beta in mi machine with these features: Core 2 Duo 2.2 Ghz; 2GB RAM; Windows 7 Ultimate for x86…Norton 360 totally crashes…

The system becomes unstable, slow, removable media presents mal function, video and sound crashed. So I proceed to update machine, drivers, review the checklist for Norton 360, remove some hardware that I think that maybe present problems, but anything function.

Conclusion Norton 360 is not the best choice for 7 right now…at least for my machine :P. Well the two products are in beta state for now, so when an RC or final version will become more stable.

Today I’ve installed Kaspersky Anti-virus 8.0 Beta for Windows 7, it looks well:

Really I don’t experience any problems….yet, the product is stable, a little annoying with user messages in the mode of learning, but besides that I really like the product.

The next week I’ll test AVG so wait for the post :P…

Paul

Anti-virus programs for Windows 7

As we know in these days, the security of any operating system as their own is not enough, specially with the number of threads that everyday appear in internet.

Is for that reason that Symantec, AVG & Kaspersky recently present versions of protection suites: Norton 360 3.0 Beta, AVG Internet Security 8.0 & Technical Preview Kaspersky Anti-Virus for Microsoft Windows 7.

Brandon LeBlanc, Windows communications manager on the Windows Client Communications Team, revealed that “Microsoft had been hard at work attempting to get security providers to offer anti-virus for Windows 7. No less than three companies have rushed to Microsoft's call, and are offering their products even if Windows 7 is still in Beta”.

The promise from Microsoft is that the list of security providers that support Windows 7 will grow. “We will add additional partners to the Windows 7 Security Provider page when they make Windows 7 versions publicly available,” LeBlanc said.

For download & test the versions listed above, you can download each one from this links:

1. Norton 360 3.0 Beta is available for download here.
2. AVG Antivirus Professional 8.0 is available for download here.
3. AVG Internet Security 8.0 is available for download here.
4. Technical Preview Kaspersky Anti-Virus for Microsoft Windows 7  is available for download here.

Actually I’m testing Norton 360 3.0 Beta in Windows 7 Ultimate Build 7000 in the next post I’ll describe my experience.

Paul…

Windows 7 is available for download!!!

Microsoft recently published a site called Windows 7 Beta Customer Preview Program. In this site you can download the Windows 7 Beta (x86 or x64) directly.

Microsoft says that the beta will be available only for 2'500.000 downloads, so if you're so interested probably the site is block for download. On the other hand you can download it using a torrent; the torrent is the same build that Microsoft unleashed; Windows 7 Build 7000.

The MSDN Subscribers already have the iso image for download, among other related things.

This beta will be expired on August 1 of 2009.

See ya...

Paul...

You may be unable to manage IIS by using Server Manager if two threads access IIS at the same time

As the title says, you maybe unable to manage IIS, consider the following scenario, when you have a process that has more than one thread running, additionally, the process uses the Internet Information Services (IIS) and Active Directory Service Interfaces (ADSI) provider to access IIS. and the two threads access IIS at the same time.

When this problem occurs, you must restart IIS, or the process that uses the IIS ADSI provider. This problem is likely to occur for the SharePoint Timer service (OWSTimer.exe) in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. When this problem occurs you may experience the following symptoms:

The IIS options tree is empty, and when you try to connect to the local server you receive the error shows in the image and this so beautiful stack:

Application Server Administration job failed for service instance Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration.SearchAdminSharedWebServiceInstance (42a6deab-10d6-4579-bdc3-10c1beefb6ca).

Reason: Attempted to read or write protected memory. This is often an indication that other memory is corrupt.

Techinal Support Details:

System.AccessViolationException: Attempted to read or write protected memory. This is often an indication that other memory is corrupt.

In this url you can find more info about it and a hot fix to solve the problem.

This issue affects to IIS 6.0 and 7.0 as described in the KB article in the link.

Hope it helps…

Greetings…

Paúl…

SharePoint Server 2007 over Windows Server 2003 x64

OK, these are the facts...

As we know the 64 bits applications actually are like a rising force...more and more applications are taking the new environment.

Windows is not the exception, 64 bits versions support both 32 and 64 bits applications, but in some cases with some restrictions. Internet Information Server (IIS) supports both modes for ASP .NET applications, however IIS 6.0 does not support running both modes at the same time on a 64-bit version of Windows. ASP.NET 1.1 runs only in 32-bit mode. ASP.NET 2.0 runs in 32-bit mode or in 64-bit mode. Therefore, if you want to run ASP.NET 1.1 and ASP.NET 2.0 at the same time, you must run IIS in 32-bit mode.

In a x64 Sharepoint installation that I recently was put into production, I has a so hard problem, after an installation of an ISAPI filter for PHP over IIS causes the problem, because this ISAPI filter runs over 32 bits.

Sharepoint sites, and Central Administration shows the message Service Unavailable and nothings work, after review all the sites, configuration and SO configuration, the IIS running in 32 bits mode in a 64 bits system. IS for that reason that the IIS crashes.

There are two ways to solve this problem:

1. Uninstalling the ISAPI filter, SharePoint Server 2007 and all sites, Framework 2.0 and finally IIS, then reinstall everything; is a long way and so hard in administrative effort, or...
2. Uninstall the ISAPI filter, set the 64 bits mode of IIS using this command: cscript %SYSTEMDRIVE%\inetpub\adminscripts\adsutil.vbs SET W3SVC/AppPools/Enable32bitAppOnWin64 0; search for and ISAPI filter of 64 bits, and then run Sharepoint sites. These should be enough for the normal operation of IIS if anything else occurred we can discussed it in the blog.

These solutions are probed to work in most cases, SharePoint and Windows Server and their support for both modes, needs more careful and a little more planing for deployment, specially like my case, when can coexist with other technologies.

Greetings...

Paul

Windows 7: Beta 1 is ready and available over the Internet

Microsoft actually plans to delivered the first beta version of Windows 7 in the middle of January/2009 after the Steven Balmer's presentation on CES 2009. This beta will be available to all public in general. Paul Thurrott's page, describe in screen shots the installation process of Windows 7, Thurrott indicated that, the look of the new SO, is so similar as Vista, but with new enhancements and optimizations that gives to the SO more stability.

If you know how to use torrents, you can download the beta version of Windows 7 for 32 bits, if you're interested.

Happy New Year 2009

Paul