Visual Studio : "Set As Start Page" doesn't work in the real world

I have a web site that contains a "Default.aspx" but I want the start page to be "abc.aspx".

So in Visual Studio 2010, I right click the "abc.aspx" page and select "Set As Start Page".

Hit F5 - works perfectly.

Deploy it to a real IIS 7 server and WTF - Default.aspx is displayed in all its delights?

Turns out the "Set As Start Page" option only applies to Cassini - the VS internal web server (which is why it works when you hit Run ( = F5)).

In the real world, you have to go to the web site inside the IIS Manager, select "Default Document" and then type abc.aspx and move it up to the top.

There you go!

Enjoy!

msdeploy : Package installation failed - 'managedRuntimeVersion' differs

So there I was trying to use msdeploy to deploy a web site from Visual Studio 2010 into an IIS 7 server on another box using the "Build Deployment Package".

I got the error:

The package installation failed.
Details:
The application pool that you are trying to use has the 'managedRuntimeVersion' property set to 'v4.0'. This application requires 'v2.0'.

My web application used the "Default Web Site" and the application pool that it was connected to (DefaultAppPool) was .NET Framework 2.0. Yeah - I screw around with IIS a lot!

Of course, where I was deploying it to was the more usual .NET Framework 4.0.

Mr. Google to the rescue and the answer is to set the following options under the project / Properties / Package/Publish Web:

You need to tick the two text boxes "Include IIS Settings" and "Include application pool settings".
And away you go with msdeploy.

Enjoy!

WIF : Web Platform Installer

WIF has just been added to the Microsoft Web Platform Installer. (WPI)

Just search on the keyword "identity".

Hey - hey - it's becoming mainstream.

Makes it just that bit easier to download.

The WPI is a really useful tool that collects a pile of Microsoft (and other) downloads in one place. Well worth 5 minutes of your time to go and have a look!

Enjopy!

C# : Some basic validation

Doing some basic validation and I found these to be useful:

Check for mandatory fields:
if (String.IsNullOrEmpty (xxx)) … error

Field must be numeric only:
int number;
bool result = Int32.TryParse (xxx, out number);
if (!result) … error

Valid date format:
DateTime date;
bool result = DateTime.TryParse (xxx, out date);
if (!result) … error

Valid email format:
bool result = Regex.IsMatch(xxx, @"^([\w-\.]+)@((\[[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}\.)
(([\w-]+\.)+))([a-zA-Z]{2,4}[0-9]{1,3})(\]?)$");
if (!result) … error

Enjoy!

WCF : soapUI error "BadContextToken"

 

While soapUI is a really useful tool for web service unit testing, it doesn’t work with WCF.

In particular, with the default "wsHttpBinding", you get the message  "BadContextToken".

Mr. Google comes back with tons of results about why soapUI doesn’t play nicely with WCF and recommends WCF Storm which looks good but it’s not free.

So a whack of investigation later:

Add the following binding into the <bindings> section of your web.config:

<!-- soapUI -->
      <wsHttpBinding>
        <binding name="wsHttpBindingNoSecurity">
          <security mode="None">
            <transport clientCredentialType="None" />
            <message establishSecurityContext="false" />
          </security>
        </binding>
      </wsHttpBinding>

Add the following "bindingConfiguration” parameter to your <endpoint> section:

binding="wsHttpBinding" bindingConfiguration="wsHttpBindingNoSecurity"

The WCF service has an endpoint like:

blahblah.svc

For soapUI you need to change this to blahblah.svc?wsdl when you “Add WSDL”.

Once you’ve added the service to soapUI, click the default operation and then click the “WS-A” tab at the bottom.

Click “Enable/disable WS-A addressing”.

Click “Add default wsa:Action”.

Click “Add default wsa:To”.

And (finally) success!

REMEMBER: Every time you change the web.config, you need to right-click the soapUI service and “Update Definition” or F5!

Enjoy!

Visual Studio : Showing the active file in the Solution Explorer tree

So there I was doing some consultancy work on site and I noticed that when you click through the open files in the file bar on the top, their Visual Studio tracks the active file in the tree.

Something I've always thought would be really useful.

Turns out the way to do this is via:

Tools / Options / Projects and Solutions / General / Click "Track Active Item in Solution Explorer".

WTF isn't this the default?

Enjoy!

Stackoverflow : The big 100 badges

Another of my goals - getting 100 badges on stackoverflow.

Enjoy!