Microsoft.ReportViewer.Common.dll is missing!

Hi Folks,

If you are having ASP.NET web application that is using Report Viewer control, you should be having the following dlls on your machine:

Microsoft.ReportViewer.WebForms.dll
Microsoft.ReportViewer.Common.dll

The first dll, has to be added as a reference in your bin directory while the second one can reside in GAC.

You probably will be getting an error if you don't have the common dll on your machine, first, first check the GAC:  C:\Windows\assembly

If you don't have it, then you need to install Report Viewer Redistributable package.

Here you have to note that the version of the dll will vary based on the installer version.

If you want version 10, you have to install VS 2010 release, here is the link:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-ie/download/details.aspx?id=6610

If you want version 09.00.21022.08 of the dll, you need to install VS 2008 release:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=6576

If you want version 8 of the dll, you need to install VS 2005 release:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=6219


Hope this helps.

Import SSIS package error 0xC0010014 when importing SSIS package

Hi Folks,

I'm writing this blog post to share an interesting find while i was developing a SSIS package using VS 2012 with BI tools. Microsoft has release on March this year 2013 BI tools to VS 2012 so you don't need to use VS2010 shell while developing SSIS packages.

The download link for BI tools in VS 2012 is here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj856966.aspx

After i developed my SSIS package and try to deploy it on the SQL Server 2008 R2. I was getting the following error message when importing the package, here is the screen shots:

 

If you are using the Management studio you will get this above error without details!, but to get the detailed error message use SSIS Execute Package Utility, you can launch it from SQL SERVER 2008 R2 --> Integration Services --> SSIS execute Package utility

.

If you read the actual error message it says:
Package Migration from Version 6 to Version 3 failed with error 0xC001700A

Basically the Version that i used to develop the SSIS is higher than the recognized version by the SQL Server 2008 R2. To fix this problem you need to change the package version from 6 to 3 and it works like a charm!

Follow the following steps:
1) Right clich on our dtsx file and select edit, Open the file in notepad.
2) Look for:

      DTS:Name="PackageFormatVersion">6

3) Change the number 6 for the version to 3 and save the file.
4) Select the File System File from the SSIS execute utility and you will not get any errors!
6) From the management studio you can import the SSIS with no errors.

Hope this helps.

[Update 05/09/2013] You will run through other issues if you used VS 2012 SQL Data tools against SQL Server 2008 R2, one of them is the sql job agent will fail to run the imported job due to the xml format mismatch while executing the package. So, it is recommended to develop any SSIS SQL2008 R2 components using the old BIDS VS 2008.


-ME
 

How to convert your WCF Service Library to WCF Service Application

Hi Folks,

If you have a WCF Service Library Project in VS 2012 and after you wrote some functional code and then you decided to change the project from a WCF Service Library that doesn't contain web configurations and can't be hosted in the IIS to a WCF service application that is hosted in IIS, this blog post will tell you how to do it in details.

The WCF service library doesn't contains the Web Configuration Tab when you open the project configuration (By right click on the project --> Project Properties) and it has only app.config file and not web.config file because it is not suppose to be hosted in the IIS.

To change your WCF service library to WCF Service Application:

1) Right click on the wcf project and click on unload project.
2) After the project is being unloaded, right click on the wcf project and click edit the project configuration file ".csproj".
3) Look for the following attribute :

 {3D9AD99F-2412-4246-B90B-4EAA41C64699};{FAE04EC0-301F-11D3-BF4B-00C04F79EFBC}

Change the project type to the following:

{349c5851-65df-11da-9384-00065b846f21};{fae04ec0-301f-11d3-bf4b-00c04f79efbc}

4) Reload the project.
5) Open the project configuration, you will be able to see the web tab to configure the wcf service.
6) Add web.cofig file to your project.
7) Copy any necassary keys from the app.config to the web.config.
8) Rename or delete the app.config file.
9) Make sure that you have correct port and end point configuration in the web.config.
10) Clean and Build your project. At this point the project is build with no errors.

After you run the project you will see that there is no .svc file that is the service application file used to call the WCF. But you need to have one in your project.

11) First Rename your Service.cs and IService.cs.
12) Add new WCF Service svc to your project and name it as you like.
13) Copy the code you have in the Service Class and the interface to the newly created service.
14) Compile the project.
15) Run the WCF Service application and now your WCF can be accessed through the web.


Note:
This works with VS 2012 project templates with Update 2 as well.

Hope this helps.



 

Few tips to know when considering developing MVC4 Applications in VS 2012 - Part 1

Hi Folks,

I'm writing this blog post for ASP.NET web forms developers who have been working with Web forms for years and they are hesitant to develop MVC 4 ASP.NET applications; maybe for different reasons either it is not easy to understand or there are a lot of things you need to wrap your head around to get started building your first business application!

So i decided to write these series of posts,I will try to makes it easier for you to get started in MVC 4 applications with few tips that will help you know how it works and some other considerations to think about.

1) Basic Concepts of the MVC design pattern:
In MVC design pattern implementation by Microsoft, any page you see in the browser is a view, it can be a page or a user control. it can be aspx,ascx or cshtml. MVC has introduced cshtml which is the new render engine called RAZOR, this engine allows you to wirte cs code within your html elements by prefexing any C# Code by @ symbol. For example:
 
<div>@Html.ActionLink("Home", "Index", "Home")</div>

The above line is rendered by Razor as a link with a caption called Home and Index is the method will be called in the Home Controller.

2) Controllers:
All controllers in MVC 4 are stored under a folder called controllers, if you want to create a new controller, right click on this folder and select add new controller and the new controller will be created with all functions if you picked the model "Table" you want to target for this controller.
All controllers MUST have Controller suffix.
Usually you have one controller per 1 entity, but you can design your controllers as you want.
Any action in any view should be mapped to a method in a controller, and the controller takes care of the execution and return the results to the view. That's why you see all controllers can return a view that could be a page or partial page, file, redirect, or Empty.
Check out this link for the types of result you could get from any controller method call:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.web.mvc.actionresult(v=vs.108).aspx


3) No Master page in the MVC4 web project:

You will not see a default master page in your project, the general look and feel in the project is controlled by a "Shared View", This Shared View acts as Master Page in the web forms.

If you want to modify the shared view, it is under Shared View Folder --> _layout.cshtml

You still can add a master page to your project  and link all your views to it.

4) Connecting to a database/ Creating your Model:
Model is your database/datasource file in the project. First thing you should do before creating any controllers or views is to create your entity model for your project.
There is no change in this regard. Just add any data entity file that you are familiar with such as: Entity Framework, Entity Data Model, LINQ or SQL Compact Db files.

After creating your model, you can add your controllers since the MVC 4 gives your the ability to create all your CRUD operations once you pick your entity/model and context "dbml or any data source file"


I want to keep it short and simple, I will keep posting more parts in details for building your first MVC 4 application.

Thanks and drop a line if you have any questions or feedback!


Regards,
Mostafa

WCF Error: The underlying connection was closed: The connection was closed unexpectedly.

Hi Folks,

While i was developing a WCF service API for my enterprise application, I got an error while i'm calling a search function in the WCF. The WCF function is calling a stored procedure.

I tested the stored procedure and there is no issues with it at all, and the error was being thrown in my web when the data is being serialized and sent over the network.

The error message:

The underlying connection was closed: The connection was closed unexpectedly.

The point here is that i have other functions in the WCF work perfectly with no errors but only the search function is throwing an exception.

So, it is not configuration thing, it is something else i want to nail it down!

The only way to get the actual error message from calling a WCF service, is to install a tool called "Microsoft Service Trace Viewer" . Here is the download link:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=3138


After you install it, add the following section in the web.config before the closing of the configuration attribue:

<system.diagnostics>

<sources>

<source name="System.ServiceModel" switchValue="Information, ActivityTracing" propagateActivity="true">

<listeners>

<add name="traceListener" type="System.Diagnostics.XmlWriterTraceListener" initializeData= "traces.svclog" />

</listeners>

</source>

</sources>

</system.diagnostics>

Run your applicaiton, and execute the action that throws the exception then do the following:
1) Open the following path:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0\Bin

2) Double click on SvcTraceViewer.exe tool

3) From the File Menu, Click on Open.

4) Navigate to your project folder and you will find a file called: traces.svclog, select this file.

5) Check the actual WCF call that causes the error from the activity window and then see the details of the error in the right pane.

Hope this helps.
 

How to enable MS Dynamics CRM 2011 to integrate with Windows Azure

Hi,

I'm writing this article to explain a good architecture design for integrating your Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 with windows azure.

Let's  say you have on-premise CRM 2011 instance, and you want to use Windows Azure Blob storage to store Customer's documents on the cloud. How would you do that ?

The example i'm giving is applicable to any other windows azure service such as: SQL Azure, Mobile Notification Service, AppFabric Features..etc.

Since Windows azure is a scalable Cloud platform, you can easily integration your CRM 2011 with the windows azure on the cloud in 4 main steps.

Before going through the details, I'd like to explain the architecture of the proposed solution.

MS CRM 2011 has a backend windows service called "CRM Asynchronous Service" this is the component that will be in charge to communicate with the windows azure through a service bus.

MS CRM 2011 has 2 types of plugins, out-of-the box (OOB) and custom plugins. The OOB plugins runs  with full trust but the custom plugins runs with partial trust, and we will develop a custom plugin to connect to a listener through azure service bus.

The solution has the following components:

1) Configure CRM to be Windows Azure Aware.

2) We need to configure a service bus on Azure with an endpoint to communicate with the CRM server.

3) A listener hosted in Windows Azure to communicate with the asyncrhounous service, specificially listening to CRM assembly "Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk" with RemoteExecuteContext defined. so we need to develop a listener and deploy it on windows azure.

4) A custom CRM Plugin to communicate with the Windows Azure Listener.


How To accomplish, configure and develop this solution:

1) To accomplish step 1 , "Configure CRM for Integration with Windows Azure" :
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg328249.aspx

2) To accomplish step 2, "Configure Windows Azure ACS on Azure" :
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj863635.aspx

3) How to write a windows azure listener:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg309615.aspx

C# Sample code - Listener:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg309657.aspx

4) To accomplish step 4, "How to write Azure Aware CRM Plugin":
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg328194.aspx

Note, if you want to develop a custom workflow activity:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg327854.aspx

Registration step - FINAL:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg328524.aspx


**Here is some sample code for all what i mentioned above "listeners & plugins":
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg334712.aspx

Note: you should be having CRM SDK and Windows Azure SDK 1.7 or higher to be able to exercise and develop the solution.

Hope this helps.


Reference:
-Azure Extensions for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg309276.aspx



 

Fix It: Application deployment Failed, Please try again in VS 2012

Hi,

A well-known error message is being thrown from VS 2012 when you try to run the emulator for Windows Phone 8. After you installed all the tools and trying to see your application on the emulator you get the above error and it is a show stopper! It's so frustrating and annoying not to be able to view your running code.

After i was stuck for 3 days, and posting my question in MSDN and contributing on StackOverflow and other forums, all of these suggestions didn't work with me.

My case is fairly simple: I have a brand new laptop, Lenovo AMD E1500 (Supports SLAT) with 4GB RAM on Windows 8 Pro 64bit with VS 2012.

Every time i try to run my windows phone 8 application after selecting "WVGA 512MB" Emulator, it takes forever and i got this error:

Application Deployment Failed, Please try again.

When i check the output window in VS2012, I see the error happens when the VS 2012 tries to connect to the created VM in Hyper-V.

Here is the steps you have to make sure befor uninstalling the SDK or the other tools:

1) Turn off windows firewall.
2) Make sure that you are running VS 2012 as an administrator.
3) Make sure that you are a member of Hyper-V Administrator on your machine.
4) Open Hyper-V and check the you have a VM called "Emulator WVGA 512MB" since this is the VM that VS 2012 is trying to deploy the xap file into.
NOTE: IF YOU DON'T HAVE THE VM, THIS POST IS NOT INTENTED TO FIX IT.

5) Check the connection type for "Windows Phone Emulator Internal Switch" in Hyper-V manager by clicking on Virtual Switch Manager link on the right pane is Internal.

6) In the control panel, Check Network and Sharing Center and then click on change adapter settings --> you should be able to find 3 adapters starts with vEthernet, those are being used with Hyper-V.
Don't change any configuration by your self without any direction from a network guy! missing around these configuration might need you to re-install all the tools and rebuild all virtual switches!

7) Check below Article for MSDN and verify you have the following configuration for "vEthernet (Internal Ethernet Port Windows Phone Emulator Internal Switch)"

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsphone/develop/jj681694(v=vs.105).aspx

8) IMPORTANT: Turn off  any antivirus real time scanning, This turns into scanning all communications which slow down the VS/Emulator and times out the emulator running process so you won't be able to deploy your application. THIS WAS MY FINDING AFTER SPENT 3 DAYS!

After following all above instructions you shouldn't have any issues with running your WP8 Emulator.

Have Fun.

VS 2012 Update 1 is available

Hi,

Yesterday, Microsoft released a new update for VS 2012. In this first update for VS 2012, They included a lot of enhancements in terms of TFS services, SharePoint Development ALM, .NET Framework enhancements, Mobile development Enhancements and IDE fixes.

The complete list of all the updates in details are listed here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2797915

So, if you are developing using VS 2012, it is strongly recommended to install this update, this is the download link:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35774

Hope this helps.