Hot Malva tech blog

MOSS 2007: Get Shared Services User Profile without “Manage User Profile” permission

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 08:38:00 +0000

For a custom functionality I’m developing for my customer I needed to retrieve the user profile logged on the application. To accomplish this task SharePoint object model provides the class UserProfileManager which allows you to query user profile properties.

There is only a tip when you write your code to access the user profile properties, in fact you can use two different piece of code to accomplish that:

if you instance a new UserProfileManager (see the commented code below on 7th row) you could have problem and receive the following error:

“You must have manage user profiles administrator rights to use administrator mode.”

This is due to the fact that to instance a UserProfileManager you need administration right on SharePoint Shared Service.
Instead of the creation of a new instance of UserProfileManager class, you can get an already present instance using ProfileLoader class (see row 8, 9 and 10 below). In this way you can access to a read-only version of UserProfileManager class which permits you to query every properties of the user profile you have requested (see all the example below).

   1:  public UserProfile GetUserProfile(string loginName)

   2:  {

   3:      UserProfile userProfile;

   4:      using (var Site = new SPSite(SiteId))

   5:      {

   6:          var ctx = ServerContext.GetContext(Site);

   7:          //var upm = new UserProfileManager(ctx, true);

   8:          var profile = ProfileLoader.GetProfileLoader(ctx);

   9:          var upm = profile.GetUserProfileManager();

  10:          var spUserProfile = upm.GetUserProfile(loginName);

11:

  12:          userProfile = new UserProfile(spUserProfile.ID)

  13:            {

  14:                Login = loginName,

  15:                PreferredName = spUserProfile["PreferredName"] != null ?

  16:                  spUserProfile["PreferredName"].Value as string : string.Empty,

17:

  18:                Manager = spUserProfile["Manager"] != null ?

  19:                  spUserProfile["Manager"].Value as string : string.Empty,

20:

  21:                Name = spUserProfile["FirstName"] != null ?

  22:                  spUserProfile["FirstName"].Value as string : string.Empty,

23:

  24:                Surname = spUserProfile["LastName"] != null ?

  25:                  spUserProfile["LastName"].Value as string : string.Empty

  26:            };

27:

  28:      }

29:

  30:      return userProfile;

  31:  }

Particular thanks to my friend Michele who supported and suggested me on how to resolve this problem.

TFS 2010: TF270015: 'MSTest.exe' returned an unexpected exit code. Expected '0'; actual '1'.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 07:16:00 +0000

If you try to build an “old” Visual Studio 2008 solution with the new Team Foundation Server 2010 and after the build you try to execute automatic unit test project inserting the following directive inside your build project:

<MetaDataFile Include="$(BuildProjectFolderPath)/&lt;your vsmdi file>.vsmdi">
   <TestList>yourtestproject.UnitTest</TestList>
<MetaDataFile>

your build probably will fail with the following nice error:

TF270015: 'MSTest.exe' returned an unexpected exit code. Expected '0'; actual '1'.

After a Google search (see references below) I’ve found that the problem could be due to the fact that TFS 2010 can only build test project written in .NET 4.0.

For now there’s no fix available to resolve this problem (as you can see here) and there’s no timing about a Microsoft hotfix (QFE) release.

References:

MOSS 2007: “The evaluation version of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for this server has expired”

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 17:31:00 +0000

If you receive this error when you try to access to SharePoint Shared Service on your machine, don't panic. It's a problem due to SP2 installation. You can find more detail and hotfix about this problem here.

Reference:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/971620

Insert a Watermark with iTextSharp

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 21:08:00 +0000

iTextSharp is a very good open source library to manage file in pdf format. You can find many examples on how you can use this powerful library inside your application in this tutorial, but in this post I want to focus on a way to create a watermark and insert it inside in an existing pdf document.

This need come up from a project for my current customer who need to create a pdf document from a office file (Word, Excel and PowerPoint format) with a watermark reporting user name (user claiming the copy of the document). So, the approach I used to accomplish the requirement foresee the following steps:

First, I create a bitmap with the text I want to render in the watermark;
then, I insert the bitmap created inside my pdf document using iTextSharp library.

Bitmap creation is very easy using dot Net Framework classes. So, I developed the Watermark class with default constructor requiring the text to render:

   1:  public Watermark(string watermarkText)

   2:          {

   3:              Text = watermarkText;

   4:              TextFont = new Font("Arial", 25, FontStyle.Bold);

   5:              Inizialize();

   6:          }

TextFont is an auto property that consumer can modify to change watermark font. In the constructor I also initialize the Watermark instance setting the resolution DPI, the scale factor and I calculate the bitmap size (width and height in pixel) using the following method:

   1:  private const int DEFAULT_SCALE_RATIO = 24;

2:

   3:  private void Inizialize()

   4:  {

   5:      ScaleFactor = DEFAULT_SCALE_RATIO;

   6:      Position = WatermarkPosition.Central;

   7:      BackGroundColor = Color.Transparent;

   8:      BrushColor = Color.LightGray;

9:

  10:      using (var bitmap = new Bitmap(1, 1))

  11:      {

  12:          bitmap.SetResolution(DPI, DPI);

  13:          using(var g = Graphics.FromImage(bitmap))

  14:          {

  15:              Height = Convert.ToInt32(g.MeasureString(Text, TextFont).Height);

  16:              Width = Convert.ToInt32(g.MeasureString(Text, TextFont).Width);

  17:          }

  18:      }

  19:  }

It is necessary to scale the bitmap because you could have resolution problems when you use it with iTextSharp library (see paragraph Impact on the resolution in iTextSharp tutorial).

To get the desired bitmap I created the following public methods:

one to get the image with original size
one to get scaled image

   1:  public Image GetImage()

   2:  {

   3:      var bitmap = new Bitmap(Width, Height);

   4:      var image = CreateImage(bitmap, TextFont);

   5:      return image;

6:

   7:  }

8:

   9:  public Image GetScaledImage()

  10:  {

  11:      var bitmap = new Bitmap(ScaledWidth, ScaledHeight);

  12:      var image = CreateImage(bitmap, ScaledTextFont);

  13:      return image;

  14:  }

where ScaledWidth and ScaledHeight are:

   1:  public int ScaledWidth

   2:  {

   3:      get { return Width *100 / ScaleFactor; }

   4:  }

5:

   6:  public int ScaledHeight

   7:  {

   8:      get { return Height *100 / ScaleFactor; }

   9:  }

The last thing is the CreateImage method which really makes the work:

   1:  private const float DEFAULT_IMAGE_DPI = 72f;

2:

   3:  private Image CreateImage(Bitmap bitmap, Font font)

   4:  {

   5:      bitmap.SetResolution(DEFAULT_IMAGE_DPI, DEFAULT_IMAGE_DPI);

   6:      using(var g = Graphics.FromImage(bitmap))

   7:      {

   8:          SetGraphicsProperty(g);

9:

  10:          var sizef = g.MeasureString(Text, font);

  11:          g.Clear(BackGroundColor);

12:

  13:          var text = Text;

  14:          var width = bitmap.Width;

15:

  16:          if (Repeater)

  17:          {

  18:              while (width%sizef.Width > 0)

  19:              {

  20:                  text += " - " + Text;

  21:                  width -= Convert.ToInt32(sizef.Width);

  22:              }

  23:          }

24:

  25:          g.DrawString(text, font, new SolidBrush(BrushColor), 0, 0,

  26:                       new StringFormat(StringFormatFlags.FitBlackBox));

  27:          g.Flush();

  28:      }

  29:      return bitmap;

  30:  }

Repeater is an auto-property to create a bitmap with text repeated many times necessary to fill all the bitmap width.This is required, for example, when I want a watermark positioned along all document margins.

BackgroundColor and BrushColor are two auto-property which permit to customize watermark look & feel.

SetGraphicsProperty method just initializes some image properties (see here for more details):

private static void SetGraphicsProperty(Graphics g)

    // Set the System.Drawing.Graphics object property SmoothingMode to HighQuality

    g.SmoothingMode = SmoothingMode.AntiAlias;

    // Set the System.Drawing.Graphics object property CompositingQuality to HighQuality

    g.CompositingQuality = CompositingQuality.HighQuality;

    // Set the System.Drawing.Graphics object property InterpolationMode to High

    g.InterpolationMode = InterpolationMode.High;

    g.PixelOffsetMode = PixelOffsetMode.HighQuality;

    g.TextRenderingHint = TextRenderingHint.AntiAlias;

Now that we have our watermark, we can work on PDF document where we want insert it. To accomplish this I create the PDFDocument class:

   1:  using iTextSharp.text;

   2:  using iTextSharp.text.pdf;

3:

   4:  public class PDFDocument

   5:  {

6:

   7:      private PDFDocument(Guid Id)

   8:      {

   9:          ID = Id;

  10:          Watermarks = new List<IWatermark>();

  11:      }

12:

  13:      public PDFDocument(Guid id, byte[] binaryFile, string fileName) : this(id)

  14:      {

  15:          binary = binaryFile;

  16:          var pdfReader = new PdfReader(binaryFile);

  17:          if(pdfReader.NumberOfPages == 0 )

  18:              throw new Exception("Document does not contain any page!");

  19:          var pageSize = pdfReader.GetPageSizeWithRotation(1);

  20:          PageWidth = Convert.ToInt32(pageSize.Width);

  21:          PageHeight = Convert.ToInt32(pageSize.Height);

  22:          PageRotationInDegree = pageSize.Rotation;

  23:          FileName = fileName;

  24:      }

25:

  26:  ...

27:

  28:  }

The constructor of my entity require the id, the binary data and the file name.
Note that here I’m using iTextSharp library and, in particular, the PDFReader class in iTextSharp.text.pdf namespace; in this way I can set some useful properties about document in question, such as page width, height and rotation. I also define an auto property to add desired watermarks to my pdf document:

    public IList<Watermark> Watermarks

        get;

        set;

And now the main point of the class. With GetDocumentWithWatermark method, I process the pdf document to insert the real watermark picture:

   1:  public byte[] GetDocumentWithWatermark(bool protect)

   2:  {

   3:      using (var outputStream = new MemoryStream())

   4:      {

   5:      var pdfReader = new PdfReader(binary);

   6:      var pdfStamper = new PdfStamper(pdfReader, outputStream);

7:

   8:      foreach (var watermark in Watermarks)

   9:      {

  10:          using (var bitmap = watermark.GetScaledImage())

  11:          {

  12:          var image = Image.GetInstance(bitmap, BaseColor.WHITE );

13:

  14:          var numberOfPages = pdfStamper.Reader.NumberOfPages;

15:

  16:          for (var i = 1; i <= numberOfPages; i++)

  17:          {

  18:              var pageSize = pdfStamper.Reader.GetPageSizeWithRotation(i);

  19:              PdfContentByte waterMarkContent = null;

  20:              switch (watermark.Position)

  21:              {

  22:                  case WatermarkPosition.Right:

  23:                      image.RotationDegrees = 90;

  24:                      image.Rotate();

  25:                      image.ScalePercent(watermark.ScaleFactor);

  26:                      image.SetAbsolutePosition(pageSize.Width -

  27:                                                  image.ScaledWidth, 0);

  28:                      waterMarkContent = pdfStamper.GetOverContent(i);

  29:                      break;

  30:                  case WatermarkPosition.Central:

  31:                      image.RotationDegrees = WATERMARK_ANGLE;

  32:                      image.Rotate();

  33:                      image.ScalePercent(watermark.ScaleFactor);

  34:                      image.SetAbsolutePosition(pageSize.Width/2 -

  35:                                                  image.ScaledWidth/2,

  36:                                                pageSize.Height/2 -

  37:                                                  image.ScaledHeight/2);

  38:                      waterMarkContent = pdfStamper.GetUnderContent(i);

  39:                      break;

  40:                  case WatermarkPosition.Left:

  41:                      image.RotationDegrees = 90;

  42:                      image.Rotate();

  43:                      image.ScalePercent(watermark.ScaleFactor);

  44:                      image.SetAbsolutePosition(0, 0);

  45:                      waterMarkContent = pdfStamper.GetOverContent(i);

  46:                      break;

  47:              }

48:

  49:              if (waterMarkContent != null)

  50:                  waterMarkContent.AddImage(image, true);

  51:          }

  52:          }

  53:      }

  54:      pdfStamper.Close();

  55:      pdfReader.Close();

  56:      return outputStream.ToArray();

  57:      }

as you can see I use iTextSharp class such as PdfReader and PdfStamper to manipulate the document and then, in the switch code segment, I create and position the image according to I want a central, left or right watermark. Note that I call two different method of pdfStamper instance:

GetUnderContent method: allow to put my watermark a level lower the current document layout. This is the best solution when I set central watermark and I want that document text and image are over the watermark
GetOverContent method: allow to set watermark upper all document content. Because left and right watermark stay on document margin, could be very useful put it over all content especially when you are manipulating pdf file coming from a PowerPoint document conversion which can have non-transparent background image.

Note that I have repeated the operation for all the page inside the pdf document because page layout could be change (horizontal or vertical page layout).

References:

VirtualBox: Shrink guest volume

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 16:17:00 +0000

Today, I tried to increase space on my working notebook. I usually work in virtual environment and in the last period I’ve found very cool VirtualBox virtualization product.

From a first analysis, I found that the logical space occupied by guest disk was less than the physical space on my hard disk (32 GB versus 37 GB). Unfortunately VirtualBox UI don’t provide any tools to shrink volume such as in MS Virtual PC. So, I had a short search on Google and I found out a couple of very interesting posts to accomplish the task.

Here, summarized the steps:

Defrag your guest disk using windows defrag,
Download the following tool (SDelete) and copy and extract it in your virtual environment,
Open a console in guest system, go to SDelete directory and type the following command:

sdelete -c c:\

where C:\ is the volume to shrink.
Shutdown the virtual machine.
In the host environment open a console, go to VirtualBox directory (in my case was: “C:\Program Files\Sun\VirtualBox”)
Type the following command:

VBoxManage.exe modifyvdi <your path to vdi file>\file.vdi compact

The last operation is the slowest and requires about 20 minutes (probably depends on machine and file size).

Assumptions:

VirtualBox version: 3.1.4

Host O.S.: Windows 7 x64

Guest O.S.: Windows 2008 x86

References:

How to use Office 2007 Automation in Windows 2008 service

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 09:59:00 +0000

I’ve lost approximately 3 days about this topic. I read tens of posts by finally I’ve understood…

I’m working on a solution including a file conversion from a document in MS Office 2003 format (doc, xls, ppt) to PDF.

To do this I’ve seen several products base on a windows service which utilize MS Office 2007 or Open Office capabilities to export your documents in PDF format.

I’m not very satisfy to accomplish the requirements with a product, so I started to investigate different examples to create my custom solution.

I started with the following projects hosted on “The Code Project” portal.

While the first example is pretty easy to try (the only trouble is to find the correct version of Open Office to install :-)), the second hides unpredictable scenarios. In fact, after the test of the Office automation using the simple application form in the example, I try to export the code in a windows service process. The code is the same you can find in this MSDN article:

   1: try

   2: {

   3:     // Open the source document.

   4:     wordDocument = wordApplication.Documents.Open(

   5:         ref paramSourceDocPath, ref paramMissing, ref paramMissing,

   6:         ref paramMissing, ref paramMissing, ref paramMissing,

   7:         ref paramMissing, ref paramMissing, ref paramMissing,

   8:         ref paramMissing, ref paramMissing, ref paramMissing,

   9:         ref paramMissing, ref paramMissing, ref paramMissing,

  10:         ref paramMissing);

11:

  12:     // Export it in the specified format.

  13:     if (wordDocument != null)

  14:         wordDocument.ExportAsFixedFormat(paramExportFilePath,

  15:             paramExportFormat, paramOpenAfterExport,

  16:             paramExportOptimizeFor, paramExportRange, paramStartPage,

  17:             paramEndPage, paramExportItem, paramIncludeDocProps,

  18:             paramKeepIRM, paramCreateBookmarks, paramDocStructureTags,

  19:             paramBitmapMissingFonts, paramUseISO19005_1,

  20:             ref paramMissing);

  21: }

  22: catch (Exception ex)

  23: {

  24:     // Respond to the error

  25: }

  26: finally

  27: {

  28:     // Close and release the Document object.

  29:     if (wordDocument != null)

  30:     {

  31:         wordDocument.Close(ref paramMissing, ref paramMissing,

  32:             ref paramMissing);

  33:         wordDocument = null;

  34:     }

35:

  36:     // Quit Word and release the ApplicationClass object.

  37:     if (wordApplication != null)

  38:     {

  39:         wordApplication.Quit(ref paramMissing, ref paramMissing,

  40:             ref paramMissing);

  41:         wordApplication = null;

  42:     }

43:

  44:     GC.Collect();

  45:     GC.WaitForPendingFinalizers();

  46:     GC.Collect();

  47:     GC.WaitForPendingFinalizers();

  48: }

I need to tell you that my dev environment is based on Windows Server 2008 (x86) with the latest SP. When I tried to convert the first doc file using the service, I receive the bitter newness. Despite the code were the same, convert process failed. Debugging, I found out that Word could not open the file and returned a null object (see row 13 in above code block).
Google searching response, further the “Microsoft does not support Office server side automation (for version till 2007 – see here)” notice, says that other guys experienced in same problem using Windows 2008 services (see this post). So, I tried the same custom service in a virtual machine with Windows Server 2003 and all went well. With an in deep search I’ve found other very usefully posts regarding Windows 2008 Server family lack about a particular folders. In detail:

for x64 system is necessary to create the following folder:
C:\Windows\SysWOW64\config\systemprofile\Desktop
for x86 system:
C:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile\Desktop

After this little tip, also Windows Server 2008 service resumed to work well providing the Office automation desired.

References:

K2 Blackpearl: Useful posts to configure ditribuited environment

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 29 May 2009 07:43:00 +0000

This week I have been involved in the K2 Blackpearl environment setup. When you install it on a single machine the setup is very easy and fluent thanks to the installer provided by SourceCode. The activity began more difficult when you have to install various components on different machine in a distributed environment. In fact to allow multiple components communication it's required Kerberos Delegation. Here I posts some very handy reference to accomplish this tricky activity:

K2 Blackpearl: Set Sharepoint Task List Item Permission by code

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 13 May 2009 14:38:00 +0000

Again on Sharepoint Workflow Integration Process... In the same process used in this post, I had to set particultar permissions to two custom sharepoint groups on the Tasks item created in Sharepoint Workflow Integration Client [SWIC]. In particular my goal was to set "View Only" permission to the following groups:

Approvator Box Push
Collaborator Box Push

where Box Push is my Sharepoint List with my K2 integrated workflow. Because I want to set this permissions when the task item is generated, in this case I cannot use "Sharepoint User Management" [SUM] event because I have the task item ID only when the item is created (see again this post). If you think to use SUM after the SWIC event, you haven't the desired behavior because process instance waits a user action to go on and permissions are set too late. So, to achieve my purpose I needed to write custom code in SWIC event after I get task item ID. In "ExecuteForUser" method body I call a K2 sharepoint web service (installed by K2 on MOSS) used to set permission on generic item (site, list or item list) hosted on MOSS solution. The code to call this service is the follow:

SourceCode.SharePoint.WebServices.K2SPPermissions K2SPPermissionsPRx =
  new SourceCode.SharePoint.WebServices.K2SPPermissions();
K2SPPermissionsPRx.Url = new K2Uri(MyUrl).FormatURI(true) +
     "_vti_bin/K2SPPermissions.ASMX";

ADCredentials directoryCredential = new ADCredentials();

K2SPPermissionsPRx.Credentials =
  directoryCredential.GetCredentials(K2SPPermissionsPRx.Url);

K2SPPermissionsPRx.SetSiteWidePermissionsFromXml(XML_FOR_PERMISSION);

where MyUrl is the Sharepoint site url. This service gets in input a xml string describing the permissions to assign. An example could be this:

<Group>
  <Filter> YOUR MOSS SITE </Filter>
  <SharePointPeopleAndGroupsItem>
    <Url>
      <SharePointSite> YOUR MOSS SITE </SharePointSite>
      <SharePointList>Tasks</SharePointList>
      <SharePointFolder></SharePointFolder>
      <SharePointListItem> YOUR ITEM ID </SharePointListItem>
      <SharePointGroup></SharePointGroup>
    </Url>
    <SharePointItemType>SHAREPOINTLISTITEM</SharePointItemType>
    <UserOrGroupCollection>
      <UserOrGroup>
        <LoginName>Approvers Box Push</LoginName>
        <Type>Group</Type>
      </UserOrGroup>
    </UserOrGroupCollection>
    <K2SharePointItemCollection></K2SharePointItemCollection>
    <K2UserOrGroupCollection></K2UserOrGroupCollection>
    <BreakRoleInheritance>True</BreakRoleInheritance>
    <CopyRoleAssignments>False</CopyRoleAssignments>
    <RevokeDefinitions>False</RevokeDefinitions>
    <AssignSiteMemberPermission>False</AssignSiteMemberPermission>
    <SharePointPermissionCollection>
      <SharePointPermission>
        <Name>Full Control</Name>
        <Type>REVOKE</Type>
      </SharePointPermission>
      <SharePointPermission>
        <Name>Design</Name>
        <Type>REVOKE</Type>
      </SharePointPermission>
      <SharePointPermission>
        <Name>Manage Hierarchy</Name>
        <Type>REVOKE</Type>
      </SharePointPermission>
      <SharePointPermission>
        <Name>Approve</Name>
        <Type>REVOKE</Type>
      </SharePointPermission>
      <SharePointPermission>
        <Name>Contribute</Name>
        <Type>REVOKE</Type>
      </SharePointPermission>
      <SharePointPermission>
        <Name>Read</Name>
        <Type>REVOKE</Type>
      </SharePointPermission>
<SharePointPermission>
 <Name>Restricted Read</Name>
<Type>REVOKE</Type>
</SharePointPermission>
<SharePointPermission>
<Name>View Only</Name>
<Type>ASSIGN</Type>
</SharePointPermission>
</SharePointPermissionCollection>
</SharePointPeopleAndGroupsItem>
</Group>

in my particular case I set "View Only" to "Approvers Box Push" group but you can set your desire permissions substituting ASSIGN to REVOKE label. In this way I achieve my purpose, in fact when a user member of Approvers Box Push open a task Item he or she could only view it (see the picture below). These permissions are set only to the item; on the Tasks list, users can add new task item as they want (as showed in the follow picture):

K2 Blackpearl - Get Task List Item in Sharepoint Workflow Integration

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 13 May 2009 13:43:00 +0000

Using K2 Blackpearl features like Sharepoint events can be very usefull and easy to develop a workflow in few minutes. Althought, sometimes there are pitfalls that frustrate your initial purpose. For example, one of this day, I run against Sharepoint Workflow Integration features. I create my simple approval process in figure but, initially, I can't to get the task item ID created during Sharepoint Workflow Integration Client [SWIC]. I needed this ID because in my final activity I set a Sharepoint List Items event to delete the Task List Item created during the previous activity (SWIC, see Delete Task Activity in the figure above). To accomplish to this necessity, I had to create a new process DataField which I called "TaskId" Then I had to go inside the code generated by SWIC event and I modified the ExecuteForUser method body in the follow manner:

string taskIDstring = service.ModifyWorkflowAndGetTaskID(listId, listItemId,

                          workflowInstanceId, modificationID, contextData, "");



// Put task item id into process data field "TaskID"

string taskID = taskIDstring.Split(new string[] { "?ID=" },

                        StringSplitOptions.None)[1];

K2.ProcessInstance.DataFields["TaskID"].Value = taskID;

"service.ModifyWorkflowAndGetTaskID" calls a K2 web service who return a string contain the url of the task. A string like this: http://your MOSS server/Lists/Tasks/DispForm.aspx?ID=3.

Thank to this code I'm been able to delete Task List Item at the end of my process:

Disable Virtual Machine Time Bomb

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 08:16:00 +0000

Deactivate virtual PC time bomb If you have whatever needs to deactivate your virtual machine time synchronization (e.g. if there are software installed in your vm expiring), you could cut and paste the following XML code snippet in vmc file:

<integration>
   <microsoft>
       <components>
           <host_time_sync>
               <enabled type="boolean">false</enabled>
           </host_time_sync>
       </components>
   </microsoft>
</integration>

Obviously, you should open vmc file with editor like notepade...

Update Vitual Machine Additions issue

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 11:27:00 +0000

Last week I try to attach an old virtual machine (realized in Virtual PC 2004) to my Virtual PC 2007 sp1. When I try ti update the Virtual Machine Additions to the new release I recevice the following error: "Error 1714: the older version of Virtual Machine Additions cannot be removed. Contact your support group" The same error is raised up if you try to uninstall the component from "Add or Remove Program" (Panel Control -> Add or Remove Program). So, after a long googling, I succeeded in my purpose following this steps:

Download Windows Installer CleanUp Utility from Microsoft site,
Install the utility,
Launch "Windows Installer CleanUp Utility" (Start -> All program -> Windows Installer CleanUp Utility),
"Windows Installer..." shows a list of all your programs installed on your virtual system,
Select item "(All user) Virtual Machine Additions [your version]" like in the figure,

Click "Remove",
Click "Ok",
Re-run Virtual Machine Additions program installation

Now, you are able to complete successfully the setup. Note: If you install VMA from last version of Virtual PC (VirtualPC 2007 sp1), you should have this version number: 13.820. Reference: Windows Installer CleanUp Utility

Declarative Workflow

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 10:05:00 +0000

Today, I began to experiment on MS WF. I find very useful the possibility to load at runtime a xaml file of my personal workflow. To reach my goal I create two project with VS 2008 to test my solution:

A console project which is the entry point of my application;
A workflow library where put my custom activity and sequence workflow.

In my workflow library I add a xaml file where I put only my custom simple sequence with only one custom activity that print a "Hello world" (see the figure below). Remember that the custom activity must be tagged as [Serializable]. My xaml file hasn't the code behind because I built my workflow in declarative manner. If you take look at xml you could see:

<SequentialWorkflowActivity x:Name="Workflow1"
     xmlns:ns0="clr-namespace:MyWorkflowLibrary.Task;
Assembly=MyWorkflowLibrary, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral,
PublicKeyToken=null" 
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/workflow">
<ns0:HelloWorldTask x:Name="helloWorldTask1" />
</SequentialWorkflowActivity>

Note that I remove the x:Class attribute in SequentialWorkflowActivity. I do that because I haven't the compiled class in the code behind. In namespace attribute I add the reference to the assembly container of my activity, because this will be resolved at runtime. The console application "Main" looks something like this:

 static void Main(string[] args)
{
// Here, I read my xaml file containing my declarative workflow
var xmlReader =
    new XmlTextReader(
        new StringReader(
            File.ReadAllText(
                @"C:\Users\simonem\Documents\Visual Studio 2008\Projects\
                  TestWorkflow\MyWorkflowLibrary\HelloWorld.xoml")));

var runtime = new WorkflowRuntime();

runtime.StartRuntime();
runtime.WorkflowCompleted += delegate
                                 {
                                     Console.WriteLine("WorkFlow completed");
                                     Console.Read();
                                 };
try
{
    var instance = runtime.CreateWorkflow(xmlReader);
    instance.Start();

}
// Here I manage potential workflow validation exceptions
catch(WorkflowValidationFailedException wfve)
{
    var errorValidation = string.Empty;
    foreach (var error in wfve.Errors)
    {
        // StringBuilder is better...
        errorValidation += Environment.NewLine + error.ErrorText;
    }
    Console.WriteLine(errorValidation);
}
// General exceptions
catch (Exception ex)
{
    Console.WriteLine(ex.Message);
}
Console.Read();

}

Troubleshooting:

If during the program execution you receive an error such as "Could not deserialize object. The type 'clr-namespace:MyWorkflowLibrary.Task;.HelloWorldTask' could not be resolved. startIndex cannot be larger than length of string.Parameter name: startIndex" remember to specify the assembly reference in workflow xml code (see below):

     <SequentialWorkflowActivity x:Name="Workflow1"
     xmlns:ns0="clr-namespace:MyWorkflowLibrary.Task;
Assembly=MyWorkflowLibrary, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral,
PublicKeyToken=null" 
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" 
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/workflow">

If you couldn't compile your solution and you receive the following error "Cannot compile a markup file which does not contain declaration of the new workflow type." you must change the build action on your xaml file from "Content" to "None".

References:

Declarative workflows: Could not deserialize object. The type '' could not be resolved.

WF Video Series on MSDN Nuggets

TFS 2008: TF31002 error workaround...

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 10:42:00 +0000

After the setup of my new TFS server (see Install TFS 2008. The final attempt!!!), I start using TFS to share my project with other colleagues. So I follow Microsoft directives here To accomplish this goal, but when my friend trys to connect to my TFS server receive the infamous windows below:After a long and exhausting research on Google (I see that many other guys run against the same problem) I find the follow workaround:

Open IIS console,
Go to "Team Foundation Server" site, and open Authentication feature

Open context menu from ASP.NET Impersonation:

Set "Specific user" property to the account used to install your TFS server (in many other post is named TFSSetup)

Repeate the steps above also for the WSS site (in my case is the "Default Web Sites"). Remember that new TFS users must have also the permission in WSS site and in Reporting Service. To accomplish this requirement take a look to the screenshot below (IMHO is very usefull create a users group in your machine named TFS_Users and use it...):

Have a nice TFS experience ;-)

Installing TFS 2008. The final attempt!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 11:24:00 +0000

Goal:

Scope of this post is the installation of TFS 2008 on Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008. To accomplish this target, I explored varied posts in other blog. Here I put together all the know how as result of my personal experience...

Before you begin, create your custom TFS iso:

From http://geekswithblogs.net/etiennetremblay/archive/2008/08/11/sql-2008--tfs-2008-sp1-the-lowdownhellip.aspx

[...I used Windows 2008 because this is going to be the prevalent OS to install on when people are going to start fresh or it most likely will. There was a little issue with that install when Windows 2008 RTM’ed back in February and I talked about it in this post. I wanted to see if the WSS issue was resolved in SP1. Well the good news is yes. When installing TFS, the experience is now the same for Windows 2003 and Windows 2008 and to boot, the SP1 now updates the WSS bits on the RTM DVD to WSS 3.0 SP1. Cool.

The problem is SQL 2008 now. You can’t use TFS 2008 RTM to install with SQL 2008. You need to slipstream (or Integrate) the SP on top of the RTM bits. The new install instruction covers this but here is a step by step.

a) Copy the original Media to a folder on any machine say d:\tfs\RTM

b) Extract the SP to a folder say d:\tfs\SPExtract

C:\SP1Download\TFS90SP1-KB949786-ENU /extract:d:\tfs\SP1Extract

c) Create a directory to put the result of the integration in say d:\tfs\ATIntegrated

d) Integrate (slipstream) the SP to the AT install by using this command line (note if you are in Windows 2008 make sure you start you console window as an Administrator or you’ll get prompted by UAC when executing the command).

msiexec /a C:\TFS\RTM\AT\vs_setup.msi /p C:\TFS\SP1Extract\TFS90sp1-KB949786.msp TARGETDIR=C:\TFS\ATIntegrated

e) Once you have done this make sure you copy back the ATIntegrated content to the original AT in the d:\TFS\RTM\AT overriding the original content.

Now you might be tempted to do the same integration with the Build and Proxy directory since they both have a vs_setup.msi file I know I was and actually did. You can’t. I works (well it looks like it does) but when you run the setup, it fails miserably. This is documented by Microsoft to NOT do that for Build and Proxy. You need to install the RTM version and then run the SP on top of it. It would have been nice to have a new DVD with all component SP’ed but it’s not to be.

f) After you have copied back the content to the original RTM directory, just burn a new ISO or DVD and you’re ready to install it.

NOT QUITE…

If you want to have Team Explorer (TE) on your server to create new project like I do, you need to install it BEFORE you install SQL 2008 and apply the TE SP1 also before IF you want to install the client tools as part of the SQL 2008 install which you most likely will to manage backups and verify tables, etc. This problem is fully explained in this KB, Visual Studio 2008 SP1 may be required for SQL Server 2008 installations. If you want to create an all in one server with Studio and Build for example you need to follow the same procedure. ...]

Account for the Setup:

From http://blogs.devleap.com/rob/archive/2006/03/29/7048.aspx [Sorry, in Italian]

[...Create 3 account (the account name can be as you prefer...). If the installation server is in a domain the account must be domain account and obviously of the same domain:

TFSSetup - used to do the TFS setup Administrators Group TFSService - used by the services (code coverage, TFSScheduler, SharePoint Timer), and by application pool Lon On Locally - da Local Security Settings - Local Policies - User Rights Assignment -> Allow log on locally Not in Administrators group for security reason If you are creating a domain account enable "Account is sensitive and cannot be delegated" for security reason TFSReports - used by Reporting Services Lon On Locally - da Local Security Settings - Local Policies - User Rights Assignment -> Allow log on locally Not in Administrators group for security reason By default the created users are in Users group, so they have "Log On Locally" property set. ...]

Be a man, now you are ready to start

Always from http://geekswithblogs.net/etiennetremblay/archive/2008/08/11/sql-2008--tfs-2008-sp1-the-lowdownhellip.aspx proceed as follows:

[...

i) Windows (2003/2008) + IIS

ii) VSTS and/or TE 2008

iii) SP1 of VSTS and/or TE (it’s the same one that installs for all version of VS/VS Core, you need to run it once for anything component you have installed)

iv) SQL 2008 + Component like DB, RS, AS, Client Tools, etc (follow the install guide instructions, i'll try to post an unattended install file when I have one)

Integration: Set automatic startup ed start SQL Server Agent and SQL Server Browser

v) TFS SP1 (integrated), this will now install WSS properly for both Windows 2003 and Windows 2008 so no need to install it before.

vi) TFS Build + TFS SP1 (which is a different SP then the VS one)

vii) TFS Proxy + TFS SP1 ...]

viii) From http://blogs.msdn.com/dstfs/archive/2008/10/23/my-experience-setting-up-tfs-windows-sever-sql-server-2008.aspx

[...Add NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE as a user to the TfsWarehouse database in the SQL Data Engine, and add it to the TfsWarehouseDataReader database role. You can do that manually, or through a SQL script like this (run it from a SQL Management Studio query when connected to the SQL Data Engine):

USE TfsWarehouse CREATE USER [NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE] FOR LOGIN [NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE] EXEC sp_addrolemember N'TfsWarehouseDataReader', N'NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE' ...] ix) Reinstall the VSTS2008 SP1 again...

Troubleshotting

If during the TFS Setup you have problem with reporting service, check in Reporting Service Configuration that https mode is not set (Web Service URL and Report Manager URL sections).

In my experience I have setup problem with "28805 error". I hope you're more lucky, but in any case I found very useful the following links: