We have an ASP.NET application that we normally run under Forms Authentication using the ASP.NET Membership API. For a particular client we changed this to using Windows Authentication instead. On the production environment, we were running into the following exception:

A network-related or instance-specific error occurred while establishing a connection to SQL Server. The server was not found or was not accessible. Verify that the instance name is correct and that SQL Server is configured to allow remote connections. (provider: SQL Network Interfaces, error: 26 - Error Locating Server/Instance Specified)

We checked all the connection strings the app uses... all good. Finally, we figured out what was wrong. We had removed the Membership section from web.config so it was going back to the default in machine.config. That setting uses the LocalSqlServer connection string, which we don't use. However, in the default machine.config, this points to the App_Data folder using SQL Server Express. In most environments, this wouldn't be an issue immediately, because SQL Server Express would just create the  aspnet database and use that. However, in a hardened environment SQL Server Express is either not there (our case) or has no rights to create the App_Data folder and/or place create a new database. ASP.NET doesn't know this... it just can't access the SQL Server instance it is looking for, hence the above exception.

I'm delighted to be speaking again at VSLive in June. This time at the Venetian hotel in Las Vegas. I'll being doing two sessions on Monday, June 8:

• Understanding Transactions in WCF, which deals with why, how, and when to use transactions in WCF.
• Advanced Access Control with WCF, which deals with claims based authorization and the Geneva Framework.

Over lunch I will be available for 1-on-1 Q&A, but if you run into me at other times outside my sessions I'm open for questions too.

Checkout the full conference agenda for all the great sessions and speakers at VSLive, Las Vegas. I can really recommend going there, because the sessions are great and the speakers very accessible. I also think the Venetian will be a great venue (I have never stayed at the Venetian, but I have been inside and it is definitly something to see).

Thanks to Microsoft for my new MVP Award. It is nice to get the recognition. A thank you is in order to the people that enable me to do the work that got me the award, starting with my wife Annette and my children Jarod and B'Elanna. They have a workaholic for a husband/dad, but don't complain about it (much). Others that receive a thank you are my partners at BataviaLabs who give me the freedom to write and speak at conferences, our team at BataviaLabs that help me code all my wild ideas, and the people that publish my articles and invite me to speak at their conference.

Iedereen die mijn sessie bezocht heeft tijdens de SDE van 30 maart bedankt voor het luisteren. Hieronder vind je links naar de slides en voorbeeldcode.

Geavanceerde UI Technieken voor SharePoint Slides (126.2 KB) | Samples (447.66 KB)

De voorbeeldcode bevat ook een installer om de WebParts uit te rollen. Je moet wel even uploadskinfeature.bat aanpassen om naar de juiste server te wijzen.

I read this post from Steven Martin at Microsoft and frankly I'm disappointed. Microsoft is not the only company building cloud computing services, but they have a clear advantage over most of the providers: they own the operating system. As such, a unique selling point would definitly be that they can provide you with cloud services, but also enable you to run your applications in your own data center without modifications. If I build an application for the Windows platform, I want to build it once and be able to run in on any server infrastructure. As it looks now, this is not possible. Once built for the cloud, it must remain in the cloud unless you refactor the application for use in your own environment. I really hope Microsoft sees that this is a mistake and that it will actually gain them clients if they allow this. There is another factor here and that's trust. I'd like to have a backup scenario in case Microsoft fails to deliver. With the Azure platform as is, there is no backup scenario. You either go for it full-blown, or you don't. It is my belief that many people will decide not to go with Azure in the first place because of this. In fact, I am now much more reluctant to tell my clients about Azure as an option.

Recently I encountered an exception related to System.Security.Permissions.FileIOPermission while trying to send email from ASP.NET (dasBlog actually). This has nothing to do with rights set on folders! It is a trust (code access permission) issue, and it will happen if your application is running under Medium Trust. Elevating the trust level will definitly help. From what I've read, defaulting to the system defined SMTP settings (i.e. removing any SMTP settings form web.config) will also work, but I have not tried this yet.

Thank you for all who attended my sessions in San Francisco. Below are the slides and samples for my sessions.

VTH4 - Understanding Transactions in WCF Slides (561.73 KB) | Samples (540.1 KB)

VTH16 - Supporting POX/REST with WCF Slides (369.58 KB) | Samples (302.82 KB)

VTH25 - Simplify WebPart (and Control) Development with WebPart Skinning Slides (359.85 KB) | Samples (447.66 KB)

The VTH25 samples include the full installer. However, be sure to change the uploadskinfeature.bat to point to the correct server. You can read more about the VirtualPathProvider I mentioned in VTH25 session here.

The wonderful folks at VSLive! have invited me again to do three sessions at their San Francisco event from February 23 to February 27, 2009. These are the sessions I'll do (all on Thursday 26):

• Understanding Transactions in WCF
• Supporting POX/REST with WCF
• Simplify WebPart (and Control) Development with WepPart Skinning

The first two are obviously about WCF. The last talk is primarily about SharePoint, but the discussed techniques will work with ASP.NET WebParts and WebControls as well.

I really like VSLive! because they have some great content and top tier speakers. The speakers (myself included of course) are also very accessible, because the event is not as huge as some of the other conferences these days. So if you intend to go to a conference this year, VSLive! is going to be worth your money.

Have you ever wondered if/when a transaction in WCF upgrades to the DTC? There two simple ways to check this:

1. Open Performance Monitor and add a new counter. Get the counter Active Transactions from the Distributed Transaction Coordinator section.
2. Open Component Services and go to My Computer in COM+. There is a folder for Distributed Transaction Coordinator, through which you can view the DTC statistics.

In both cases, you'll see the active transactions jump from 0 to 1 when a transaction upgrades to DTC. This happens when you cross a service boundary. If you just use a transaction within the service, WCF will stick to the Lightweight Transaction Manager as long as you stay within you AppDomain or access a single database (SQL Server 2005 and up).

For those of you that attended my sessions in Dallas, here are the demo's for

• POX/REST Strategies with WCF (194.22 KB)
• Understanding Transactions in WCF (396.18 KB)

If you attended the latter, you'll remember that I wrecked my prepared demo (note to self: never change configs just before a session). I finally figured out what was wrong. I changed some configuration on the server side and I thought I did the same on the client. Apparently I did not, because when I updated the service reference on the client it worked.