Hannes Preishuber

SQL Express Manager B2

I tryed the latest available SQL Express Manager (Feb 2005) with also the latest available VS2005 bits (later then Feb 2005). It works! Must be the same .NET Framwork with build number 50215.

http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/express/sql/

Then i tryed to open the Express Manager and i failed several times. Neither Windows nor SQL Authentication works.

I found a tip in the web to change some registry key to allow mixed authentication mode. But was not enough. Then i tryed several types of servernames (use ./SQLExpress)

After then i created accounts with sqlcmd and used it to login.

Still no success. I figured out that the kind of dynamicly mounting (attaching) the MDF Database files must be the problem. As workaround i created a database project and created a database with visual Studio 2005. Then i tryed again the SQL Express Manager and now i can connect. I made a cross check.

Restarting the SQLExpress service detaches the database and the login with SQL Express Manager fails again. I made all of this tests on a second virtual Server machine and had the same results.

Then i tryed to mount the database directly with parameters on starting SQL Express Manager. I must change the directory and name the database on command prompt. Which is to complicated

C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Manager>xm -S .\SQLExpress -E
 -d d:\hannes

This seems to work. Now the Database is their on every start of SQL Express. I would like to have a option attach from the visual part of SQL Express Manager.

Another intresting fact is, where is my created user? I did not found it again. Lost in SQL Express space.

What can i do with SQL Express. Nearly the same as with Visual Studio 2005. Not enough.

I have still problems to understand how SQL Express do the attach and detach job and how i can influence that.

If you want to manage your SQL Express remotly, you must acitvate with the SQL Computer Manager the protocols like TCP/IP or named pipes. Then, i guess, you adress the Server with servername\SQLExpress in SQL Express Manager.

All that figured out by try and error and some weblog entrys. But didnt find a sensfull step by step intro.

Whats that? codezone

Today SBC blogged the start of codezone. The self description ist "community of communitys". Codezone started in Swtzerland 2 years ago as a usal portal for developers made by microsoft Switzerland. From my point of view Switzerland is a blank space on the community map and codezone filled this leak.

The next step was the adoption of codezone by microsoft germany on cebit last year. Now it was a content syndication portal with expert reviewed content. The major diffrence to search engine was a linking between the information.

Now codezone starts on www.codezone.com . As codewise member i thought codewise programm changes to codezone. But now it seems codezone is a portal for usergroups. (find, register .. a user group) Does microsoft have dropped support for INETA?

I believe something is going wrong with microsoft communitys acitivites.

the way to managed code: comeback of COM?

In our standard software department we are devloping fax solutions at least for three years. The visendo fax server is a quite modern solution wich uses socket communication, SMTP and POP3. So faxes can be send and received over existing infrastructure like Exchange. The printer driver communicate through a port with the server so you can also fax from every internet connected point. The administration is build with MMC and the config is stored in XML files. Development language is 100% Microsoft C++.

I am quite unhappy with building user interfaces and also developing MMC. Hard, expensive and full of possible bugs. So we are going to change the architecture.

Our idea is to build based on cassini code a 2nd managed service. ASP.NET is used to make the UI. The central question is how to communicate between the unmanged Fax Service and the managed Service.

1. migration the unmaged code to .net is expensive full of risk an nonsense

2. Using sockets is slow, unsafe and expensive to implement

3. Using webservices is slow

4. Shared memory ( our dev team love it)

5. we have decided to expose al methods from the unmanaged service als COM. Then we build a manged wrapper and use this wrapper classes in ASP.NET. To understand: eg ReadMSN gives a list of stroed MSN (used for ISDN)

I like the idea but have doubts about our step back to COM. COM is fast, easy to implement and quite secure on the machine.

What do you think about it? Feel free to answere here.

Wireless Lan is up!

One of the first thing, which is intressting for a speaker is:

do we have Wirless lan and it is working?

Yes TechDays have a wonderfull wirless lan

So i can continue preparing for my tomorrow sessions. 4 hours later i will take a look for the power plug;-)

Mail and Exchange Security

Today is the day where i am publishing a little secret. It was the time where Microsoft announced Exchange 4.0.

I was working for microsoft germany as technical freelancer and made presentations about new products like exchange 4.0. Today Microsoft calls this guys evangelist ;-)

So i installed this product and had the problems that i can not get my external emails from my internet mail box. Exchange contains a lot of fancy connectors to mail systems like one from digital research. But none for POP3

So i wrote my own connector with C++ popConnect which exists now in version 6. I have written no code for it since version 1 ;-). In the german market we are market leader with that kind of product.

After some years i had some unwanted emails in my inbox, also known as virus, trojan or spam. Nobody blocked at this time simple bat attachments. So we implemented a filter for attachments and words into popconnect and called it popconnect plus.

The next step was to put more intelligence into filtering and we developed a "Server" Version called Mail Checker Server. At this time our marketing changed the product strategy and build a software famaly under the name visendo, which is also a registered trademark.

Where is Interlaken?

Was my first question to the microsoft people from Switzerland. They invited me to attend the TechDays 2005 (formerly known as DevDays).TechDays Web Site

I am honoured to make two sessions (both in german)

Securing of Mail Server (Exchange 2003)

In this Session i like to go into the details of mail communication and especially the SMTP part. Which is also useful for IIS SMTP configuration. I also will step into the details of other access protocol's like POP3, IMAP and HTTP for OWA. Interesting stuff for admins and developers.

ASP.NET and Internet Information Server Security

This Session will show in short the common attacks and risks of running a web application and how IIS6 and ASP.NET 2 helps to prevent the danger.

If you attend, feel free to add comments here.

Now to the important part of my headline. Where is Interlaken? As the name says its between two lakes in nowhere of Switzerland. Only 540 Km from me away. But not reachable with common transport system. My solution:

• Drive from Austria to Munich Airport 1:30h
• wait on airport 1 h
• Fly to Zürich 0:40h
• wait for tran 0:30h
• Ride the train to Interlaken 2:30h

Great! quickstart tutorial 2.0

Quickstart tutorial is included in .NET Framework since 1.0. Now Microsoft have rewritten for .NET 2.0 the quickstarts. A strong sign that B2 is coming closer.

It looks good, the useability is realy good and the samples are also even better. Great work Microsoft!

You can find the B1 Version here http://beta.asp.net/quickstart/aspnet/