Visual Studio on Production - visual-studio-2010

Does Visual Studio need to be installed on a production server?
My question is I need it to perform some task like (providers to connect to oracle for example) or only .net framework?

You would need only the appropriate .NET framework version on the production server. Then you can deploy your code, which was developed in some internal server, to the production server.

It's not needed at all. In fact, at most places I've seen Visual Studio is either implicitly or explicitly forbidden from production servers.
Apps that won't seem to run without VS having been installed usually just need some runtimes.

Related

Why is latest Xamarin needed on local TFS server for CI?

The requirements on the following page state that you need to install Visual Studio with Xamarin on your local TFS server to setup Xamarin CI builds:
https://developer.xamarin.com/guides/cross-platform/ci/intro_to_ci/
topography of the CI
This is a real pain. We have lots of developers that rely on our local TFS server, most of whom don't do any Xamarin development. As such, any changes are heavily scrutinized. This often leads to us not installing the latest VS/Xamarin releases, as it's considered too risky for this vital bit of infrastructure.
We could have a Windows build machine with VS and Xamarin installed, that is connected to a Mac build machine. We'd be free to update the Windows and Mac build machines regularly, without the fear of compromising the TFS server. Is this possible? If not, why not?
Thanks in advance.
That diagram can't be right. There is no reason why you'd need VS or Xamarin installed on your TFS app tier.
I think it's showing a simplified configuration where the Windows build agent is installed alongside the app tier. That is a supported setup but is never, ever recommended by anyone, for exactly the reasons why you don't want to do it.
The diagram is simplified. You don't need to install anything on your TFS server. What you do instead is to install a Build Agent on a separate machine or virtual machine.
The installation details for the TFS 2017 / VSTS build agent v2 can be found in the official visual studio documentation.
The procedure is similar for both TFS and VSTS, where you generate an access token in TFS/VSTS, then simply enter the url for the TFS/VSTS instance when running the build agent install script, along with the access token.
There are build agents for Windows, Linux and macOS, so it is up to you how you configure how iOS builds are made.

Does Windows Identity Foundation (WIF) Require IIS? (Rather than Development Server)

I need to know if developing a Windows Identity Foundation (WIF) solution requires IIS installed. I would like to be able do develop a WIF solution using the built-in Visual Studio Development Server (I heard it is called Cassini) if possible.
All of the samples I've downloaded assume that IIS is up and running on the local system.
This blog, Securing WCF Services with Custom WIF STS: A Step-By-Step guide, lists requirements for a WIF example and has IIS as one of the requirements.
I've added the images to allow you to follow easily with the steps.
Pre-requisites:
Visual studio 2010
The development machine has IIS installed (I use Windows 2008 R2)
Windows Identity Foundation (WIF): download it from http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=17331
Windows Identity Foundation SDK: download it from : http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=4451
I also have noted another StackOverflow posting indicating that IIS Express can be used. I have not yet fully investigated IIS Express, however this doesn't answer my basic question.
I can't seem to find any other references anywhere else about this topic. I'd appreciate knowing if anyone has been able to develop a WIF solution implementing a Security Token Service using the standard Visual Studio Development Server alone. Otherwise, I will look into using IIS Express. I am unable to install and use IIS (non-Express) on my system as I don't have local admin access.
Thank you.
Before .NET 4.5 WIF was a separate package and an additional installation step.
.NET 4.5 makes several important changes and moves WIF into the .NET base class libraries. The move enables WIF to be used by any application regardless of host. There's enough changes that if you are starting new, I recommend upgrading to .NET 4.5 to avoid porting in the future and because the integration does make things easier.
I'm currently running Visual Studio 2012 and testing WIF code in IIS Express and ServiceHost without issues.
I don't have local admin access
This is a big problem. Not having local admin for WIF development may not work. You will need elevated privileges to install tools and test applications.
Regardless of version, you shouldn't have any issues running apps with WIF outside IIS. The limitations are more around running SSL. Have you tried? Did you get any errors?
As #Eugenio states, one of the issues is around SSL. The other problem is that Cassini uses localhost which means that you need to have a valid localhost certificate if you are thinking of adding this application to something like ADFS. (as opposed to having a certificate for the actual machine name).
Also, to do WIF development, you have to run VS in Admin mode.

SSIS packages failing to load in VS 2008

I have a problem when trying to load an SSIS package in VS 2008. In the about it says it has "SQL Server Integration Services" installed but on loading a package I get a message that says:
Microsoft Vistual Studio is unable to load this document:
To design
Integration Services packages in Business Intelligence Development
Studio, Integration Services has to be installed by one of these
editions of SQL Server 2008: Standard, Enterprise, Developer or
Evaluation. To install Integration Services, run SQL Server Setup and
select Integration Services.
I thought maybe it was a version problem so I thought I'd look at a new Intergation Services project to play spot the difference. However when I told visual studio to create a new IS project (which was in the list quite happily) it created it and then gave me the above error message again.
To give some idea about my environment I have several version of Visual Studio (2k5, 2k8, 2k10) and several version of SQL server (2k5, 2k8) so I don't know if there is some confusion between versions...
The other thing that I am wondering is if there is a problem with what order things got installed in (ie my VS2008 wasn't installed when SSIS stuff was installed).
I am hoping there is a simple approach to this that won't mean reinstalling things. I can go to our IT to ask them to try to get it working but that would take some time. If it does come to that though I'd like to have some idea of what I should ask them to install since it does seem to be all installed currently...
So if anybody can either a) help me work out precisely what components are installed and what is missing that would be great. Bonus points for helping fix it without needing the install media...
Edit: A thought occurs to me. Coudl it be that I only have 2005 Integration Services installed? If so how can I determine that? And I still am not sure why VS is behaving as it is and letting me create a project but no SSIS in it, even if they were older versions...
Edit: Also it seems that if I load up VS 2005 I can create IS projects but of course can't load up the newer SSIS packages, I assume because they are from a newer version maybe...
Edit: Version information for SSIS in VS 2008:
Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services Designer
Version 10.0.1600.22 ((SQL_PreRelease).080709-1414 )
The following line can tell you the version of the package:
<DTS:Property DTS:Name="PackageFormatVersion">3</DTS:Property>
3 is for 2008, 2 is 2005 and 6 is 2012.
By the way, how patched is your system? The 10.0.1600.22 does sound like the original installation of 2008. Try to install SP3 and the latest cumulative update - this will bring your installation to 10.00.5788 and the issue might go away.
If you previously had the components from a Express 2008 installation, and then you install an Standard, Enterprise, Developer or Evaluation, instead of actually installing a new instance/components (probably you see Integration Services grayed out) use the Upgrade option of the SQL Server 2008 setup, and then VS will load perfectly the DTSX file.

I want to keep my source protected on my development machine, how would I deploy ASP.NET MVC to the server?

I'm not exactly sure what to do, normally I do a commit to SVN and Cruise Control does all this stuff on the server to pull from the repo and deploy everything.
However I am just playing around for fun with my personal VPS and want to know how I can from Visual Studio 2010 (web express) on my local machine just make some kind of installer or DLL or whatever and how to deploy it to my VPS of Windows Server 2008.
Do I upload via FTP and run something or place some files in a certain location and configure through IIS? Or is there some way Visual Studio can just interface with my server and impregnate it with my beautiful code?
From the description given, I'd recommend 2 options:
check whether your server installation currently supports one-click publishing. It's likely an IIS configuration task(s) and/or ensuring your server supports MSDeploy/WebDeploy. See "One-Click Publishing - What's New". Publish Use Visual Studio 2010's Publish command to perform a Web Deploy of your solution.
setup an FTP server on your server. Use Visual Studio 2010's Publish command with the FTP option to push your built solution.
Would this MSDN article help?
The thing is there's capabilities in Visual studio that can publish a web application on a web server.
But you can always do an xcopy deployment as well. And since you've obviously never deployed a web application yet maybe it would be good to learn something and actually deploy it manually.

Building webparts with Visual Studio 2010 Express

I'm trying to get started with building my own webparts, planning to follow this MSDN article.
I've downloaded Visual C# 2010 Express - I'm not quite at the point where I feel comfortable dropping 1000 big ones yet, and I installed Visual Web Developer 2010 Express via the WPInstaller.
Following through the tutorial, aside from the fact that I don't get the option to create a "Web Control Library", a gap I filled with this article, I can't seem to find the sn.exe tool (or the "Visual Studio 2005 Command Prompt"!).
I know it's not quite a direct programming related question, but I can't even get the thing going yet!
Any help is appreciated.
Thanks
EDIT:-
I think I may be jumping the gun quite considerably, I wrote a simple hello world example and tried to build it but it doesn't have any references to the Microsoft.SharePoint packages and they don't appear in my lists.
Am I understanding some more research I've done (namely this) correctly, in that I have to actually have a full installation of actual SharePoint on the machine I'm developing on?
sn.exe is part of the .Net Framework SDK tools - not actually part of Visual Studio.
If you've got the SDK installed (which I think you must have if you're using VS) then it will be in a directory such as (depending on which version of .NET SDK you've got installed)
c:\program files\microsoft.net\SDK\v2.0\Bin
You can develop SharePoint web parts with VS express but you won't be able to use extensions like VSeWSS which can make your life a little easier.
You don't have develop on a machine with SharePoint installed upon - you can just copy the Microsoft.SharePoint.dll assembly from a machine with it installed on and reference it in your project.
There are pros and cons to developing on a SharePoint machine.
Its easier to get started -
especially debugging locally rather
than remote debugging.
Harder to be
sure that you're code will work a
'real server' - are you sure you
don't have any dependencies that may
not be installed.
Harder to work with
multiple versions of SharePoint (2007
WSS and MOSS and 2010 foundation,
server etc).
If you do want to work with a locally installed SharePoint then
You can install windows server OS with SharePoint and Visual Studio.
there is a hack for installing SharePoint 2007 on vista (referenced in the SO article you link to)
you can install SharePoint Foundation 2010 on Windows 7 (but I am not sure what the licensing restrictions are - is this maybe something thats given through MSDN?)
If you decide to go with the remote server installation then save yourself some grief and use virtualization such as VMWare Server, Virtual PC or Hyper-V.
If you are doing SharePoint development trying to reference the Microsoft.SharePoint namespaces you need to have SharePoint installed on the machine if you want to do things like debugging, etc. For SP 2010 you CAN install SharePoint on a Win 7 machine. For previous versions of SharePoint, you will need to setup a Server that is Server 2003 or Server 2008 (you can't install SP 2007 and earlier on client machines). Generally this is a Virtual Machine for developers.
Having said all of that, there are relatively few reasons you need SharePoint to develop a WebPart. The vast majority of the WebPart functionality is part of the System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts namespace. Even if I am accessing SharePoint data, I generally use the ASP.NET web part.
If you are trying to use the new SharePoint VS 2010 functionality to create Visual Web Parts, etc, then you will need to install SP 2010, since that functionality is not supported in earlier version of SharePoint.
John

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