Re: VS2005 Remote Web - FPSE Not Installed???

Hi Scott,

The simple answer is that it's "new" for VS2005, but the proper answer is this:

In VS2003 you had to choose between "FileSystem" and "FrontPage" for your website. A FileSystem website was a bit pointless on VS2003 because you needed IIS to run it; only a fool would try to run a FileSystem website with IIS so most pros used FrontPage extensions. This also gave a number of advantages:

1. Easy to synch with production server over HTTP with one click.
2. Possible to debug into an ISAPI extension.
3. Easy to work with "live" sites from remote locations.
4. Total consistency among all DLLs and technologies

In VS2005 there's a built-in web server and this has some advantages:

1. It's much easier to set up for the developer who does not have an expert server guy on hand.
2. It's much easier to debug and use the built-in server without needing Admin rights on the local machine.

However, it does not give you the advantages of the old system above and also it seems worse when you want to deploy it to the production server. It also only works with .NET, so it's not much use if you're doing ASP/ATL/COM/ISAPI and COM+ services.

I've only had VS2005 for a few days so I'm still learning it, but I still need to investigate the server side - FrontPage Extensions vs Sharepoint. Microsoft claim FrontPage Extensions have been discontinued and you should use SharePoint instead but (to me) it seems useless for web applications developed with VS2005 and .NET 2.0; it's just for silly "themed" sites where they don't have a web developer available, and anyway it means all your ASPX and CS files are burried in a database that can only be accessed via a Frontpage enabled client app - seems seriously flawed to me...

So I think it's worth testing the FP 2002 Extensions after all.

Scott F K Hooper wrote: 
Hi Gerry,

Thanks so much for your response. Your comment re not needing FP if I'm working on the lan gave me new insight. You see the entire point of all this was so that my business could store projects on a network drive and develop them on local machines. The way I initially tried to do that was to set the path of a virtual directory in IIS (5) to said network path. But as we all discover, you can't do that. So we went down the remote debugging path and you know the rest...

Well just now I created a new website in VS2005 and was pleased to discover that you can just set a File System path for the location of the new project. I whipped up a simple app and ran it with no problems at all. I was interested to note the path in the IE address bar - http://localhost:3867/DOTNET2_Test/Default.aspx

So now I'm left wondering... If I develop all my apps this way now, is there any need at all for remote debugging on the server? And secondly (I guess I could just try this myself rather than asking) was VS2003 ever capable of doing this, or is it new functionality in 2005 (the File System location I mean)

Thanks for all your input Gerry. I hope this helps others too.

Best regards,
Scott

"Gerry Hickman" wrote:

Hi Scott,

I can't give a proper answer right now because when I looked at my server today I realized I was testing SharePoint instead of Frontpage Extensions, but if you expand IIS in Computer Management you should see a folder called something like "server extensions". Does it indicate Frontpage Extensions are installed and enabled in that screen?

The good news is that you found the command line tools, so at least you can test it now. From the errors below it sounds like the extensions are "installed" but have not been set up for IIS port, and further to this, your root web has not been extended. You *may* be able to fix all this from the command line, but see my paragraph above first. Look at the other command line options for how to "extend" a server.

Remote Debugging does not need Frontpage Extensions if you are on a LAN, you only need the extensions if you are trying to speak to a server using the HTTP protocol.

If you don't get any proper answers I'll try to get rid of SharePoint (which was a waste of time anyway) and put the Extensions back on next week.

I have a Web Server Extensions\40 and Web Server Extensions\50 folder. when I run 40\bin\fpsrvadm (selecting 4-Check on port 80) I get the following:

Starting check, port: 80, web: "root web"
Error 2 opening registry key "SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\Ports\Port ".

When I run 50\bin\owsadm -o check I get the following:
Starting check, port: /LM/W3SVC/1:, web: "/".
Error: The FrontPage Server Extensions are not installed on '/LM/W3SVC/1:'.

I must admit, I'm a bit confused by all this because remote debugging VS2003 is still working very nicely on these two systems. Is it that VS2003 did not use the FP extensions whereas VS2005 does?

Using Windows Setup I uninstalled and then reinstalled the server extensions, restarted the server and ran the above tools again with the same results. This all seems unecessarily complicated to me. I have no idea how to proceed.

"Gerry Hickman" wrote:

Hi Scott,

It's nothing to do with remote debugging or which FrameWork version you set. Either the extensions are installed and properly configured or they're not.

On Windows 2000/FP2000 extensions there's a suite of command line tools you can use to check the extensions:

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\40\bin

You should find a similar folder on Server 2003. Make sure you've read all the extensions help files, make sure you've enabled the extensions in the IIS configuration tab for "server extensions"

Otherwise, re-install the extensions if you have to. Then use these tools above to "check" the extensions before trying to use a client box.

Scott F K Hooper wrote: 
Repost from 6-Jan-2006

I have VS2005 installed on my XP Pro SP2 workstation and am trying to create a new web on my 2003 Server. On the VS Start Page I select Create:Web Site, then in the New Web Site dialog I select ASP.NET Web Site, HTTP as the location type, VB as the laguage and finally I key the location as "http://<servername>/DOTNET2_Test", where <serverName> is appropriately substituted with the name of our 2003 Server domain controller. The error I get back upon clicking OK, after about 5-10 seconds of activity on the server with the "creating..." dialog on the workstation, is "Unable to create the Web 'http://<servername>/DOTNET2_Test'. The Web server does not appear to have the FrontPage server extensions installed.

Now then, on the server the FrontPage 2002 server extensions are most definately installed as checked in Add/Remove Programs->Windows Setup. I have also setup the VS 2005 Remote Debugger on the server.Using IIS6 on the server the empty web DOTNET2_Test also exists, mapped to a folder of same name off the webroot$ location. I read somewhere that I should be able to right-click the web in IIS6 and see FP2002 options in All Tasks, but all I see is "Save Configuration to a File". Sounds like the server extensions aren't installed doesn't it? But You can see the tick box there in Windows Setup stating the contrary. In the properties for the Web I have set the ASP.NET version to 2.0.50727

I have been through the How To at http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bt727f1t.aspx to setup remote debugging so I'm sure it's not a firewall issue. I have even tried lowering the firewall on both machines to be sure. Incidentally, remote debugging works fine with VS2003/.NET1.1 between these two PC's. Sometime ago I had quite a lot of hassle getting that going, but it turned out to be a DCOM security issue - easily fixed when you know how :)

So that's where I'm at. I have tried providing VS2005 with a non-existent web name on the same remote server in hope that it would create it, but I get the same error referencing FrontPage. 

TIA to anybody who can shed any light for me
SFK



--
Gerry Hickman (London UK)


--
Gerry Hickman (London UK)



--
Gerry Hickman (London UK)
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