Re: recommended web site creation? And existing problem

Hi,

Well you appear to enjoy complication in your life! I don't think I've ever seen such a convoluted way to create a web project. At fist I thought you were talking about problems CONVERTING existing v1.1 ASP.NET projects into v2.0 projects, but you appear to be asking two different things in one post? You appear to be saying

1. I'm having problems creating a brand new website in VS2005 on my XP workstation

2. I'm having problems converting an existing web project from v1.1 to v2.0 (that's normal)

This should be posted as two separate questions, and towards the end you confuse it by saying you are running XP workstation and Server 2003, but as I understand it none of this was done on the server, it was all done on your Workstation??

On my system, if I want to create a new WebSite on the Workstation I can do:

"File:New:Web Site..."

I then select C# and can then choose either choose "FileSystem" or "HTTP". If I choose FileSystem it will be created at a FileSystem path and if I choose HTTP it will be created in a new Frontpage extended folder under W3SVC/1/Root of my local IIS. (Behind the scenes the files would reside in a subfolder of wwwroot). I don't need to know or care where the actual files are stored.

I can then test and debug the site and publish it to the production server when I'm ready.

Why it needs to be any more complicated than that is beyond me??

One thing I'd advice against is trying to use UNC paths for FileSystem webs unless you know what you're doing.

Note that the ASP "configuration" menu is usually only available for FileSystem web projects, you won't see it if you're using local IIS. In general you should not need this menu; I avoided it because it looked like it might try to use an SQL server database to store settings which is totally stupid. I suppose they expect everyone to install the SQL Server "Express" to every workstation?? Yikes another boat load of security holes to be exploited. I'm hoping to avoid such things.

Regarding "converting" projects, that's another story for another day...

Ken Wigle wrote: 
All,

I have been using VS.NET 2003 and created a bunch of web sites that all work well with a SQL and Exchange Server. But, the way I create and manage these sites does not appear to work in VS 2005. I'm guessing I have missed one of the changes. Anyways, here is what I am doing (and what used to work under 2003)

Creating a brand new site
1) I create a folder on my server ex: e:\netapps\time***
2) I create a virtual directory in IIS with execute permissions and point it to the e:\netapps\time*** folder
3) I use VS 2005 on my PC to create a new web site at n:\time*** (where N is a mapped drive to the server mentioned above in the netapps folder)
Under 2003, I created the website by pointing to the web address rather than the fileshare.
4) I add a line of text to the default.aspx file and change the IIS settings on the server so that it uses the default.aspx file as the default home page.

So, this should work? It is an empty brand new web project and compiled with no errors. But wen I go to the site (i.e. http://mysite/time***), I get a server error and even if I try and use customerrors mode="Off" in the web.config file, I still get the general server error html page.

The only thing I can find that is an apparent problem is that when I use the new asp.net configuration tool in VS 2005 and go to the security tab; I get the error:

An error occurred during the execution of the SQL file 'InstallCommon.sql'. The SQL error number is 5110 and the SqlException message is: The file "N:\time***\APP_DATA\ASPNETDB_TMP.MDF" is on a network path that is not supported for database files. CREATE DATABASE failed. Some file names listed could not be created. Check related errors. Creating the ASPNETDB_a01b0b6b425c4f19b0e4ccbd2c441696 database

So, how should I be creating web sites? I've got to get this ironed out since I tried to convert one of my projects and not only did the conversion not work, the backup during the conversion failed with errors as well. Even though I think I got the problems fixed, I have the same issues as I have with the above blank brand new project.

The workstation is using VS 2005 and windows xp. The server has 2.0 net framework and is running server 2003

I know there were a lot of changes to VS 2005 - if there is a document detailing "what you need to do differently from 2003", I'd love to know where it is.

Many thanks for any help,
Ken



--
Gerry Hickman (London UK)
.