Wade Wegner

I’ve been meaning to start posting an aggregation of notable Commerce Server blog and forum postings.  I’ve never found that Google or Technorati do a great job of searching or summarizing blog topic discussions, so I’ll try to do my best to relate what’s going on in the Commerce Server community.  Mostly, these posts come from people listed in my Commerce Server blogroll, as well as the Commerce Server forums.

Please let me know if I’ve missed any notable Commerce Server posts or announcements!

Blogs (posts you should read)

07/01/2007 – Ryan Donovan [MSFT] - The Best is Yet To Come - Ryan reflects on the long-term product roadmap for Commerce Server.

07/01/2007 – Max Akbar - Looking for Commerce Server Training? - Max announces the completion of his first video training tutorial.  This tutorial focuses on the Commerce Server Catalog System.  I  have had the opportunity to review this tutorial, and I can attest that it is great stuff!  Definitely worth the $$.

07/01/2007 – Jeff Lynch [MVP] – E-Commerce News: Commerce Server 2007 & BizTalk Server 2006 R2 - Jeff posts a summary of some news in the CS world, and explains that BizTalk Server 2006 R2 and Commerce Server 2006 play well together.

07/02/2007 – Nick Mayhew [MSFT] – Commerce Server SP1 available and introducing the Commerce Server team blog - A little behind the times <grin>, Nick announced SP1 and the CS team blog.

07/06/2007 – Ryan Donovan [MSFT] - http://blogs.msdn.com/rdonovan/archive/2007/07/06/speaking-in-denver-wpc-next-week.aspx - Ryan mentions that he’ll be here in Denver to talk at the WPC (damn, I can’t make it!) about Commerce Server.

07/06/2007 - CS Team Blog [MSFT] – http://blogs.msdn.com/commerce/archive/2007/07/06/commerce-server-worldwide-partner-conference-in-denver-next-week.aspx - The CS Team (via Ryan) discusses their presentation at the Worldwide Partner Conference in Denver, CO.

Forum / Newsgroup (answered questions that you might find useful to peruse)

07/02/2007 – StarterSite HelperClasses Source Code [Urgent!!!] - I’ve seen this one a lot.  People cannot find the source code for the Commerce Components, and only see the assembly (CommerceComponents.dll).  The source code is available in the CommerceComponentsSource.zip file, which is part of the Starter Site zip.

07/02/2007 – Data warehouse – Resolution to the error “Trans-Ctlg DTS task provider wrapper : Cannot Init timezone object”

07/03/2007 – InventoryQuantityDelta and the out of stock mystery - An explanation as to why orders occasionally come through for a product that is out-of-stock.

07/05/2007 – ‘Out of Memory Exception’ using CatalogWebService for Inventory - Memory leak when using BizTalk 2006 and Commerce Server 2007 Catalog adapter to update inventory.  The leak is fixed with SP1, and can be resolved by restarting the Catalog Import Host COM+ service.

07/06/2007 - Password Strength - Decreasing the password strength required for a profile.

07/06/2007 – Failed to delete inventory skus / Execute permission denied on ‘inv_ValidateSkuType’ – A potential bug in the inventory system.

In my previous post, I detailed the process for installing the Commerce Server 2007 SP1.  In this post, I have created a walkthrough for the Commerce Server 2007 Upgrade Wizard.  The upgrade wizard should be run for all of your Commerce Server 2007 sites immediately after you have installed SP1.  So, before you begin this process, be sure you have successfully installed SP1.

(Note: I created this walkthrough, along with verbose screen shots and text, largely for documentation I am delivering to clients.  Please feel free to use these screen shots and/or text for your own documentation.)

A couple comments based on my experience installing SP1 and upgrading through the wizard:

• Immediately upgrade all of your Commerce Server 2007 sites.  Do not reboot your machine before you run the Upgrade Wizard.
• Make sure SQL Server 2005 is running with the appropriate built-in account.  For example, when I initially installed SP1 my SQL Server 2005 instance ran as “Local System”.  However, post install, I had to switch the built-in account to “Network Service” for SQL Server 2005 to start-up properly.  I will write a separate post about some issues I had the first time installing SP1.

That said, here’s the process for using the Upgrade Wizard to upgrade your Commerce Server 2007 sites.

1. Launch the Upgrade Wizard.  You can launch this application automatically after installing SP1 or by running the Upgrade Wizard (Start -> All Programs -> Microsoft Commerce Server 2007 -> Tools -> Upgrade Wizard).  Click Next to begin.

   

2. On the Select Options screen, specify the log file path.  I left the default location.  Click Next to continue.

   

3. On the Select a Commerce Site screen, specify the site you want to upgrade.  Note: if you have more than one site, you can only upgrade on at a time; you can re-run the Upgrade Wizard to upgrade additional sites.  Click Next to continue.

   

4. On the Upgrade Site Resources screen, you have the option to choose Migrate or Do Nothing for your various resources.  Select the action Migrate for all your resources.  Click Next to continue.

   

5. The Upgrade Summary screen reviews the selections you have made.  Review the selections, and click Next to start the upgrade.

   

   

6. Once the upgrade is complete you will have to click the Next button to continue.

   

7. On the Summary screen, you can review the upgrade and click Main error log to review any errors.  Click Next to continue.

   

8. You have successfully upgraded  your Commerce Server 2007 site.  Click Finish to complete the upgrade wizard.

   

9. After you click Finish you are reminded to restart.  Click OK to continue.

   

10. If you have additional Commerce Server 2007 sites to upgrade, repeat steps 1-8.
11. Once you have upgraded all your Commerce Server 2007 sites, restart your computer.

The process is reasonably straightforward, and I encountered no problems.

Please be sure to share your experiences.

I hope this helps!

I went through the process of upgrading my Commerce Server 2007 sites today.  While I had a few issues with the installation, I was able to get everything updated and functioning.

There are really two parts to the SP1 installation: the first is the installation of SP1 itself, and the second is the upgrade wizard that must run against your Commerce Server 2007 sites.  This post will walk you through the installation of the service pack itself.  The upgrade wizard walkthrough is discussed in a separate post.

Before you install Service Pack 1 for Commerce Server 2007, I recommend you do the following:

1. Test SP1 by installing first in your development environment.  Ensure that your application continues to function.  If necessary, run regression tests against your application to make sure nothing has been broken.
2. Install SP1 in your QA or UAT environments, followed by your Stating environment (if you have one).  Again, this is to ensure that your systems are not broken by the installation of the service pack.
3. Make sure to thoroughly back-up your production environments before you upgrade.  This is VERY important, as you must ensure that you have an exit strategy, should something go wrong.  Do not neglect this step, or you may regret it.

Okay, that said, you must first download SP1 before you can begin.  You can download SP1 for Commerce Server 2007 here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=748049C5-A9BF-4AEC-91A0-AFE2DE0BF860&displaylang=en

(Note: I created this walkthrough, along with verbose screen shots and text, largely for documentation I am delivering to clients.  Please feel free to use these screen shots and/or text for your own documentation.)

Once you have downloaded the file, you can begin the following steps:

1. Double-click “CS2007-SP1-ENU.exe”.  You will receive a security warning – click Run to continue.

   

2. Specify a location to unzip the necessary files, and click Unzip.

   

3. Browse to the location you unzipped the files and review the ReadMe.htm file.
4. After you have read the ReadMe.htm file, double-click SP1Setup.exe to launch the installation wizard.
5. On the CS 2007 SP1 Installation Wizard starter screen, click Next to continue.

   

6. Read the license agreement, specify that you accept the terms, and click Next to continue.

   

7. Click Next to begin the installation.

   

8. A dialog box will indicate that various services will be stopped.  Click OK to acknowledge and continue.  The installation of SP1 will (finally!) begin.

   

   

9. Once the installation is complete, a summary page displays.  You can take a look at the log file (which I would recommend) and can also immediately launch the Commerce Server Upgrade Wizard (which I would also recommend).  Click Finish to complete the Commerce Server 2007 SP1 upgrade.

   

At this point you must upgrade any Commerce Server 2007 sites you have installed on the machine.  I will discuss this process in a separate post.  I have two recommendations for you at this point:

• Immediately upgrade all of your Commerce Server 2007 sites.  If you don’t upgrade them, you will get errors like the following (notice that I learned this out of experience):

   

• Wait to reboot your server until you have upgraded all of your Commerce Server 2007 sites.  See my post for more details.

I hope this helps!  Best of luck!

The Commerce Server team has just announced the release of SP1 for Commerce Server 2007.

Here’s the new features/enhancements they highlight:

• Support for Commerce Server 2007 Developer Edition and business user applications on Windows Vista
• Ability to create a Commerce Server 2007 Web Application Project in Visual Studio 2005 — something that  it definitely needed!
• Performance enhancements
• Security enhancements
• Various fixes (here’s a list of all the bugs fixed with SP1)

Note the fine print from the site: “Commerce Server 2007 SP1 includes updated binaries in English only. Each business user application that Commerce Server 2007 provides is available in English only. This does not affect your ability to develop a multilingual Commerce Server Web site.  Installing SP1 on non-English versions of Commerce Server 2007 is not supported.”

You can download SP1 here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=748049C5-A9BF-4AEC-91A0-AFE2DE0BF860&displaylang=en

Also, you can download the updated partner SDK here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=BDEA4873-2C06-4C7F-AD51-830A0309FECC&displaylang=en

I plan to update my virtual images with SP1, so I’ll be sure and blog about the experience later tonight!

[Update]

• You can find a detailed walkthrough on installing SP1 in the following post: Commerce Server 2007 Service Pack 1 (SP1) Walkthrough.
• You can find a detailed walkthrough on upgrading CS 2007 sites in the following post: Commerce Server 2007 Upgrade Wizard (post SP1 install) Walkthrough

As a Commerce Server developer, you are bound to come across a situation where the smart client business user applications (e.g. the Catalog Manager, Catalog and Inventory Schema Manager, Customer and Orders Manager, and Marketing Manager) do not satisfy a business requirement, need to reflect a company’s brand or style, or your business users simply want it changed.

Fortunately, you can get the full C# source code for the business user applications (except for the Catalog and Inventory Schema Manager; see Max’s comment in this thread) through the Commerce Server 2007 Partner SDK.  This gives you the ability to modify the business user applications and be a hero to all your colleagues and clients (chuckle!).

Yeah, yeah, this is all old news.  However, I just came across a great idea from Søren Spelling Lund in which he talks about his experiences using ClickOnce Deployment along with the business user applications.

What is ClickOnce Deployment?

ClickOnce deployment is a technology designed to ease the difficulty in creating self-updating Windows-based applications.  Using the Publish Wizard in Visual Studio 2005 (or mage.exe, mageui.exe, or MSBuild), you can publish your application in three different ways: to media (such as a CD-ROM), to a network file share, or to a Web page.

When an application is published, two files are created: an application manifest, and a deployment manifest.  The application manifest describes the contents of  the application, including the assemblies, dependencies, and the files that make up the application.  The deployment manifest describes how the application is deployed, the location of the application manifest, and the version of the application that should be run by the clients.

Here’s an example of an application published to a Web page (this particular example is from the SpaceWar SDK for the XNA framework – yes, I truly aspire to be an XBOX 360 game developer):

(Note the deployment version number.)

Once the end-user installs the application from the deployment location, the application is, by default, added to the Start menu and the Add/Remove programs group in the Control Panel.  Nothing is added to the Program Files folder, the registry, or the desktop.  When I first played around with ClickOnce this last part caught me unaware — I couldn’t figure out where my application had been installed!  Also, no administrative rights are required to install the application.

Now, remember the deployment version number?  The best part about this technology is that, if a developer publishes a new version of the application, the deployment version number is incremented.  Consequently, the next time the end-user runs the application they are presented with an opportunity to update their application.  What’s neat is that, as a developer, you actually have a lot of control: you can require an update, and you can even require that a user rolls back to an earlier version of the application (not that any of us would ever have to roll back to an earlier version …).

All-in-all, it’s neat stuff.  And, while it’s not a perfect solution and has it’s own problems, you can very rapidly integrate it into your application and quickly reap the rewards.  Oh, and you can easily become a hero to your colleagues and clients (are you starting to sense a pattern?).

Integrate ClickOnce Deployment into the Partner SDK?

So, we’re back to the smart client business user applications.  I’m sure you’re now asking yourself, what does this have to do with the Commerce Server 2007 business user applications (or maybe not, since I alluded to it above)?

Søren Spelling Lund posted an article about integrating ClickOnce Deployment into the business user applications.  It’s a great idea, and one I will definitely use in the future.  Additionally, he takes the time to point out a problem him and his colleagues ran into when they tried to run the ClickOnce installer on the Customer and Orders Manager.  Essentially, it appears that the project file included a <TargetZone> element that interfered with the ClickOnce installer.  Removing the <TargetZone> element resolved the problem.  Check out his blog article for the full details.

What are the benefits of integrating ClickOnce Deployment into the Partner SDK?

• Ease - Easily deployment of business user applications to end-users
• Versioning – Make sure your end-users are running the latest and greatest
• Safety – The ability to roll back to a previous version of the application (just in case!)
• Security – The applications run in a security context that prevents users from doing malicious things
• Fame – Yes, you too can be a hero …

Thanks to Søren for a great idea and a great post!

What great ideas have you put into play?  Please let me know!