Profile specific web.config transforms and transform preview

When we released VS2010 we add support for web.config (XDT) transforms during publish/package. Note: From now on I’ll only use the word publish from now on but the full content relates to packaging as well. In the original implementation when you published your web project the web.config file would be transformed by the file web.{Configuration}.config, where {Configuration} is the project build configuration. For example Debug, or Release. If you publish on Release and there exists a web.release.config we will take your web.config and transform it with web.release.config before publishing.

Cascading web.config transformations

In VS 2012 (as well as the publishing updates for VS2010 through the Azure SDK) now support the concept of publish specific transforms. You can also now specify the project configuration used for a profile when publishing on the publish dialog.

In this case I have created a profile named Production and set the Configuration to Release. When I publish this project the following transformations will be applied (if the files exist) in this order.

1. web.release.config
2. web.production.config

I think that we got this wrong when we initially implemented the support. We should have created profile specific transforms instead of ones based on build config, but having these cascading transforms are still pretty useful. For example I may want to remove the attribute debug=”true” from the compilation element and then inside of the profile specific transform we would override appSettings/WCF endpoints/logging config/etc for that environment.

In VS there is a right-click option on web.config for Add Config Transform, but we were not able to update the functionality of that to automatically create profile specific transforms. Don’t worry it will be released soon with our first set of updates for web tooling. For now you will need to create a new file with the correct name and add it to your project. Note: if you want it to show up nested under web.config you’ll need to add the metadata <DependentUpon>Web.config</DependentUpon> to the item in the .csproj/.vbproj file.

web.config transform preview

Previously the only way to test the functionality for these transformation was to actually publish or package the web project. This gets old pretty quick. In order to simplify creating these transforms we have introduced the Preview Transform menu option. This is the coolest feature in VS 2012 (OK I’m a bit biased, but still its the coolest).

In my web.release.config I have left the default contents, which just removes the debug attribute. Here is what I see when I select this on web.release.config for my project.

You can see that in the image above we can see that the debug flag was indeed removed as expected.

In my web.production.config I have a transform which simply updates the email app setting value. Here is the really cool part when I preview the transform for web.production.config the previewer will look into the profile and determine the build configuration which has been configured, and it will ensure that transform is applied before the profile specific one. For example take a look at the result for web.production.config.

In the image above you can see the note that web.release.config was applied first followed by web.production.config. In the result we can see that web.release.config removed the debug flag and that web.production.config updated the email address value.

We also do a little bit to help out in case there are errors in either the web.config or a transform. You can see errors in the Output Window and double click it to go directly to where the error exists.

Note: Scott Hanselman has a 5 minute video showing this and other updates.

Another note: If you need to transform any file besides web.config during publish then install my extension SlowCheetah.

Sayed Ibrahim Hashimi | @SayedIHashimi

Visual Studio project compatability and VisualStudioVersion

One of the most requested features of Visual Studio 2012 was the ability to open projects in both VS 2012 as well as VS 2010 (requires VS 2010 SP1). In case you haven’t heard we did implement that feature. You may be wondering how we were able to do this and how this may impact you.

If you open the .csproj/.vbproj for a Web Project created in VS2010 you will see the following import statement.

<Import Project="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath32)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\
                  v10.0\WebApplications\Microsoft.WebApplication.targets" />

When you open this project in VS 2012 there are a few changes made to your project file to ensure that it can be opened in both VS 2010 SP1 and VS 2012. One of the changes made to the project when it is first loaded in VS 2012 is to add the following to replace that import statement.

<PropertyGroup>
  <VisualStudioVersion Condition="'$(VisualStudioVersion)' == ''">10.0</VisualStudioVersion>
  <VSToolsPath Condition="'$(VSToolsPath)' == ''">
    $(MSBuildExtensionsPath32)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v$(VisualStudioVersion)</VSToolsPath>
</PropertyGroup>
<Import Project="$(VSToolsPath)\WebApplications\Microsoft.WebApplication.targets" Condition="'$(VSToolsPath)' != ''" />

We removed the hard-coded 10.0 and instead used the property VisualStudioVersion. When building in Visual Studio 2012 this value will always be 11.0, but for VS 2010 it doesn’t exist. That is why we defaulted it to 10.0 above.

There are some scenarios where building from the command line will require to set this property explicitly. Before we get there let me explain how this property gets set (in this order)

1. If VisualStudioVersion is defined as an environment variable/global MSBuild property, that is used.
• This is how VS and the VS developer command prompt set this value
2. Based on the file format version of the .sln file (toolset used is sln file format –1)
• To simplify this statement, the .sln file will build with specifying VisualStudioVersion to the value of the version of VS which created the .sln file.
3. Choose default
• 10.0 if VS 2010 is installed
• Highest-versioned sub-toolset version installed

For #2 when you are building a .sln file the value of VisulStudioVersion will be –1 of the Format Version found in the .sln file. The important thing to note here is that if you build a .sln file it will build with the value of VisulStudioVersion corresponding to the version of VS which created the .sln file. So if you create a .sln file in VS2012 and you always build that .sln file the value for VisualStudioVersion will be 11.0. In many cases if you build the .sln file you are good.

If you are building .csproj/.vbproj files w/o going through a .sln file? If you build a web project from the command line (not the developer prompt) then the value for VisualStudioVersion used will be 10.0. That is an artifact of the properties which I showed above. In this case you should pass this in as an MSBuild property. For example

msbuild.exe MyAwesomeWeb.csproj /p:VisualStudioVersion=11.0

In this case I’m passing in the property explicitly. This will always override any other mechanism to determine the value for VisualStudioVersion. If you are using the MSBuild task in a build script, then you can specify the property either in the Properties attribute or the AdditionalProperties attribute. See my previous blog post on the difference between Properties and AdditionalProperties.

If you encounter any funny behavior when building/publishing and you notice that the wrong .targets files are being imported then you may need to specify this property.

Sayed Ibrahim Hashimi | @SayedIHashimi

SlowCheetah v2.4 Released

I jus released a new version of SlowCheetah, my Visual Studio extension which enables you to transform app.config, and other XML files, during F5 for non-web projects. In this update I added support for Visual Studio 2012 as well as the bug fixes below.

1. Fix for Preview command doesn't show up for all web.config transforms
2. Fix for XML transforms not working with Azure SDK
3. Fix for XML transforms not working with Azure SDK
4. Fix for .config files do no transform in VS 2012 RC
5. Fix for In web project, project File gets modified while adding transformation
6. Fix for Add Transform should not show up for .settings files
7. Fix for Transforms should be added as None

If you are interested in the project you can take a look at the code at https://github.com/sayedihashimi/slow-cheetah and if you have any issues please file a bug at https://github.com/sayedihashimi/slow-cheetah/issues.

 

Thanks,
Sayed Ibrahim Hashimi | @SayedIHashimi

How to create Web Deploy packages in Visual Studio 2012

When building Visual Studio 2012 we made an effort to reduce the amount of menu options which are shown on toolbars as well as context menus. If you have used any of the pre-release versions of VS 2012 then you might have noticed that the Build Deployment Package and Package/Publish Settings context menu options are gone from Web Application Project.

In VS2010 when creating a Web Deploy package the publish dialog was not used because there were no relevant settings. Now that we have enabled features like integration to enable Entity Framework Code First migrations, incremental database updates (coming in the final release), connection string updates, etc. we needed to find a way that you could leverage these great features when creating Web Deploy packages. The solution that we decided to go with was to have first class support for creating packages directly from the publish dialog.

After that, we felt that it would be better to have a single way to create a package than two different ways with pros and cons. And we would benefit by being able to simplify our context menu. To create a package for your Web Application Project in VS 2012 (or in VS 2010 if you have the Azure SDK 1.7+) you can follow the steps below.

1. Right click on your project and select Publish
2. Create a new profile for your Web Deploy package
3. Specify the path where the package should go (must end with a .zip)
4. Click Publish

After the initial create for the profile, creating additional packages is even easier. You just right click on your project select Publish and then click the Publish button.

The reason why we remove the context menu for the Package/Publish Settings is that most of the package and publish related settings are on the publish dialog. The existing settings from VS 2010 are still available on the property pages if you need to get to them.

One other change which we made was to hide the One Click toolbar. This is a toolbar which can be used to publish your web project in one click after the web publish profile has been created. After looking at the number of times that the button was used we determined that it did not meet the bar to be shown by default. Don’t worry if that was your favorite button (I know it was mine), you can bring it back quickly. The easiest way to turn it on is to press CTRL + Q (to bring up the quick launch), type in ‘one click’ and then click on the single result. That should show the One Click toolbar.

FYI if you want to learn more we have a great walk through on publishing a web project with an EF Code First model at Deploying an ASP.NET Web Application to a Windows Azure Web Site and SQL Database.

If you have any questions feel free to email me at sayedha@microsoft.com.

Sayed Ibrahim Hashimi | @SayedIHashimi

Plans regarding Website projects and Web Deployment Projects

The release of Visual Studio 2012 is right around the corner. If you’ve been following our blog/twitter then you may know that many of the Web related components of Visual Studio are now“out-of-band”, meaning that we can update them independently of Visual Studio itself. Because of this we are planning to ship updates a few times a year. We are currently in the process for planning our first update for VS 2012 and we wanted to share some of the items that we are planning to work on. We would like to get your feedback on these ideas to ensure that we are doing the right things. If you have comments please do let us know. FYI the updates that I describe below will be made available for both VS 2012 as well as VS 2010.

Website Project Updates

When you use Visual Studio there are two types of web projects you can create: a Web Application Project (WAP, this includes MVC) and a Website Project (WSP). In VS 2012 we did a lot of work to update the publish experience for WAPs. When we set out for these updates we planned to take these enhancements and make the available to Website projects as well. As we progressed it became evident that we did not have the resources to implement the features for both WAP and WSP in time for VS 2012. So we focused on creating the right experience for WAPs and we also added an extensibility point into WSP which will allow us to replace the existing publish dialog. The reason why we focused on WAP first was because WAPs already have support for Web Deploy (MSDeploy) based publishing as well as a formal build/publish process captured in MSBuild. WSP does not have either of these so it would have taken more time to start with WSP.

When VS 2012 is released the publish experience for WSP will be the same which was available in VS2010 but we will have a release a few months after the release which will bring all the publish goodness to Website Projects! This will include all the features which are available to Web Application Projects including; the ability to publish using.

• Publishing methods MSDeploy / MSDeploy package / FTP / File System / FPSE
• Ability to have multiple publish profiles, which can be stored in version control
• Command line publishing
• web.config transforms
• Enabling Entity Framework CF migrations in web.config during publish
• Incremental database schema publish
• File preview
• etc

Since both project systems will be using the exact same code whenever we add a feature it will immediately be available to both. In today’s world they are two entirely different code bases (the WSP publishing experience is currently native code where as the WAP publish dialog is managed). This will allow us to maintain a consistent publish experience and also enable us to deliver features more quickly.

Since WSP does not have a “build” process you might be wondering how we are planning to hook this all together since our entire publish pipeline is captured in MSBuild. Here is a rough idea of what we are currently thinking. After you use the new publish dialog to create a publish profile for the first time we will do a number of things:

1. Create a new folder to contain needed artifacts
   1. The folder may be in the root of the Website project, but we are considering placing it somewhere outside as well
   2. The name of this folder is not yet finalized, but it could be something like _Publish or _Project
2. Create an MSBuild file for the Website in that folder, this will capture information like; included files, references, properties to control publish process
   1. The primary purpose of dropping this file is to facilitate command line publish scenarios, without this we could publish from Visual Studio but not from the command line
   2. When you make changes in Visual Studio like adding a reference we will automatically keep this file up to date
3. Create the publish profile in that folder (this is a .pubxml file)
4. When the site is being published the working directory (i.e. obj\ folder) will be outside the root of the website, most likely in the same folder which contains the WSP root

After we have those things in place for the most part the publish dialog will be able to treat both projects in the same way. These files will by default be stored in version control and can be shared with other team members. Sensitive information such as the MSDeploy password will be stored in another file and encrypted per-user/per-machine in a .user file which is not checked in.

Web Deployment Projects

A few months after Visual Studio 2005 shipped we released the first version of Web Deployment Projects, and we updated WDP for both VS 2008 and VS 2010 and released them a few months after each of those releases as well. WDPs are used for a few different scenarios including the following.

1. Publishing a Website project using MSDeploy
2. Command line publish support
3. Customizing the publish process for a WAP
4. Running ASP.NET precompile/merge for a WSP or WAP

When we looked at the scenarios that WDPs are typically used for and then compared that to features which we have for WAP and WSP (after the updates mentioned above) we noticed that most (if not all) scenarios where WDP is used can be covered without requiring a WDP. Our new publish experience already has first class support for MSDeploy, command line publishing, and for extensibility so that covers #1-#3. Regarding #4 for WAPs we have already added ASP.NET precompile/merge as a publish option (you can find it in the Package/Publish Web tab). Since WSP does not have any property pages we are likely to move that option to being on the publish dialog itself or we will expose those options in another way for WSP. We have not yet settled on that design.

It may not seem like it but updating WDP to support VS2012 is a significant effort. Knowing that, and that most of the scenarios where WDP are used can now be transitioned to the new experience, we have decided to invest in giving WSP projects first class publishing support instead of updating VS 2012 to support WDP. We think that this is the right decision because we are unifying the publish experience for both project systems and it allows us to create a deeper set of features going forward instead of investing in different things and wasting effort. If you have a scenario that you think we have missed please do not hesitate to reach out to me by email at sayedha@microsoft.com and let me know.

Sayed Ibrahim Hashimi | @SayedIHashimi

MSBuild how to execute a target after CoreCompile part 2

A couple of months ago I wrote a blog post MSBuild how to execute a target after CoreCompile in which I describe how you can execute a target if the CoreCompile target is executed, if CoreCompile is skipped then so will your other target. The draw back of the approach that I outlined in my previous post was that it required you to edit your .csproj/.vbproj/etc file itself. So if you had a scenario where you were building multiple projects then you would have to edit all of the project files. In this post I’ll describe how you can perform the same customization without having to edit the project file itself. Note this blog is in response to a question on StackOverflow Determine if MSBuild CoreCompile will run and call custom target.

Before we get to the solution for this particular case let me describe an extensibility hook that the C# and VB projects have. Most of the logic for building C# and VB projects is captured in the MSBuild targets file at C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\Microsoft.Common.targets. If you take a look in that file you will notice at the top an import looking like the one below.

<Import Project="$(CustomBeforeMicrosoftCommonTargets)" Condition="'$(CustomBeforeMicrosoftCommonTargets)' != '' and Exists('$(CustomBeforeMicrosoftCommonTargets)')"/>

This statement will import a file (located at the value for CustomBeforeMicrosoftCommonTargets) if the property is not empty and the file exists. The default value for CustomBeforeMicrosoftCommonTargets is C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\v4.0\Custom.Before.Microsoft.Common.targets. So if you drop an MSBuild file at that location it will modify the build process for every C#/VB project built on that machine. Alternatively if you do not want (or cannot due to ACLs) then you can drop the file somewhere else and then specify its location by overriding the CustomBeforeMicrosoftCommonTargets property. This is the approach that I will take here. I have created a sample solution which consists of two projects ProjA and ProjB. I also have a build script, build.proj, to automate the build for this. Below is the entire contents of build.proj.

build.proj

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Project ToolsVersion="4.0" DefaultTargets="Build" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
  <PropertyGroup>
    <FileToInject Condition=" '$(FileToInject)'=='' ">$(MSBuildThisFileDirectory)extend-corecompile.proj</FileToInject>
  </PropertyGroup>

  <ItemGroup>
    <ProjectsToBuild Include="ProjA\ProjA.csproj"/>
    <ProjectsToBuild Include="ProjB\ProjB.csproj"/>
  </ItemGroup>

  <Target Name="Build">
    <MSBuild Projects="@(ProjectsToBuild)"
             Properties="CustomBeforeMicrosoftCommonTargets=$(FileToInject)" />   
  </Target>

  <Target Name="Clean">
    <MSBuild Projects="@(ProjectsToBuild)" Targets="Clean"/>
  </Target>

  <Target Name="Rebuild" DependsOnTargets="Clean;Build"/>
  
</Project>

In the Build target above I use the MSBuild task to build both ProjA and ProjB. As you can see I am passing the property CustomBeforeMicrosoftCommonTargets=$(FileToInject) which points to extend-corecompile.proj. By passing this property when ProjA, and ProjB, is built it will automatically import the extend-corecompile.proj file for the build process. You can see the contents of extend-corecompile.proj below.

extend-corecompile.proj

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Project ToolsVersion="4.0" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
  <PropertyGroup>
    <TargetsTriggeredByCompilation>
      $(TargetsTriggeredByCompilation);
      MyCustomTarget
    </TargetsTriggeredByCompilation>
  </PropertyGroup>

  <Target Name="MyCustomTarget">
    <Message Text="MyCustomTarget called" Importance ="high"/>
  </Target>
  
</Project>

This project file uses the technique outlined in my previous blog post to execute the MyCustomTarget only if CoreCompile is executed.

Note: You can get the latest version of this sample at https://github.com/sayedihashimi/sayed-samples/tree/master/ExtBuildMultiple.

Sayed Ibrahim Hashimi | SayedIHashimi

Visual Studio 2012 RC Web Tooling Extensions update

If you have been following our blog and twitter accounts then you most likely have heard that some of the Web components of Visual Studio 2012 are now “Out of Band”. What that means is that we can update those components separately from Visual Studio itself. Because of this we will be posting updates on a regular basis. Today marks the first of these updates, and its targeting Visual Studio 2012 RC. In this post I will describe how to get the update and then what the update contains.

How to get the update

If you already have Visual Studio 2012 RC installed when you launch VS you will see a notification in the task tray like the image below.

Note: VS checks for updates once a day so if you don’t see this notification today its likely that the check has already been performed

After you click on the notification you will be brought to the Extension and Updates dialog. To get the web updates you should go to the Visual Studio Gallery tab and then click Update on the Web Tooling Extensions item.

After installing the update you will need to restart VS.

What is contained in the update

The goals that we had when creating this update mainly consisted of.

1. Fix key customer reported bugs which we didn’t have time to complete for the RC release
2. Test out the update mechanism publicly

Since the intent of this release was not to light up any new features you won’t find any new functionality, but you may discover that an issue you are running into has been fixed. Most of the bugs which we fixed were filed by customer on Microsoft Connect, though some came in through other channels. For the Connect bugs you will see a link to the bug details, for Connect bugs filed as private there will not be a link. Below you will find a list of the fixed bugs as well as a brief description of the bug.

Web publishing raises an exception due to <connectionStrings> content

If the root web.config contained elements under <connectionStrings> that did not have a name attribute an exception was raised.

Reported Bugs

• Error while trying to publish ASP.NET Web API project (Connect private)
• "Exception in Executing Publishing" when Build > Publish Selection (Connect private)
• Publish feature dont work if you have no ConnectionString set in Web.config
• Publish not working
• VS 2012 RC 一键发布中的BUG (Connect private)
• Build / Publish (Connect private)
• Cannot publish mvc project

 

Web publish to the File system doesn’t always include all files

When publishing a web project to the file system there are cases where files are not getting updated on publish.

Reported Bugs

• Publishing Web Forms project to filesystem (Connect private)
• File system publish not copying files in destination folder (Connect private)

Web publish doesn’t handle read-only profiles correctly

In certain cases if a web publish profile is read-only it can cause VS to crash.

Reported Bugs

• Publishing ASP.Net to UNC crashes (Connect private)
• Visual Studio crashes while publishing (Connect private)
• VS 2012 Crashing when trying to run Publish
• VS2012 RC consistently crashes when publishing WCF service to file share (Connect private)

Web publish doesn’t include all files if there is no project configuration matching the solution configuration

The drop down for Configuration on the publish dialog was mapped to Solution Configurations instead of Project Configurations. Because of this if a Solution Configuration was selected which did not have a corresponding Project Configuration the files would not be published. We have updated the dialog to show the correct value.

Reported Bugs

• File export for web application not working properly (Connect private)
• Publish Web Application FAILS!
• One-click Web Deployment using FTP does not work (Connect private)

Wrap up

We are really excited to be able to publish updates on a more regular basis and we hope that you will find that helpful as well. In case you guys were wondering if we listen to feedback/Connect bugs I hope that this post helps to show that we are listening to feedback and working to resolve bugs which get filed on Connect. Keep filing the bugs so that we can make our product even better. If you have already filed bugs on Connect then Thank You!

Sayed Ibrahim Hashimi | @SayedIHashimi

Downloading the Visual Studio Web Publish Updates

I have written a few posts recently describing out updated web publish experience. These new experience is available for both Visual Studio 2010 as well as Visual Studio 2012 RC. You can use the links below to download these updates in the Azure SDK download. Below are links for both versions.

• Windows Azure SDK for Visual Studio 2010
• Windows Azure SDK for Visual Studio 2012 RC

The Web Publish experience is chained into VS 2012 RC so if you have installed VS 2012 RC with the Web features then you already have these features.

Thanks,
Sayed Ibrahim Hashimi @SayedIHashimi

Visual Studio 2010 Web Publish Updates

Last week we rolled out some updates for our Visual Studio 2010 Web Publishing Experience. This post will give you an overview of the new features which we released. In the coming weeks there will be more posts getting into more details regarding individual features.

You can get these updates in the Windows Azure SDK for Visual Studio 2010. When you download that package there you will also get the latest tools for Azure development.

The new high level features include the following.

• Updated Web Publish dialog
• Support to import publish profiles (.publishSettings files)
• Support to configure EF Code First migrations during publish
• Support to create web packages in the publish dialog
• Publish profiles now a part of the project and stored in version control by default
• Publish profiles are now MSBuild files
• Profile specific web.config transforms

Overview

When you right click on your Web Application Project (WAP) you will now see the new publish dialog.

On this tab you can import a .publishSettngs file, which many web hosts provide, and you can also manage your publish profiles. If you are hosting your site on Windows Azure Web Sites then you can download the publish profile on the dashboard of the site using the Download publish profile link. After you import this publish profile you will be brought to the Connection tab automatically.

On this tab you can see all the server configuration values which are needed for your client machine to connect to the server. Typically you don’t have to worry about the details of these values. Next you’ll go to the Settings tab.

On the Settings tab you can set the build configuration which should be used for the publish process, the default value here is Release. There is also a checkbox to enable you to delete any files on the server which do not exist in the project.

Below that checkbox you will see a section for databases. The sample project shown has an Entity Framework Code First model, named ContactsContext, and it uses Code First Migrations to manage the database schema. If you have any non-EF Code First connection strings in web.config then those databases will show up as well but the support for incrementally publishing the schema for those has not yet been finalized. We are currently working on that. You can visit my previous blog entry for more info on that.

If you imported a .publishSettings file with a connection string then that connection string would automatically be inserted in the textbox/dropdown for the connection string. If you did not then you can use the … button to create a connection string with the Connection String Builder dialog or you can simply type/paste in a connection string. For the EF Code First contexts you will see the Execute Code Frist Migrations checkbox. When you check this when your site is published the web.config will be transformed to enable the Code First migrations to be executed the first time that the context is accessed. Now you can move to the Preview tab.

When you first come to the Preview tab you will see a Start Preview button. Once you click this button you will see the file operations which would be performed once you publish. Since this site has never been published all the file operations are Add, as you can see in the image below. The other Action values include; Update and Delete.

Once you are ready to publish you can click the Publish button. You can monitor the progress of the publish process using the Output Window. If your publish profile had a value for the Destination URL then the site will automatically be opened in the default browser after the publish has successfully completed.

Publish Profiles

One of the other changes in the publish experience is that publish profiles are now stored as a part of your project. They are stored under the folder Properties\PublishProfiles (for VB projects its My Project\PublishProfiles) and the extension is .pubxml. You can see this in the image below.

These .pubxml files are MSBuild files and you can modify these files in order to customize the publish process. If you do not want the publish profile to be checked into version control you can simply exclude it from the project. The publish dialog will look at the files in the PublishProfiles folder so you will still be able to publish using that profile. You can also leverage these publish profiles to simply publishing from the command line. For example you can use the following syntax to publish from the command line.

msbuild.exe WebApplication2.csproj /p:DeployOnBuild=true;PublishProfile="pubdemo - Web Deploy";Password={INSERT-PASSWORD}

 

Resources

• Windows Azure SDK for Visual Studio 2010 (this contains the new Web Publish experience)
• Tutorial: Deploying an ASP.NET Web Application to a Windows Azure Web Site and SQL Database
• Visual Studio 2012 RC Deployment Documentation Published (the publish experience in VS2012 RC is nearly identical to the VS 2010 Web Publish updates)
• Sayed’s blog

If you have any questions please feel free to directly reach out to me at sayedha(at){MicrosoftDOTCom}.

Sayed Ibrahim Hashimi @SayedIHashimi

ASP.NET providers and SQL Azure

We have two sets of ASP.NET providers which currently exist; the ASP.NET SQL providers, and the ASP.NET Universal Providers. In VS 2010 the SQL providers were in only providers used for our project templates. In VS 2012 we have switched to using the Universal Providers. One of the drawbacks of the SQL providers is that it leverages DB objects of SQL server which are not available in SQL Azure.

In our updated web publish experience we have an Update Database checkbox which can be used to incrementally publish the database to the destination database. In this case if the source connection string is used by the ASP.NET SQL providers and you are publishing to SQL Azure then you will see the following message on the dialog.

Note: you may see the Update Database checkbox disabled, please visit http://sedodream.com/2012/06/07/VSPublishDialogUpdateDatabaseDialogDisabled.aspx for more info on why.

The publish dialog is letting you know that the SQL providers are not compatible with SQL Azure and helps you convert to using the Universal Providers. After you install the Universal Providers the web.config entry will be commented out and new entries will be inserted for the Universal Providers. Your existing database will not be impacted, we’ll create a new connection string pointing to a new database. If you had any data in the SQL Providers database you will have to re-create those objects in the new database.

If you have any questions please feel free to directly reach out to me at sayedha(at){MicrosoftDOTCom}.

Sayed Ibrahim Hashimi @SayedIHashimi