Dot-NET

PowerShell Basics for SharePoint 2010

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 17:00:00 EST

I’m not expert in PowerShell, but I thought I would share a few basics I picked up at Ignite and various other places along the way when it comes to getting started with PowerShell. The easiest way to issue SharePoint commands with PowerShell is by running the SharePoint 2010 Management Shell located under Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products in your Start Menu. However, it is good to understand what this shortcut actually does. PowerShell works by using the concepts of snapins. A snapin is simply a DLL installed with gacutil and installutil that implements a particular interface. This means you can write your own snapins to do whatever you want. All of the SharePoint commands are found in Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell.dll. So what this shortcut does, is it runs PowerShell with a script located at the path below.

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\CONFIG\POWERSHELL\Registration\\sharepoint.ps1

This script simply uses the Add-PSSnappin command to load the SharePoint commands. If you started PowerShell by using some other link, you can also load the SharePoint comamnds by using this command. Note that the name is always specified without .DLL.

Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell

Working with PowerShell is in a lot of ways similar to working with a regular command prompt, it is just a lot more powerful. All of your familiar DOS commands will work because they have been aliased to child items. For example, Get-ChildItem is how you display the contents of the current folder in PowerShell, but you can also just type in dir to get the same results.

Knowing the name of the snappin lets us do a few things. First, we can get a list of all of the commands contained in it by using the Get-Command command with the –PSSnapin parameter. For example:

Get-Command –PSSnapin Microosft.SharePoint.PowerShell

Of course, there are 500+ SharePoint PowerShell commands returned so it makes that list difficult to deal with. So you can use some old school command prompt tricks to make the list more manageable. You can issue the command and hit the Pause key (lol). You can, use the | more technique to view one page at a time.

Get-Command –PSSnapin Microosft.SharePoint.PowerShell | more

You can also redirect the output to a text file like this.

Get-Command –PSSnapin Microosft.SharePoint.PowerShell > commands.txt

Then you can just open the file in notepad or the editor of your choice. If you want a more verbose description of how each command is used, you can use the Format-List command and pass it specific property names. Notice the properties I specified (Name, Definition) I just got from the table above.

Get-Command –PSSnapin Microosft.SharePoint.PowerShell | Format-List Name, Definition

This is great, but then you might want to know more about the specific syntax of a command. For this you can use the Get-Help command. Just execute it followed by the name of the command you want information on. For example if I want to know about Get-SPWeb, I would issue.

Get-Help Get-SPWeb

It would return something that looks like this.

Once nice thing about PowerShell is that you can use tab to help you complete commands. For example you can type “Install-SP” and then press tab and it will cycle through the available commands. What is even better is that you can also use the tab key to add the parameters to the command. This is useful for when you can’t remember the exact parameter name.

Another thing I really like about PowerShell is that many times if you leave off a parameter, instead of just giving you an error, it will prompt you for the value. For example, if I want to create a new site collection, I use the New-SPSite command. I don’t remember the parameters, but it starts prompting me for things like the URL and owner name. And of course you can always use Ctrl+C to break out of the command if you change your mind.

There is a ton you can do with PowerShell and I won’t be able to cover it all in this one post. The power is that it allows you to string together complex commands together to get things done. If you want to build a script, you simply start by creating a .ps1 file. You can build this in notepad. There is also a PowerShell Integrated Scripting Environment (ISE) that will allow you to actually debug your scripts. One thing to be aware of is that to execute scripts, it requires an execution policy to be set. Chances are this is already set appropriately, but if its not, your script will not run. The three possible settings are restricted, unrestricted (prompt to run), and bypass. I think most people set this to bypass (although I am sure there are security considerations) with the following command.

Set-ExecutionPolicy bypass

There is so much to say about PowerShell. I hope this post serves as a good starting point to start exploring what you can do with it. I’ll be covering more advanced PowerShell topics in the future.

How to Avoid .NET Performance Problems

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:15:00 EST

Every time I work with one of our .NET customers to help them with managing their application performance I come across the same problems as seen with other clients before: lots of ADO.NET queries, many hidden exceptions in core or 3rd party .NET libraries, slow 3rd party components, inefficient custom code … Too often we at dynaTrace are introduced when it is already very late in the development cycle. Most of the time we're introduced when the first performance test results show bad response times and nobody understands why it is that slow. In other cases we get called when there are problems in production and it has already taken too much time to figure out the root cause. Solving these problems at that point can become really expensive as it sometimes involves changes to the architecture. Most of these problems can be prevented by following some basic principles from the start of the project. In this article I cover some of the problems I’ve seen and I encourage everybody to read the paper I wrote on Performance Management for .NET Applications that covers this problem domain in detail.

Installing Geneva Beta 2 on Windows 7

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:00:00 EST

Recently I installed the Beta 2 version of "Geneva", or ADFS 2.0. All of my machines are now Windows 7 machines, including just about all of my VHDs and virtual machines. The only time I use Win2k8 R2 is when the product I'm installing specifically requires me to do that. So when I installed Geneva on my Win7 box, I thought everything would be fine. Then I rebooted. The "Modify STS Reference..." and "Update federation metadata" menu items that are supposed to be added to the list of available options on an ASP.NET web application were gone. They were there before I rebooted but they were gone after. I also noticed something funny with the Identity training kit install. Every single directory and file in there was marked as "read only". I would unset the read-only flag, right click the file, get properties, and sure enough, it was still set to read only. WTF?

What’s new in Services on Server in SP2010

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 09:15:00 EDT

Curious to know what the Services on Server page looks like now? Well, then this is the post for you. Instead of just having the 6 or so services that you had in MOSS 2007, there are many more services listed on the Services on Server page. Here is what your list might look like (pending changes of course). Since the move to Service Applications, you will probably find yourself concentrating on this page as much, but it’s still there.

Access Database Service
Application Registry Service
Business Data Connectivity
Central Administration
Document Conversion Launcher Service
Document Conversion Load Balancing Service
Excel Calculation Services
Lotus Notes Connector
Managed Metadata Web Service
Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Incoming E-mail
Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Subscription Settings Service
Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Web Application
Microsoft SharePoint Foundation User Code Service
PerformancePoint Service
PowerPoint Service
Search Query and Site Settings Service
Secure Store Service
SharePoint Foundation Search
SharePoint Server Search
User Profile Service
User Profile Synchronization Service
Visio Graphics Service
Web Analytics Data Processing Service
Web Analytics Web Service
Word Automation Services
Word Viewing Service

As you get more familiar with the concept of Service Applications, you will notice that many of the items on this list are service applications.

Templated Helpers in ASP.NET MVC 2 (VS2010 Beta 2 Version)

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 09:00:00 EDT

Templated Helpers are one of the new features in ASP.NET MVC 2. The other day, Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 came out and some of you may have noticed that it comes pre-equipped with a beta release of ASP.NET MVC 2. In short a templated helper is a way of using various combinations of implicit and explicit rules to automatically place partial controls wherever particular data types need to appear, either in edit mode or display mode. So let's say you have a DateTime property on your model called MeetingDate. Rather than make every single view write its own (potentially contrasting!) code to render dates in view mode and in edit mode, you can now do something like this:

ADO.NET Data Services Projections Makes Sliced Bread Jealous

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 09:30:00 EDT

The other day I ran into a blog entry from the Astoria team discussing the projections feature of the 1.5 CTP2 version of the product. If you're not familiar with ADO.NET Data Services (formerly codenamed Astoria), it's basically a layer that you can put on top of an Entity Data Model and it will expose that model as a RESTful service. The URL format for this RESTful service is quite flexible, allowing you to select individual rows, perform filters, sorts, and many other things.

One of the new things that you can now do server-side via the new CTP2 URL syntax is projections. Projections actually allow you to control the shape of the output coming back. You can specifically choose which properties on the entity you want. Even more awesome is that this can be controller hierarchically. So if you bring back an Order entity and you include all of the OrderItem entities for that order, you can tell the server that you only want the customer for the Order and you only want Quantity and Price for the order items.

To perform a projection on the URL, you just use the $select parameter, like this:

blah.svc/Orders?$select=OrderID,Quantity,Price

And to control the shape of hierarchical data:

blah.svc/Orders?$select=OrderID,Quantity,OrderItems/Price,OrderItems/Quantity&$expand=OrderItems

At this point when I saw this I started having convulsions of pure joy. The main reasons being that every ADO.NET Data Services URL query will output either AtomPub or JSON. This means I can get only the columns I need and give them to my Ajax calls. Then I noticed that support for the new projections is actually in the Astoria client library as well, allowing me to write the following query:

var q = from order in ctx.Orders
        where order.Price > 300
        orderby order.Price descending
        select new { Price = order.Price, Quantity = order.Quantity };

This will translate into an Astoria query that filters, sorts, AND projects all on the server side, leaving me with a network footprint that only transmits the information I want and nothing else. This is a godsend if you have entities with huge amounts of columns but each individual query might only need to use 1 or 2 of those columns at a time.

And now, if this wasn't ridiculous enough, you can actually perform updates using the projected objects, AND those updates will ONLY transmit the information necessary. For example, if I only want to change an order's price and I got the price from a projection, I don't need to carry the entire order payload across the wire in order to commit the change:

order = q.First();
order.Quantity = order.Quantity + 42;
svc.UpdateObject(order);
svc.SaveChanges();

This will figure out that the only thing changing is the Quantity field and it will ONLY send that information. After discovering the combination of projections and the efficient round-trips of Astoria, this is when my head exploded.

If you have a multi-tier scenario and you're using an Entity Data Model (EDM), then you should definitely look into using ADO.NET Data Services to expose that model via services because now with projections, you can really do some unbelievable stuff. All that garbage code you used to have to generate to convert between DTOs and ViewModels and Entities and back again? You can delete ALL of that crap.

I've said it before but the folks working on ADO.NET Data Services deserve a medal. If you see a member of that team, buy them a beer. You have no idea how ridiculously complicated and difficult it is to write code that supports arbitrary projections like this. I'm pretty sure every time you run an Astoria query with projections, an Angel gets its wings.

New Version of TuneUp Utilities Available in Late October

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 20:30:00 EDT

TuneUp Utilities 2010 contains the new Turbo Mode to increase the performance of users' PCs. This allows consumers to switch off a large number of unnecessary background processes -- with a single click. The Live Optimization function is another addition to TuneUp Utilities. It helps improve programs' startup and response times, even when computers are bogged down with a number of applications running simultaneously. TuneUp Utilities 2010 also provides users with a concise Optimization Report, which outlines the Windows maintenance processes carried out and the problems that have been fixed. TuneUp has redesigned the Start Center; once the software program has been opened, this feature shows users in a clear and concise layout which optimization processes are necessary for their individual system.

Microsoft Expression Web Has Got Game

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 20:45:00 EDT

In 2006 Microsoft began releasing a series of designer focused tools. The big question was: Why? Adobe has the best tools, doesn’t it? There is no doubt that Adobe’s tools are very good, what is clear, however, is that Microsoft is taking design seriously for this to be accomplished Microsoft does need tools that work well with their own tools. An immediate designer’s pain point for Microsoft is the millions of ASP.NET developers who have only Visual Studio 2005/2008 to design their Web applications with. If you have used Visual Studio as a design tool, then you know what I mean.

Using CAML To Deploy A Lookup Column Via Feature

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 10:30:00 EDT

This week, I needed to deploy lookup columns to some of my lists and as usual I wanted to avoid writing code at all costs. As some of you may know, Kyle Kelin and I debate this topic often as he prefers a code approach. I figured it had to be possible with CAML, but many claimed it was not even possible. A few approaches showed up out there involving using code to modify the elements.xml file with your GUID, but that just wasn’t going to cut it for me. One popular post on the topic by Josh Gaffey, started me in the right direction, but there were a few hurdles I ran into as I was trying to implement it. It would create the list, show the content type, and site columns, but when I tried to create a new item, the lookup column was not there.

ASP.NET Dynamic Data

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 20:15:00 EDT

Still have good fun updating my simple Mix 09 Business Application demo. In this part, I wanted to consider how we might build the admin site of our site.. Because it is just for a very small number of trusted users, I’d like to get something up and running quickly. I’d also like to share all by business logic and validation code between the Silverlight client and the WebAdmin site. You can see the full series here.

Exposing a WCF Service in Silverlight

Sat, 01 Aug 2009 08:00:00 EDT

I am having a blast with the series where I am updating my simple Mix 09 Business Application demo. In this part, I wanted to consider the scenario that I hope is a common one. The developer writes their Silverlight app using the RIA Services pattern and the application becomes wildly successful. So successful in fact there is a demand to put a services head on top of the same application logic to facilitate writing a bunch of other clients. This is the sort of pattern we see happening with applications like Twitter and Sharepoint.

Randomizing Input Data for Visual Studio Load Tests

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 09:30:00 EDT

While preparing for my presentation Load and Performance Testing: How to do Transactional Root-Cause Analysis with Visual Studio Team System for Testers that I gave at the Boston .NET User Group on May 13th I came across certain load-testing topics. One was: How to randomize Input Data. If you go with Visual Studio you can code [...] Related posts:

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Business Apps for Silverlight 3 RTM: POCO and Authentication Provider

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 09:30:00 EDT

I have gotten lots of good comments on my series updating my Mix09 talk read more

Business Apps Example for Silverlight 3 RTM - Part 7

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 08:45:00 EDT

I wanted to continue with the enhancements to my Mix09 talk “building business applications with Silverlight 3”. In this section I am going to show how to get data from a REST based web services rather than directly using Entity Framework or Linq to Sql. Let’s focus on the cloud source of data. We will use the same sample from the previous parts and change only the data access part to go against ADO.NET Data Services as the data store.

Installing SQL Server Management Studio

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 15:45:00 EDT

I recently installed Visual Studio 2010 Beta on my Notebook computer with Vista Home Premium. SQLServer Express 2008 that comes with VS2010 Installation has only two tools.

It has only Import and Export Data (32bit)
SQL Server Configuration Manager

You could download the following:

SQLManagementStudio_x86_ENU

If you think you will be installing the Management Studio you will be fooled (this was probably created for the April 1 downloaders)

Here are the screen shots of what it really tried to install.
May be the following download may contain the Management Studio.

SQLEXPRADV_x86_ENU.exe (502.7 MB)
Brief description of the above lifted from Microsoft documentation to quote:

"Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Express with Advanced Services is a free, easy-to-use version of the SQL Server Express data platform that includes an advanced graphical management tool and powerful features for reporting and advanced text-based searches. This edition provides powerful and reliable data management tools and rich features, data protection, and fast performance. It is ideal for small server applications and local data stores."

Now back to the installations shots of the one that had the name but no tool:

The installion verifies as successful 13 operations in the Setup Support Rules checking.

What the program has is shown here:

The SDK is greyed out and choosing any of these produces an exception.

If you try to search for the SDK mentioned you will hit a hardwall.

Well done Microsoft.

Flexing Your .NET 3.5 Skillset

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 04:00:00 EDT

With the arrival of .NET 3.5, WPF and the RTM of Silverlight 2, .NET developers have more choices than ever for designing, developing and deploying compelling applications with rich user interfaces. However, there are other mainstream alternatives that don’t fall into the .NET camp. When it comes to the RIA world, technologies such as Adobe Flex and Flash may seem more foreign to some of us then driving on the left side of the road would be to an American.

First Time with AJAX.NET

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 23:00:00 EDT

In a former life, I was a web developer. Back in the late '90s, I vividly remember being told by more than one of my computer science professors that in 10 years, everything would run in a web browser. Even the operating system (it was claimed at the time) would be browser based. On startup, the machine would load the thinnest of all possible operating systems, and everything else – applications, data, you name it – would be stored on the network and accessed via a hyper-dynamic web browser.

Can AJAX and RIA Frameworks Help Overcome Financial Recession?

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 07:49:07 EST

To overcome the financial recession, a good RIA (Rich Internet Application) framework is far from enough since Ajax experts are rare and costly to hire; moreover, it’s time-consuming to begin the project. Thus, an integrated development environment is necessary to help enterprises deliver time-to-market rich Internet application efficiently with the minimal cost. In 2009, RIA builder plays a key role on decide which RIA solution will be adopted by enterprise since it helps them save IT investment greatly.

Deploying an ASP.NET AJAX RSS Reader on Linux

Thu, 22 May 2008 07:30:00 EDT

Have you ever wished you could run ASP.NET applications on Linux, without having to rewrite your code or leave the Visual Studio development environment? In this article, I show you how to port Steve Clements' AJAX ASP.NET RSS Reader to native Java and deploy it to Apache Tomcat on Linux. I also show you how to add an AnimationExtender and a HoverMenu from the AJAX Control Toolkit in Visual Studio, while targeting Java.

Developing Situational Applications with Web 2.0 Mashups

Wed, 26 Dec 2007 04:15:00 EST

The evolution of Web sites to dynamic rich interactive applications is a true revolution for users. But for ASP.NET developers tasked with building high-performing scalable applications, it presents major challenges. The features that characterize blogs, wikis, personalized pages, and other data-driven Web 2.0 applications fundamentally change processing, transmission, and rendering workloads, and require new approaches and solutions. In Web 2.0 applications:

Getting Started with Silverlight: Zero to Hero

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 22:00:00 EST

Lots of people have been asking about how to get started with Silverlight, and what they need to do to get up and running with Silverlight quickly. Inspired by blog posts such as Jesse Liberty's, I'm going to take this from first principles, with no prior knowledge assumed. So let's get started with the first and most simple application - a 'Hello World' in Silverlight. You need no special tools for this. Just notepad will do...