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In this first article of the series we walk you through the installation and configuration of MCMS 2002 Service Pack 2 (SP2), along with SQL Server 2005 and Visual Studio 2005 on a single developer workstation. In addition, we will cover the changes to the SP2 development environment and a number of tips for working within it.

This article assumes you are already familiar with the steps necessary to install MCMS 2002 SP1a as detailed in depth in the previous book, Building Websites with Microsoft Content Management Server from Packt Publishing, January 2005 (ISBN 1-904811-16-7).

There are two approaches to setting up a development environment for SP2: upgrading from a previous SP1a installation, or starting from scratch and building a fresh installation including SP2. We will cover both approaches in this article.

For example, we will be using Windows XP Professional SP2 as our development workstation. However, where there are significant differences for a Windows Server 2003 SP1 machine, those will be noted. All examples assume the logged-on user is a local machine administrator.

Overview of MCMS 2002 Service Pack 2

As with other Microsoft Service Packs, one major purpose of SP2 is to provide an integrated installation for a large number of previously released hotfixes. SP2 will now be a prerequisite for any future hotfix releases.

While many customers will view SP2 as a regular Service Pack, it also offers support for the latest development platform and tools from Microsoft, namely SQL Server 2005, .NET Framework 2.0 and ASP.NET 2.0, and Visual Studio 2005:

  • SQL Server 2005: MCMS databases can be hosted by SQL Server 2005, offering numerous advantages in security, deployment, and most significantly, performance.
  • .NET Framework 2.0 and ASP.NET 2.0: MCMS applications can be hosted within the .NET Framework 2.0 runtime, and take advantage of v2.0 language features as well as security and performance improvements. In addition, many of the new features of ASP.NET 2.0 such as master pages, themes, navigation, and Membership Providers can be used. This provides numerous opportunities to both refine and refactor MCMS applications, and is the primary focus.
  • Visual Studio 2005: MCMS applications can be developed using Visual Studio 2005. One of the greatest advantages here is the use of the new HTML-editing and designer features in VS.NET along with improved developer productivity.

If you wish, you can continue to use SQL Server 2000 for your MCMS applications. However, we recommend upgrading to SQL Server 2005 and will use it throughout the examples in this book.

There are numerous versions or Stock Keeping Units (SKUs) of Visual Studio 2005, all of which are supported with SP2. Throughout the examples in this book, we will be using Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition.

Unfortunately, SP2 is not a cumulative service pack and therefore requires an existing installation of SP1a. Likewise, there is no slipstreamed distribution of SP2. The SP2 distribution is suitable for all editions of MCMS.

Mainly due to the extremely fast preparation and release of SP2 following the Release to Manufacturing (RTM) of .NET 2.0, Visual Studio 2005, and SQL Server 2005, the Microsoft installation information (KB906145) isn’t particularly well documented and is somewhat confusing. Rest assured that the guidance in this article has been verified and tested for both installation scenarios covered.

Obtaining MCMS Service Pack 2

MCMS SP2 can be downloaded from the following locations:

Installation Approach

We cover both an in-place upgrade to SP2 and a fresh installation in this chapter. Which approach you take is down to your specific requirements and your current, if any, MCMS installation.

If you wish to perform a fresh install, skip ahead to the Fresh Installation of Microsoft Content Management Server 2002 Service Pack 2 section, later in this article

Upgrading to Microsoft Content Management Server 2002 Service Pack 2

This section details the steps required to upgrade an existing installation of MCMS SP1a, which includes the Developer Tools for Visual Studio.NET 2003 component. The outline process for an upgrade is as follows:

  1. Install Visual Studio 2005.
  2. Install MCMS 2002 Service Pack 2.
  3. Configure the development environment.
  4. (Optional) Prepare the MCMS database for SQL Server 2005.
  5. (Optional) Upgrade SQL Server.
  6. (Optional) Install SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 1.

We will perform all steps while logged on as a local machine administrator.

Installing Visual Studio 2005

Visual Studio 2005 can be installed side by side with Visual Studio.NET 2003. Once we have completed the upgrade, we can remove Visual Studio.NET 2003 if we wish to only develop MCMS applications using SP2 and ASP.NET 2.0.

  1. Insert the Visual Studio 2005 DVD, and on the splash screen, click Install Visual Studio 2005.
  2. On the Welcome to the Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 installation wizard page, click Next.
  3. On the Start Page, select the I accept the terms of the License Agreement checkbox, enter your Product Key and Name, and click Next.
  4. On the Options Page, select the Custom radio button, enter your desired Product install path, and click Next.

    Installation And Configuration of Microsoft Content Management Server: Part 1

  5. On the second Options page, select the Visual C# and Visual Web Developer checkboxes within the Language Tools section, and the Tools checkbox within the .NET Framework SDK section. Click Install.

    Installation And Configuration of Microsoft Content Management Server: Part 1

    Feel free to install any additional features you may wish to use. The above selections are all that’s required to follow the examples in this book.

  6. Wait (or take a coffee break) while Visual Studio 2005 is installed. When the Finish Page appears, click Finish.

    Installation And Configuration of Microsoft Content Management Server: Part 1

  7. From the Visual Studio 2005 Setup dialog, you can choose to install the Product Documentation (MSDN Library) if desired.
  8. From the Visual Studio 2005 Setup dialog, click Check for Visual Studio Service Releases to install any updates that may be available.
  9. Click Exit.

Installing MCMS 2002 Service Pack 2

Next, we will install MCMS Service Pack 2.

  1. From the Start Menu, click Run.
  2. In the Open textbox, enter IISRESET /STOP and click OK. Wait while the IIS Services are stopped.
  3. Double-click the SP2 installation package.
  4. On the Welcome to Microsoft Content Management Server 2002 SP2 Installation Wizard page, click Next.

    Installation And Configuration of Microsoft Content Management Server: Part 1

  5. Select the I accept the terms of this license agreement radio button, and click Next.

    Installation And Configuration of Microsoft Content Management Server: Part 1

  6. On the ready to begin the installation page, click Next.

    Installation And Configuration of Microsoft Content Management Server: Part 1

    Wait while Service Pack 2 is installed.

  7. During installation you may be prompted for the MCMS 2002 SP1a CD-ROM.
  8. Once The Installation Wizard has completed page, click Finish.
  9. If prompted, click Yes on the dialog to restart your computer, which will complete the installation.
  10. Otherwise, from the Start Menu, click Run.
  11. In the Open textbox, enter IISRESET /START and click OK to restart the IIS services.

    Stopping IIS prior to the installation of SP2 avoids potential problems with replacing locked files during the installation, and can prevent the requirement to reboot.

Configuring the Development Environment

Before continuing, a few additional steps are required to configure the development environment. We will:

  • Configure the shortcut that opens Site Manager to bypass the Connect To dialog.
  • Install the MCMS website and item templates in Visual Studio.

Site Manager Shortcut

During the installation of SP2 the Site Manager Start-menu shortcut will be overwritten. To configure Site Manager to bypass the Connect To dialog, take the following steps:

  1. Select Start | All Programs | Microsoft Content Management Server.
  2. Right-click the Site Manager shortcut and click Properties.
  3. In the Target textbox, replace
    “C:Program FilesMicrosoft Content Management ServerClientNRClient.exe” http:///NR/System/ClientUI/login.asp
    with
    “C:Program FilesMicrosoft Content Management ServerClientNRClient.exe” http://localhost/NR/System/ClientUI/login.asp.
  4. Click OK.

It is possible to configure many different Site Manager shortcuts pointing to different MCMS entry points. However, for this book we will only use the entry point on localhost, which is the only supported configuration for MCMS development.

Visual Studio Templates

The installation of MCMS Service Pack 2 automatically registers the MCMS developer tools such as MCMS Template Explorer in Visual Studio 2005. However, before we can create MCMS applications with Visual Studio, we need to make the website and item templates available.

  1. Select Start | All Programs | Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 | Visual Studio Tools | Visual Studio 2005 Command Prompt.
  2. Execute the following commands, replacing MCMS_INSTALL_PATH with the install location of MCMS (usually C:Program FilesMicrosoft Content Management Server) and PATH_TO_MY_DOCUMENTS_FOLDER with the location of your My Documents folder:

    xcopy “MCMS_INSTALL_PATHDevToolsNewProjectWizards80Visual WebDeveloper” “PATH_TO_MY_DOCUMENTS_FOLDERVisual Studio 2005TemplatesProjectTemplatesVisual Web Developer”/E

    xcopy “MCMS_INSTALL_PATHDevToolsNewItemWizards80Visual WebDeveloper” “PATH_TO_MY_DOCUMENTS_FOLDERVisual Studio 2005TemplatesItemTemplatesVisual Web Developer”/E

  3. Execute the following command to register the templates with VisualStudio 2005:

    devenv /setup

  4. Close the command prompt.

This completes the steps to upgrade to SP2, and our environment is now ready for development! We can test our installation by viewing the version number in the SCA, connecting with Site Manager, or by using the Web Author. Of course, any existing MCMS web applications will at this time still be hosted by.NET Framework v1.1.

It is not necessary at this stage to register ASP.NET as detailed in the Microsoft Installation Instructions (KB 906145). This registration was performed by the Visual Studio 2005 installer.

Additionally it is unnecessary to configure IIS to use ASP.NET 2.0 using the Internet Information Services Snap-In, as Visual Studio 2005 automatically sets this option on each MCMS website application created.
However, if you are installing on Windows Server 2003, you must configure the Virtual Website root and the MCMS Virtual Directory to use ASP.NET 2.0, as it is not possible to use two versions of ASP.NET within the same Application Pool.

The ActiveX controls that are part of HtmlPlaceholderControl are updated with SP2. Therefore you will be prompted to install this control when first switching to edit mode.
If you have pre-installed the controls using regsvr32 or Group Policy as detailed at http://download.microsoft.com/download/4/2/5/4250f79a-c3a1-4003-9272-2404e92bb76a/MCMS+2002+-+(complete)+FAQ.htm#51C0CE4B-FC57-454C-BAAE-12C09421B57B, you might also be prompted, and you will need to update your distribution for the controls.

At this stage you can also choose to upgrade SQL Server or move forward.

Preparing the MCMS Database for SQL Server 2005

Before upgrading our SQL Server installation to SQL Server 2005, we need to prepare the MCMS database so that it is compatible with SQL Server 2005.

  1. Request the following MCMS hotfix from Microsoft:
    http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=913401.
  2. Run the hotfix executable to extract the files to a local folder, e.g. c:913401.
  3. Copy both of the files (_dca.ini and _sp1aTosp2upgrade.sql) to the MCMS SQL install folder (typically c:Program FilesMicrosoft Content Management ServerServerSetup FilesSQL Install). Overwrite the existing files.
  4. Delete the temporary folder.
  5. Select Start | Microsoft Content Management Server | Data Configuration Application.
  6. On the splash screen, click Next.
  7. In the Stop Service? dialog, click Yes.
  8. On the Select MCMS Database page, click Next.
  9. In the Upgrade Required dialog, click Yes.
  10. On the Upgrade Database page, click Next.
  11. In the Add an Administrator dialog, click No.
  12. On the Database Configuration Application page, uncheck the Launch the SCA Now checkbox and click Finish.
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