Commerce Server 2002 - General Discussion (September 14, 2005)

Please note: Portions of this transcript have been edited for clarity

Introduction

Alex_MS (Moderator):
Let go ahead and start this chat with some introductions - My name is Alex and I am part of the CSD Customer Response Team.

Max Akbar (Expert):
Hi I am Max Akbar Program Manager for Commerce Server.

CharlesT (Expert):
Hello, I'm Charles Teague. I'm the Technical Lead for Commerce Server support.

Greg Good (Expert):
Hi, I am Greg Good, team manger for the Commerce Server Support team.

Sudha (Expert):
Hi, I am Sudha, working in the Commerce Server Test Team

davidme (Expert):
Hello, David here from the development team.

Start of Chat

CharlesT (Expert):
Q: by resources, I am looking for books or websites that you would personally recommend.
A: Wyatt....As far as books go there aren't that many available. The best resources are the documentation included with the product and also the documentation included with the Commerce Server 2002 Starter Site and MSIB.

Max Akbar (Expert):
Q: We are experiencing intermittent issues with the CS search function. Sometimes it finds the product during the search and sometimes not of course. I supply the call with the catalog, the return properties, the product ID, the recusive setting = true...
A: What's most likely happening in your case is that you are running a Full fulltext search when this happens SQL will drop the indexes and recreates them try running Full fulltext during off hours like 2 AM but during normal operations run incremental fulltext.

davidme (Expert):
Q: I'm not specifying a full text search. I'm using the following whereclause value: SqlWhereClause = "ProductId = '" + p_sProductId + "'"; The call may or may not work within minutes of each call.
A: Note that you cannot open a CS project remotely. You need to have both VS.NET and CS on the same development machine. You can even use a WinXP box if you have the development edition. Always be sure to install VS.NET before installing CS so that the Commerce Project system will be installed. Also be aware that you may need to switch to the classic Windows theme if you do this on WinXP due to some known issues. Another thing to be aware of with dev edition is to run SetupDevEdition.exe after installing SP3.

CharlesT (Expert):
Q: replaced by underscore. Any suggestion?
A: Phyu, I just performed a test using the SDK sample MinMaxShip pipeline component and using the namespace Test.CommerceServer.TestPipe I was able to register the component without issue. When I look in the Pipeline Editor and choose to add a component I see the component I built there as Test.CommerceServer.TestPipe.MinMaxShipCSHarp.

davidme (Expert):
Q: We have installed CS2002 trial edition on our server and are trying to develop on client computer using Visual C#.Net Standard. The problem is that we can not see the CS project folder in .Net. Can we use this items to develop or do we need to upgrade
A: Sorry, I posted the answer with the wrong question.Note that you cannot open a CS project remotely. You need to have both VS.NET and CS on the same development machine. You can even use a WinXP box if you have the development edition. Always be sure to install VS.NET before installing CS so that the Commerce Project system will be installed. Also be aware that you may need to switch to the classic Windows theme if you do this on WinXP due to some known issues. Another thing to be aware of with dev edition is to run SetupDevEdition.exe after installing SP3.

CharlesT (Expert):
Q: replaced by underscore. Any suggestion?
A: Can you provide any more details as to what you are seeing?

CharlesT (Expert):
Q: I installed the CS2002 on my windows xp and i'm having problems installing the sp3 can anyone help?
A: When you installed Commerce Server, did you use the SetupDevEdition.exe?

davidme (Expert):
Q: We are using biztalk to update profile data. We created a web service that uses the Profile Service objects to populate the profiles. After an update how should we refresh the profile service objects on multiple web servers related to the profiles.
A: You will need expose a refresh method either through the Web service or another means (e.g. an HttpHandler). This method will call Profile.Refresh on the instance that was updated. To do this for all servers in the farm, you could enumerate through all the Web servers for the application as configured in the CS administration database.

CharlesT (Expert):
Q: During the PipeReg.exe process, when I browse to my test pipeline component "Test.CommerceServer.TestPipe" and click Next, it becomes "Test_CommerceServer_TestPipe". It did not give me any other error but the component is not fully registered. So I...
A: When doing the registration, try pointing pipereg.exe to the .tlb file and see if that gives the same issue. When I did my test I had to use the .tlb file since the .dll was not accepted.

CharlesT (Expert):
Q: I tried the using the SetupDevEdition.exe and i'm asked to search for a commerce server 2002.msi when i selected it and click ok its saying that "this setup supports only commerce server 2002 developer edition"
A: That is correct. You can only install Commerce Server 2002 Developer Edition on Windows XP. If you are installing the Evaluation version you will need to install on either Windows 2000 Server or Windows Server 2003.

Alex_MS (Moderator):
Q: Are there any plans for a fourth service pack being released for commerce server 2002?
A: Currently, there are no plans for a fourth service pack for CS2002, but it has not been totally ruled out.

davidme (Expert):
Q: The changes between the oigrinal Commerce Server and Commerce Server 2002 were so massive that it basically required starting over. Can we expect a more compatable and easy upgrade experience for the next version of Commerce Server?
A: I'm curious why you have this perception. If you had a Commerce Server 2000 site based on ASP, then it continues to just work (after migrating data to the new schemas) - the objects were very nearly, if not 100%, compatible. If you chose to upgrade to ASP.NET (as we encouraged) when you moved to CS2002, then yes you clearly had a lot of work to do to migrate your site code. CS V.NEXT will support *only* ASP.NET 2.0 site development, so if your current site is ASP-based, you do have a good bit of porting work to do. But if you based it on ASP.NET, then the biggest changes you will face will be in the catalog and orders area. Catalog in V.NEXT is about 90% compatible - there's a new namespace and some minor breaking changes. The orders area also has some breaking changes but we think you'll find these fairly easy to deal with. Of course we support data/schema migration from both CS2000 and CS20002. So in short, there will be some work required, but not too much, and we are also providing tools to help.

CharlesT (Expert):
Q: And how can I unregister the component?
A: To unregister a component use regsvr32.exe /u

Alex_MS (Moderator):
Q: where can I retrieve the transcript from this session after today?
A: You will be able to find a transcript of this session, and others, at https://www.msdn.microsoft.com/chats/transcripts/default.aspx. Commerce Server chats are under Enterprise Development.

CharlesT (Expert):
Q: should I go into RegEdit and manually delete it?
A: After using regsvr32.exe to unregister the component, using regedit.exe to verify that the registry entry was removed is a good check.

CharlesT (Expert):
Q: It gives me the error saying "no entry point" or something...
A: That is the same message I got when using the MinMaxShip sample when trying to use the .dll.

CharlesT (Expert):
Q: there was nothing under those two categories for the component that was not successfully registered. Just FYI.
A: Phyu, try building and registering the MinMaxShip component which you will find in the Commerce Server 2002 SDK directory. Does it give you the same issue? You will find the sample typically at "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Commerce Server 2002\SDK\Samples\Order Processing\MinMaxShip\CSharp". Just remane the current namespace of Commerce to something like Test.Commerce.PipeTest.

CharlesT (Expert):
Q: Can i install Commerce Server 2002 trial version on my XP and how can i do it?
A: If by trial version you mean the evaluation version, that version is the same as the Enterprise Edition which can only be installed on Windows 2000 Server or Windows Server 2003.

davidme (Expert):
Q: I would like to persist custom orderobject properties the consist of a simple list list (like line items). I understand that I can add columns to the orderheader and order line items table that are named the same as the custom property they will be
A: As long as the dictionary key that you put the SimpleList under does not contain underscore characters, the SimpleList will be persisted with the order. You don't have any other work to do - it will be included in the marshalled_data in the OrderForm! Now, if what you are looking to is normalize these out into another table, that is not possible using the OrderGroup object model.

davidme (Expert):
Q: Do I need to override the Save method and add code to accomidate these custom simple lists
A: If the value being persisted were single-valued then you could persist them out to a column that matched the dictionary key name.

CharlesT (Expert):
Q: What version of commerce server can be installed on the XP?
A: Commerce Server 2002 Developer Edition will install and function correctly on Windows XP.

CharlesT (Expert):
Q: Another question I have related to CS2002 is that we have set up a shared solution in the souresafe and placed the databases in one central computer. But we have trouble connecting to the catalog manager via webservice from other computers. Why ...
A: Phyu, can you provide any more details such as error messages. We will need more information to be able to offer an answer.

CharlesT (Expert):
Q: okay, I will try that after the chat...If it doesn't work, will there be any way like this session this to discuss the issue?
A: The next TechNet session will be in a month and I am sure you don't want to wait that long. You can go to the newsgroups with your issue or you can open a support incident and we can work with you to a resolution on the issue.

Alex_MS (Moderator):
We have about 7 minutes left in today's Commerce Server Chat. Our Experts are working on the answers for the posted questions.

Max Akbar (Expert):
Q: Another question regarding catalogs. We are using the local_inventory pipeline component. If the invetory value is changed for a product,the pipeline comp. always see the old inventory value. Is there a way to get the new value?
A: The value of the item._product_local_inventory key is set from a database table by a components such as QueryProdInfoADO or QueryCatalogInfo. Do you mean that you need to decrement the value?

CharlesT (Expert):
Q: is there a demo version for the Developer edition available?
A: There is only the evaluation version which is the same as the Enterprise Edition.

davidme (Expert):
Q: to develop on 2 client and a server. do you have to install vs.net and cs2002 on all 3?
A: There are essentially two models you can use in team development with CS. You can have each developer set up their own environment (including SQL, MSCSAdmin databse), or use a central environment with MSCSAdmin DB. But in all cases CS must be installed on the developer's workstation where VS.NET is also installed. That is, there's no way to use a local VS instance to connect to a CS project on a remote machine.

CharlesT (Expert):
Q: The project we’re working on is a relatively small commerce server project. But the security document we found seems too complex for it. Is there any recommended practice (documents, etc) for security for smaller projects?
A: By smaller project do you mean fewer number of machines? Typically for smaller deployments I will recommend using the information outlined in the documentation under the heading "Installing on a Three-Computer Non-Clustered Configuration". If you have less than three machines you can combine the steps to a single machine as appropriate.

Alex_MS (Moderator):
Q: why do you ban people for nothing
A: Guests get kicked out and/or banned for inappropriate behavior and ongoing non-topic posts that disrupt the scheduled chat.

Greg Good (Expert):
Q: What is the behaviour of the profile service object if data is updated directly to the tables bypassing the profile objects. My concern is the performance of updating the profiles and calling refresh multiple times throughout the day.
A: Mark, we can not support nor do we recommend updating the database directly.

Max Akbar (Expert):
Q: Will CS2002 work with any version of .Net? like VS.Net, C#.net standard and so on.
A: CS2002 will work with .NET 1.0 and 1.1 VS2003

Alex_MS (Moderator):
Q: no one chats about that stuff though
A: This room is for discussing technical topics with other users. Please abide by the code of conduct.

Alex_MS (Moderator):
Q: can you chat about anything on private chat
A: If you are not disrupting the ongoing main technical chat, you can chat away privately.

Greg Good (Expert):
Q: For CS 2006 will the installation of a CS Developer Workstation be more polished? Currently a person needs to run an .exe point it at the .msi on the CD then follow about 5 pages of tweaks and settings changes to get a functional install of Comm Server.
A: Yes, this will be improved in the next CS 2006.

CharlesT (Expert):
Q: computer as the central computer where we have commerce and dw databases...but my colleagues cannot access the catalogs in the databases through the catalog manager (from FP1)...and cannot use Business Desk either...
A: Phyu, this is a bit beyond what I can give an answer to over a chat. Most likely it will need some troubleshooting to be done to determine where the issue is coming from and how to resolve it. A support incident to work with a support engineer will be the best option on this issue.

Alex_MS (Moderator):
The experts are working on the final answers to your questions.

Alex_MS (Moderator):
We will be back next month on October 12th. Be sure to check out https://msdn.microsoft.com/chats/ for a list of all upcoming moderated chats. And check out https://www.microsoft.com/commerceserver/community/default.mspx for a link to the newsgroups.

Alex_MS (Moderator):
The Commerce Server Chats are usually held the second Wednesday of the month.

Greg Good (Expert):
Q: How do we open the Support Incident ...?
A: Phyu, you can use this web page to find out the process of opening a support incident: https://www.microsoft.com/commerceserver/support/default.mspx

CharlesT (Expert):
Q: so we can use any family member of .net or no?
A: With Commerce Server 2002 you can use any version of Visual Studio .NET as well as do development in ASP.NET, C#, VB.NET, etc.

Max Akbar (Expert):

Q: The business desk does not appear to be added to source safe whenever the project was initially added. How do we resolve this issue?
A: You have to manually add the files into SourceSafe.

CharlesT (Expert):
Q: i have install cs2002 trial on xp but do not see the cs project folder in my Visual C#.Net Standard. What could be the problem and how do i resolve it. Does CS2002 trial work with any .Net family member? If not then what version of both do we need?
A: Take a look at Microsoft Knowledge Base article 831134 "The "Enable Commerce Server" option in Visual Studio .NET does not work"

CharlesT (Expert):
Q: What I mean is that if the first time the product returns a neg. numer and theinv is increased the next time theproduct is purchase should the neg number change to a positive number?>
A: That would be the expected behavior I believe as long as the number of products added gets the inventory to a positive number.

Alex_MS (Moderator):
With CharlesT's post, we conclude this month's Commerce Server Chat. Some great questions today and I hope that we were able to help you out with your situations. Thank you for attending and we will see you in the newsgroups and next month's chat.

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