Saturday, April 2, 2022

Sample code for capturing the commands that AMO sends to server

//=====================================================================
//
// Sample code for using AMO in capture mode.
//
//---------------------------------------------------------------------
//
// Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
//
// THIS CODE AND INFORMATION ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF
// ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
// THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND/OR FITNESS FOR A
// PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
//
//=====================================================================
using System;
using Microsoft.AnalysisServices;

namespace Microsoft.AnalysisServices.CodeSamples
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Demonstrates use of AMO capture mode.
    /// </summary>
    /// <remarks>
    /// This code requires the "Adventure Works" sample database to be present on the Analysis Services server
    /// and also the "AdventureWorksDW" relational database on SQL Server (for processing objects).
    /// </remarks>
    public class AmoCaptureMode
    {
        public static int Main(string[] args)
        {
            //--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
            // The commands that AMO is sending to the server (Create, Process, Delete etc)
            // can be captured into a log (instead of being sent to the server for execution)
            // and run later (eventually all of them into a Batch, in parallel).
            //
            // A common use for AMO capture mode is to do parallel processing of objects.
            // For example:
            // - the [Adventure Works DW] sample database has the dimensions [Product] and [Date]
            // - we want to process these 2 dimensions transactional and in parallel
            // - normal AMO code (that connects to server and calls Process() on [Product] and
            //   then Process() on [Date]) will process the dimensions separately and serially
            // - with capture mode, we'll be able to process the dimensions transactional and in
            //   parallel, using the same Process methods unchanged
            //
            // The capture mode related properties and methods are on the Server class:
            // - CaptureXml: enables/disables capture mode
            // - CaptureLog: provides the log with the captured commands
            // - ExecuteCaptureLog: runs the commands from the log in a Batch, with options for transactional and parallel
            //--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

string connectionString = "Data Source=localhost";
string databaseName = "Adventure Works DW"; // use "Adventure Works DW Standard Edition" if you have the standard edition installed

            try
            {
                //--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                // STEP 1: connect to Analysis Services server.
                //--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                Server server = new Server();
                server.Connect(connectionString);

                try
                {
                    //--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                    // STEP 2: locate the [Product] and [Date] dimensions.
                    //--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                    Database database         = server.Databases.GetByName(databaseName); // this throws exception if the database is not found
                    Dimension productDimension = database.Dimensions.GetByName("Product"); // this throws exception if the dimension is not found
                    Dimension dateDimension    = database.Dimensions.GetByName("Date");    // this throws exception if the dimension is not found

                    //--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                    // STEP 3: enable capture mode and then capture the Process commands.
                    //--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                    server.CaptureXml = true; // from this point on, the AMO commands are saved to a log
                    productDimension.Process(); // normal call of Process method, just that it will be saved to log
                    dateDimension.Process();
                    server.CaptureXml = false; // we completed capturing the commands, we'll revert to normal AMO mode

                    // At this point, the CaptureLog property of the server contains the 2 Process commands
                    System.Diagnostics.Debug.Assert(server.CaptureLog.Count == 2);
                    System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(server.CaptureLog[0]);
                    System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(server.CaptureLog[1]);

                    //--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                    // STEP 4: run the Process commands in a transactional parallel batch.
                    //--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                    XmlaResultCollection results = server.ExecuteCaptureLog(true, true); // (transactional, parallel)

                    // Normally there is an XmlaResult for each command in the Batch, in the same order. However,
                    // for a transactional Batch, the first error will stop (and revert) all the other commands,
                    // so there can be fewer XmlaResults.
                    foreach (XmlaResult result in results)
                    {
                        foreach (XmlaMessage message in result.Messages)
                        {
                            if (message is XmlaError)
                            {
                                Console.WriteLine("ERROR: {0}", message.Description);
                            }
                            else
                            {
                                System.Diagnostics.Debug.Assert(message is XmlaWarning);
                                Console.WriteLine("WARNING: {0}", message.Description);
                            }
                        }
                    }
                    // If no XmlaErrors were returned, the processing succeeded.

// Clear the log for eventual future use.
server.CaptureLog.Clear();

                    return 0;
                }
                finally
                {
                    server.Disconnect();
                }
            }
            catch (Exception e)
            {
                Console.Error.WriteLine(e.ToString());
                return 1;
            }
        }
    }
}

Changed type Ed Price - MSFTMicrosoft employee Monday, May 11, 2015 5:20 AM

AS 2005 Migration issue

Hi,

In one of the projects, we are migrating AS 2000 to 2005. We are facing certain errors:

1- In a distinct count based cube, errors come while processing the cube saying that the SORT ORDER IS NOT CONSISTENT.

2- In another cube migrated, the same column in the fact table has been connected to two diferent dimension tables. This has been done in AS 2005 by creating another column with the same name and the select query generats the same column name with "_1" preefix and provides an error

Any Help

Thanks

Manish

Changed type Ed Price - MSFTMicrosoft employee Monday, May 11, 2015 5:20 AM

text length limitations...

I'm using Analysis Services to generate a local cub file via the MSOLAP OLEDB provider.

Here's my problem: One of the columns in my source table is defined as varchar(MAX). When I run my program that generates the local cube file, I get an error (error reading data from one or more columns). If I change the data type in my source table to varchar(8000) it works fine. I also tried the text data type but I still get the error.

I assume this means that Analysis Services does not support varchar(MAX) or text?

thanks.

Changed type Ed Price - MSFTMicrosoft employee Monday, May 11, 2015 5:20 AM

How can I hide leaf level members of a ragged dimension ?

I need to hide leaf level members of a ragged dimension. Any thoughts ? My original approach was through roles (security), but I am open to other suggestions.

Changed type Ed Price - MSFTMicrosoft employee Monday, May 11, 2015 5:20 AM

Reply:

Maybe I need to generalize this. Is it possible to hide lower levels of a heirarchical dimension ?

Specifically, I have our corporate organization, with the following heirarchy:

CEO-->ExecVP-->VP-->Director-->Manager-->Supervisor-->Employee.

I need to be able to hide measures associated with leaf-level employees, and also selectively at the small group (supervisor) level. But security seems to work backwards--I can hide top level aggregations, but not the lower level.

Any ideas ?

------------------------------------

64-bit Disappointments

Dear Microsoft,
Thank you for your gifts this year. I gratefully received Vista Beta 2 x64 and the dead cat head you sent me. I really do appreciate them, but what I really wanted was a x64 rewrite of Windows 2000. I tried playing 64-bit Unreal Tournament 2004 on my box in Vista. It played OK, but it ran slower than it should have and I was disappointed in the lack of OpenGL. Maybe an Athlon 64 3200, 1GB DDR2 RAM, and an nVidia 6200 is old news and last year's model, but I was really hoping Vista could make it shine. I tried playing UT2K4 64-bit in Ubuntu Linux. I was later found in a coma in front of my computer mouthing "All your base are belong to me." I tried it again, with similar results. I can't remember anything about it except for pure 64-bit bliss. This is not unlike the euphoric experience of UT2K4 on Win2K. OpenGL of course. I usually end up on my side in a puddle of my own drool, glibly singing to myself and cheerfully unaware of my surroundings.
I've now decided to play UT2K4 in Vista only because it quickly helps me to remember that I have work to do and shouldn't waste my time on silly games.
The dead cat head has become a good friend to me. I call him Bob.

Sincerely,
NW

All joking and dead cat heads aside...
The nicest thing I have to say about Vista x64 is it's pretty. Stop. End of transmission. Other than that, um... oh yeah, Services for Unix in 64-bit. Those are good too. But, in general, it's been something of a nightmare. I think this is summed nicely by the true life experience where I copied over my installation of Musikcube with the latest CVS build only to have to the machine keel over and die. Windows 2000 handled the job with a grunt and sneer, as if I'd insulted it with some menial 5-second task far beneath it's abilities - which it was. Vista found the job beyond its capacity. Granted, Vista did try to sway me from the task, complaining of the red tape of administrator priveleges and the like; Windows 2000 did the job without hesitation, never supposing that I'd lost my mind and this could be a possible no-no.
The interface is pretty. Really pretty. I don't give a {coital act} about pretty when I'm working. I need functional. I use Blackbox Lean on my Windows 2000, which, when tweaked right is very pretty, but not needlessly glossy Aero pretty. If I want that, I have Compiz installed on my Ubuntu. Now THAT'S pretty. Note, I haven't switched to BBLean on Vista because, honestly, after the SCSI Pass-Through Driver fiasco, I really don't know how much tweaking I can trust myself to do before I REALLY break something.
Vista brings new and exciting features to the Windows family, but as far as the actual software world goes, the Open Source Initiative has already outdated the majority of anything Vista plans to bring to the table. I say majority because .NET 3 and DirectX 10 are solely in Microsoft's ball-court right now. In all honesty, however, I can seriously imagine using this self-same machine in 5 years from now still running Windows 2000 and .NET 3 as provided by the Mono Project.
So basically, what I'm looking for is a 64-bit Windows with the libraries and drivers to survive the next generation of computing, but with the durability, power, and customization that over-clockers, modders and hackers need to bring out the very best from their systems. Criminy, I'm only a casual modder wannabe, and I'm this frustrated. I can't imagine what the die-hards must be thinking. Hm... Vista x64... nLitened? Sweet merciful Heaven, I hope so.

-NW

Reply:

You may wait the next beta release of Vista. The performance may increase in next build.

------------------------------------
Reply:

I honestly hope so. According to one publication, Vista requires 512 MB to boot up and do nothing. It looks absolutely gorgeous while doing this. But many folks might be upset over the inability to do something meaningful. If this is the future of Microsoft's desktop OS, then they may have just handed the reins over to the Linux community. And you know what that means? With the exception of Tremulous, Unreal, Quake, Neverwinter Nights and precious few other series, the future of gaming looks bleak.
Bob says I'm being a pansy and that things could be MUCH worse. But what does a dead cat head know?

------------------------------------
Reply:

I also feel Vista "eat" a lot of ram too. I hope MS can improve it as 2GB DDR2-800 laptop memory module is EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE now! As notebook's ram slot was limited to two slot only....Just 2x1GB DDR2 ram is not enough when i need to run Virtual PC inside Vista.

------------------------------------

Problems connection to SSAS

I just installed 2005 and have an instance of Enterprise on my local machine. My SSAS service appears to be working properly in Services. However, whenever I try to deploy a cube (simple one from tutorial) or try to connect from Management Console, I get rejected. The error message is:

No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it (System).

I've tried about everything I can think of and can't get past this. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Changed type Ed Price - MSFTMicrosoft employee Monday, May 11, 2015 5:21 AM

MDX: Comparing measures over time (with other measures)

I think being a long time T-SQL programmer is actually making it more difficult for me to get a grasp of MDX. I am struggling when trying to compare measures. I've been reading guides online and books but can't seem to get one concept that is very important to the work I am doing - comparing 2 different things over time. Best shown with an example. I'll use the typical retail model since every book etc seems to use this one so it should be familiar.

Say I have stores all over the US but I want to compare sales over time between the Seattle store and the Portland store to look and determine if a particular trend is for the whole Northwest or just Seattle.

First step - lets just look at the number of sales and the total $$$ - this is what I would have:

SELECT
    CROSSJOIN({[Store].[City].[Seattle],[Store].[City].[Portland]}, {[Measures].[Units Sold],[Measures].[Total Sales]}) on columns,
    NON EMPTY {[Time].[Date].Members} on rows
From
    [Sales]

Question 1 (probably easy): Non Empty removes the sets where they are both empty - but lets say if sales are NULL for a day that means the store was closed and we don't want to compare days where 1 of the 2 stores was closed - how can I remove them? (especially since the portland store opened 2 yrs after seattle)

Question 2 (now getting difficult... at least for me): How can I determine correlation between the Seattle and Portland numbers... I am not sure how exactly to do this.. I guess first thing would just be an MDX to get, given a certain length of time, the correlation between the sets. More advanced would be some sort of thing that I can see rolling x time period (for example for the 7 days before) correlation over time and have that with the results from question 1 which would allow me to see if Seattle and Portland trends are becoming more alike or less. Also it would be nice to be able to do ALL to ALL (stores) instead of just Seattle to Portland - do things get much harder to do that? If this type of analysis is way out of the league of stuff to do in MDX please let me know I am barking up the wrong tree for this sort of analysis. :)

Thanks!

Changed type Ed Price - MSFTMicrosoft employee Monday, May 11, 2015 5:21 AM

Creating a cube programmatically in Standard edition

Hi,

I tried running the sample AmoAdventureWorks and I get an error indicating that you must have the Enterprise edition for the sample to work.

Is there a way to create a cube from a C# program with the standard edition? Sample code or a link greatly appreciated.

Thanks

John

Changed type Ed Price - MSFTMicrosoft employee Monday, May 11, 2015 5:21 AM

Drillthrough Action

Hi,

How can a Drillthrough Action show data other than the measurement and the dimension attributes. For example can I create a join between a dimension and and another table to get these other data.

Please help!

Thanks,

Aref

Changed type Ed Price - MSFTMicrosoft employee Monday, May 11, 2015 5:21 AM

I solved the problem..

Hey, everyone..

The only way I found to solve this was to swtich from NetworkService to a local User account with administration rights (I know you shouldn´t do this but I had no other option...) and the DB booted up just fine.

Had to do it because it is my WSUS server...

Ivo

Confidence interval

Hi,

did anybody already build some MDX to calculate the "confidence interval"? I'm not very good in statistics but a customer wants this kind of KPI...

Thanks,

Changed type Ed Price - MSFTMicrosoft employee Monday, May 11, 2015 5:21 AM

How to avoid Diffgrams?

I add new dimensions to the datasourceview programmatically through AMO. It all works fine except that after I've processed the new database I want to do a script database as-> create. This adds a huge diffgram with every member in the new dimensions at the end of the script. The script works equally well with or without the diffgram (removing it manually). So how do I avoid getting this? I have searched for some kind of flag or serializationmode setting but haven't come up with something so far.

Changed type Ed Price - MSFTMicrosoft employee Monday, May 11, 2015 5:16 AM

NAP is AWESOME

This is going to make a huge difference to large corporates. Done badly, or even done just OK, can run the network into the ground pronto. There's a wake up call here - time to get your networks in shape for Windows Server 2008/9!

Reply:

We think NAP is awesome too, thanks Thomas.

Jeff Sigman [MSFT]
NAP Release Manager
Jeff.Sigman@online.microsoft.com *
http://blogs.technet.com/nap

* Remove the "online" to actually email me.
** This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

------------------------------------

SAP Management Agent Beta Program

The Identity Management Team is launching Beta 3 of the MIIS 2003 SAP Management Agent. The SAP Management Agent allows MIIS administrators to connect to an SAP ERP system.

What's new in Beta 3?

Support for .NET 2.0
Support for SAP Unicode systems
BAPI filtering greatly reduces discovery time and time to build the initial BAPI configuration cache
Parameter mapping and subtype configuration are significantly improved
Better support for multi-level attributes
Greatly improved user experience for creating configurations from scratch
Updated Help file including better examples for using custom BAPIs and detailed documentation on how to use complex multi-level attributes

Beta 3 will start on August 1^st and last approximately 8 weeks.

To sign up for the Beta:

Use your internet connection to visit our web site at http://connect.microsoft.com.
Please sign in using your passport account. You may need to create a passport account if you don't have one already setup.
Click on "Available Connections".
Scroll down to "Programs" and click on "MIIS – SAP Management Agent".
Please fill out the brief survey and you'll be able to download the bits.

For questions or feedback related to the Beta, please send an email to miisbeta@microsoft.com.

Thanks!

Alym

Alym Rayani | Community PM | Connected Identity & Directory | Microsoft

Suggestion: Too much info in Get-Help on each parameter

Getting the 6-7 lines of extra info on each parameter may sometimes be helpful, but not the first few times you call up help, and probably not most of the time afterward. Perhaps it can be saved for a -verbose switch or something similar. Replacing these somewhat extraneous parameters with an example or two (when appropriate) would be a good idea.

Reply:

This is a great suggestion---one that you'll actually see implemented in the final Exchange and PowerShell bits :) We didn't get the changes done in time for Beta 2, but this is what you'll actually see if you just run help (using the cmdlet get-help as an example). As you can see below, you have the option of having full help, detailed help, just parameters, or just examples.

Keep the great feedback coming! Thanks, ~vivek

SYNOPSIS
Displays information about Windows PowerShell cmdlets and concepts.

SYNTAX
Get-Help [[-name] <string>] [-component <string[]>] [-functionality <string[]>] [-role <string[
]>] [-category <string[]>] [-full] [<CommonParameters>]

Get-Help [[-name] <string>] [-component <string[]>] [-functionality <string[]>] [-role <string[
]>] [-category <string[]>] [-detailed] [<CommonParameters>]

Get-Help [[-name] <string>] [-component <string[]>] [-functionality <string[]>] [-role <string[
]>] [-category <string[]>] [-examples] [<CommonParameters>]

Get-Help [[-name] <string>] [-component <string[]>] [-functionality <string[]>] [-role <string[
]>] [-category <string[]>] [-parameter <string>] [<CommonParameters>]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION
    Displays information about Windows PowerShell cmdlets and concepts. You can also use "Help {<cm
    dlet name> | <topic-name>" or "<cmdlet-name> /?". "Help" displays the help topic one page at a
    time. The "/?" displays help for cmdlets on a single page.

Exchange Server 2007 Blogcast - Local Continuous Replication

One of the two new "log shipping" features in Exchange 2007 is called Local Continuous Replication. In my blogcast at http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2006/05/24/427788.aspx, you can see this feature in action. Note that the video is high resolution and runs just over 21 minutes, so I recommend that you use the download link and play it locally on your PC in full screen.

Enjoy!

Error in Docs

I know the docs are beta as well but this section is marked as content complete.

Under the heading How to Register the Edge Transport Server SCW Extension the command given is:

scwcmd register /kbname:msexchangeedge /kbfile:%windir%\security\msscw\kbs\Exchange2007.xml

What it does not say is that even though SCWCMD can be run from C:\ in this case (beta 2 at least) you must run it from %systemroot%\System32 otherwise you will get an access denied error.

Reply:

Thanks, Rodney. I've forwarded this feedback to the topic owner to look into and fix as appropriate.

------------------------------------

Feedback on BETA2

I work with E12 since BETA1...

Today I installed BETA and I wanted to let you(the exchange team) know that I'm really impressed! You made an incredible progress...

My favorite feature is the parameter completion in the shell - I LOVE IT! Thanks for
implementing this!

Christian Schindler

Reply:

Thanks Christian, that's one of our favorite features too... BTW: did you know the tab completion is 100% user extensible? Check out the TabExpansion function: dir function:\tabexpansion | fl *

Please keep the feedback coming on how we can improve things further! ~vivek

------------------------------------
Reply:

Wow! I didn't know that. I'll have a look at that...

Thanks!

Christian

------------------------------------

IE 7 Quick Fix for Vista Beta

Just read note about turning off protected mode in safe mode. went in to internet options via the control panel and turned the freature off. Windows threw a little tantrum at me discuraging me from changing this setting and actually asked if it could change the setting back. Current setting does not allow internet browsing. Other items like Messengers still function of course. :-)

Reply:

i'm having the exact same issue. ever since i installed vista beta 2 (just after it came out), ie7 will only load a select few pages..sympatico.ca and google mainly. every other page loads half way, then it tells me to try offline mode or try again, at which point it just does nothing all over again. firefox works just dandy tho. can't figure it out. i've tried all the security settings and it just wont load webpages..even microsoft pages..go figure. anyone have a real solution?

------------------------------------
Reply:

Me too, but now most of the time it wont load anything, only the name of the website...its a real put off to usin vista
im using vista x64 RC1, still with same problem in beta 2 aswell, thought RC1 wud av fixed it, nope!

------------------------------------

How can extend windows vista v.5384 use

i just have a single 14 days of Vista Windows, as I can extend the use, since I am in stage of tests?

Reply:

Why have you not activated your copy? Then it will be good till next year.

------------------------------------
Reply:

Yup!

------------------------------------

Updated Exchange Server 2007 Help Content Available

hi everyone.

I just wanted to let everyone know that we've updated the online help content for Exchange Server 2007 available on TechCenter. To access the updated help, click on the following link:

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=69434

We're continuing to add new content and incorporate help bug fixes.

Please continue to send us your feedback both via the forums but also please be sure to submit feedback via the rating mechanism built into the help topics both online and in the product help file. When you submit feedback via the help topic rating mechanism (where you can also submit comments), your feedback is entered directly into a database and it is automatically assigned to the writer responsible for the topic for evaluation. Your feedback is incredibly important to us and this make sure we see it all.

Thanks very much,

David

Reply:

What about the downloadable .CHM file, has that one been updated as well? I like to the .CHM format better (better searching etc.)?

Update
It seems to have been update too :)

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=555f5974-9258-475a-b150-0399b133fede&DisplayLang=en

------------------------------------

Updated Exchange Server 2007 Help content available

hi everyone.

I just wanted to let everyone know that we've updated the online help content for Exchange Server 2007 available on TechCenter. To access the updated help, click on the following link:

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=69434

We're continuing to add new content and incorporate help bug fixes.

Thanks very much,

David.

Reply:

David,

Thanks for the pointer.

Can you clarify if the Help at the link you gave more up to date than the .chm for Beta 2? Or do you mean that the online Help has been updated to be in line with the downloadable .chm?

Thanks

------------------------------------
Reply:

The help content that was published last week is more up to date that what's available in the help file that you download with Beta2.

David.

------------------------------------

Problems when SQL is restared

Hi!
Yesterday we experienced which I'd like to share here. Secondly, I don't know how and where to report possible bug, so if someone could direct me, please....

We have AS instance with query logging enabled. Problems started when underlying SQL engine service was restarted, with qury log table placed in that instance. Since that moment olap started to generate dumps virtually every minute (huge files >GB), which really hindered performance. To me it seems like some internal sql connection was closed and that it wasn't able to reconnect for any reason (bug?). Every thown exception then forced generation of that dump file (with sqldumper.exe).

Win2003 64b SP1, SQL+AS 64 bit SP1, running on same box.

Thanks,
Radim Hampel

Trouble with Impersonate User, ODBO and Analysis Services

Hello,

I apologize if this question is a bit vague, but I'm trying to address an issue in some code I've inherited from a colleague who is on vacation and unfortunately, it deals with ODBO, COM and Analysis Services, three topics with which I'm pretty unfamiliar. Having said that here is the situation as best I can explain it: the code uses the C++/COM interface to ODBO to access MSAS. The code works fine in general but there is a problem when accessing an MSAS server located on a machine other than that on which the client is running which deals with the security context under which the logged in user functions. Our end users (optionally) pass us a set of credentials (username/domain/password) which (when passed) they would like to serve as the authenticating credentials for Analysis Server. In an effort to address the original issue before leaving for vacation my colleague added a call to LogonUser( ) followed by a call to ImpersonateLoggedOnUser( ) before the call to CoCreateInstance or any of the ODBO initialization calls. The two new calls are only made when we're passed credentials by the end user. When I test the code with passed credentials, neither call fails, but it seems that they don't have the desired affect.

Here are my observations based on running my test code and then browsing the security event log on the machine on which Anlaysis Services is running:

(1) If credentials aren't passed and LoginUser/ImpersonateLoggedOnUser aren't therefore called, then the event log indicates two events, one 538, one 540 both corresponding to the user logged onto the client machine.

(2) If credentials are passed and as a result we make the calls to LoginUser/ImpersonateLoggedOnUser, then the event log indicates an event 538 by user 'Ananymous Logon'.

A few questions then:

(1) Is there anyway to tell from the security log, which application logged the events? I'd hate to think that I'm on a wild goose chase and that these aren't Analysis Server events I'm looking at. On a related note, is there anyway to view a history of who has logged on through one of the MSAS management tools?

(2) Obvisouly, my real problem is scenario (2) above. What we've done doens't seem to work, so the question is: is there some other way, given a set of network credentials, to use them to authenticate through ODBO against a remote Analysis Services server?

If anyone could shed any light on any of this, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks in advance for any replies.

-exits

Changed type Ed Price - MSFTMicrosoft employee Monday, May 11, 2015 5:18 AM

Evolving an OLAP schema

We are an ISV that ships as part of our product a set of SSAS2005 cubes. Our customers can then customize those cubes (adding measures and dimensions) using tools that we provide. As we release updates to our product, we need to upgrade our customers databases, but without overwriting their customizations.

One way of doing this is to write AMO code. However, I'm curious if there's an easier way that I'm missing. Ideally there would be a way to generate a "change script" that would apply a series of transformations to an existing cube set (add a measure here, tweak a dimension attribute there, etc) without mucking with existing customer customizations.

Does such a mechanism or tool exist?

Changed type Ed Price - MSFTMicrosoft employee Monday, May 11, 2015 5:19 AM

Currency conversion

Hello,

Somebody can tell me how to use the scripts that are generated by the "Add Business Intelligence\Define Currency Conversion" in the MDX.

Thanks,

Dunia

Changed type Ed Price - MSFTMicrosoft employee Monday, May 11, 2015 5:19 AM

Urban legend - SqlSvrExpress Works in Production Web Site!!

After days of trying to deploy my web application along with the ASPNETDB database I am convinced this is actually just an attempt on the part of the MSFT developers to drive us nuts.

It simply will not work. As reported by everyone in all of the forums, it works fine in development but does not work when deployed. If I move my data to a full SQL Server instance and modify all of my connection strings accordingly, it works fine, as well. It just does not work when I publish the app and try to run it using the AttachDBFilename methodology. I am convinced that only Santa Claus or an honest lawyer can make it work.

Let's recap the steps: first, I create the folder that I want to use for production and give Modify permissions on that folder to <machine>\ASPNET and NETWORK SERVICE. Then I open up IIS Administrator and create a new virtual directory that points to that folder and set its permissions to include Write. I check the ASP.NET tab and it's set for 2.0. Now I switch back to VS2005 and publish my web application directly to the target folder.

Feeling optimistic, I go right to IE and bring up the site. Looks good until I attempt to login. That's when I get the first error - Failed to generate a user instance of SQL Server due to a failure in copying database files. The connection will be closed.

From there I start through the forums and try every one of the solutions proposed, even though none of them specifically identify this error wording. I know I should have used the wording from the Exception "Details" - except they state exactly the same thing - what was I thinking? I thought the .NET developers did away with the error message authors from the old days but it looks like they're back with a vengence.

Somewhere along the way I am able to get past that first error. Unfortunately, I've made so many changes I don't know which combination actually worked. But it doesn't matter because now the database is refusing to let <machine>\ASPNET login! Okay, so I use SSME and create a login attach the database and create a user (none of which is supposed to be required for UserInstance=true). Detach the database and try IE again. You guessed it - still won't work. Now it can't generate the user instance because a database by that name already exists, or the user doesn't have permissions, or it's Friday and the machine wants to leave early - I give up.

So, at this point, I'm pretty much finished with SQLExpress for anything other than my development environment.

Reply:

I have several systems using sql express in a productions system, one of these is DotNetNuke... With all of these I have not had a problem installing and running the user instances. One idea might be to have you system create the database objects for the Memberships system into the same database that you are using for your site.

Here is a link to some articles on the membership system that might have some links on deploying that you could look at. http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2006/02/24/438953.aspx

Another choice might be to have a look at the membership forums on http://forums.asp.net as the guys who post there use the system every day.

------------------------------------
Reply:

I actually believe there are working systems out there. And I have read through numerous forums where people are posting virtually the same experiences I've been having. My original tirade was driven by frustration with trying to get something to work while under significant scheduling pressure. The point of it all is that deployment from the development environment into a production environment is advertised as being simple. From my own experiences and those of many other posters, that is not the case. It has been, in the past, and, probably, will be again. But right now, it is fraught with frustration. Following the help files or even the truly helpful instructions from forum users likewise does not guarantee success. Too often following up one suggestion with another "didn't work" post leads to "Well, did you do xyz..."; "Uh, no, that wasn't mentioned anywhere." "Oh, I thought you'd know that." Oops. Bitten by another assumption. Yes, I am new to .NET, but not new programming in the Microsoft environment as well as others. But, I am definitely experiencing greater frustration working with .NET 2.0 than I found in any other area of endeavor.

------------------------------------

Understanding attribute relationships and aggregations

I'm working on fixing some major query performance problems in an AS2005 cube. My suspicion was that they were caused by the original cube design not specifying attribute relationships in the time dimension. I've read the Project REAL stuff and the P&P BI Guidelines in an effort to fully grok the implications of attribute relationships, natural hierarchies, and aggregations, but there's still some stuff I'm unclear on.

Our calendar hierarchy is moderately deep - Year > Month > Day > Hour > Minute (where minute is actually a 15 minute time window). The dimension table columns are the key, minute (0,15,30,45), hour of day (0-23), day of month (0-days in month), month (1-12), year. Originally there were attributes defined for each of these columns, with each attribute using its corresponding column as its KeyColumn, and with all attributes related directly to the key. A user hierarchy provided navigation from the year down to the minute. Performance, in a word, sucked (drilling down in the cube browser to a low level in the hierarchy could take as long as 45 minutes!).

I changed the KeyColumn for each attribute below year to be a composite of each higher level attribute (so the KeyColumns in Month were Year and Month, for Day they were Year/Month/Day, etc). Then I set the attribute relationships accordingly. I'm not sure if this is the most efficient way to define the attributes, but it seemed to be the only way to do it with our current dimension table schema.

Once I made this change and re-processed, drilling through the hierarchy went from 45 minutes to less than a second. Not a bad improvement. :) However, there's still some things that I'm unclear on.

* The performance seems to be about the same (that is, pretty fast) whether the aggregations are set to 0% or 70%. That confuses me - I thought that setting up the relationships is what allows the aggregations to be computed. But why would no aggregations perform so well?

* I'm assuming that by setting up these relationships, I'm giving up some flexibility in my queries. Is that true? For example, what if I want to compare how January compares to February, across all years. Are those aggregations not longer being performed, because of the attribute relationships? If so, what's the best way to deal with that? Or am I misunderstanding something?

* I'm looking at making similar changes to a different dimension, but that dimension has two different user hierarchies that combine the same attributes in different ways. Does defining a natural hierarchy through attribute relationships limit your ability to combine those attributes in different navigational hierarchies?

Thanks,
Kevin

Changed type Ed Price - MSFTMicrosoft employee Monday, May 11, 2015 5:19 AM

Upcoming Webcast: "Secure Wireless LAN Solution" on August 16th @ 1000a PST

Don't miss out on this great webcast on how to utilize the platform networking features in Windows Server 2003 (and Windows Server "Longhorn") to deploy a more manageable and secure wireless LAN in your environment:

Secure Wireless LAN Solution: Microsoft's Authentication Infrastructure with Aruba Networks' Mobile Edge

Date: August 16, 2006
Time: 10:00 AM Pacific Standard Time (PST)

Here's the abstract information:

Deploying an enterprise-class secure wireless LAN with industry-leading security can be overwhelming – but it doesn't have to be. Experience a live on-line demo of Microsoft's identity-based, policy-driven network authentication infrastructure built on Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP. Together with Aruba Networks mobile edge, learn how to deploy a secure wireless LAN end-to-end by watching the experts configure the user interface step-by-step.

The power of this solution will be demonstrated as the experts enable the most common wireless LAN access scenarios through flexible access policies in both the Windows Server 2003 Internet Authentication Service (IAS) and the stateful firewall in the Aruba Networks' Mobility Controller. The demonstration will show how to configure secure, role-based access for trusted employees and short-term contractors using company-managed PCs and a guest using their personal PC. To validate the security of the solution, access rights for an untrusted "hacker" will be shown before configuring the solution for secure role-based access and then afterwards.

Microsoft and Aruba Networks professionals will be online to answer your questions in real-time.

Featured Products:

Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 Internet Authentication Service (IAS), Active Directory and Group Policy

Microsoft Windows XP SP2

Aruba Networks Aruba 800 Mobility Controller and Aruba AP70 Access Point

Cannot create a task with the name .....

I don't know if anyone is interested, but I was just struggling over an issue with a custom SSIS Control Flow Task and found that all referenced objects also have to be in the GAC to be able to create the custom object in the ssis designer. I guess that makes sense, but I searched all over for any reference to this error, and couldn't find anything. Hopes this sense for someone else!

Reply:

Great point well made. BOL does make a nod to this here: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms403356.aspx

-Jamie

------------------------------------
Reply:

Thanks for the reply, and the inclusion of the article that I've had bookmarked and permanently burned into my desktop for the last week :-). Good point as well, and only to further clarify, I'm not talking about the assembly that IS the custom object, but one that is Consumed by the Custom Object. Yeah you don't get very far, if the Custom Task you're creating itself isn't in there, but all other objects need to be there too.

My specific purpose was to use a free object (that I've disassembled and etherealed) to create a custom FTP object that replaces the built in FTP object. I needed access to Passive mode that works, or at least one that works with the FTP server I have to connect to.

Anyway, its been a great lesson for me. I've totally just hacked through by replubming the object, and since have had to work through delegates, and will probably have to takle some threading. Thanks for the samples, the process would have been much harder without them!

------------------------------------

Failed to Acquire Connection using ADO.NET in SQL Execute Task

This one is somewhat interesting and thought I would pass it along to the community...

Last week I was running a package that succeeded 3 days in a row and on the 4th (and subsequent) day it began to fail giving the "Failed to Acquire Connection" message. I was able to get the connection manager and acquire a connection manually but when the connection was used in the Execute SQL Task it would fail.

When I got back to work this Monday the problem no longer happened and so I was kind of confused as to why this would be happening. There were no event log messages or any other items that were noticably odd so I let the job run again for this week and today it began failing again (all without ANY code changes or system changes).

I just happened to be on the server and saw a notification popup that disk space was below 200 megs on the system drive. Hmmm...

I cleared a bunch of backup files that were taking up significant space on the system drive and thought I would take a shot at running the job again now... Well the job succeeded again once the files were cleared off the system drive giving it more than 200 MB.

I still do not know how this correlates specifically to ADO.NET connection and Execute SQL Task but that is where it was failing.

Fred

Datamining or OLAP cubes or just plain old relational sprocs

Hi,

I have a hi-level design question that I was hoping someone could help out with.

I have a requirement to come up with a processing engine which takes into account mulitple sets of rules or filters, such as follows:

Rule1: Find all claims which have one of these diag codes (D1, D2, D3), which also have one of these procedure codes (P1, P2, P3), and belong to one of these divisions (V1, V2, V3)

Rule2: Find all claims which have one of these diag codes (D7, D8, D9), which also have one of these procedure codes (P3, P4, P5), and belong to one of these LOBs (V4, V5, V6)

Rule3: Run Rule1 and Rule2; Find all claims which are common in both Rule1 and Rule2

Rule4: Rule Rule1 and Rule2; Find all claims in Rule1 which are NOT in Rule2

Rule5: Find all claims which are of types (Inpatient, Outpatient), and have one of these diag codes (D4, D8, D9)

Rule6: Run Rule3 and Rule5; find all claims which are common to Rule3 and Rule5
...
...
RuleN
where N > 2000

Our current system has a whole bunch of sprocs where each sproc corresponds to a rule and they are run one after the other. The parameters for each rule are hard-coded into the sproc. We do not parameterize the input values for the rules, other than changing the sql in the sproc.

New system: I am trying to come up with a standardized UI where the user can set the input parameters for each Rule above. Then the processing engine runs in batch mode where it processes each of the rules one-by-one by filtering the claims in our datamart against these rules and producing output.

For the new system, I need some guidelines on which would be a good way to go about it.

1. Can this be addressed using SSAS datamining (basket analysis or something else?)
Note: Have no idea about datamining

2. Or can each rule be an MDX query against an OLAP cube?
Note: We do have cubes for the claims and some basic MDX queries for analysis. But nowhere near as complex as what is needed for the rules above (if its possible at all).

3. Or do I come up with a SSIS package which will denormalize the data for all the rules, then use phases containing relational queries to link the denormalized rules data against the claims data, and then filter the claims in each phase?
Note: I have kind of started off on implementing option 3, but I wanted to know if there was a more elegant way to do this.

If anyone has done something similar, kindly share your knowledge\findings.

Thanks,
JGP

Changed type Ed Price - MSFTMicrosoft employee Monday, May 11, 2015 5:19 AM

Windows Authentication problem with App_Data sources

During development (VS2005) I have my connection strings set up to use Windows Authentication. Everything works fine within VS. However, when I publish to production everything breaks. First, I get SQLExpress login errors for the <DOMAIN>\ASPNET user. So, I add that user to the database (so much for Integrated Security) and everything is kosher (of course, I had to modify folder permissions, as well). Once I got access resolved for ASPNETDB then I started having problems accessing a separate database file - no data is being returned. So, I decided to try connecting to that database from within VS. Unfortunately, it won't connect from there anymore with Windows Authentication. So, I have to add yet another login for my own account so I can access that database from within the development environment. Before publishing the next time I follow some advice from this forum and remove the connections to each database from the VS project before I do the build/publish. I get some new errors and decide to reconnect in SQL Express Management Studio to check permissions. Oops, cannot connect to those files any more because the login "default database" cannot be connected. I end up having to create a new adminstrator user on my computer so I can crank up the management studio and delete those logins so I can start using the database again from VS. Now I can connect again in development but nothing works AGAIN in production. I'm rapidly becoming frustrated with VS2005 and SQLExpress, at least as far as web development goes.

Reply:

You'll have better luck with this question on http://www.asp.net. There are forums in the ASP.NET site that are dedicated to web development in VS 2005 that should meet your needs.

Mike

------------------------------------

Multi-Merge Transform

I would like a component that has the following functionality (if this already exists, let me know):

Pretty much, I want a multiple input merge join transform that joins X number of inputs so long as they have the same sorted key value. I only care about inner joins.

The reason for this component is that I have a data flow that is having to perform a LOT of lookups. Having to do them one after another is incredibly slow, so I thought that I could multi-cast them and perform several at once, which works fine, but merging the army of split inputs is messy with multiple sorts and merge join transforms. I can live with it this way, but having a single transform to collect all the inputs would look a lot nicer and a lot less to configure.

Cheers!

Brandon

Reply:

Does the 'Union All' component not work for you?

-Jamie

------------------------------------
Reply:

I may be wrong, but doesn't the union all only merge homogeneous data? The transform I have in mind only has a key column that is the same and all the data in the various inputs is different.

Thanks!

Brandon

------------------------------------
Reply:

It sounds as though multiple MERGE JOINs may be the way you have to go. Although without knowing your specific requirement - perhaps the MERGE transform will suffice?

Have you identified where the performance bottleneck is occurring? Is disk spooling occurring in the pipeline?

-Jamie

------------------------------------

MIIS 2003 Backup and Restore and Documentation

I am a technical writer with the MIIS Documentation Team and I wanted to ask all who are interested what documentation would you like to see regarding the backup and restore procedures for MIIS 2003. For example, there are ways to back and restore management agents, server configurations, and the MIIS database. Are there any other backup and restore procedures that you or customers would like to have documented? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Davanand Bahall

MIIS 2003 Writer

Reply:

Hi Davanand,

I recently did a 2-tier Microsoft PKI implementation at a hospital. It's not something I do daily so I had to brush up some knowledge. I found this paper and it made me happy during the project because it's so complete and thorough, nothing is left out as it seems. The project was succesful. It's a remarkable paper.

The Microsoft certificate authorities are backed up automatically with the NTBackup' systemstate backup, that file is backed up on the corporate backup device etc etc. There is even a very nice .wsf/.vbs script solution that helps to collect all sorts of stuff (also for backup).

What I am trying to say is to describe ways to script MIIS parts to backup instead of having to go through the interface. For instance, the PKI solution comes with scripts to schedule collects, run ntbackup etc etc.

Now I understand MIIS is a bit more complex (from my perspective) but maybe some scripts would help to do some daily tasks in a breeze.

Thank you,

------------------------------------
Reply:

Thanks for your feedback DannyA. I will see what we can come up with regarding scripts and documentation. For now we are basically trying to work on restore and backup documentation procedures but you do make a very good point. Again thanks for your time.

------------------------------------
Reply:

Davanand,

Thanks for request - providing some scripts and processes for general backup and disaster recovery would be great. In addition, I would like to see something published regarding the processes required to transition the (1) Server, (2) MA, and (3) Schema from a development MIIS server to a production one. I don't believe everyone is familiar with these processes and when to use each procedure.

------------------------------------
Reply:

Hello,

I was wondering if there is any existing documentation available (best practice etc) about MIIS backup and recovery.

I need to write out this chapter in more detail in my design paper. I am worried I am maybe overlooking things.

My solution design has the database seperated and is using a MIIS cold stand-by.

Thank you.

------------------------------------
Reply:

Have you seen this doc yet?

Cheers,

Markus

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Markus Vilcinskas

Technical Writer
Microsoft Identity Integration Server
mailto:markvi@microsoft.com.NO_SPAM

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Use of included script samples are subject to the terms specified at
http://www.microsoft.com/info/copyright.htm
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

------------------------------------
Reply:

Also you might want to try these set of documents. These documents also describe the backup and restoration of MIIS and the MIIS database.

------------------------------------

ANN: VistaDB 3 as world's first managed SQL database engine for .NET and Compact Framework

VistaDB 3 CTP has been released as the world's first fully managed SQL database engine for Microsoft .NET, Compact Framework, Windows Vista and Mono. Unlike the new SQL Everywhere, .NET developers can use VistaDB 3.0 to build 100% managed WinForms and ASP.NET database applications that run on desktops, mobile devices and web servers. VistaDB's small 600KB assembly includes a built-in ADO.NET Provider, which means that it can be embedded into any .NET application. VistaDB 3.0 also makes mobile development and deployment easy since the same VistaDB 3.0 assembly will run on all mobile devices.

Read more:
http://www.vistadb.net/Press_060801_VistaDB3_CTP_Released.asp?ref=200608forum

Windows Vista Beta 2 – Is Silence Really Golden?

It would appear that no native sound drivers exist in ether Windows Vista Beta 2 32 or 64 bit platforms. For the average user that installs Windows Vista Beta 2, all you are going to hear from this multi-media powerhouse is the sound of silence.

I have a Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy 2 and I did download and try both the 32 bit and 64 bit drivers for Windows Vista, but they do not work with Beta 2. Finally I did get sound to work in the 32 bit Vista version after loading the Windows XP drivers, but they don't really work properly. Any attempt to play a video or music file longer than two minutes finds the audio to first become distorted and later it just shuts down completely. I don't recall a Windows Beta OS in the past that did not include any native audio driver support. A whole lot of changes must occur before Windows Vista will be worthy of even a release candidate version.

Here are the full details with my experience with Windows Vista Beta 2:

Computer Hardware Specs:

AMD Athlon 64 3700+ CPU

ASUS A8N-VM motherboard (built-in Sound, Network and Video are Disabled)

2 gigabytes of RAM

300 Gig Seagate PATA hard drive

NVIDIA (BFG Branded) 6600 GT OC w/128 megs of RAM video card

Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Sound card

D-Link DFE-530TX+ PCI 10/100 Network Card

Memorex Dual Layer 16x DVD/CD Burner

1.44 meg 3.5" Floppy Drive

Present Partition Configuration:

4 Partitions Setup in Dual Boot between Windows Vista Beta 2 (HD0,0) and SuSE 10.1 Linux (HD0,4). Partition 2 is a FAT32 Logical data storage volume and Partition 3 is a Linux Swap Partition.

Installed Version:

I am presently using Windows Vista Beta 2 32 bit version. I actually have loaded the 64 bit version twice and the 32 bit version once. The total load times on my PC for the two versions were:

Windows Vista Beta 2 32 bit load time – 40 plus minutes total

Windows Vista Beta 2 64 bit load time – 70 plus minutes total

Both versions did successfully load the first time. However, after being unable to get sound to work with the 64 bit version, I decided to try the 32 bit version. I have sound working now, but only because I have loaded the Windows XP driver which does not really work properly.

Windows Vista Beta 2 64 bit Problems:

1. I could not get sound to work even after loading the Creative Labs Windows Vista 64 Sound driver. I think the driver does not work because it was not intended for use with beta 2.

2. I did not get the networking to work until I went out and purchased a D-Link network card that included both Windows Vista and Linux networking.

3. When I tried to load the NVIDIA Video Driver, it failed to load and told me I was not running Windows Vista.

4. I downloaded and installed the CA eTrust free antivirus software but real time virus protection did not work.

5. After two loads of 64 bit and no sound I gave up on the 64 bit version.

Windows Vista Beta 32 bit Problems:

1. I could not get the Creative Labs Windows Vista Sound Driver to work and did not get sound until I loaded the Windows XP drivers. The XP drivers do not really work properly and sound becomes distorted after running for a couple of minutes and many times sound just stops working.

2. The D-Link 10/100 network card I purchased worked properly with the Vista 32 bit version as well as the 64 bit version.

3. The NVIDIA Windows Vista 32 bit video driver loaded properly and without a problem.

4. The CA eTrust antivirus software did load and appears to work properly.

5. When the selected screen saver kicks in, the computer just beeps and the monitor goes blank. The keyboard and mouse are unresponsive and you must hard reset the computer to gain computer operation.

Comments:

Of course we know this is beta software, but the present version is not really usable in any meaningful way and just a curiosity to look at and play with to see what the future of Windows holds for us all. Much more work is thusly required by Microsoft and hardware driver writers to get this product ready for shipment.

I shall continue to see what works and what does not work in Windows Vista Beta 2. I have ordered MS Office 2007 beta and will load it on top of Windows Vista.

That should be interesting…..

James D McDaniel - Austin, Texas

Reply:

James,

For what it's worth, I'd say I'm a fairly "average" user - at least as far as my needs are concerned. Your blanket statement about not having ANY sound drivers for Beta 2 is quite erroneous. Granted, I don't have a Creative Labs sound card, but I do have sound with my Gigabyte K8N51-GMF-9 board which has a surprisingly rich 8 channel sound output. And Vista had the drivers for this version in it's store of drivers.

Just for grins and giggles if you feel up to the challenge - take the Audigy card out and renable the onboard sound and let Vista find the hardware and supply the needed drivers. I'll wager you just might hear something.

As you said, this is beta software. And an EARLY beta at that. It's not ready for prime time by any stretch of the imagination. Drivers are now and always have been an issue during beta phase - so this IS the time to get the issues reported directly to Microsoft so their programmers can fix the issues before release day. You can do that by clicking the Feedback icon on the Vista desktop and installing the Problem Reporting Tool (aka the Microsoft Beta Client) and by using it to report the issues you're having with the sound and other drivers.

------------------------------------
Reply:

I don't think this will be Microsoft's problem. Most of the high end sound card companies will be the ones who create the drivers to use on Vista.

Just like how ATI for graphics card has already put out a beta driver for vista.

------------------------------------
Reply:

Maybe so, but the guy does have a few other issues that ought to be reported anyhow. Having a post here is nice, but may or may not find it's way to the people who are writing/rewriting/fixing the code.

------------------------------------
Reply:

First off I do thank you for taking the time to post a reply. I do very much want to hear how other users of Windows Vista Beta 2 are doing.

If you go into the Add hardware function in the Control Panel and elect to manually select your hardware and select sound, video and game controllers you will only find a single Microsoft Entry that indicates it is a dummy place holder for file copying. There are no other brands of sound cards to select from.

Since you have a Gigabyte motherboard you may have inserted the motherboard disk into your computer and Windows Vista then loaded the Windows XP driver. Further, this driver may actually work unlike the one from Creative. Or, you may have downloaded a driver directly from the internet or Microsoft may have had one online not included on the DVD. A few people may get lucky. However, a lot more will not be so lucky.

When I did the same function for network cards I found several to select from. I did not own any of them at first, but a card that would work with Windows Vista and Linux was only $15 at Fry's. When using Beta software I am used to having to buy hardware from a very small selection. In the case of sound cards, not including anything from Creative Labs, perhaps the largest supplier of add-in sound products seems to be a bad choice. We don't know just how Microsoft and Creative work together, but something is not working right.

A good part of the Windows experience depends on sound. A fully public beta release must do better than this if you are trying to impress people into going with Windows Vista when it finally comes out. Again, this is Beta Software, but perhaps letting out a more ready product would have been a wiser choice to make. As always, this is just my opinion and I do thank you for letting us hear yours.

James D McDaniel

Austin, Texas

------------------------------------
Reply:

James,

Actually.. NO. The only disk with drivers that has been placed into the DVD drive on this computer was the Win Vista Beta 2 DVD. In fact, it's found EVERY piece of hardware with ONE minor exception - the NForce SM Bus driver - which was found immediately when I got to the Windows Update site.

For what it's worth, as someone else on this thread mentioned, many vendors of high end parts may opt to wait until Vista's gone Gold and is RTM (Released to Manufacturing) until they decided it's time to start pulling some all nighters in getting drivers ready for the January release. Given Beta code tends to change and often breaks stuff, I don't blame them.

Sound is actually only important for home and other non-business users. Most places I've done work at do NOT supply speakers to workstations. Especially where phone calls are an important piece of the business plan. In that case, silence really IS golden.

------------------------------------
Reply:

Isn't beta "testing" great fun

I've managed to get my X-Fi Fatal1ty to work under Vista, but not Diskeeper 10 Professional (with XP64bit support). Likewise Avast AV installed first time but Nforce SM bus failed to install - giving a message that the 32bit uninstaller was incompatible ? Logitech 64 bit drivers for the G15 keyboard and G7 mouse installed OK also. BTW my install seemed flawless with no hiccups - so I guess all my grief is yet to come

------------------------------------
Reply:

I have a very similar machine to the person at the top of this thread. However, I am receiving the following issue:

:\windows\system\32\nt0skrnl.exe

Status: 0xc0000098

Info: Windows failed to load because the kernel is missing, or corrupt.

I get this frustrating message each time I go to install. I have removed the partition and re-created it. Any ideas why I might be getting this?

thanks,

Dan

------------------------------------
Reply:

here is my specs

athlon 64 3500

asus a8v deluxe

1024 corsair

sound blaster audigy 2

74 gig WD raptor = vista install

120 maxtor= xp pro install

when i first installed vista i had alot of problems but i did an upgrade only when i did a fresh install on a

different hard drive did i get vista up and running perfectly

audigy card works fine

i think if you do a clean install without all the partitions and other os installs you might have less issues

just my 2 cents

i only have problems with some games not working other than that i love vista its great

------------------------------------
Reply:

And did you load the Windows XP drivers for the Creative Audigy 2 and they work OK?

I did do a clean install of Windows Vista, three times. I don't feel data located on other partitions has any effect on Windows. Since each computer is a custom combination of hardware, different addin cards can work in one setup and not another. The basic problem is not having the correct Windows Vista Beta 2 driver for the Audigy 2 soundcard and the fact that no such driver exists in the native load of Windows Vista 2.

Thank You,

James D. McDaniel

Austin, Texas

------------------------------------
Reply:

Initially I had a problem with sound in Vista, too. Granted, I have an integrated sound chip in my motherboard which makes everything difficult, so I fully expected it. After getting it "fixed" (the driver I'm using isn't the best and certainly wasn't designed for Vista beta), how disappointing to find that Microsoft didn't include a revamped Windows sound library. I imagine it'll come in the final build, but what a letdown in hearing the same old same old again.

Ce la vie.

------------------------------------
Reply:

i used the beta driver for vista at creatives site

there isnt a driver in xp either for a sound blaster card

------------------------------------
Reply:

Basically, there will be no further Creative Labs sound driver support for any Windows Vista Beta product until the final Vista software is released. We can only hope that the support will actually show up on time. Further, I have read that Bill Gates himself says that there is now a 20% chance Vista will be delayed again from the general public release in January of 2007. I would say that anyone supporting a Creative sound product should reconsider. This may even be the time to go with some version of Linux. Linux supports all internal versions of Creative sound cards except the very latest version X-Fi. Creative has not seen fit to release the required Open Source information to allow drivers to be written for the X-Fi sound card and Linux. I have been using Novell SuSE 10.1 with an Audigy 2 and it works great! As for Vista, I did get sound to work using the older Windows XP driver, but sound fails after a few minutes on ALL applications. Get used to having no sound for at least six more months in Vista, perhaps even longer.

Thank You,

James D. McDaniel

Austin, Texas

------------------------------------
Reply:

Granted this is kind of off this thread. However, I have an ATI All-in-Wonder 2006 Edition. (9600 series) I installed the beta drivers from ATI and all it did was lock my system up. So those have a bit to go before they are ready. I reinstalled Vista doing a clean install and everything is working just fine. Right now I'm looking for a sound card that will work with Vista. I have a soundmax and I can't get sound to work on it. Looking at just upgrading my sound card anyway, but need to know one that will be compatible. Any help would be appreciated.

------------------------------------
Reply:

Off thread/topic? Hardly. Sounds like you're experiencing the same growing pains as the thread's originator has been going through.

Not sure which sound card you might want to consider, but, the smart move would be to visit their site and find out if they've got beta drivers available before buying. Unfortunately, THE biggest name in sound - Creative Labs - seems to not be willing to jump into the Beta foray and publish some drivers for Vista.

I'd recommend the one I'm using but given it's built into the motherboard, I don't think that would quite be what you had in mind. If you CAN find an aftermarket sound card based on the Nvidia chipset - those DO have drivers. In case you do get desperate enough - I've got a Gigabyte motherboard (K8N51GMF-9) which supports 939 pin AMD processors. It also sports the Nvidia NForce4 430 chipset and there are drivers for everything - sound, lan, bus controllers, etc... available.

------------------------------------

Bug?

When I have two connection managers in the DFT and OLEDB source and destination component.

Associating the different conneciton managers to source and destination seem to go through fine with the code below, but the package generated does not have the connection manager associated with the destination.

I get this error on the destionation on opening up the package in the designer.

<Error> A connection Manager has not been assigned to the runtime connection (24) </Error>

SourceOrDestinationComponent.RuntimeConnectionCollection[0].ConnectionManager = DtsConvert.ToConnectionManager90(pkg.Connections[ConnMgrName]);

However when I assign the ID using the code below it seem to work fine. The documentation doesn't mention needing this step, so is this a bug or a documentation issue?

SourceOrDestinationComponent.RuntimeConnectionCollection[0].ConnectionManagerID = pkg.Connections[ConnMgrName].ID;

Also is the BOL documentation being updated for how to program/configure various tasks in SSIS? Without which it is extremely time consuming with a trial and error method if at all impossible to use them (programmatically)

-tim

Reply:

Tim,

That step is definately needed and the documentation should say so. If it doesn't say it then use the Send feedback link to tell them. You may be surprised at how effective this is.

If you need anything extra in BOL then ask them for it. It is constantly being updated.

-Jamie

------------------------------------
Reply:

Thanks Jamie, I know the folks working on BOL content appreciate the comments.

This seems like a great opportunity to point out the recent/July refresh of BOL

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Download an updated version of the documentation and tutorials for Microsoft SQL Server 2005. See the "Additional Information" section for an update on SQL Server Express Books Online.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=BE6A2C5D-00DF-4220-B133-29C1E0B6585F&displaylang=en

There is a separate download for the sample packages, programs, and databases, at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=E719ECF7-9F46-4312-AF89-6AD8702E4E6E&displaylang=en.

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Reply:

Thank you both. The new documentation still does not include the required step.

Craig, BOL seem to have provided clearified some of the existing samples , but it still does not contain samples to how to programmatically most components eg: SCD. Can we expect more samples to be updated to BOL going forward?

Till that time what is the recommended way for people to figure out how to use these apart from trial and error

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Reply:

We are continually updating BOL and I will pass along a note on this one and as Jamie noted, using the feedback mechanism for BOL is really the best way. I can certainly suggest/ask for doc changes but requests from customers always carry more weight. One complication is that every connection mgr may behave differently. Connections and data providers are tricky as each has its own behavior.

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July Shipment of MSDN Subscription include the Vista beta2 disc.

Please note, the July shipment of MSDN Subscription include the English Vista beta2 DVD disc. The disc no. is 3613.

For the CD-Key, you can go to the MSDN Subscription website and login with your MSDN Subscription passport account. After login, you can go to the request CD-Key page and request the CD-KEY for Vista beta2.

Reply:

hey july, I realy 2 want to try the vista beta 2, but I dont know how to download it. maybe u can help me to find link to download it. if u have the link, please send to my email address (alim160186@gmail.com). thanks before.

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Reply:

If you have MSDN subscribtion. Just logon to the subscriber web site at msdn.microsoft.com

You will Vista in it.

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Learning SQL/AS Deployment

All rightee, I've been through the SQL Express issues with this. Next, I got MS to give me their one client standard version all for the purpose of learning Analysis and Reporting services. So, I'm to the point where I go to deploy my BI project, and it tells me that the deployment has failed because I only have the standard edition. (Apparently it objects to semi-additive features in the standard edition SKU)

So, I'm trying to convince my company (with mountains of data that's a real mess with the current system we have) to adopt this (analysis and reporting services) approach. If Express and Standard editions won't work, what might I use to show them towards going in this direction would be of benefit? (We have custom programming for each level of aggregation, I mean, it's really hideous!) That is, what might I use that doesn't mean my personally buying Enterprise edition out of my own pocket.

Changed type Ed Price - MSFTMicrosoft employee Monday, May 11, 2015 5:20 AM

Saturday, April 2, 2022

Sample code for capturing the commands that AMO sends to server

Sample code for capturing the commands that AMO sends to server

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I solved the problem..

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Updated Exchange Server 2007 Help Content Available

Updated Exchange Server 2007 Help Content Available

Updated Exchange Server 2007 Help content available

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Urban legend - SqlSvrExpress Works in Production Web Site!!

Understanding attribute relationships and aggregations

Upcoming Webcast: "Secure Wireless LAN Solution" on August 16th @ 1000a PST

Cannot create a task with the name .....

Failed to Acquire Connection using ADO.NET in SQL Execute Task

Datamining or OLAP cubes or just plain old relational sprocs

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ANN: VistaDB 3 as world's first managed SQL database engine for .NET and Compact Framework

Windows Vista Beta 2 – Is Silence Really Golden?

Bug?

July Shipment of MSDN Subscription include the Vista beta2 disc.

Learning SQL/AS Deployment

Setup is Split Across Multiple CDs