A friend of mine recently asked me if I have some tutorial so he could easily setup his computer for ASP.NET and AJAX library. I thought maybe it would be good to have some neat tutorial so you could just give it to your new developers. Actually I thought it would be great to have few articles about setting up development environment for new colleagues.
I've decided to start with this small tutorial for WinXP pro platform because we need that kind of paper right now (later would be nice to make some tutorial for Vista development environment but let's wait for Orcas).
Tutorial is written for fresh clean install of WinXP Professional.
First what we need to start:
List of files needed
- dotnetfx.exe
(v 2.0) – DotNet Framework 2.0
- vwdsetup.exe – Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition
- ASPAJAXExtSetup.msi – ASP.NET AJAX web extensions
- AjaxControlToolkit-NoSource.zip – Ajax controls
- ASPAJAXSamples.msi – Ajax samples for AJAX v1.0 CTP
- ASPAJAXCTP.msi (optional) – Ajax.asp.net Community Technology Preview January 2007
Step 1: Setting up Your WinXp Pro
Turn off simple file sharing using Windows Explorer. In opened instance of Windows Explorer, go to menu Tools than Folder Options and select View tab. You will find option Simple file sharing. It should be unchecked.
Step 2: Install IIS
Go to control panel. Choose Add or Remove Programs. Choose Add/Remove Windows Components. Find and select IIS. Go to details and select front page extensions. Confirm your selection. Press next and installation starts and you'll be asked to provide WinXp installation CD.
Step 3: Install .NET Framework 2.0
Install DotNetFx downloaded from site fallowing setup wizard. This should register asp.net 2.0 on your IIS 6 server.
Step 4: Install VS Web Developer 2005
Install normally using setup wizard. It is important to fallow order of steps (If you already installed VS 2005 prior to IIS you should look Appendix A for solution). After installation you should be able to start new web project on your local IIS using VS Web Developer.
Appendix A
There could be a number of problems in further work but if you use these simple tasks on clean installation of WinXp pro everything will work just fine. First thing to do if things go wrong is to register asp.net on IIS server. This is usually case if you installed web developer before installation of IIS. IIS should be first thing to install in your development environment. To do this you should go to folder C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\ using command prompt (cmd.exe). Than in this folder run tool: aspnet_regiis.exe with fallowing syntax:
aspnet_regiis -i
This will install asp.net 2.0 on your IIS server. This process normally occurs automatically during the installation of VS Web Developer. Also you may have to restart IIS by using iisreset command in command prompt.
To unregister aspnet from your IIS use uninstall option (aspnet_regiis -u).
Appendix B
To check your installation go to IIS Management tool (Control Panel ~ Administrative tools ~ Internet Information Services. In management tool expand tree and right click Default Web Site. Go to properties and you should see tab ASPNET. Choose ASP.NET version to be 2.0.xxxx if it is not already chosen.
Using this document your development enviroment should be set for developing aspnet 2.0 web applications. Next step should be to setup ajax libraries. At this point it would be wise to check if your installation works as you expect and than go to next part of this tutorial.