C# Terminal Services Aware Application - c#

I'm thinking about creating an application (or refactoring other in-house software) which could work effectively on a TS server (which from my knowledge means that every instance shares the core code/data in memory). Does the .NET framework actually support it or would I need to use some technique/technology/toolkit?

You don't need to do anything special to run under Terminal Services.
Just make sure that your program can run under multiple users simultaneously, and that it looks good at lower color depths.

I'm not sure if is possible, but perhaps you can try to ensure that only one instance of your application is running system-wide and from within you're code, try to seperate different user-instances. Can anyone elaborate on this?

Related

Accessing the default app domain

I am looking for a way to find the default app domain in my process. Note than the current app domain may be different from the default one, for example when my code is running inside NUnit.
I know that I can list all the app domains in the process using a COM interop trick shown in this answer, and pick the one for which IsDefaultAppDomain() is true. However, this seems like a heavyweight solution.
Is there a way to get the default appdomain that does not require filtering all the domains, preferably without going through COM interop?
To my knowledge, the .NET framework does not support that. You would have to use the unmanaged solution which does support it.

How to automate development machine for MVC IIS

I don't know if this is entirely possible as a one click and done option, but what I would like is to automate our IIS MVC development setup for new developers.
Basically, what I am looking for is:
App pool creation if one is not already created (and make sure it is the correct version of .NET 4.0)
Creation of an IIS Application under the above app pool that points to the source code
Figure out if aspnet_regiis -i is needed (in the case that IIS was installed before 4.0 code was introduced)
I am not looking for a publish option as that does not point to the source code. Also, I am not looking to use the built in VS host as I am trying to use IIS to make sure everything is set up appropriately. Maybe I should not impose these limits and do not need to worry about setting up the machine as described? But if this does sound correct, currently I am looking for a way to set this up straight out of source control? Is that possible, or do I need to have an initial setup phase for all new developers?
Although I can't yet write exactly what you want, Powershell will do what you want. Here's a tutorial for creating web sites and app pools.
http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/433/powershell-snap-in-creating-web-sites-web-applications-virtual-directories-and-application-pools/
What I would suggest is setting up the full environment on a computer then making a boot disk to return to that environment. Then run that boot disk on another computer (note: must be of the same type) which you want the environment to be on.
If it must work for different computers, and different operating systems, then the complexity of allowing for the environment to all be done at once will become greater than just doing it yourself unless you are setting up environments as frequently as daily. If that is the case, then perhaps you could make a custom installation program to do that which I am not very familiar with off the top of my head.

Hosting .NET Control In ASP.NET App

I have a COM control that wraps a lot of client side functionality, i.e. using input devices to gather information, integration with different devices, report formation, etc... I would like to wrap this inside a .NET control of some sort and add it to an ASP.NET application. The wrapper will be responsible for speaking with our database located on a server and also contain a little business logic. Does anyone have a good general or even better a specific direction I should be heading in? I am using C# in .NET and the COM object is in C++.
BTW, I have tried to create a windows forms control Library and hosting it in a ASP web app but I have had no success with that.
You might host an ActiveX inside a webpage. ActiveX is COM - but there are limitations what an Active control can do when hosted inside a browser. Browsers are commonly developed with sandboxing in mind, so you might run into serious problems in regard to security settings. Another aspect is cross browser capabilities. WinForms is definitely another world, so even if you find a way to display some sort of a simple form, you're most surely ending up somewhere between mess and boom.
From what you told in your question, I think your best option is to stick with a classic desktop application. Apparently, this does work for you, and changing the way the application behaves isn't an option besides the fact, that a rewrite is too costly. Migrating a rather complex app to the web, with it's radical different programming approach compared to classic desktop applications, won't go along with limited amount of resources (money and/or human).
That said, if you're going to take the burden of mess and boom, you might want to look at that information:
http://codebetter.com/petervanooijen/2007/06/18/including-a-winforms-user-control-in-an-asp-net-web-page/
http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/4953/Simple-way-to-expose-a-NET-WinForm-control-as-an-A
Note, the articles are rather old and don't solve the problem, that the ActiveX / COM stuff used by the form has to be registered on the client machine (as well as issues like accessing servers that may or may not be in the same network anymore). And you can't be sure about security settings.
You appear to be confusing the difference between System.Windows.Forms (WinForms) which run on the desktop within the Windows OS, and System.Web.UI (WebForms) which run under IIS within a very different security environment in ASP.NET. Just because many of the form properties and such have been made to look similar, it does not mean they work anything alike internally - and in fact, they most certainly do not. You need to take a closer look at how WebForms work within ASP.NET to begin to understand why, as SLaks pointed out for you already, that what you are attempting to do cannot work in the manner in which you are suggesting.

Web developer moving to Winforms

I have been doing ASP.NET / C# development for several years now. I have recently been offered a project that will need to be a winforms application (I am assuming .net 2.0).
Specs:
Winforms applicaton
Application will
have "testing for understanding
questions"
Must support flash and camtasia
files (these are "lessons")
I have done winforms development before, although nothing that is this involved. As there is a potential need for this application to be generic enough to apply to multiple different "disciplines", I would like to make the application generic enough to be easily configurable. The caveat here is that the application will need to be run from a CD-ROM and that I cannot rely explicitly on an internet connection. I was thinking of using something like SQL-Lite to support the configuration of the application. There will not be the need for updating the application as it will not be updated (at least I don't think, I guess there is the possibility of the application calling a webservice and configuring its-self based upon returned values).
With the requirements of supporting Flash and Camtasia, along with making this application generic enough to support different "disciplines", and my self being an ASP.NET developer, does anyone have an recommendations or tips/ tricks to look out for? Has anyone done something like this before?
Thanks in advance.
I'd start by writing a user control that can be used to either display a video file (presumably the output from Camtasia) or a Shockwave app. Once you have that user control, I'd then move on to look at the overall app.
If you're using Winforms, and the software is supposed to run from the CD (instead of merely be installed from CD) you'll need to have the DotNet framework already on the computer I think - but then I'm not an expert in deployment.
I find the application model in Winforms to be a lot easier than WebForms, but then I was "raised" in thick clients, so I suppose I would.
I would also, whilst agreeing to WinForms if needs really must, encourage the client to give consideration to using WPF instead - which opens up the idea that you could also provide access over the web using a simlar interface using Silverlight...
Just a few thoughts anyway - good luck with it...

.NET Runtime Object Browser

Is there a framework which can be used in your application, to make it expose internal objects on some port for inspection.
for.e.g. after i start my application in this case a GUI Application, and then say launch http://localhost:9100 then it should show me the statistics of the app.
I played a bit with HttpListener accepting connections and then outputting raw HTML, it works fine for simple tasks, but there is too much worked involved if i have make a proper object browser.
Thanks in Advance.
No, there aren't really any libraries that I'm familiar with. You would want something like visual studio implemented with it's runtime debug objet browser. That however is not an exposed API so you'd have to make your own.
As far as exposing the endpoint, you can use WCF to easily expose a TCP service (or whatever else, but NetTcp is just so easy) as an entrypoint into the functionality you are describing.
You can use Fiddler as a framework and write your own plugins in .net!
Check it out
http://www.fiddler2.com/Fiddler2/extensions.asp
Not sure if this is what you want, its not a framework, but a tool, but you can use .Net Memory Validator to see which objects (and how many of them) are allocated in your application. You need to look at the Objects tab.
You need to launch your app with DNMV - you can't view an already running process.

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