Mehran Nikoo's Notes

Passed the BizTalk Server 2006 Exam :)

My MCP profile is showing that I have passed the BizTalk Server 2006 (70-235) exam. I did pretty well on the messaging and orchestration side but didn't have much knowledge about the new BAM features in 2006. So as Bryant Likes wrote, most of the BAM stuff should have been excluded from the exam scoring I believe.

Anyway, I am now an MCTS: BizTalk Server 2006 - Custom Solutions. I need to have a long rest before .NET 3.0 exams come out :)

Microsoft's Final Notification to Customers: "Support for Windows XP SP1 ends October 10, 2006."

I was rebuilding my home laptop over the weekend. It is a Dell Inspiron 8200 that came with Windows XP SP1 when I bought it. After installing Windows, I went to Windows Update web site to download security patches as well as Sevice Pack 2. Since I had enabled Automatic Updates on the machine, I noticed a balloon notification popping up, saying the support for Windows XP SP1 is going to end on October 10, 2006. Nice timing indeed just after my recent rant on the service pack issue.

How cool is that? This is very good for organisations who have automatic updates turned on as the end users will notice this and will remind their network admin of the upcoming deadline. I am worried about larger organisations though as they normally use Windows Update Services so their users are not going to get a notification on their work PC. So I just hope that one of their staff who uses Windows XP SP1 at home sees the notification and raises the issue with the infrastructure team!

The support period for Windows XP is explained in Microsoft's product lifecycle policy.

.NET Framework 2.0 and Windows XP SP2

Many organisations are now running Windows XP on their desktops. If you are going to develop a WinForms application based on .NET Framework 2.0 or if you are thinking about upgrading your existing WinForms 1.1 application, you need to be aware of the deployment requirements.

The most common issue that I have seen in the client engagements is not having Windows XP SP2 on the client machines, which is a requirement according to Microsoft can install .NET Framework 2.0 redistributable on Windows XP SP1, but it is not a supported configuration. This is because Microsoft wants the customers to benefit from the security improvements made in SP2.

There are a number of organisations out there that have not rolled out SP2 yet. The main reason behind this is that SP2 may prevent some applications from running as expected. This normally happens when the application is performing an operation that is considered as a security risk so it is not allowed by SP2. This seems to be a valid reason to postpone the SP2 roll-out.

So it is unlikely that those organisations are going to deploy .NET 2.0 simply because Microsoft does not support .NET Framework 2.0 if it is installed on Windows XP SP1 or SP1a. Makes sense as you don't want to run something like a framework without support from Microsoft.

Valid point. But... if that is the case, then you (or your client if you are working for a consultancy) should be worried even more, as you are going to run out of support for the Operating System later in the year!

Microsoft support for some of the products (including Windows) requires that a supported service pack be installed. According to the Lifecycle Supported Service Packs guide, if you are using Windows XP and are not running SP2, you are not going to get any support after 10 Oct 2006. This means that after October 2006, most companies have to upgrade anyway, which will help in adoption and deployment of .NET Framework 2.0.

And the good news is that since .NET Framework 3.0 is built on top of .NET Framework 2.0, Windows XP SP2 will satisfy the requirement for .NET Framework 3.0 as well.