Technical Interoperability Scenarios (Archived) Forum

Folder Permissions on my network

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 17:02:18 Z

Hi experts,

I have a numerous folders on a network which everyone can get to. They retrieve, edit, add and delete documents within those folders.. which is great. But.. what I am having trouble with is my people moving/deleting the actual FOLDERS! So, what I want to know is... is there a way to set permissions of these main folders where my users CANNOT move, edit, delete the main folders (but still have full access to do whatever they need to the documents INSIDE the folders?

A solution to this would be magnificent, as I am finding a lot of my technical support time is spent retrieving/re-establishing these MAIN folders that the people keep messing up.

The server is a Windows 2005 server.

Thanks!
avi

How do I remove window 7 beta from my test computer?

Sat, 07 Mar 2009 23:19:37 Z

How do I remove windows 7 beta from my computer. The SQL and NT drivers have stopped working. The computer freezes and the CPU is always at 100%.

System Restore

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 16:29:12 Z

I need to restore my system to yesterday. However, when I go to system restore, it says "system restore is not able to protest your computer. Please restart and try again." I restart and get the same message. I ran ad-aware and removed their suggested spyware and now I have lost a couple of programs . . . .How do I fix this? . . . . I have even tried to run it through help and support. But I lost that application too . . . .Thanks . . .Lisa

using RTE in ASP.NET website or a control that holds both text and image in web forms

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 06:37:58 Z

Hi All,

Am creating a web based application using C#, ASP.NET. I have a requirement in my project - to have a control in my web page that would allow the users to enter text or copy paste image from the clipboard(say a snapshot). Is there a control in dotnet like the clipboard control in windows?

I tried creating a RichTextEditor custom control wherein which i have problems in pasting images from the clipboard.

I also tried using the winform RichTextEditor control in my web form, but i have problems in setting and retrieving values from the RichTextEditor.

Has anyone tried using Silverlight/AJAX's RTE?

Please share your thoughts.

kani

Service Control Manager privileges

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 10:44:20 Z

I am trying to open service control manager of a remote machine using

OpenSCManager(machinename,NULL,SC_MANAGER_ALL_ACCESS);

But I am getting error 5 from GetLastError(); which means access is denied.

What are the privileges that are needed for running the above code?

Vista Business CD?

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 15:44:58 Z

Is there anyway to get one for free?

My laptop came with vista business, I had to use a recovery discs that came with it because it would not start

These recovery discs formatted the latop and installed XP

Now im stuck without vista as no disc was provided, I have the serial for my version of vista on the sticky underneath my latop

Any help please ty

Formating and reinstalling XP?

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 21:28:33 Z

Hi guys hope someone can help with this one. trying to format my PC and reload Windows XP. I keep getting error message - "File abp480n5.sys is corrupt". I think it is maybe sometihng to do with the BIOS but dont know...... Any help is greatly appreciated.

Hp w2207h display not working properly.

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 01:27:59 Z

Hey. I just recently bought an hp w2207h monitor(very shiny and nice) to go with my zt system with vista home premium. When i plug in my monitor and turn the computer on it usually say "NO SIGNAL" and goes to sleep mode. I know it is not the monitor problem since i plug it in to an older pc i had. Also it usually turn on and work normally after i reset the computer several time. Is there any suggestion or ideas. Please i am growing frustrated and about to strap dynamites to my motherboard and send it on it ways. Thank you.

windows one care

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 11:28:03 Z

After downloading Windows 7 Beta, I have discovered that Windows Live One Care has limited functionally to the point you have to keep entering the service feature to start the program manually. Currently there seems to be no answer for this under the beta format, I feel it should be a high priority considering it's content composes of anti virus protection and firewall capabilities. please contact me with any end around features that might address this problem at jhaskins75@comcast.net or jrha1_29@msn.com Thank you.

Date/Time Properties Error

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 16:06:51 Z

I have pc that gets a logon message "The current time on this computer and the current time on the network are different" when i try to log on to a domain. Does anyone know how to solve this?

Your assistance would be greatly appreciated.

yellow status

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 20:09:33 Z

For over a week I have had a yellow status. I cannot get any help. Everything on Onecare window is ok. Uptodate, etc.
I made a phone call and was told I am on yellow because they want me to renew. I have almost a month left on my subscription. Why do I have to endure this risk just because I will not renew this far ahead. I wish someone would email me and give me some answers. Please.
I intend to renew but would like the program fixed first so I know it will work.

I need a Suggestion.

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 05:52:39 Z

Hello to all!

I dont know whether this is the best place to ask this question but If anyone can give me some thoughts.

I needed to invoke some exe from AIR (Adobe Integrated Run Time) but cannt do that in AIR as it restricts to do that. so I tried an intermediate application (made in .net)which runs as windows service, to invoke that exe.

I need some suggestions. Is this solution ok? or If someone can suggest me better solution.

Awais

Malware infects computer; disables me to view my registry and/or download Windows Live Onecare.

Thu, 18 Dec 2008 06:29:38 Z

I have come across a stubborn malware. It disables me from viewing my registry, lists (made-up) infections, and asks me to participate in their program (scam) for 50 dollars. Suggested by a friend, I tried to download Live OneCare, although the malware blocked the download. After "cleaning up" the setup, I resume restarting my compute and trying again. The Malware just repeats the process. I can't view any images on the internet, and it seems I've come across a dead end.

It's called "MS AntiSpyware 2009".

Any Suggestions to get rid of this problem?

PLZ HELP ME!!! BIG PROBLEM.

Sat, 20 Dec 2008 05:34:44 Z

hi! i got the big problems. First problem: when i started to play a game, crash dump happend( stop : 0x0000007F (0x00000008, 0x805D3130, 0x00000000, 0x00000000). it told me to update window. and i tried to update window, i got error code 8024419, i've tried so many times. and tried to go to this web site http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com and it took me to www.msn.com. i dont know wat happen, plz help.
second problem: when i logged in yahoo, i got crash dump ( stop: 0x0000008E (0xC0000005, 0x8B35E876, 0xAA233048, 0x00000000)
please help i i every appreciate!!

excel upload

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 05:43:33 Z

Hai all ,
I am using .net 1.1 ,and in the onclick event of a button I am calling a javascript which will open a execel book from a site.My problem is that I want to open only a single sheet in excel book ,rather than opening whole excel book ,according to a string value ,each worksheet in the excel book is having perticular name ...that is the string value i am having (name of worksheets)....also its enough if I display whole excelbook with respective worksheet acording to the string value only enabled and others are disabled

s/w engg

Internet Explorer 7 help!!!

Fri, 12 Dec 2008 14:21:27 Z

hello everyone i have internet explorer 7 installed on my home computer but for some reason my internet won't work

i have used command promt and pinged the websites (I.P Address) and got bk all 4 replys from them
but when i try to ping them using there normal name (e.g www.google.co.uk) i don't get any replies

so i typed in the websites IP Address in my search bar and the website works but when i try and seach for something it says internet explorer cannot display this webpage.... so for some reason my internet explorer will only work using the coding.... is there anyway to change this back so my internet explorer understand words again

Thanks
if anyone can help me

Brad

Black screen when booting, only runs in safe mode!

Thu, 11 Dec 2008 00:54:04 Z

Hello. I did not know where to post this, so im posting it here. On my desktop computer, i recetly downloaded DAEMON-TOOLS which my brother said to use to run a game. Shortly afterwords, my computer went crazy. It will not start in normal, and only runs in safe mode. Im getting CTFLoader errors, cant run any DLL's, and my error list is giving me 7026 " system-start driver failed to load " and 10005 " DCOM error ". I caught a horrible virus from my brother called DL.exe, which is destroying my computer. I cant access the internet or my task manager. I cant even access " add/remove programs " I need help. Anyone help without formatting preferred, as i do not want to go through the setup all over again, and installing drivers, games, etc. Ask me anything about my computer, and i will give even mroe details, but any help is needed. Email me at bigbizznizz@hotmail.com.

Thanks,

Michael1993

if included afxwinforms.h; createinstance for component present in dll fails.

Thu, 11 Dec 2008 08:05:09 Z

Hi,

I have one dll containing 3 MFC com component and some 2-3 MFC dailog. I want to load one Managed (C#) control in one of the dialog. I have added managed control in MFC dialog, compiler option for file set to /clr. dll created without any error.

But when I call CreateInstance for any of the MFC component, it fails saying "0x80040111 ClassFactory cannot supply requested class ". It works fine if i remove managed control from dialog.

Further, I investigated and found that whether I add managed control or not it does not have any effect. Only when i include in any file and compile using /clr option; CreateInstance falis with above error. if i remove and keep /clr option then it works fine.

Thanks

Requirements for creating Excel-files

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 16:55:46 Z

I am not entirely sure this is the correct forum for this question but all the other forums on MSDN seemed even less appropriate. Here goes:

My employer runs ClearQuest on a Windows server. CQ uses hooks written in vbscript that export data out of the database and into Excel files or re-import them. My employer also doesn't like MS office being installed on the server and asks for a solution.

My question is, what are the minimum requirements that need to be met in order for the scripts to be able to create and read Excel-files programmatically? Is there a DLL package or something that allows me to do it without "Excel being installed". Having a license to run Excel is not a problem. I wouldn't want the solution to look like a hack though.

Thanks in advance.

Help, it's with Windows Vista.

Sat, 29 Nov 2008 18:52:31 Z

Ok, I've been connecting to the internet using a USB Cable Modem for a pretty long time now. I've been using it for my Windows XP pc and my Windows Vista laptop, and it works pretty well. Recently, I just bought a Windows Vista pc, it's brand new, I set up everything, and turned it on. Everything on the computer seems to work fine I guess, but when I try to connect to the internet using my USB Cable Modem, it didn't work out very well..

I plugged the USB in the port, and it says new hardware found or whatever, but failed to be installed on my computer. I put it in the software disk that came with the USB Cable Modem and installed it, and it still wouldn't let me connect to the internet and keeps saying that it failed to install/connect the USB Cable Modem or whatever...
My laptop is a Windows Vista too, and it worked, why not the PC? I called the Geek Squad and asked them about this, and they said that probably newer versions of PCs can't
read USB's very well, and they told me to buy an Ethernet cord or whatever and give it a try out. I'm not really sure, and I need some help, thanks.

Why the HttpRequest getResponse() Send two request action to the web when it was use with a proxy

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 08:35:38 Z

When I was writing a procedure in C#, I suffer a question. That is ,in the intranet of ZheJiang University, the procedure couldn't touch the internet through the proxy server that is must to be used when one procedure want to visit internet.
And I had tried many procedure write in C# . They all have the same question.

So I use http debug tool to trace the reqest action and I find the GetResponse() of the HttpWebRequest always sent two reqest. The difference between the two reqest is the first reqest'header hasn't proxy-authorization. But the problem is that the first reqest is denied by the proxy server and the second reqest couldn't work anymore.

I also traced some procedure write in other language, they send the reqest with proxy-authorization only once and they could touch internet.

I have tried heard to control the the action of reqest.GetResponse() but failed.

So I want to know how to do it?

And the end qestion is how could I touch internet through the proxy server.

How to convert Powerpoint Office Open XML to XSLT

Mon, 03 Nov 2008 06:36:54 Z

Hi,

I am new to this forum. I have a scenario for which I need help from the experts here.

I want to create a silverlight application, in which I want to view the Microsoft Powerpoint slideshow.
The approach I am thinking of is:

1. Convert Powerpoint Office Open XML to XSLT.
2. Convert XSLT to XAML.
3. Use XAML in silverlight application to view the slideshow.

I would like to know, are there any existing tools avilable which does this.
Also are there any other approaches to view powerpoint slideshow in .net using silverlight.

I would also like to know, how to proceed with the current approach given above.

I found some projects on Codeplex, which are providing the slideshow in silverlight. But I am not able to use those because those are converting the slides to Images and showing those images on silverlight. But for my requirement the PPTX will contain audio, video files as well as animations, which are lost when converted to images.

Thanks in Advance for any suggestions or ideas on this.

Regards,
mswin

Multiple Physical Processors

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 20:12:07 Z

I am looking into building a personal rendering machine, 4 AMD phenom quad core processors, totaling 16 execution cores. I would love to run windows XP 64-bit edition however I have this itching feeling that the license sticker saying 1-2 processors means business and not just a legal issue, but a utilization issue. What version of windows can I run to let me take advantage of all 16 cores? I'm fairly certain the Server versions would work, however I'd like to avoid using that if possible. Otherwise I may end up turning to a copy of Debian.

calling C# com object from C++ using STL

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 14:51:17 Z

Hello,

I have a C# com object (.net framework 2.0) that I want to call from C++.
I tried to import the tlb and create the object using MyNamespace::IMyInterfacePtr pObj; but i got errors about not impelemting queryInterface, AddRef etc.
I found out that I should use CComObject (ref: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/181265[^]. So declaring the variable was a success using:
CComObject* pObj;
Now I am trying to create an instance by using:
HRESULT hRes = (CComObject::CreateInstance(&pObj);
But I get the following error:

c:\program files\microsoft visual studio\vc98\atl\include\atlcom.h(2395) : error C2504: 'MyConClass' : base class undefined
see reference to class template instantiation 'ATL::CComObject;' being compiled

Any ideas what I am doing wrong?

thanks!

EFS How can you access encrypted files if the computer was formatted without getting required file

Sun, 16 Nov 2008 05:57:27 Z

Ok, Here is my problem. I am a prof. photographer (doesn't pay great but covers the bills). I currently have about 20 gigs of my photos stuck on my external hardrive because they have efs encryption for some reason. My computer was formatted and xp reinstalled. Now I can't access any of my photos. Those photographs are my livlihood. Can anyone give any suggestions or help. Or if there is any way I can contact microsoft for help. I don't know what to do at this point. There are so many years of images archived on that drive... Help you can reach me at hamlett.paul@yahoo.com

ms08-067 patching without internet connection

Sat, 01 Nov 2008 17:35:47 Z

Hi,
Hope someone can help urgently. I need to patch a few wintel servers with the latest ms08-067 patch. However, the downloaded patch was a cab file. I am not allowed to connect the servers to the internet to do a windows update which could easily have this patch completed. How do I mannually install the cab file that I downloaded. Usually all the downloads are exe & I never had any issue patching servers that are not connected to the internet.

Thanks

Issuing Certificates to Non-Windows Hosts

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 01:19:41 Z

Hi All,

Any experience with providing certificate services to Linux and Mac workstations? Specifically, I want to issue user certificates based on the users Active Directory account, but want to ensure that the private key is not exportable, so that the certificate cannot be moved to a different machine.

Obviously the Web Enrollment pages are not an option as these use ActiveX controls. So I'm assuming this will have to be a combination of command line utilities and/or mmc functions.

This will be used for VPN authentication, hence the requirement to ensure that only validated computers can be used to access our network over the VPN.

Any observations, comments, tips, tricks and/or instructions gratefully received!!

Tks & Rgds

Mark Davies
MCSE, MCSA

How to handle ActiveX controls event through Interoperability

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 12:10:38 Z

I have a Word 2007 Document project created with VSTO 3.0 and VS 2008. My requirement is to add an ActiveX Button

to the word document and handle the event for the added button.

I've created the button in the Document with below code:

private void createOLEControl()

{

object objbutton = "Forms.CommandButton.1";

object objMissing = System.Type.Missing;

Word.Shape Text;

Text = this.Application.ActiveDocument.Shapes.AddOLEControl(ref objbutton, ref objMissing, ref objMissing, ref objMissing, ref objMissing, ref objMissing);

Text.OLEFormat.Object.GetType().InvokeMember("Name", System.Reflection.BindingFlags.SetProperty, null, Text.OLEFormat.Object, new object[] { "Click" });

}

But I would like to know how to handle the click event for this CommandButton,

It would be great if you could give me sample C# code to handle "Click" event.

AD issues with server

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 10:38:11 Z

I have an issue with AD not replicating through my network, when a user changes their password it doesnot replicate through the rest of the site and they cannot access any resources.
only when an admin changes the password through AD itself do the changes then filter down. I imagin this is a communication prob, but wonder if anyone else has any experience of this.

Randomness of the function RANDBETWEEN in Excel

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 08:04:07 Z

Is this function certified randomness?

Windows XP Home & Pro Updates and Zone Alarm Free Edition

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 02:11:22 Z

Has anyone experienced problems with Zone Alarm Free Edition
after Microsoft pushed its latest updates for Windows XP Home and
Windows XP Professional ?

The updates hit machines that were running Windows XP Home
and Pro with Service Pack 2, and after the updates were automatically
installed, the DNS services stopped working. Neither IE 7.0 nor
Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.14 could access the Internet.

Uninstalling Zone Alarm Free Edition corrected the problem.
HOWEVER, the problem with Zone Alarm Free Edition did NOT
occur until the updates were pushed out by Microsoft.

SFU created file access denied.

Sun, 07 Sep 2008 08:50:53 Z

Hi gurus,
I have a Unix system connected via Network to a Windows XP machine in which SFU is installed to ensure the interrop between these two machines. This Unix system is writing some files to my Windows machine in which I have my .NET application running and processing those files.
Here are some details:
1- The Unix machine is writing new files and updating some exisiting ones in the Windows machine every 10 seconds.
2- My application needs to read those files, process them and finally delete them.

I noticed the following things:
1- The .NET API is returning wrong information about those files and especially the length!
2- When my .NET application deletes a file, the .NET API (DirectoryInfo class) still reportes this file as an existing one on the file system for a period of time (about 25 soconds on my XP machine). After this period of time, the file is no longer seen in the folder.
3- When a file is written to my Windows machine, I delete that file right after (using Explorer). The deleted file is no longer appearing in the folder content pane of explorer. However, if I press F5 to refresh the view, the file reappears!!! I have to wait around 25 seconds to really see that the file does no longer exist in the shared folder

Has any one of you ever noticed this kind of behaviour?

Many thanks,

Cheers,

Forum set up

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 01:50:55 Z

Hi All,
I was wondering whether this great new forum concept as a whole is something that could be added to MOSS 2007?
If not, what technology is it based upon and how easy/difficult would it be to make this available in an intranet environment?

Kamagurka 'from Down Under'

Interoperability: Do We Need To See Code?

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 22:59:06 Z

An article by Dino Chiesa has led me to look deeper at the ways that development of open protocols might be similar to open-source activities, even though open protocols for interoperability ideally do not require knowledge of anyone's code. It is more valuable, I say, to look at how the specifications and the verification of implementations are reconciled over time. It isn't always pretty, but maybe there is a place where the many-eyes ideas about improvement of open-source software apply to open specifications.

Interoperability and Open-Source Development Are Different
The Advantage of Not Seeing the Code
Open Protocols and Community Engagement
What Was the Question, Again?

1. Interoperability and Open-Source Development Are Different

Dino Chiesa has a provocative blog post about Open Source and Interoperability (via Enzo De Lorenzi), arguing for a separation of open source distribution (a development and licensing approach) and interoperability (the ability to connect and operate systems and components together to accomplish some purpose):

"I am not making quality judgments on either open source or interop. I am not saying that one of them is good and one is bad. I am saying they are two different things. ... They are related, they are neighbors, they are acquaintances, but they are not interchangeable. Nor does one imply the other.

"Repeat after me:

Interop is not open source.

Interop does not require open source implementations.

Open source does not guarantee Interop."

I'm already convinced of that. What I am more taken with in Chiesa's post is his analysis of what is important for interoperability. I also think that practices associated with open-source can have a role there. Let's take a look.

2. The Advantage of Not Seeing the Code

First, Chiesa concedes that re-use of code from different sources may be aided by seeing the other code. That is a minor interoperability situation, however useful for understanding and repurposing of other code.

There are greater benefits in not having the code to look at. Chiesa puts it this way:

"[For the] challenge that architects and devs confront when they use the word 'interop', looking at source code is not helpful, and I won't hesitate to argue, I think it would be counterproductive. Yeah, you read me right - it actually is harmful to look at the code if you want to connect two big apps together.

"What is necessary to enable interop in these cases is protocols, people. ... This is why a Java or .NET app can connect to an IBM transaction processing system, even though the on-the-wire protocols are completely closed and proprietary to IBM. The protocols are documented. They are closed yet published. And because IBM's DTP protocols are published (not publicly per se, but published to those who license the protocols), anyone can implement the client-side of the exchange. [all emphasis in the original]"

Protocol specifications describe the protocol data elements, interfaces and the essential behavior of the parties, independent of exactly how a particular software implementation accomplishes its rôle under the protocol. The liability of starting from code is that behavior is buried in accidental and inessential details that obscure recognition of precisely and solely what must happen for the parties to interoperate.

It is particularly easy to demonstrate the problem of working from code if the parties are unable to use the same programming-language system and platform for their implementations. Then it is necessary to reverse-engineer the actual protocol out of the code, freeing it from incidental, implementation-specific baggage that could be a terrible drag if simulated unnecessarily in the second implementation.

Having the behavior and data units be well-specified provides a superior basis for interoperability. It is also advantageous for the future maintenance and portability of the initial implementation, even when first given birth on a single-platform product of a single producer.

Being an adherent to this point of view, you can imagine my surprise on learning that Microsoft began to make source code available to licensees of its Open Specifications (those under the MCPP program at the time) in early 2006. This was understandably expedient considering the difficulty of deriving specifications (with whatever reverse-engineering and confirmation testing that might entail) and of developing prototype implementations by an independent technical committee at that time. The lesson: arrange matters in the future so that inspection of the code becomes unnecessary to knowing the protocol essentials.

Dino Chiesa's example includes the prospective licensing of documented but proprietary protocols. Although that is certainly one case of interoperability arrangements, I want to separate out the licensing of closed protocols and consider the degree to which there is harmony of open-source development practices and the development of open protocol specifications, with or without licensing of intellectual property. The difference is that it involves an open approach to the specifications, independent of whether there are open-source implementation efforts.

3. Open Protocols and Community Engagement

4. What Was the Question, Again?

Have we come full circle? That depends. An open-source reference implementation need not be product-worthy. It may be designed to operate in a very straightforward way with no optimizations and usability considerations. Samples are just samples and kept simple for understandability. And there is no need to disclose production-implementation code. (I am also neglecting intellectual-property considerations that may limit the degrees of freedom available for unconstrained community contribution.)

The reality is that specifications do not have value without implementations that establish their credibility and utility in achieving interoperability. And specifications themselves are tested and refined as the result of implementation effort. There is a cycle of learning and improvement between specifications, implementations, and experience. The challenge is to remove friction and accelerate that process.

Working to make an open specification and have community involvement in perfecting the specification may be crucial to fostering take-up of an interoperability opportunity. Open-source development practices are a low-friction way to invite community contribution and deliver a mutual benefit. Having the specification be open for public use, feedback, and discussion and safe for some kind of implementation (depending on license conditions) is a valuable way for a community to find and organize itself to collaborate on interoperability.

This is something to consider when designing for interoperability and when assessing the level at which interoperability is invited. Perhaps the most important consideration is that fostering and sustaining of interoperability is a journey, not a destination. It won't look perfect.

http://orcmid.com/blog

How the Interoperability Executive Customer Council works

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:10:59 Z

Interoperability Executive Customer (IEC) Council, Volume 2 – How it works

In the post titled "What is the Interoperability Executive Customer Council," I mentioned the six IEC Council work streams. Here is a little more about each one.

Work stream #1: Office Productivity and Collaboration Tools

Major interoperability scenarios discussed under this work stream are around Office file formats, Office programmability and automation, Document and Content Management Servers, Backend and Line-of-Business Apps integration, etc. Customers want their information workers to be able to use a variety of tools to manipulate back-end data in a collaborative and intuitive way to help make business decisions and to easily process business documents, etc. They also want to exchange documents across systems and platforms and manipulate those using well-documented APIs and protocols. They need to feed backend data (from databases and Line-of-Business apps) into Office documents.

Many customers are using more than one content and document management server collaboratively in their organizations or with their partners. They want to integrate Search, UI, metadata, content management, personalization and taxonomy across multiple portals.

Other interoperability scenarios are around email and calendar interoperability, instant messaging, chatting, online meetings and information rights protection.

Work stream #2: Developer Tools and Runtime

Developers want the ability to use different development tools in a distributed environment. They want to be able to develop software applications using a mix and match of various tools and programming languages and manage the whole process using some common repositories and business processes.

Demand for protocol level interoperability between .NET and Java/Mainframe apps is also very high. There is also some demand for binary interoperability between the .NET and Java/Mainframe stacks in some instances.

Work stream #3: Business Process Modeling

Here we discuss how to facilitate design, development and management of business processes to run across multiple platforms and systems, with the ability to use different tools and frameworks in an interoperable way to do architecture modeling and implementation. There are many interoperability challenges and we are trying to understand how models (and modeling tools) are used in different organizations, what their lifecycle is and what standards are important for data and model interchange, etc.

Work stream #4: Public Interoperability Policy

The goals of this work stream are to guide Microsoft in its application of Interoperability Principles and inform public policy positions related to innovation, interoperability, privacy and security. Basic discussions have been around how Microsoft can clarify its interoperability strategy and foster interoperable systems thru technology, licensing, documentation, partner ecosystem and other means.

Work stream #5: Systems Management

Major scenarios discussed under this work stream are around IT operations management, deployment and patching of software, virtualization environments, etc. IT operations want to optimize management of heterogeneous enterprise environments while providing top-notch service to users based on their SLAs. Examples are how you use monitoring products from various vendors and make them work together to provide a reliable, integrated management experience in their data centers, use virtualization for consolidating servers and improving utilization of data centers, and automate software deployment, patching and asset inventory across their environments to lower total cost of ownership.

Examples of how the council is guiding product teams to add interoperability features will be shown in the upcoming release of Systems Center products which will contain support for managing VMWare environments in the Virtual Machine Manager and will have new connectors in Operations Manager for other 3^rd party tools.

Work stream #6: Security and Identity Management

Major interoperability scenarios include identity federation for providing secure access to internal resources to partners and customers, single sign-on techniques, user-centric and claims-based authentication approaches (like infocards/CardSpace) for identity management through 3rd party providers and relying parties, and ActiveDirectory-LDAP integration etc. Other scenarios are around synchronization of items and passwords, etc., across multiple directories like ActiveDirectory and LDAP. Scenarios where applications need to continue working when one of the directories is inaccessible, by switching over transparently to get required info from another fail-over directory, were also discussed. Customers also want to streamline the process of user provisioning and want to be able to delegate that work to selected partners in some scenarios.

I hope this information will provide some insight into the practical methods Microsoft is employing to deliver on interoperability principles and standards, and I welcome your input to the Interoperability Forum

What is the Interoperability Executive Customer Council?

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:07:30 Z

What is the IECC?

The Interoperability Executive Customer (IEC) Council has been mentioned several times in recent announcements and blogs on interoperability. As someone deeply involved in the IEC Council, I want to share what the IEC Council is, how it is advising Microsoft on Interoperability scenarios and issues, and what is being discussed.

I am the Technical lead on the IECC Core team at Microsoft. I lead the technical discussions within the council and work with various internal product teams to collaborate with the council and discuss solutions to interoperability issues raised by them.

The IEC Council is a customer advisory council consisting of CIOs and CTOs of about 35 large enterprises, from the public sector and private sector, and government departments from around the world. Launched almost two years ago, it has become one of our greatest sources of input on interoperability.

What are the Goals of the IEC Council?

Raise awareness around interoperability issues and solutions
Provide education on Microsoft’s interoperability strategies and programs and influence their design through customer feedback
Create strong connections between members to share knowledge and best practices

How is the IEC Council structured?

The council is divided into 6 work streams covering Microsoft products and services. It has yielded a great deal of in-depth analysis and examination of interoperability scenarios and issues. The work streams are:

1. Office Productivity and Collaboration Tools

2. Developer Tools and Runtime

3. Systems Management

4. Security and Identity Management

5. Business Process Modeling

6. Public Interoperability Policy

In these work streams, customers tell us why they are using our products in the way they do, what are they trying to interoperate with, and what issues they run into. We discuss our strategy and goals around our products and services, collaborate to find best possible solutions, and provide guidelines for our products and policies around interoperability. Many of our recent announcements were heavily influenced by the council. In my next post, I will go into more detail about each of the six work streams.

Kamaljit Bath
Principal Program Manager
Interoperability Technical Strategy

.NET Interop Resources

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 04:07:19 Z

This material is cross-maintained on a blog page for easier linking and location via Internet search.

All About Interop: Connecting .NET to just about anything else. (web log)
The blog of Microsoft's Dino Chiesa covers general interoperability involving .NET. Although the blog tends to feature interoperability via communication arrangements, such as Web Services, there are discussions of topics related to linking and run-time interoperability. Click the "Interoperability" tag on any page to zero in on interoperability-focused posts. (Thanks to Enzo De Lorenzi.)
Tim Mallalieu and Jeromy Carriere: Enterprise Interoperability: .NET and J2EE (via Warren DuBois). article, Building Distributed Applications, Enterprise Architecture Patterns & Practices, MSDN Online, January 2004.
Although slightly dated, this article provides an overview and many links for those looking to address the different opportunities and trade-offs.
Gotchas with .NET (web article, via Silvain Trudel)
Jeff Cope addresses some specific .NET COM Interop considerations in the context of integration with PDMWorks Enterprise. Although some good understanding of Interop is required to apply these tips in other situations, they may be useful to review.
Jesús Rodríguez: Interoperability with Message Exchange Patterns Created Using BEA Weblog 8.1.3 (via Messages and Services). article, Building Distributed Applications, Enterprise Architecture Patterns & Practices, MSDN Online, January 2005.
Although grounded in a very specific case, the narration of the various considerations may be useful in considering other cases of web services interoperability. There are additional cases listed at the Messages and Services page. Here the .NET operation is as a client or server process of a web-service exchange.
Interoperating with Unmanaged Code. onliine article, .NET Framework Developers Guide, MSDN Online (undated).
An overview from the .NET perspective, dealing with pre-C++/CLI cases. This additional view may help form an understanding of what is involved. This assumes some knowledge of unmanaged code technologies (Win32, COM, ActiveX, etc.)
Thottam R. Sriram: Introduction to COM Interop. article, CLR Inside Out column, MSDN Magazine, January 2007.
This introduction takes a leisurely approach through the basics of interoperability between unmanaged COM code and managed .NET code. In addition to demonstration of all cases, there is discussion of debugging, with additional references for further resources.
Managed, Native, and COM Interop Team on CodePlex (project web folder, via Darren Stokes)
The main project of this effort is the P/Invoke Interop Assistant that can be used to see how C/C++ calls are translated to .NET calls, and how .NET entries can be accessed from C/C++ calls. There are help files and guidance on how parameters are marshalled between the Win32 native and the .NET environments. This is an useful way to understand Interop from execution environments that have C/C++ native calling and entry-point provisions.
Yi Zhang and Xiaoying Guo: Marshaling between Managed and Unmanaged Code. article, CLR Inside Out column, MSDN Magazine, January 2008.
This article provides an extensive analysis of the ways that calls and datatypes are in either direction between managed and unmanged code. An early version of the P/Invoke Interop Assistant is provided along with the downloadable examples.
MSDN Magazine (online issues).
The on-line issues extend back to March, 2000. The magazine articles can be found by issue, by column, and by topic (all in the sub-menu at the top of the home page). All code can be downloaded and individual issues can be downloaded in HTML Help (.chm) format.
MSDN Online (web site).
The on-line vresion of the Microsoft Developers Network provides extensive materials including the online issues of MSDN Magazine. The recently-updated site design provides easy search for interop-related materials, with opportunity for browsing and narrowing the search to more-specific material of interest.
Native and .NET Interoperability. (online article) MSDN Library.
This MSDN section deals with the ways that .NET and Native code can be mixed using the C++/CLI extensions of VC++ 2005 and later. It may shed more light on efforts to mix code as part of an integration across different development and runtime environments.
Adam Nathan: .NET and COM: The Complete Interoperability Guide. Sams Publishing (Indianapolis, IN: 2002), ISBN 0-672-32170-X pbk (2 volumes).
Although this book was published at the time that .NET 1.0 shipped, it is probably the most comprehensive treatment of the topic that will ever be found, with substantial code examples and description of the various tools that are useful in a great variety of combinations. Although the C++/CLI extensions were not available, and .NET is now richer, there are still topics here that are found nowhere else. This resource is also indicated if one is considering using COM as a way to access .NET from other native-programming environments. I also find it valuable in describing how to design for interoperability at either starting point for an interoperability solution.
.NET Gotchas (book, via Jeff Cope)
This 2005 O'Reilly book by Venkat Subramaniam lists a number of elements to watch out for in using COM Interop and also in deploying .NET Assemblies that use COM objects underneath.
Stephen R. G. Fraser: Pro Visual C++/CLI and the .NET 2.0 Platform. Apress (Berkeley, CA: 2006), ISBN 1-59059-640-4.
This is a thick and somewhat murky book. It tends to look at VC++ entirely from the C++/CLI language that the /clr option switches to. It does not connect the dots to native C++ that well. The pacing is leisurely enough that patient testing of the material by creating and varying the examples and samples may be useful. There are only two chapters focused on the interactions with unmanaged code.
The ServerSide Interoperability Blog. (web log)
Although silent since December 2007, this blog is directed to cross-platform interoperability. The archives have useful content. The sponsoring site TheServerSide.com tends to look at interoperability and integration from the Java side. Sponsoring site TheServerSide.net starts on the .NET side, with material on "language interop." These sites provide registration for e-mail notices of information and announcements, including ones related to interoperability.
VST.NET (via Marc's Blog Cabin). open-source project folder, CodePlex (LGPL 2.1 license).
This is an early version (0.2 as of 2008-06-21) of a developing worked example of a framework for starting from the C Language API that VST modules must offer, down through implementation of the module via .NET (exploiting Visual C++/CLI for the bridge, C# for the managed-code components called from the bridge). Virtual Studio Technology (VST) is an audio plug-in model defined by Steinberg Media Technologies and used to add audio processors and instruments to popular audio creation software. VST.NET is a real-world example of taking a specialized interface and allowing creation of VSTs using .NET via interop through C++/CLI. VST is a de facto standard for interoperable plug-ins of these fixtures. There is additional information on author Marc ~~Shapiro's~~ Jacobi's blog. The framework model may be more than what's needed in a particular interop situation. The modularization and use of a managed-code loader are instructive either way.

I keep seeing questions about in-process integration of .NET with other execution models (Win32, Java, ASP before .NET, etc.). Some have been here on the Interoperability Forums and others are found spread around developer-oriented MSDN Forums. It seems useful to locate some useful resources, so I am offering this thread. I want to find more resources, especially anything about guidance on how to keep such integrations simple and easy to verify and troubleshoot.

update 2008-08-05: Corrected Marc Jacobi's name as the author of VST.NET. Also, the latest version of this list (no changes yet) is maintained on a blog page, for the reasons given there.
update 2008-06-22: This list will apear rather random until I add enough material to apply some organization and guidance. The current entries are in alphabetical-order by title.

How Do You Verify Interoperability?

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 20:43:49 Z

[Update 2008-04-17T15:52Z: Oops. I just noticed that this could be mistaken as a question to Microsoft. This is not a question to Microsoft, although it would be interesting for 'softies to respond from their own perspective, experience, and how they are raising the bar in their own efforts. I am not asking for a Microsoft position or response. This is a question to all of those who visit here who have out of curiosity or interest in the subject matter of interoperability.]

I mean this as a general question, although I find it easier to get my head around document-interoperability cases.

First, what do you check interoperability with?

1. Do you check with another application, as some people do by checking their web site with a browser (often only one particular browser)? I was around a hardware integration project in the late 80s where the check for interoperability of a custom board was whether it worked in a Compaq 386 configuration. Probably not a great test: They ended up selling the board in a bundle as part of a Compaq 386 because it was too costly to test with other PCs. But if you do verify by operation with another application or device, is there a case where that is enough?

2. Do you check with multiple applications/clients/servers and then find out how to round out the rough edges among you? WebDAV servers and clients are tested in interoperability fests this way. This is a pretty useful technique because (1) it is all done over the web and there is no need for anyone to reveal source code and (2) there is enough slack in WebDAV that it actually matters how implementations behave with each other and some sort of common ground be found.

3. Do you rely on sets of conformance tests and reference implementations? By reference implementation, I don't meed some best-of-breed candidate that you need to interoperate with, no matter what it does (e.g., Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer). That's part of (1).

Finally, I do want to ask a question that is about document interoperability. I'm not sure how to ask it.

4. In accepting documents in some standard format, how do you tell that your application does the right thing with it? Are there automated tests, and what do they measure?

I'm not asking for trade secrets. Suggestions and armchair recommendations are interesting to me also.

Technical Interoperability Scenarios – Read Me First

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 18:42:12 Z

Technical Interoperability Scenarios – Read Me

Freedom of choice. Ease of integration. The confidence that, regardless of which best-of-breed software is chosen, it just works with existing heterogeneous infrastructures. Customers are demanding it, and vendors are working hard to deliver it.

No single company – customer, vendor or integrator -- can address these interoperability challenges on its own. Open communication, ongoing dialogue, and collaboration are critical to address challenges customers are experiencing and to identify ways in which those challenges can be addressed.

Two long-standing initiatives that work in this model - the Interoperability Executive Customer (IEC) Council and the Interoperability Vendor Alliance (IVA) – and the recently launched Document Interop Initiative and their learnings – can contribute to this forum’s discussion on technical interoperability scenarios. Documented below is a sampling of the scenarios these groups are addressing.

Technical Interoperability Scenarios

Developer tools and runtime:

Customers need the ability to use different development tools in a distributed environment, robust and high-performance interoperability between .NET and Java/Mainframe applications, distributed data access using standard protocols, consistent implementations of standard cryptology algorithms, etc.

Many customers are using multiple development tools due to acquisitions and mergers, and offshore and distributed development environments. They want to be able to develop software applications using a mix and match of various tools and programming languages, and to manage the whole process using common repositories and business processes. This brings in interoperability requirements on tools like Microsoft Visual Studio Team System and Team Foundation Server.

Demand for protocol level interoperability between .NET and Java/Mainframe apps is very high. Customers want evidence of interoperability between the web services stack from various vendors. There is also some demand for binary interoperability between the .NET and Java/Mainframe stacks. Accessing various relational, hierarchical, and object-oriented databases using standards protocols from different development tools and programming languages is also a key interoperability scenario.

Microsoft is working with many partners to address several of these scenarios. More details are available at:

· Visual Studio 2008 Extensibility

· XML Web Services Interoperability Resources

· Enterprise Interoperability: .NET and J2EE

· Windows Live Dev

We welcome the discussion on these topics on this forum:

· Visual Studio and TFS interoperability scenarios

· .NET framework – Java/Mainframe interoperability scenarios and issues

· Interoperability issues with WS-* stack of specifications and standards

· Windows Live Services

Office productivity, collaboration, and document interop:

Customers want their information workers to be able to use a variety of tools to manipulate back-end data in a collaborative and intuitive way to help make business decisions and to easily process business documents etc. They also want to exchange documents across systems and platforms, and manipulate them using well-documented APIs and protocols. They need to feed back-end data (from databases and Line-of-Business applications like SAP, Siebel, etc.) into Office documents.

Many customers are using more than one content and document management servers collaboratively in their organizations. They want to integrate Search, UI, metadata, content management, personalization, and taxonomy across multiple portals.

Other interoperability scenarios include e-mail and calendar interoperability, instant messaging, chatting, online meetings, and information rights protection.

For vendors looking to meet these customer requirements, the ability to unlock data from documents and to ensure documents flow seamlessly across applications with no loss of fidelity is a key challenge. Vendors needs include: access to documentation, developer friendly authoring tools that provides real-time WYSIWYG rendering, and tools for authoring and development when working with documents that include data based on custom defined schemas, a set of proven conformance test suites, and an accepted and “trusted” library of quality test documents.

More details on Microsoft’s interoperability work in this area are available at:

- Resources for Interoperability with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

- OpenXML Developer

- Microsoft Office Communications Server Open Interoperability Program

We welcome the discussion on these key interoperability topics:

- Document interoperability scenarios and issues

- Interoperability scenarios and issues around Enterprise Portal, Search and Content Management

- E-mail and Online Meeting scenarios around interoperability

Systems Management:

Major scenarios under this topic area are IT operations management, deployment and patching of software, virtualization environments, etc. IT operations want to optimize management of heterogeneous enterprise environments while providing top-notch service to users based on their SLAs. They want to:

1. Use monitoring products from various vendors and make them work together to provide a reliable, integrated management experience in their data centers

2. Use virtualization for consolidating servers and improving utilization of data centers:

a. Use a single management console to manage virtual machines from various vendors

b. Host virtual machines from different OS’s on the same host

3. Automate software deployment, patching and asset inventory across their environments to lower TCO (total cost of ownership)

More details on Microsoft’s interoperability work in this are available at the System Center Overview.

We welcome discussions on the following topics:

o Interoperability scenarios around virtual machine management

o Interoperability scenarios around operations and configuration/deployment management

Security and Identity Management:

There are multiple scenarios for identity federation where customers and partners need access to specific resources inside a company’s firewall in a secure and controlled manner. There is a need to support many different security tokens in these solutions as customers and partners typically use diverse systems. Other scenarios include synchronization of items and passwords etc. across multiple directories like ActiveDirectory and LDAP. Another scenario occurs when applications need to be able to continue working when one of the directories is inaccessible by switching over transparently to get required info from another fail-over directory. Customers also want to streamline the process of user provisioning and want to be able to delegate that work to selected partners in some scenarios.

More details on Microsoft’s interoperability work in this area are available at:

- Federated Identity Management Interoperability

- Identity Selector Interoperability Profile V1.0

We welcome discussions around the following topics:

- Identity and access management

- Directory services interoperability and synchronization

- Cryptography algorithms and PKI infrastructure

Technical Interoperability Scenarios – How to Register and Post

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 21:28:52 Z

Technical Interoperability Scenarios – How to Register and Post

Please refer to the Forums Community Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page to answer any questions you have on how to register for the Microsoft Interoperability Forum and how to post on the forum. Here are some key guidelines to get you started:

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