--------------------------------------------------------- Microsoft Advanced Data Connector version 1.1 Readme File 1997 --------------------------------------------------------- (c) Microsoft Corporation, 1997 This document provides late-breaking or other information that supplements the Microsoft Advanced Data Connector (ADC) documentation. -------- CONTENTS -------- 1. PRODUCT DESCRIPTION 2. INSTALLATION NOTES 2.1 Before You Run Setup 2.1.1 Hardware Requirements 2.1.2 Software Requirements 2.2 Installing Microsoft Advanced Data Connector 2.2.1 Installing ADC Server Components on Your Web Servers 2.2.2 Installing ADC Client Components on Your Client Computers 2.3 Validating Setup 3. NOTES ON SAMPLE APPLICATIONS 4. TECHNICAL SUPPORT 4.1 Contacting Product Support Services 4.2 Visiting the Microsoft Advanced Data Connector Web Site 4.3 Joining the Advanced Data Connector Public Newsgroup 5. TECHNICAL NOTES 6. KNOWN PROBLEMS ---------------------- 1. PRODUCT DESCRIPTION ---------------------- Microsoft Advanced Data Connector (ADC) is a fast and efficient data connectivity and data publishing framework for applications hosted in Internet Explorer. It is based on a client/server, distributed technology that works over HTTP, HTTPS (HTTP over Secure Sockets layer), and DCOM application protocols. Using data-aware ActiveX controls, ADC provides Visual Basic-style data access programming to Web developers who need to build distributed, data-intensive applications for use over corporate intranets and the Internet. --------------------- 2. INSTALLATION NOTES --------------------- 2.1 Before You Run Setup Before you install Microsoft Advanced Data Connector, make sure that your client and server computers meet the minimum hardware and software requirements. 2.1.1 Hardware Requirements To install Advanced Data Connector, you must meet certain hardware requirements, which include: · Any Windows NT x86-compatible computer. · A hard disk with a minimum of 5 megabytes (MB) available space for a full installation. · Any display supported by Windows NT version 4.0. · A minimum of 12 MB of RAM for client computers. · A minimum of 24 MB of RAM for server computers (32 MB of RAM recommended). · A mouse or other suitable pointing device. 2.1.2 Software Requirements Before you install Advanced Data Connector on a server computer, your Web server computer must meet the following software requirements: · Microsoft Windows NT Server version 4.0 or later. (Advanced Data Connector currently supports the x86/Intel platform.) · Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) 3.0, including Microsoft Active Server Pages. · Microsoft SQL Server 6.5 with Service Pack 2 (or other ODBC Level 2 compliant data source). To access Advanced Data Connector applications from client computers, client computers must meet the following software requirements: · Any of the following platforms: Windows 95, Windows NT Workstation 4.0 or later, or Windows NT Server 4.0 or later. · Microsoft Internet Explorer version 3.01 or later. Note: Advanced Data Connector has not been tested with the Netscape browser technology. To build client Web pages, you can use typical HTML authoring tools, such as Notepad or the more fully featured Microsoft ActiveX Control Pad. Some current data-aware controls are not fully integrated with the layout editor of the ActiveX Control Pad, but will still work correctly when the page is loaded in the browser. To program server-side business objects, you can use any ActiveX/COM DLL-compatible tool, such as Microsoft Visual Basic 4.0 or later or Microsoft Visual C++. The sample business objects included with this product were built with Visual Basic 4.0. 2.2 Installing Microsoft Advanced Data Connector For Advanced Data Connector to work correctly, you should ensure that the Advanced Data Connector server and client components are installed correctly on server and client computers, respectively. 2.2.1 Installing ADC Server Components on Your Web Servers You will install the Microsoft Advanced Data Connector server components on your Web server computer, which should have Windows NT Server version 4.0 or later. Setup assumes that your computer meets all of the software requirements. Note: The Microsoft Advanced Data Connector version 1.1 client components work with the Microsoft Advanced Data Connector 1.5 server components. ADC 1.1 is an upgrade path for ADC 1.0 applications to port to Internet Explorer 4.0 and to take advantage of new ADC 1.5 server functionality. For existing ADC 1.0 applications, you can use the 1.1 client with the 1.5 server components for both Internet Explorer 3.01 and 4.0 functionality. For new and Internet Explorer 4.0-only applications, it is recommended you use the ADC 1.5 client components with the ADC 1.5 server components. >>>To install Advanced Data Connector server components: 1 From your Web server computer, connect to the Advanced Data Connector World Wide Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/adc/. 2 Click the Download button, and scroll down to Download Files and Sites. 3 Click msadcc11.exe to install the ADC 1.1 client components and documentation. Then, click msadc15.exe (msadc15a.exe for Alpha) to install the ADC 1.5 server components and documentation. (Note: Running msadc15.exe installs the Address Book sample application. To install the Rank Demo application, run msadcrnk.exe. To install the QueryTool demo, run msadcqry.exe.) 4 Follow the Setup instructions on the screen. The Setup program installs the program files to the :\Program Files\Common Files\System\MSADC directory. (This location is adjacent to other complementary Microsoft technologies such as ActiveX Data Objects and OLE DB.) The following subdirectories are created under the \MSADC directory with the setup program. Subdirectory Description ------------ ----------- ..\MSADC\Doc11 Contains the documentation. ..\MSADC\Samples11 Contains the sample files. The server installation program (msadc15.exe) also creates a Microsoft Internet Information Server virtual root on your Web server computer. The root is designated ///msadc and you can use to reference the physical file system from the browser. Once you have followed this procedure to set up Microsoft Advanced Data Connector on your Web server computer, you can validate your installation (see Section 2.3). 2.2.2 Installing ADC Client Components on Your Client Computers To ensure that client computers include all of the appropriate client DLLs to run Advanced Data Connector, you should include the msadc11.cab file in the HTML CODEBASE parameter in the AdvancedDataControl object code on your Web page. When the msadc11.cab file is downloaded, it automatically installs the required client files to the client computer. This simplifies the deployment of Advanced Data Connector-enabled Web pages. For more information on how to include this information on your Web pages, see the AdvancedDataControl object topic in online Help. Important: The security level in Internet Explorer on the client computers should be set to at least Medium security for unsigned files to be able to download correctly onto the client. High security can prevent the files from loading, that is, if controls aren't signed, they will not load. You can set the security options in Internet Explorer. On the View menu, click Options. On the Security tab, click Safety Level, and then select Medium. Note that the Sheridan and ADC cab files are signed, so they should download correctly even with High security. 2.3 Validating Setup You can use the ADCTest.asp sample application to validate your Microsoft Advanced Data Connector installation. >>>To validate setup with ADCTest 1 Start Internet Explorer, and enter the following address: http:///MSADC/Samples11/adctest.asp where is the name of your Web server. This should display the Advanced Data Connector Query Page. You'll notice that the server, connection, and query information is already provided for you. 2 Click the Run! button to execute the query. If the grid displays a resultset, your installation is correct. If you run into any problems, review the setup instructions and see "Troubleshooting Advanced Data Connector" and "Other ADC Configuration Information" in online Help. ------------------------------- 3. NOTES ON SAMPLE APPLICATIONS ------------------------------- The Customer Ranking application is a three-tier application that is an example of a data-intensive application one might target for migration to an intranet. The application ranks customers according to suitability for Arcadia Bay, Inc.'s product line, based on sets of rules and criteria. The Customer Ranking sample application deploys a large database as part of its installation procedure. The script rankdemo.sql attempts to create a database on the default device for the SQL Server by allocating 25 MB of space. If your default device does not have sufficient space for this operation to succeed, the rankdemo.sql should be edited to use a device that does. In such a case, isqlw.exe, available in the MSSQL\binn folder, may be used to load, edit, and manually execute the script. If you run the installation script and find that the database has accidentally been created on the Master database, it is because of the device block allocation issue. Please refer to your SQL Server Online Documentation to learn how to use either the Enterprise Manager application or the sp_dboptions stored procedure to allocate the necessary disk space for the target device. Note that the database created by the rankdemo.sql script has bulkcopy and truncate on checkpoint options set to TRUE, so that additional space is not consumed during the installation process by unnecessary logging. As a final reminder, the user and password supplied to the regdemo.bat script, which will invoke the rankdemo.sql script internally, must have GRANT, CREATE USER, CREATE PROCEDURE, CREATE TABLE, and CREATE DATABASE privileges. Ideally, a dba-level account should be used as the command line parameters to the regdemo.bat and rankdemo.sql scripts. For more information on the sample applications, see the msadcrnk.hlp and msadc11.hlp files. -------------------- 4. TECHNICAL SUPPORT -------------------- 4.1 Contacting Product Support Services In the United States and Canada, Microsoft Technical Support provides Pay-Per-Incident, call back only support for the Advanced Data Connector. · Call (800) 936-5800; $95 (U.S.) per incident, billed to your VISA card, MasterCard, or American Express card. · Call (900) 555-2300; $95 (U.S.) per incident. Charges appear on your telephone bill. 4.2 Visiting the Microsoft Advanced Data Connector Web Site You can visit the Microsoft Advanced Data Connector Home Page on the World Wide Web for documentation updates and information about related technologies. The address is http://www.microsoft.com/adc/. 4.3 Joining the Advanced Data Connector Public Newsgroup To facilitate discussion, information sharing, and tips trading, Microsoft has set up a public newsgroup: microsoft.public.adc. You are welcome to post articles and messages to this unmoderated, unsupported newsgroup. Microsoft does not guarantee responses or direct support. For more information, visit the Advanced Data Connector Web site, http://www.microsoft.com/adc/. ------------------ 5. TECHNICAL NOTES ------------------ · Using FoxPro Databases If you access Visual FoxPro data, you must use the latest Visual FoxPro ODBC driver (version 5.0.0.402 or later), which is available from http://www.microsoft.com/vfoxpro/vfdownload. If you don't use the latest driver, you may not be able to execute queries correctly. · Sample Applications To load the grid in the ADC sample applications, you need to be able to access the Internet (as opposed to your intranet). If you try to load the samples that use the Sheridan grid, the Sheridan cab file referenced in the CODEBASE line attempts to download the mfc42.dll file patch from the Microsoft general fixes Web site. If it is unable to access this patch, the grid will not load. If the ActiveX control for the grid (ssdatb32.ocx) already resides on the client computer, the CODEBASE line will not need to unpack the cab file, and the problem will not be encountered. Also, when you install the sample applications, an attempt is made to create two user accounts ("adcdemo" and "ng") within SQL Server. If these accounts already exist, the installation will succeed, however, when you run the sample application you may receive a "login failed" message. You can edit the sample files to set the username and password. to a working account. · Online Documentation and Sample Installation Locations The documentation states that the default location for the HTML documentation is C:\Program Files\Common Files\System\MSADC\Doc\Online and the default location for the sample applications is C:\Program Files\Common Files\System\MSADC\Samples. The default locations are actually C:\Program Files\Common Files\System\MSADC\Doc\Online11 and C:\Program Files\Common Files\System\MSADC\Samples11, respectively. · Using ADO in Visual Basic Business Objects If you created a custom business object in Visual Basic with a reference to MSADOR10.dll, you might need to rebuild it with MSADOR15.dll. Otherwise, if the business object is built with a reference to ADOR 1.0, it won't work correctly if the machine that hosts the business object is upgraded to use ADOR 1.5. A client machine using ADC 1.1 with Internet Explorer 3.01 will use MSADOR10.dll. A client machine using ADC 1.1 with Internet Explorer 4.0 will use MSADOR15.dll. Also, MSADOR15.dll is installed to C:\\system32 by the Advanced Data Connector 1.5 or Internet Explorer 4.0 installation program. The correct version of MSADOR15.dll is 1.49.1072 dated 2/20/97. · "System error: out of virtual memory" Error If you receive the error "System error: out of virtual memory error" from the Web Server requiring a reboot, the following may address the error. Your Web server machine may be out of virtual memory, or the SQL data source server may require more TempDB space to handle the size of the query you are attempting to run. Virtual memory can be adjusted from Control Panel (click the System icon, select the Performance tab, and click the Virtual Memory button to see if there is extra hard disk space available). More information on how to adjust the TempDB space can be found in the the "Performance" Help topic's subtopic, "Ensuring Sufficient TempDB Space." ----------------- 6. KNOWN PROBLEMS ----------------- The following is a list of Advanced Data Connector 1.1 known problems. · Version 1.0.0.806 of the Visual Basic Script DLL (vbscript.dll) contains a memory leak. An updated version of the DLL (2.0.0.1114 or later) resolves the issue. It is available with Internet Information Server 3.0, and can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/vbscript. · The DBList and DBCombo Sheridan controls do not display data if double-byte character sets (DBCS) are used in the data. · When you use ADC with the Visual Basic 5.0 list box or combo box control in Internet Explorer version 4.0, you should set the ListField property for the list box or combo box control at design time in the control's tags. Otherwise, if you set the ListField property at run time in VBScript code, the data won't be populated in the controls. Therefore, you should use HTML code like the following: ... instead of VBScript code like: Combo1.ListField="ColName" · If you make changes to data on your ADC page and then go to another page without canceling or submitting the changes, when you return to your ADC page, you may get an "Unexpected Error" message. Calling the AdvancedDataControl object's Refresh method when you return to the page will resolve this problem. · You can use self joins as long as they don't use the "for browse" clause. This is because there is no way to identify which columns belong to which side of the self join. For example, a query like "Select x.a,y.b from table1 x,table1 y for browse" will not work correctly. The meta data from ODBC specifies that the projection list is column 'a' from table 'table' and column 'b' from table 'table1'. There is no way to identify that column 'a' belongs to one side of the self join and column 'b' belongs to the other side of the self join. It is assumed there is only one table 'table1' involved in the query. · The "Sample and Demo Applications" topic in the documentation states that the Address Book and ADCTest applications are installed when you run msadc11.exe. The file name is actually msadcc11.exe. · The "Advanced Data Connector Source Files" topic in the documentation lists msadci11.inf as the ADC Server installation file. There is no ADC 1.1 server installation file. ADC 1.1 client components work with ADC 1.5 server components. Also, the list should also include msadcf.dll, a server DLL for the AdvancedDataFactory object.