--------------------------------------------------------- Microsoft Advanced Data Connector version 1.5 Beta 1 Readme File 1997 --------------------------------------------------------- (c) Microsoft Corporation, 1997 This document provides late-breaking or other information that supplements the Microsoft Advanced Data Connector (ADC) 1.5 Beta 1 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 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 4.0 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++. 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. >>>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 Server and Help Files (msadc15.exe; msadc15a.exe for Alpha) to install the software 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\Doc Contains the documentation. ..\MSADC\Samples 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 Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 already includes the necessary Advanced Data Connector (ADC) client components. Therefore, you don't need to include a cab file on your Web page because client computers will already have the ADC client component DLLs. 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/Samples/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 msadc15.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 other 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 ------------------ · Miscellaneous When you convert data types from SQL Server to OLE DB data types, note that coercing data from DBTYPE_DATE to DBTYPE_DBDATE or DBTYPE_DBTIMESTAMP will fail (with a DBSTATUS_E_CANTCONVERTVALUE ) when the date is 12/31/1752 or before. This corresponds to a similar restriction in the SQL Server ODBC driver. · 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. · 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. Sorting and Filtering For sorting and filtering, != is invalid; for not equals use <>. Also, if both the filter and sort properties are set and you call the Reset method, the rowset is first filtered and then it is sorted. For ascending sorts, the NULLs are at the top, descending sorts NULLs are at the bottom (ascending is default behavior). ----------------- 6. KNOWN PROBLEMS ----------------- The following is a list of Advanced Data Connector 1.5 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.