Hello, I'm   Jason

Has anyone tried the new MSN IM 7.0 yet? It seems like more “fluff” than anything. I started using MSN IM because it didn’t have the bells and whistles (literally) that AIM and Yahoo! Messenger had. Has anyone found any good functionality with 7.0?

Attention all developers: If you did not know that Visual Basic 6 (VB6) support ends in 2 more weeks, you should now. According to MSDN online, VB6’s “Mainstream” support will end on March 31, 2005. The extended phase will last until March of 2008. There is a ton of controversy over whether the support should continue or not. If you think it should continue, visit http://classicvb.org/petition/. Many well known Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs) and other developers have already signed this online petition.

I must say that I’m very disappointed that SQL 2005 has limited the table information that you can view on a single screen. What I mean is that they have removed database diagrams from SQL 2005 and have also removed viewing the size of the columns from design view. So, if I need a screen shot of my database for a project, I need to use Visio or use Visual Studio 2005. I found it odd when I was looking for it today and found it missing. Some fellow ASPInsiders (Phil, Wally, and Paul) confirmed my findings. Its amazing how useful functionality is sometimes forgotten about while little things are never missed. ;)

Isn’t it fun when it comes time to upgrading server hardware, especially when you need to upgrade your first installed domain controller and exchange server to a new server? Even though its not a guaranteed flawless procedure, Microsoft has done a great job improving the migration in Server 2003. In most scenarios, you’ll want to keep the same server name. So, you’ll need an intermediate server to assist with the process.

1. Determine which server you’ll use as an intermediate server. Set the server up with Windows Server 2003 and Exchange 2003 (if needed).
2. Migrate the Exchange 2003 mailboxes from the existing domain controller to the temporary domain controller (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;821829)
3. After all mailboxes are moved over, begin transferring the domain controller and Active Directory roles (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;255690)
4. After all roles are migrated to the temporary server, migrate the Exchange server roles (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;152960)
5. Test to be sure client computers can connect to the temporary server. If they can, repeat these 5 steps again, but with the temporary server and the new domain controller.

WindowsAdvice.com is the newest member of the DevAdvice.com family. You’ll see some very, informative posts from some great Windows experts. Check back frequently, or better yet, bookmark WindowsAdvice.com!

For more information about Jason N. Gaylord, visit JasonGaylord.com.

Lately, some bloggers have found themselves looking for a job because of some questionable posts. Today, eWeek posted an article about the government regulating blogging for campaigns. With is mind, have bloggers gone to far? What’s your opinion?

Today I received an error message within one of our applications stating that The log file for database 'tempdb' is full. Back up the transaction log for the database to free up some log space. I posted to the ASPAdvice.com lists and received more information than I bargained for. Mike Campbell and Wally McClure provided some very valuable information regarding this issue. Here is Mike’s post below:

Jason,

Let your log file grow a bit more in size and/or jump on query analyzer and run the following:

1
2
BACKUP LOG <database\_name> WITH TRUNCATE\_ONLY  
GO

That will truncate your log (meaning recoverability won’t allow point-in-time recovery… though I doubt you’ll need it).

1 MB may not sound like much, and really isn’t the issue. The issue is that SQL Server will only allow a certain amount of space for logging transactions/activity. when that space is up it’s game over (unless you allow the log file to grow – and then if you allow it to grow, it can grow until there are only 5MB left on the disk, and when that fills up you’ll get the same message). The best way to deal with this: make your log file 25% of the size of your .mdf and do nightly backups, which truncate the log after recording all of the changes to the backup. If you do LARGE transactional changes during the day you may run into this a bit.

Here’s a quick overview of some other info (but the sql statement above will get your app working again… then you’ll just need to solve the problem, not just the incident). http://blogs.sqladvice.com/aweiker/archive/2004/03/31/883.aspx

Turns out that the issue wasn’t necessarily with the transaction log. In fact, the C: drive on the server dipped below 500 MB of free space. Once temp files were cleared out and the free space hit 2 GB, the web app started working again. Go figure!

Despite some anticipating an earlier release, Beta 2 is still on target for a release date of March 31, 2005. Look for the full release to come out in the September-October time frame.

Make sure that before you install a later version of Visual Studio 2005 no matter the edition that you completely remove all previous version components first. I had two installations and I got caught. I forgot to remove SQL Express and when I tried to reinstall .NET to then remove it, I received an error stating that some pointers are no longer valid and that there is no memory available to remove it. So, I need to reformat my PC to fix this issue.