Important security update for ASP.NET (MS11-100)

Microsoft published an important security update to improve protection on vulnerability in ASP.NET Could Allow Denial of Service.

Detail of the information about the update is Here

For Window Azure cloud platform and CRM online, Microsoft already patched the system for you.

Take note for the update action if you are using on premises system.

Working with ServiceConfiguration file in Azure Cloud

Recently I have been working heavily on CRM2011 + Azure platform, just want to share some of the quick tips for those plan to move their application into Cloud!

You will notice some extra file in your VS2010 solution when you added the Azure web role project, 2 configuration files included which differentiate by the "Cloud" & "Local". It give us the flexibility to deploy our solution base on different environment. For example my case I'm using different DB.

In order to configure the values, right click properties brings us into the setting page that allows developer to add the key into different configuration files.

Always remember to select the service configuration that you want to use base on your deployment. To retrieve the value dynamically on run time after deployment, refer below:

Microsoft.WindowsAzure.ServiceRuntime.RoleEnvironment.GetConfigurationSettingValue("SQLConnection")

Interesting Tips: Guid without dash

Easy way to return a GUID without dash:-

Guid.ToString("N")
Guid id = new Guid(string here); //back to guid

Guid test=Guid.NewGuid();
Console.WriteLine(test.ToString("N"));

Console.WriteLine(test.ToString()); 

3 months free trial for Azure platform

You can now sign up for the free trial Windows Azure, 750 small compute hours/month is more than enough for developer to run "Hello world" service 24*7 for 3 months :)

Of course, there is no obligation to purchase at the end of the free trial, but you need to provide your Live Id and credit card for verification purpose. According to Microsoft, spending limit will applied on trial account for your peace of mind.

Azure free trial

 

• Compute: 750 hours of a Small Compute Instance* (can run one small instance full-time or other sizes at their equivalent ratios)
• Storage: 20GB with 50k Storage transactions
• Data Transfers: 20GB outbound / Unlimited inbound data transfer
• Relational Database: 1GB Web Edition SQL Azure database
• Access Control: 100k transactions
• Service Bus: Free through March 31, 2012
• Caching: 128MB cache

CRM2011 SDK5.0.8

New SDK for CRM 2011 published on Microsoft site. It was updated to include client and portal assemblies with matching version numbers. 

Download the SDK 5.0.8

CRM 4.0 update rollup 20

Latest CRM 4.0 rollup 20 released on 10/Nov/2011.
Rollup 20 can be uninstall on server
Rollup 20 is cumulative.

KB: KB2550098
Download HERE

CRM 2011 Version Number

Version	Build Number	Release on
RC	5.0.9688.583	22/Feb/2011
RTM	5.0.9688.590	22/Mar/2011
Update Rollup 1	5.0.9688.1045	4/Apr/2011
Update Rollup 2	5.0.9688.1155	2/Jun/2011
Update Rollup 3	5.0.9688.1244	28/Jul/2011
Update Rollup 4	5.0.9688.1450	22/Sep/2011
Update Rollup 5	5.0.9688.1533	8/Nov/2011

CRM 2011 Diagnostics Tool

Remember the simple tool that helps a lots on debugging the CRM4 server?

Enhance version for CRM2011 has been release in CodePlex few days ago.

More user friendly for administrator this time, download it HERE to save the day...

credit goes to tanguy :)

Invalid object name 'sys.configurations' while connecting to SQL Azure

If you connect the SQL Azure from SQL Management Studio (Database Engine) by using the Full qualified server name given by Azure, you will hit some invalid object name type of error alert.

Workaround/ solution:

1. Close the connection dialog
2. Click on the "New query"
3. It will prompt similar connection dialog, this will be working fine.

*Remember to set your database name by clicking the option button in connection dialog
screen. :)

Whitepaper: Optimizing and Maintaining the Performance of CRM 2011 Server Infrastructure

This white paper provides information that designed to help readers with achieving and maintaining optimal performance of the server infrastructure supporting a Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011-based business solution deployed in an on-premises or hosted environment.
Download it HERE

CRM2011: Roadmap Summary for Q2 & Q4

Q2 - Roadmap

Earlier half of this year (May), Microsoft CRM team published a roadmap document that gave partners an insight on what will be the next trend and directions to focus on CRM business. With the slogan of “driving transformation and enabling dynamic businesses”, Microsoft announced some of the key points:-

1.     Social Collaboration

Continuing extend those capabilities across a numbers of products (SharePoint, Lync, Office) with new experiences facilitate CRM.

·         Micro-blogging – notification & status update

·         Business activity feeds – configurable real time notification

·         Social intelligence – identification of data patterns to enhance marketing decision making.

2.     Optimizing Business decision making

·         Extend self-service BI – enhance tools that build business reports

·         Enhanced data visualization – enriched real time analytics dashboards

3.     Consumerist of Business Application

·         Multi-browser – utilizing HTML5 for structuring and presenting content.

4.     Extending Solution Opportunities

·         Enterprise cloud – enable larger organization to utilize online services.

5.     Release Model Alignment & Improved Agility

Traditional major CRM product version delivered with 2-3 years cycles, new CRM Online/ on premises added parallel track of shorter cycles deliver updates and new feature enhancements twice yearly. (Targeted for Spring (Q2) and Fall (Q4))

Q4 - New Capabilities for CRM2011

For second half year 2011, the following part diagram summarizes service update for Q4 2011. 

1.     Unified Office 365 Experience

CRM online will begin the process transitioning customers to a common administration, billing and provisioning platform which Office customers use today.

2.     Enterprise Cloud

·         Identity Federation – provide more options on how organizations streamline user access CRM Online.  (Support AD)

·         Enhanced Disaster Recovery – Microsoft data center sits in the US, Europe Middle East Africa (EMEA) and Asia Pacific (APAC). They will begin to offer system failover across data centers within a region.

3.     Feature Enhancements

·         Dialogs – support lookups and dates, flexibility in generating dynamic hyperlinks

·         BI capabilities – New chart type, configure multi series chart.

·         Extended De-duplication rule processing – can ignore null values, potential duplicates can be flagged

4.     Social Investments

·         Wave 1 – able to participate in rich online communities based on their mutual interests or professional commitments

o   Internal – Email, Micro blogs, intranet apps

o   Managed – Corporate forum, Facebook pages, customer portal

o   Independent – Twitter, Facebook

·         Activity Feeds – Follow records, post status manually or automatically. “Mention” feature. Mobile activity feeds.

Extending Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011

Training course published on the training site with code 80295A, but no news for the exam papers yet, will update on this if the exam available. Detail of the course please refer below:

Extending Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011

CRM 4.0 update rollup 19

Latest CRM 4.0 rollup 19 released on 25/Aug/2011.
Rollup 19 can be uninstall on server
Rollup 19 is cumulative.

KB: KB2550097
Download HERE

CRM 2011 Admin Guide & User Guide

Finally Microsoft release these guide, it is in MS Doc word format. Get it from the link below:

1. Admin Guide
2. User Guide

CRM 4.0 update rollup 18

Latest CRM 4.0 rollup 18 released on 30/Jun/2011.
Rollup 18 can be uninstall on server
Rollup 18 is cumulative.

KB: KB2477777
Download HERE

CRM 2011 Plugin Registration Tool error during connection

An error occurred while I trying to connect CRM using the Plugin registration tool.
It throw me "Inner Exception: System.Security.Cryptography.CryptographicException: The parameter is incorrect."

Solution to wipe off the issue is to delete the livedevice.xml file in your computer.
Navigate to folder "C:\users\<your user name>\livedeviceid", you will find the the file located inside the folder.

Cheers :)

CRM 4.0 Update Rollup 17

Latest CRM 4.0 rollup 17 released on 2/May/2011.
Rollup 17 can be uninstall on server
Rollup 17 is cumulative.

KB: KB2477746
Download HERE

Exam: CRM 2011 Customization and Configuration [MB2-866]

Microsoft just release the latest CRM2011 exams, going to take this one soon ;-)

Others paper like Application, installation will be release following each other.

You can find out the detail on MB2-866

Some of the content still haven't publish, I can see that the MCITP for CRM2011 page still missing some entries.

happy CRM'ing

Solution for duplicate UUID issue with vhd images [VirtualBox]

The latest CRM2011 required 64bits environment, with my Window 7 laptop, the alternate method is the use the Virtual Box.

Face a common issue after I tried to copy an image to from hard disk and boot with another machine. Keep on prompting me "Duplicate UUID issue with vhd images". If you guys face the same problem as me, try to look for your VBoxManage.exe file location.

then type in command prompt:

VBoxManage internalcommands sethduuid J:\VPC\yourvhdname.vhd

It will generate a new id for that vhd, thus problem solved!

Update Rollup 1 for CRM 2011

Official available for download now.

KB : 2466084

Download HERE

It can be uninstall, and again it separate by component.

Must be installed on computer running CRM 2011

Required .NET Framework 4.0

CRM 4.0 Update Rollup 16

Latest CRM 4.0 rollup 16 released on 9/Mar/2011.
Rollup 16 can be uninstall on server
Rollup 16 is cumulative.
Rollup 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15 are not prerequisites for server portion.
 
64-bit versions of Office 2010 will not be supported in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0.
With Update Rollup 8 installed, Microsoft CRM E-mail Router Service supports Microsoft Exchange Server 2010.
With Update Rollup 12 installed, the Rule Deployment Wizard supports Microsoft Exchange Server 2010.

KB: KB2477743
Download HERE

CRM outlook client - popup blocker issue

 

"CRM window was unable to open, and may have been blocked by a pop-up blocker"

Face an issue where the outlook client prompt me popup blocker when I try to open a records via outlook.

If you confirm that all trusted site setting and windows credential set correctly but still can't solve the issue.

Here is how I solve the issue, (already confirm that IE browser can open the record correct!)

1. Click Start, and then click Run.
2. In the Open box, type regedit, and then click OK.
3. Locate the following registry key:
   HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT \.html
4. Verify if the value of the String (Default) is "htmlfile". If it's not "htmlfile", right-click (Default), click Modify, input htmlfile in the Value data box, and then click OK.

 More detail on this KB: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310049

CRM 4.0 Update Rollup 15

Latest CRM 4.0 rollup 14 released on 10/Jan/2011.
Rollup 15 can be uninstall on server
Rollup 15 is cumulative.
Rollup 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14 are not prerequisites for server portion.
Update Rollup 7 is a prerequisite for Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Microsoft Office Outlook and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Data Migration Manager.

KB: KB2449283
Download HERE