SQL Browser account

I had set up a new SQL Server and used the same domain user account for SQL Service and SQL Browser.The account is added to the SQLServer2005SQLBrowserUser$[ComputerName] local group. Later noticed setup set “Deny access to this computer from the network.” local policy right to this account.Now no other server that is using same account can talk to newly installed SQL server. Why exactly it has been done this way?
Since SQL Browser is a service listening to unauthenticated UDP messages, the goal was to make the service running account as restrictive as possible. This has been documented in the BOL: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms181087.aspx

How To: Relocate the MIIS 2003 Database
This How To guide describes the process of relocating the MIIS 2003 database, named MicrosoftIdentityIntergrationServer from a computer that is running Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2000 to another computer that is running SQL Server 2000 with all critical data intact. Specifically, you will perform the following tasks:
• Stop the MIIS service, backup the MIIS 2003 encryption key and MIIS 2003 database.
• Restore the MIIS 2003 database to another server hosting Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition.
• Uninstall and reinstall MIIS 2003 to point to the new server hosting the MIIS 2003 database.
More:
http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsServer/en/library/244b15d1-6363-42f0-b853-a62591b3fb021033.mspx?mfr=true

Can you have federated and non-federated sites in the same WSS site? If you set up WSS on the default site in IIS with one application configured as a federated token based app, does that mean that all other sub-sites have to be federated as well?
Options are:
1. Create a new web site that can be used for the non ADFS enabled sites
2. Install WSS which will install to the default web site. Create a second web site and configure the second site as a WSS site in sharepoint central administration. Now uninstall WSS from the default web site. At this point you can install other ADFS as well non ADFS enabled apps to the default web site.

Is the object always deleted from the metaverse when the last connector is disconnected (even if I am using ShouldDeleteFromMV to explicitly say leave object in the metaverse even if the last connector has disconnected)?
Yes, it is. A MV object requires a connector as justification for its existence. The sync engine removes automatically all MV objects without a connector. This is independent from the configuration of the object deletion rule.

How to monitor https traffic? Is there any IE plug-in available?
Look into:
http://www.ieinspector.com/httpanalyzer/index.html
www.parosproxy.org
http://www.fiddlertool.com

Is there a way to export MIIS flow errors to file to have a closer look?
You can use CSExport, there is a parameter to only export objects that show an error, '/:fe. CSExport is in the bin directory under the MIIS install folder. So if you ran 'CSExport AD ADErrors.log /f:e' from that directory, it should create XML file that only shows errors. Of course you would need to further parse this if you were interested in only the DNs.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/mmsdev/mms/hologram_xml.asp

Looking for a script to get the security process for “Delegate Control” on specific OU’s, to enable users within those OU’s to reset account passwords?
Good starting point could be, sample scripts for managing Active Directory organizational units:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/scripts/ad/ous/default.mspx?mfr=true

You receive an "HTTP Error 401.1 - Unauthorized: Access is denied due to invalid credentials" error message - Support article.

when you try to access a Web site that is part of an IIS 6.0 application pool
This behavior may occur if the following conditions are true:• The IIS 6.0 Web site is part of an IIS application pool. • The application pool is running under a local account or under a domain user account. • The Web site is configured to use Integrated Windows authentication only. In this scenario, when Integrated Windows authentication tries to use Kerberos, Kerberos authentication may not work. To use Kerberos authentication, a service must register its service principal name (SPN) under the account in the Active Directory directory service that the service is running under. By default, Active Directory registers the network basic input/output system (NetBIOS) computer name. Active Directory also permits the Network Service or the Local System account to use Kerberos.
More: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/871179/en-us

How add/remove components in SQL 2005 Cluster
After you install SQL Server 2005, the Setup program creates several entries in the Currently installed programs list in Add or Remove Programs. The Microsoft SQL Server 2005 entry is a starting point to add or remove components of SQL Server 2005. However, you should be aware of certain differences in using the Add or Remove Programs item for stand-alone installations and for clustered installations of SQL Server 2005.
More at: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=922670

Using C#, How to monitor a basic text file to determine if the file has been modified?
I am just looking to return a bool if the text file has been modified. I am not trying to determine what data has been changed.

If you want to continuously poll your file for modifications, then FileSystemWatcher would be of help.
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.io.filesystemwatcher.aspx

How can I set a Datetimepicker control or MothCalendar to use a different Calendar or Culture?

From http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;889834:
The DateTimePicker and MonthCalendar control do not reflect the CurrentUICulture property of an application's main execution thread when you created a localized application in the .NET Framework, in Visual Studio 2005, or in Visual Studio .NET
There seems to be more detail at http://blogs.msdn.com/michkap/archive/2005/03/28/402839.aspx and http://blogs.msdn.com/michkap/archive/2005/10/27/485462.aspx

The documentation says to use the “Tools/Code Snippet Manager”. But I don’t have a Code Snippet Manager in my VS2005 IDE?
On the Tools menu, click Import ant Export Settings
Select Reset all settings
Click Next, Select Yes or No on the next page according to your preference
Click Next, Select Visual C# Development Settings
Click Finish

I want all the files located in a folder (folder name known & names of the files not known) to be copied to another location?
DirectoryInfo di = new DirectoryInfo(“foldername_with_complete_path”);
FileInfo[] fiList = di.GetFiles();
foreach(FileInfo fi in fiList)
{
File.Copy(fi, “NewDirName” + “\\” + fi.Name);
}


One of my services I am developing is depending on WMI. I am using WMI notifications and hardware enumeration. When my computer gets restarted my service loads up in a wrong order. It seems like my service is started before the WMI Service. Does anyone know how I can control the load order of my service?
Look into "ServiceInstaller.ServicesDependedOn" option at
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/system.serviceprocess.serviceinstaller.servicesdependedon.aspx

How to recover a deleted folder (shift+delete) from Outlook InBox.
246153 XCLN: How to Recover Items That Have Been Hard Deleted
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=246153
I guess this is set by default with OL2003. If deleted items are not being preserved on the Exchange server, you've got nothing.

I’ve written a media player and need to copy the window while in pause mode. 6 pack of fav beverage for solution.
Google is full of Pinvoke ([DllImport) samples, I’d prefer a GDI+ .net solution.
If you are using CLR 2.0, you can avoid PInvoke by using the Graphics::CopyFromScreen method.
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.drawing.graphics.copyfromscreen.aspx

When using terminal services client to connect to a server, how can you change the background?
On the machine with TS, go into TS Configuration, select Server Settings and Enable Active Desktop

I want users to download my content to their client computer rather than simply viewing it in the browser. But how do you override the browser's determination to render known MIME types itself?
Suppose you've written an ASP page that contains a link to a known MIME type, but you want the user to download the file instead of viewing it. Add the following to your script:
response.addHeader "content-disposition", "attachment;filename=filename.ext"
Then substitute the actual filename and extension, and it's as good as done.

How can I programmatically “grant permissions to a specific user to access a specific windows folder share”. using C#?
Using this library and the following code you can grant permissions to user for a folder share programmatically.
SecurityDescriptor desc = SecurityDescriptor.GetNamedSecurityInfo (
shareHandle,
SE_OBJECT_TYPE.SE_LMSHARE,
SECURITY_INFORMATION.DACL_SECURITY_INFORMATION);
Dacl dacl = null;

if (desc == null)
{
desc = new SecurityDescriptor();
desc.AllocateAndInitializeSecurityDescriptor();
dacl = new Dacl();
}
else
{
dacl = desc.Dacl;
}

dacl.AddAce (new AceAccessAllowed (new Sid ("BUILTIN\\Administrators"), AccessType.GENERIC_ALL));
dacl.AddAce (new AceAccessAllowed (new Sid ("Everyone"),
AccessType.GENERIC_READ
AccessType.GENERIC_EXECUTE
AccessType.READ_CONTROL
AccessType.STANDARD_RIGHTS_READ));
desc.SetDacl(dacl);
desc.SetNamedSecurityInfo(faxShare,
SE_OBJECT_TYPE.SE_LMSHARE ,
SECURITY_INFORMATION.DACL_SECURITY_INFORMATION);

A web page needs a read-only TextBox, the value of which will be set by client-side JavaScript (that pops up a picklist and chooses a value…). Users should not be able to modify the TextBox contents directly. To disable user input, we tried setting the TextBox’s properties “ReadOnly=true” and separately “Enabled=false”. This worked in ASP.Net 1.1.
However, ASP.NET 2.0, a security enhancement was made so that changes to values in ReadOnly or Disabled TextBoxes are ignored; the original value, stored in ViewState is presented on the server.
What is a valid work-around for this situation?
We added the HTML attribute “ReadOnly” to the TextBox manually, using code like:
TextBox1.Attributes.Add("ReadOnly", "true");
This ended up working: it appears that the browser respects the HTML tag, and ASP.NET is tricked into thinking the control is not read only. Is this the best workaround, or is there a better hook?
In ASP.NET 2.0 when you are using ReadOnly property, user can’t enter anything in textbox by any wayTo restrict user entry you should use:
TextBox1.Attributes.Add("contentEditable", "false");


We are using Forms Authentication.It was working fine for us until we started using a load balancer with three IIS boxes. We are not setting an encryption key anywhere. We are using the encryption provided by ASP.NET 2.0 We are getting the following exception now. I believe it is failing when consecutive requests are going to different IIS boxes and the different IIS boxes are not sharing an encryption key. Any idea?
Good start to resolve this would be: How To: Configure MachineKey in ASP.NET 2.0
More: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnpag2/html/paght000007.asp

What's New in ASP.NET Data Access
ASP.NET version 2.0 continues to offer managed data access using ADO.NET and managed classes for XML. But ASP.NET 2.0 also includes new features to make data access in Web pages easier to implement and manage.More: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/06t2w7da(VS.80).aspx


The Visual Studio 2005 Web Application Project Model
This is a new web project option for Visual Studio 2005 that provides the same conceptual web project approach as VS 2003 (a project file based structure where all code in the project is compiled into a single assembly) but with all the new features of VS 2005 (refactoring, class diagrams, test development, generics, etc) and ASP.NET 2.0 (master pages, data controls, membership/login, role management, Web Parts, personalization, site navigation, themes, etc). More: http://www.asp.net/webproject


Abortable thread pools
I want to share an excellent article on Abortable thread pools in March 2006 edition of MSDN mag.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/06/03/NETMatters/

SQL Server 2005 introduces DDL Triggers

When you wanted to audit changes for the underlying schema in earlier versions of SQL Server and it was very difficult, now with SQL Server 2005 introduces DDL Triggers to address this issue. A DDL Trigger can now be created either at a server or database level and can be set to fire on creation, alteration, or deletion of virtually every SQL Server object type.

-- Example of DDL Trigger @ Database Level:
CREATE TRIGGER safety
ON DATABASE
FOR DROP_TABLE, ALTER_TABLE
AS
PRINT 'You must disable Trigger "safety" to drop or alter tables!'
ROLLBACK ;

In the next example, a DDL trigger prints a message if any CREATE LOGIN, ALTER LOGIN, or DROP LOGIN event occurs on the current server instance. It uses the EVENTDATA function to retrieve the text of the corresponding Transact-SQL statement.

-- Example of DDL Trigger @ Server Level:
CREATE TRIGGER ddl_trig_login
ON ALL SERVER
FOR DDL_LOGIN_EVENTS
AS
PRINT 'Login Event Issued.'
SELECT EVENTDATA().value('(/EVENT_INSTANCE/TSQLCommand/CommandText)[1]','nvarchar(max)')
GO
DROP TRIGGER ddl_trig_login
ON ALL SERVER
GO

SQL 2005 - SQLCMD command-line tool

SQLCMD command-line tool allows you to pass variables from the command line into the SQL Script itself. In SQL 2005 now, you’ll can able to use SQLCMD as below example:
- Database build scripts where you need to pass values specific to a certain environment. - Hot fixes and patches.
- Any scenario where use of stored procedures (with it’s built-in parameters) is not an option and you must rely on a SQL script.
In this example SQLCMDTest.SQL [NOTE: That you must delimit character strings with a single quote]
declare @DaysToAdd datetime,
@MyString varchar(32)

SELECT @DaysToAdd =$(daystoAdd),
@MyString='$(mystring)'

SELECT GETDATE()+@DaysToAdd,
@MyString

Then, you call the SQL Script passing in the values as:
SQLCMD -b -w4000 -l10 -E -i"SQLCMDTest.sql" -v daystoAdd="10" -v mystring="CeltoGrass"

SQL 2005 - Share Job Schedule

With SQL Server 2005 you can now share job schedules that are owned by same user. In SQL Server 2005 Agent, User can create a single schedule (for instance, occurring every day at midnight), and attach it to one or more jobs, provided he is the owner of the jobs.

Consider the following example:
User1 creates a job called "Job1" with a schedule called "Schedule1". Since he was told only to run jobs starting at the time defined in Schedule1 by the product team, User1 wants to create his second job, called Job2, with this same schedule.

The simplest to do this would be from SQL Server Management Studio by clicking on the job schedule properties and selecting the "Pick" button which will allow him to select the schedules from the listed job. This would also allow User1 to view all the other jobs that has same schedule. He would be able to see only those jobs that were created by him unless he is a system administrator.

In SQL Server 2005 Implicit conversion from string to datetime (Ex: in "where" clause "where BirthDay='01/01/1980'") is considered not-deterministic and can't be present in Indexed View definition.
-- Example:
Create view v_test with SCHEMABINDING as
Select c1,c2 from dbo.t_test where c2 = '01/01/1980'
go
Create unique clustered index idx_v_test on v_test(c1)
go
-- Result:Cannot create index on view 'db_test.dbo.v_test' because the view uses an implicit
-- conversion from string to datetime or smalldatetime. Use an explicit CONVERT with a
-- deterministic style value.

-- Solution: You can use explicit conversion specifying style value for example:
Create view v_test with SCHEMABINDING as
Select c1,c2 from dbo.t_test where c2 = convert(datetime,'01/01/1980',120)
go

-- In this case string will be converted to datetime input as yyyy-mm-dd hh:mi:ss (24h).
Create unique clustered index idx_v_test on v_test(c1)
go
--Result:Command(s)
-- completed successfully.

In SQL Server 2005 Control permission is special cased. Control grant chains are always rooted at the owner unless you explicitly use an AS clause. This is to prevent orphaned grant arcs for other permissions that Control covers.
Example:
1. You give User1 Control permission on an object with GRANT OPTION;
2. User1 give User2 Control permission on the object;
3. You REVOKE Control permission on the object from User1 with CASCADE option.
4. User2 still have Control permission on the object.

Grant Control on T to usr1 WITH GRANT OPTION
go
Execute as user = 'usr1'
go
Grant Control on T to usr2
go
REVERT
go
Revoke Control on T from usr1 Cascade
go

-- Usr2 still has control permission on T. To be able to revoke control permission from all users
-- who's been given this permission by User1.
-- User1 should be specified explicitly when granting permission to User2:
Grant Control on T to usr2 AS usr1
go

SQL 2005 - OUTPUT clause with DML

SQL Server 2005 now introduces an OUTPUT clause as a part of DML statements that can help you in tracking changes made during any DML operation. The OUTPUT clause can save the resultset in a table or table variable. This functionality is similar to what triggers had with INSERTED and DELETED tables which used to access the rows that have been modified during the DML operation.

Example: Let's change the address from the address table to the reverse of the original value.
--Create the address table
Create Table Address (ProductID Int, SupplierID Int, Address Varchar(255))
--Insert data
Insert into Address Values (234,567,'1234 One SQL Way, Microsoft City, U.S.')
Insert into Address Values (345,678,'1234 One Windows Way, Microsoft City, WA')
--Declare a table variable
Declare @Recordchanges table (change Varchar(255))
--Update the address
Update Supplier.Address Set Address=reverse(address)
--Record the updates into the table variable
OUTPUT 'Original Value:' + DELETED.Address+' has been changed to: '+ INSERTED.Address+'' into @RecordChanges
--Query the changes from table variable
Select * from @RecordChanges

--Result-set
------------------------
Original Value:'1234 One SQL Way, City, U.S.' has been changed to: '.S.U ,ytiC,yaW LQS enO 4321'
Original Value:'1234 One Windows Way, City, WA' has been changed to: 'AW ,ytiC ,yaW swodniW enO 4321'

Query Notification in SQL 2005

Query Notification in SQL 2005 can be used to send a query to SQL Server and request that a notification be generated if executing the same query produces different results from those obtained initially. That means if any row in one of the tables included in the query is changed, .NET code will get an automatic notification.
MSDN Link: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnvs05/html/querynotification.asp

SQL 2005 - SYNONYMS

Remember how uneasy it was to write multiple queries which had four part object names
(ServerName.DatabaseName.OwnerName.ObjectName). Using SYNONYMS (new in SQL Server 2005) you can create an alias for objects.

Example:
-- Without SYNONYMS you would use the query the following way:
Select * from LongServerName.LongDatabaseName.LongOwnerName.LongObjectName
-- With SYNONYMS CREATE SYNONYM LNG FOR LongServerName.LongDatabaseName.LongOwnerName.LongObjectName
-- Once you create the SYNONYM you can use the above query as follows
Select * from LNG

SQL 2005 - Excute Remotely

Prior to SQL Server 2005 you could execute EXECUTE command only on the local server, with SQL Server 2005 we have AT parameter which can be used for executing the statement on a remote linked server.
Example: Setup a linked server using SP_AddLinkedServer:
-- Add the linked server to the local machine
EXEC sp_addlinkedserver 'SQLSERVER2', 'SQL Server'

--Enable the linked server to allow RPC calls
Exec SP_Serveroption 'SQLSERVER2','RPC OUT',TRUE

-- Now you are ready to execute T-SQL statements across linked servers using AT command
EXEC('Select * from AdventureWorksDW..DatabaseLog') AT SQLSERVER2

DBCC DBREINDEX - Deprecated

DBCC DBREINDEX is deprecated in SQL Server 2005. With SQL Server 2000 and earlier versions we used to use DBCC DBREINDEX for rebuilding/defragging/repairing indexes, etc. But with SQL Server 2005 this command is being deprecated.
SQL Server 2005 introduces ALTER INDEX command with REBUILD option.This command can help you perform ONLINE or OFFLINE re-indexing operations (not like DBCC DBREINDEX which was an offline operation only)

SQL statement along with its active SPIDS

Find out the actual SQL statement along with its active SPIDS that are currently running and not just the last statement sent to SQL server (as DBCC INPUTBUFFER displays). Below scripts will display the current activity of ALL spids that are currently active along with its SQL statements.

--SQL 2000 Syntax
SET NOCOUNT ON
GO
DECLARE
@SPID INT,
@last_Batch datetime,
@hostname varchar(32),
@loginame varchar(32),
@bHandle BINARY(20),
@stmt_start INT,
@stmt_end INT,
@waittime int

--Get spids in loop, only where there is some statement in the buffer.
SET @SPID=(SELECT MIN(SPID) FROM Master.dbo.SYSPROCESSES WHERE (stmt_start<>0 or stmt_end<>0) and SPID<>@@SPID)

WHILE @SPID IS NOT NULL
BEGIN
SELECT
@last_Batch=last_batch,
@hostname=hostname,
@loginame=loginame,
@bHandle=sql_handle,
@stmt_start = stmt_start/2,
@stmt_end = stmt_end/2,
@waittime = waittime
FROM
MASTER.DBO.SYSPROCESSES
WHERE SPID = @SPID AND ecid = 0

IF @stmt_end = 0
SELECT @SPID,@last_batch,
@hostname,
@loginame,
SUBSTRING(text,@stmt_start,8000)
FROM ::fn_get_sql(@bHandle)
ELSE
SELECT @SPID,@last_batch,
@hostname,
@loginame,
SUBSTRING(text,@stmt_start,@stmt_end - @stmt_start)
FROM ::fn_get_sql(@bHandle)

--GET NEXT SPID
SET @SPID=(SELECT MIN(SPID)
FROM Master.dbo.SYSPROCESSES
WHERE (stmt_start<>0 or stmt_end<>0)
AND SPID<>@@SPID
AND SPID>@SPID)
END
GO

--SQL 2005 Syntax
SELECT
s2.session_id,
s2.start_time,
s1.host_name,
s1.login_name,
s2.command,
s2.open_transaction_count,
(SELECT TOP 1 SUBSTRING(s3.text, statement_start_offset / 2,
((CASE WHEN statement_end_offset = -1 THEN
(LEN(CONVERT(nvarchar(max),s3.text)) * 2)
ELSE statement_end_offset
END) - statement_start_offset) / 2)) AS sql_statement
FROM Master.sys.dm_exec_sessions s1
INNER JOIN Master.sys.dm_exec_requests s2 on s1.session_id=s2.session_id
CROSS APPLY Master.sys.dm_exec_sql_text(s2.sql_handle) AS s3
WHERE s2.sql_handle is NOT NULL
AND s2.session_id<>@@SPID

SQL Server backup across more than one file

You can stripe a SQL Server’s database backup across more than one file. Striping a SQL Server backup across more than one backup file can provide performance advantages as well as make it possible to backup a VLDB where there is no single drive available with enough free space. Striped backups are supported in SQL Server 2000 & SQL Server 2005.

-- take a striped backup of the DB. Can be many more files than just two.
backup database northwind
to disk='\\Server1\t$\northwind1.bak',
disk='\\Server2\h$\northwind2.bak'

-- take a look at the logical files in the DB so we can move them on restore
restore filelistonly
from disk='\\Server1\t$\northwind1.bak',
disk='\\Server2\h$\northwind2.bak'

-- restore a DB from a striped backup
restore database northwind
from disk='\\Server1\t$\northwind1.bak',
disk='\\Server2\h$\northwind2.bak'
with move 'northwind_Data' to 't:\northwind2.mdf',
move 'northwind_Log' to 'h:\northwind2.ldf',
replace

GotDotNet Code Gallery

Are you looking for a place where you can share, find, download, evaluate and discuss evolving .NET applications, uncompiled code, ideas, and technical documents?
You have a greate place to go now, CodeGallery at http://www.gotdotnet.com/codegallery/

SQL Server 2005 - Default Trace

SQL Server 2005 out of the box comes with a default trace that's always running which tracks configurational changes and process level information. You may obtain this information from SQL Server Management Studio by higlighting the registered server and selecting "Reports" from the summary page:

You will find:
Configuration change history
Schema Changes History
Memory Consumption
All Blocking Transactions
Top Sessions
Top Connections
Top Transactions by Age
Top Queries by Average CPU time
Top Queries by Average IO & lot of other information

You may also query the default trace file using the below query:
SELECT * FROM fn_trace_gettable ('C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\LOG\log.trc', default)
GO

SQL 2005 COPY_ONLY Backup

In SQL Server 2000 or it's earlier versions, if you perform a backup of a database out of sequence/chain (Full & Diffrential or Full & Log, etc) it used to break the sequence of the backups. Meaning you had to reset the backup sequence everytime you had to take a seperate out of sequence backups of the database. Taking a backup normally changes the database, in turn affecting other backups and how they are restored. Sometimes, however, a backup must be taken for a special purpose that should not affect the overall backup and restore sequence or procedures for the database.

With SQL Server 2005, you can now perform an out of sequence backups using "COPY_ONLY" option with the backup statement and this option is available for all types of backups.

Note:
A Full backup taken with the COPY_ONLY option cannot be used as a base backup and does not affect any existing differential backups.
A Diffrential backup taken with the COPY_ONLY option is identical to a regular diffrential backup.
A Log backup taken with COPY_ONLY option causes the backup to retain the current log archive point and also the Transaction log is not truncated by a log backup.
Important: SQL Server Management Studio does not support COPY_ONLY backup/restore functionality, but you can use BACKUP & RESTORE commands using T-SQL for COPY_ONLY backup of a database.
Example:
Backup database AdventureWorks to Disk='D:\AdventureWorks.bak' with COPY_ONLY

Can a Web Application with no SSL use ADFS Web Agent NT Token to authenticate users?
It would not work because it require SSL and to mark cookies as secure only. Cookies are not encrypted and without SSL they could be easily attacked. The return URL must be an https-based URL.

Is there a sample of single sign-on using ADFS?
Here is a step by step guide to setup ADFS:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=062F7382-A82F-4428-9BBD-A103B9F27654&displaylang=en

How to use ADSchemaAnalyzer tool?
For the ADSchemaAnalyzer tool, the target schema is the AD instance and the base schema is the ADAM instance.
To use the AdamSyncer tool you need to do the following:
Import the LDIF files MS-AdamSchemaW2K3.LDF and MS-AdamSyncMetadata.LDF into the Adam instance.
Using the AdSchemaAnalyzer tool check if the schema of the AD instance and ADAM instance are the same.
Open the AdSchemaAnalyzer tool from c:\windows\adam
Choose File / Target, set server: localhost:389
Choose File / Base, set server: localhost:50000
Select Schema / Mark all non-present elements as included
Select File / Create Ldif file.
Save to r2-diff.ldf

In C#, I take an entity and serialize it to XML and pass it to a stored procedure which takes the data and inserts it into a table. I have several datetime properties within my entity and when I serialize it to xml, the datetime looks like this:
2005-11-14T13:37:38.1516436-06:00.
Here is the C# code that serializes the entity:
XmlSerializer xmls = new XmlSerializer(typeof(SaleItem));
using (MemoryStream ms = new System.IO.MemoryStream())
{
xmls.Serialize(ms, si);
ms.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin);
StreamReader tr = new StreamReader(ms);

return tr.ReadToEnd();
}
Anyway, sp_xml_preparedocument does not like the datetime value generated by the XmlSerializer. The only way I know of to get around this problem is to:
1) Hand walk the entity and create my own XML (don’t use XmlSerializer)
2) Parse the string and get rid of the milliseconds (after 3 characters) and the -06:00.
Either way seems kind of like a pain and does not flow very well. Does anybody have a better way to do this?
The problem are indeed the beyond millisecond resolution and the timezone indicator. Can you generate your value with milliseconds only and the timezone Z or no timezone instead? Use casting rules for that in SQL Server 2005. In SQL Server 2005, you can write:

declare @x xml
set @x = N'2005-11-14T13:37:38.1516436-06:00'
select @x.value('xs:dateTime(/EndDateTime[1])', 'datetime')

Note that this however performs two casts, so if you can change the value generation, that would be better.
Alternatively, if you can provide a schema that types the element as xs:dateTime, you will not have to explicitly cast it to xs:dateTime.

Is there another way I can create the SSL certificates for ADFS than using the SelfSSL tool?
If you are building proof-of-concept software and not ship bits, you can use makecert.exe to generate one for you.
Here is an MSDN link with the necessary information:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms186362.aspx

Calculate the Last Logon Time in Windows 2003

There is a nice article in technet website about calculating the Last Logon Time in Windows 2003 Active Directory.
Here the script:
Set objUser = GetObject("LDAP://cn=Ken Myer, ou=Finance, dc=fabrikam, dc=com")
Set objLastLogon = objUser.Get("lastLogonTimestamp")
intLastLogonTime = objLastLogon.HighPart * (2^32) + objLastLogon.LowPart
intLastLogonTime = intLastLogonTime / (60 * 10000000)
intLastLogonTime = intLastLogonTime / 1440
Wscript.Echo "Last logon time: " & intLastLogonTime + #1/1/1601#

We must know few catches around it:
- lastLogonTimestamp attribute in Win 2003 keeps track of the last time a user logged on to the domain, and also replicated from one domain controller to another.
- lastLogonTimestamp is replicated only once every 14 days. This helps limit replication traffic, although it also means that the lastLogonTimestamp for any given user could be off by as much as 14 days.

More information at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/topics/win2003/lastlogon.mspx

Service Pack 1 (SP1) for ADAM

Service Pack 1 (SP1) for Active Directory Application Mode (ADAM) for the English language is now available.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/adam/default.mspx

ADAM SP1 new features are:
- Active Directory to ADAM Synchronizer tool.
- ADAM users can bind to an ADAM instance by using Digest authentication.
- Active Directory Schema Analyzer tool.
- Newer version of LDP tool with ACL editor.
- Password chaining to AD users through ADAM proxy objects
- Users can be created in the configuration partition so that ADAM users can be ADAM administrators.

How to express time in ISO 8601 format?
DateTime myTimestamp = DateTime.Now;
string t = String.Format("{0:u}",myTimestamp);
t = t.Remove(19,1);
string s = String.Format("{0}.{1:fff}Z",t,myTimestamp);

Is there a way to get DataTable from DataView? I am creating a DataView from a DataTable and applying some filters and sorting to Dataview. But I want to have DataTable out of this new Dataview (filterd/sorted).
In .NetFramework v1.0/v1.1 you can do:
Dim dt2 As DataTable = dv.Table.Clone() ‘ copies the structure
For I = 0 To dv.Count – 1
dt2.ImportRow(dv.Item(I).Row) ‘ copies a row
Next I

My ASP.NET form is many screens long. After user presses the button and the form is posted back to itself, I'd like to scroll it to the location where the button was pressed. What is the easiest way to achieve that?
You could use javascript, something like .scrollIntoView() for this.
string startupScript = @"";
Page.RegisterStartupScript("ReturnToAnchorAfterPostback", startupScript);

When ADSI binding fails, can the program know that is the userid that is not valid rather than the password is not match? Will doing a lookup to the lists of user take too much time?
It depends on how many objects are in your forest/domain. Searches are efficient if you use indexed attributes.

When changing password using ADSI, will the program know that the password actually not meeting the complexity requirement?
you'll get 800708c5 error.

Try C:\>net helpmsg 2245

Native XML Web Services for SQL Server 2005

Get an overview of how to set up and use XML Web Services using SOAP/HTTP inside SQL Server 2005 (formerly known as "Yukon"). Illustrative examples are included. To get the most from this paper, you should have a basic understanding of Web service technologies including HTTP, SOAP, and WSDL.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/data/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnsql90/html/sql2005websvc.asp

URL Rewriting in ASP.NET

Examines how to perform dynamic URL rewriting with Microsoft ASP.NET. URL rewriting is the process of intercepting an incoming Web request and automatically redirecting it to a different URL. Discusses the various techniques for implementing URL rewriting, and examines real-world scenarios of URL rewriting.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/asp.net/using/building/web/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnaspp/html/URLRewriting.asp