Default ASP.NET Web Administration with SQL Server 2005, and a PreserveProperty Control

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The ASP.NET 2.0 machine configuration has a pre-defined connection string for providers which points to the default SQLExpress Edition configuration that ships with Visual Studio 2005. As a result, if you never installed the Express edition and use SQL Server 2005, it won't work. To get the expected 'out-of-the-box' functionality of the Web Site Administration Tool , you can change the machine.config. Here's an example from C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\CONFIG\machine.config:

original:

<runtime/>
<connectionStrings>
<add name="LocalSqlServer"
connectionString="data source=.\SQLEXPRESS;Integrated Security=SSPI;AttachDBFilename=DataDirectoryaspnetdb.mdf;User Instance=true"
providerName="System.Data.SqlClient"/>
</connectionStrings>

Adjusted:

<runtime/>
<connectionStrings>
<add name="LocalSqlServer"
connectionString="data source=.\YOURSQL2005;Initial Catalog=aspnetdb;Integrated Security=SSPI"
providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />
</connectionStrings>

Update [2006/01/28]:
Responding to this on the asp.net MS newsgroup to someone who was having issues with this with their web hosting company (who it appears already had their default membership database configured in machine.config):

"If the error you receive is still the one about an already attached DB of the same name, how have you modified the web.config file? It needs to have a
<connectionstrings></connectionstrings> section and in that section you need the following tags (in order):
<remove name="LocalSqlServer">
<add name="LocalSqlServer" connectionstring="data source=YourServerandInstance;Integrated Security=SSPI;AttachDBFilename=DataDirectoryYourAppDB.mdf;User Instance=true" providername="System.Data.SqlClient">

Obviously, you'll need to modify the server/instance and mdf values. The key is that ASPNET uses the "LocalSqlServer" connection string to do its authorization, etc.-- "



PreserveProperty Control

MVP buddy Rick Strahl has a created a really interesting control to save other controls' state. This enables you to declare what properties you specifically want, which represents improvement over ViewState and even ControlState. Several developers who looked at Rick's original work, including yours truly, suggested improvements and Rick has incorporated these. I've already backported this to ASP.NET 1.1 and plan to do some more testing on it. I added a Cache option in addition to the HiddenField and SessionVariable Storage options as some testing I did earlier indicated that using Cache to store ViewState-related stuff was the most performant. One thing I really respect about Strahl is that he isn't afraid to put out unfinished ideas and take good feedback from others, and then work these improvements in (along with other good stuff he's discovered in the process). That's the mark of a professional developer!
Peter has been active on the C# and other MS newsgroups, has had samples at gotdotnet.com (now codegallery.com) that have been downloaded over 56,000 times, and has written numerous articles for eggheadcafe.com, for which he is a co-founder, and MSDNAA sites. He has also been a technical reviewer on books from Prentice Hall, Manning and other publishers. Peter was a Microsoft MVP for 10 years. Peter was born and raised in New York City, and after a stint as a jazz musician playing contrabass with the Robert Hunt Trio, migrated to sunny Florida, where he was hired as a rookie Financial Consultant at Merrill Lynch in Orlando, specializing in Corporate Services. It was at Merrill that Peter realized computers and technology were his forte. He spent his last few years at Merrill developing real – time computerized trading and and stock charting program using advanced technical analysis indicators, some of which are his own inventions. In 1997, he moved on to architect and serve as lead developer on a number of innovative web-based and middleware solutions for the healthcare and financial services industry.

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