Merit Matters Blog - Microsoft Dynamics Development

Windows Azure Access Control Service - Improve User Authentication

nospam@example.com (Marko) — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 09:45:06 -0400

Access Control Service is a Windows Azure service that provides an easy way of authenticating users who need to access your web applications and services without having to factor complex authentication logic into your code.

The following features are available in ACS:

Integration with Windows Identity Foundation (WIF),
Support for popular web identity providers (IPs) including Windows Live ID, Google, Yahoo, and Facebook,
Support for Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS) 2.0,
An Open Data Protocol (OData)-based management service that provides programmatic access to ACS settings,
A Management Portal that allows administrative access to the ACS settings.

Concepts

Windows Azure ACS is built on the principals of claims-based identity - a consistent approach to creating authentication mechanisms for applications running on-premises or in the cloud. Claims-based identity provides a common way for applications and services to acquire the identity information they need about users inside their organization, in other organizations, and on the Internet.

To complete the tasks in this guide, you should understand the following concepts:

Client - In the context of this how-to guide, this is a browser that is attempting to gain access to your web application.

Relying party (RP) application - An RP application is a web site or service that outsources authentication to one external authority. In identity jargon, we say that the RP trusts that authority. This guide explains how to configure your application to trust ACS.

Token - A token is a collection of security data that is usually issued upon successful authentication of a user. It contains a set of claims, attributes of the authenticated user. A claim can represent a user's name, an identifier for a role a user belongs to, a user's age, and so on. A token is usually digitally signed, which means it can always be sourced back to its issuer, and its content cannot be tampered with. A user gains access to a RP application by presenting a valid token issued by an authority that the RP application trusts.

Identity Provider (IP) - An IP is an authority that authenticates user identities and issues security tokens. The actual work of issuing tokens is implemented though a special service called Security Token Service (STS). Typical examples of IPs include Windows Live ID, Facebook, business user repositories (like Active Directory), and so on. When ACS is configured to trust an IP, the system will accept and validate tokens issued by that IP. ACS can trust multiple IPs at once, which means that when your application trusts ACS, you can instantly offer your application to all the authenticated users from all the IPs that ACS trusts on your behalf.

Federation Provider (FP) - IPs have direct knowledge of users, authenticate them using their credentials and issue claims about what they know about them. A Federation Provider (FP) is a different kind of authority: rather than authenticating users directly, it acts as an intermediary and brokers authentication between one RP and one or more IPs. Both IPs and FPs issue security tokens, hence they both use Security Token Services (STS). ACS is one FP.

ACS Rule Engine - The logic used to transform incoming tokens from trusted IPs to tokens meant to be consumed by the RP is codified in form of simple claims transformation rules. ACS features a rule engine that takes care of applying whatever transformation logic you specified for your RP.

Access Control Namespace - A namespace is a top level partition of ACS that you use to organize your settings. A namespace holds a list of IPs you trust, the RP applications you want to serve, the rules that you expect the rule engine to process incoming tokens with, and so on. A namespace exposes various endpoints that will be used by the application and the developer to get ACS to perform its function.

How does it work?

1. The client (in this case a browser) requests a page from the RP.

2. Since the request is not yet authenticated, the RP redirects the user to the authority that it trusts, which is ACS. The ACS presents the user with the choice of IPs that were specified for this RP. The user selects the appropriate IP.

3. The client browses to the IP's authentication page, and prompts the user to log on.

4. After the client is authenticated (for example, the identity credentials are entered), the IP issues a security token.

5. After issuing a security token, the IP redirects the client to ACS and the client sends the security token issued by the IP to ACS.

6. ACS validates the security token issued by the IP, inputs the identity claims in this token into the ACS rules engine, calculates the output identity claims, and issues a new security token that contains these output claims.

7. ACS redirects the client to the RP. The client sends the new security token issued by ACS to the RP. The RP validates the signature on the security token issued by ACS, validates the claims in this token, and returns the page that was originally requested.

What do you need to get it running?

An active Windows Azure account:
If you don't have Windows Azure account, you could obtain free trial.
Visual Studio 2012:
If you want to use latest feature of ACS 2.0 it is recommended using VS2012, but VS2010 could also work with little bit of work.
Identity and Access tool:
This tool is great add-on for VS2012 which significantly ease connecting ACS with your application.

After few simple steps you should be ready to authenticate users to your application using Windows Azure ACS with identity providers like Microsoft, Google, Facebook etc.

SMTP4DEV

nospam@example.com (Zdravko) — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 11:40:36 -0500

Testing e-mail functionality in your Microsoft Dynamics AX/GP application/customization using external e-mail servers has always been a frustrating process. If your test e-mail somehow avoids anti-spam and other SMTP server services, it will still take several minutes to receive. Sometimes, it can take 5 – 10 minutes for your sent e-mail to arrive at the destination - and you can never be sure if your test e-mail is late or if delivery has failed due to an error in your application.

Wouldn't it be great to have a mock application that pretends to be a SMTP server and shows you what you sent immediately? That is exactly what SMTP4DEV does.

SMTP4DEV is free and you can download it from CodePlex at http://smtp4dev.codeplex.com. All you have to do is unpack and run, and make sure your mock SMTP server is listening.

Once you have SMTP4DEV running and listening, you can use the sample C# code to send an e-mail to your mock SMTP server. Notice the From and To e-mail addresses; they can be anything.

Execute the sample C# code and your test e-mail will immediately show in SMTP4DEV.

Now stop listening on port 25 and execute the same sample C# code again. Since SMTP server is no longer available, SmtpClient will throw an exception.

Windows 8 development - Process Lifetime Management

nospam@example.com (Bojan) — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 11:20:03 -0500

If you are a developer, starting to work on a Windows 8 application, one of the really important things to understand is the Process Lifetime Management or PLM. Even if you're not a developer, understanding what really happens when you run a Windows Store application or navigate from it could help you use the app better.

PLM is actually one of the major differences between a Windows 8 application and a desktop application. Unlike traditional Windows applications, which will continue to execute in background, Windows Store apps execute only when they are in the foreground. Windows 8 focuses on the apps in the foreground, keeping them responsive and providing excellent performance by allowing the app to use all of the available device resources. Applications that are snapped are running in foreground, too.

Once a user navigates away from the app, the operating system puts the application in the suspended mode to preserve battery. The application remains in memory but all of its thread are suspended. When the user navigates back to the app, it resumes execution where it stopped and you as a developer can't change this behavior. You don't even have to implement any code to make it happen.

This all seems easy and straightforward, but there is a catch. The operating system cannot guarantee that the application will stay in memory until a user decides to use it again. While the app is suspended, the OS can terminate it to free up additional memory. When an app is terminated, all state that has not been saved is lost. As a developer, you cannot allow for this to happen. Since we are not aware whether the application will be terminated, we must ensure the state is saved when the app is suspended and restore this state in case termination occurs.

But do not despair, Visual Studio 2012 does much of the heavy lifting for you. If your app is not complex, the VS project template takes care of this for you, completely. In the Common folder of your Windows Store app you will find the SuspensionManager.cs. VS added the OnSuspending method and following code to existing OnLaunched method in the App.xaml.cs to save and restore the app’s navigation state if the app was terminated by the operating system after it was suspended.

private async void OnSuspending(object sender, SuspendingEventArgs e)

{

var deferral = e.SuspendingOperation.GetDeferral();
await SuspensionManager.SaveAsync();
deferral.Complete();

}

protected override async void OnLaunched(LaunchActivatedEventArgs args)

{

…

if (args.PreviousExecutionState == ApplicationExecutionState.Terminated)
{
// Restore the saved session state only when appropriate await SuspensionManager.RestoreAsync();
}
…

}

In case your application requires anything more sophisticated than this, you will have to implement it yourself, but at least you have a decent starting point. To test how your application behaves when terminated, start the app from Visual Studio and select Suspend and shutdown from the Debug Location toolbar (to activate it, navigate to View > Toolbars > Debug Location).

Attending DevReach2012

nospam@example.com (Bojan) — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 10:02:01 -0500

Merit Solutions is highly devoted to investing in our employees, providing educational opportunities that enable all team members to improve their skills / talent and follow the latest industry trends. All team members are encouraged to attend trainings and conferences, take exams and earn valuable certification in their respective fields.

As an example of this commitment, this year, a couple of our engineers working with industry-leading technologies attended DevReach 2012, the premier developer conference in Central and Eastern Europe. For the 7th time in a row, Telerik, Microsoft, and other valued partners organized this renowned conference which concentrates on developers and testers.

Many prominent speakers presented more than 60 sessions on the following topics:

Cloud
Web Development
Mobile Development
Architecture
Agile & Testing

Our engineers had the opportunity to share ideas and knowledge and to discuss current projects with top industry experts and came back energized and with plenty of new skills and ideas.

To find out more about DevReach, visit www.devreach.com.

TFS – Exporting Data From Multiple Team Projects

nospam@example.com (Bojan) — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 12:01:53 -0400

Team Foundation Server (TFS) brings us a lot of improvements for Application Life Cycle Management and work item tracking.

For development teams following an Agile methodology (Scrum), working on a couple of projects and covering a wide set of technologies like ours, it’s fairly common to have a number of team projects for each project we are working on. However, there are a couple of drawbacks when using multiple team projects as described in Good Reasons to not create a new Team Project.

In order to enable managers to analyze and plan our engagement, we needed to find a way to export data from all team projects we are currently working on. Unfortunately, TFS doesn’t support this fairly reasonable request. TFS provides a great integration with Excel, which enables easy exporting, modifying the data and publishing it back to TFS. However, if the query contains work item data from multiple team projects, an error TF208015 is thrown and no data will be exported.

This is a known issue and it in the TFS backlog. Suggested workaround is to create separate workbooks bound to different team projects and then to aggregate the data from tables. This means that you will still need to do a refresh in multiple workbooks.

We managed to find a more elegant way of retrieving the needed data using TFS Power tools. This add-on contains Team Foundation Power Tool (tfpt.exe) – a command line tool that enables you to work with files and directories under version control, team projects, and work items queries.

So, what you need to do is to create a Query in Visual Studio Team Explorer that displays the data you need and then export the data using the following commands. These will generate the TSV(tab separated values) and XML file.

c:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2010 Power Tools>tfpt query /format:xml "Engineering Team\Team Queries\Team Sprint Backlog - All Projects" /collection:http://tfs:8080/tfs/tfs%20projects > d:\allprojects.xml

c:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2010 Power Tools>tfpt query /include:header,data "Engineering Team\My Queries\AllProducts" /collection:http://tfs:8080/tfs/tfs%20projects > d:\allprojects.txt

Data from this generated TSV (or XML) can easily be imported in Excel and analyzed further, to the great satisfaction of your managers.

Microsoft keeps an open channel and listens to new feature requests from the users, so if you would like to have this feature in a next version of the TFS, go to feature request, register and vote.

Benefits of User Acceptance Testing (UAT)

nospam@example.com (administrator) — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 10:51:59 -0400

UAT (User Acceptance Testing) is often the final stage of the implementation process which is conducted to ensure that system requirements meet business needs. The UAT process allows for any issues to be fixed before the system goes live. Acceptance Testing often can be in the form of Alpha or Beta Testing, where the software is tested by the intended audience in the “real environment”.

Why the UAT is important? Despite resource deficits, they need to be managed to conduct proper tests when it comes to this phase. Even though this can be expensive, it is not close to possible cost damages that can be caused by bad requirements understanding. In the “ideal world”, acceptance testing would be performed by system users and they should decide if the deliverable is what they are intending to pay for.

During the Implementation process, the system is going through many types of testing by programmers, analysts and designers. So why focus on UAT? All other forms of testing are carried out by the engineering team to ensure that the system works technically, according to their understanding of the business requirements. UAT should be carried out by the users or business consultants to determine whether the software fits their use or not. Most engineering teams are often forced to perform ad-hoc testing based on the developed feature instead to plan the test effort per feature upfront. UAT can give a clear picture of what should be expected as the outcome.

How to create efficient UAT process? Performing and writing acceptance tests takes time, so UAT planning and conducting should be as efficient as possible:

Acceptance Tests should be based on User Stories
UAT Gives details about system layout and its reactions on user actions
Acceptance Tests should not define need, but behavior
UAT should be a contract between a client and a vendor
- UAT as a deliverable
- UAT design and testing – through an iterative process so that risks regarding requirements can be dropped in the early implementation phase
- UAT should be signed by the client
Acceptance Tests should be simple, understandable and cheap:
- We tend to use Behavior Driven Development and Gherkin model (Given-When-Then) for defining efficient and cheap acceptance tests

UAT is applicable on any implementation methodology, including agile and also recommended as a step in the Development phase if we use the Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step methodology.

Who benefits? The answer is simple – everyone.

The satisfaction of the clients is increased, as they are more confident that the requirements are met, without the ‘fear’ of how the product will behave in the real environment and if a critical issue will arise when least expected.
The quality criteria of the product is defined in the early phase of development/implementation
Vendors have improved communication, both with the clients and inside the team, as the requirements definition is improved through the acceptance tests and signed by the client
The engineering team ends up minimizing the pressure during the implementation and risks of post-implementation live fixes.
Stakeholders use the information gathered through UAT to better understand the target audience’s needs

The benefits of UAT significantly outweigh the investments. As the UAT can be planned to spend up to 5-10% of the project time, it can save almost 30% of the total waste. This is a good way for stakeholders to ensure a good ROI out of projects.

TFS 2010 to Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 Integration

nospam@example.com (administrator) — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 09:55:11 -0400

Integrating TFS2010 with Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 is not as easy as one might hope. There are quite a few prerequisites you need to worry about, but once you have everything in place you can just sit back and enjoy the development.

Step 1: Set-up AOS development instance on every development machine.

Unlike MorphX VCS where you can develop and check-in using clients only, in order to set up TFS VCS with AX you need to have AOS development instance installed on every development machine. This one is easy, just choose the predefined development instance from the AX2009 installation menu and let the setup do the rest.

MorpX VCS vs. TFS2010 VCS

Step 2: Set-up Team (ID) Server.

If you want to use VCS with AX you need to install the Team (ID) Server somewhere on you network. Team (ID) Server is responsible for assigning a unique ID to new AX objects in the multi-development environment. Team (ID) Server setup can be found on the AX2009 setup disk in the additional tools menu.

Step 3: Add appropriate users and computers to the Dynamics Team Server Users group on the Team (ID) Server.

Step 4: Install VS 2008 SP1 on every development machine.

Step 5: Install Team Explorer 2008 on every development machine.

Step 6: Install VS 2008 SP1 forward compatibility update for TFS 2010.

Forward compatibility update will actually enable Team Explorer 2008 to establish connection with the TFS 2010. Below is the forward compatibility update download link. Installation should be straightforward.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=CF13EA45-D17B-4EDC-8E6C-6C5B208EC54D&displaylang=en

Step 7: Connect to the TFS 2010 and create a new project using Team Explorer 2008.

Step 8: Assign developers (users) to the created the TFS 2010 project.

Step 9: Set-up version control parameters on each development machine.

In order to setup AX2009 to use TFS2010 go to Tools->DevTools->VerControl -> Setup -> Paramters. The Repository folder may be different and depends on the actual development machine. To setup the Team Server settings go to Tools -> DevTools -> VerControl -> Setup -> SystemSettings. Below are the version control setup screenshots.

Step 10: Enjoy TFS2010 enabled AX2009 development!

Note: You can find additional information in Team Foundation Server Version Control Setup Whitepaper for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009.pdf and Team Server (ID Server) Setup Whitepaper for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009.pdf documents available from Microsoft.

The Benefits of Offshore Development and Local Project Management

nospam@example.com (administrator) — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 14:57:16 -0500

Here's another link to help out the Merit Solutions' Development Team:

Last week, we started a series to emphasize the benefits of offshore development combined with local project management. We call it a Hybrid Development Model, which allows us to deliver the highest quality development services to our clients at a fraction of the cost by providing the cost benefits of offshore development services, while affording them the convenience and peace of mind of working directly with a US-based firm.

Check out the Development Matters Blog for our two previous posts (three benefits total so far).

The Benefits of Offshore Development and Local Project Management: Location
The Benefits of Offshore Development and Local Project Management: Scalable Resources

New Microsoft Dynamics Development Blog: Development Matters

nospam@example.com (administrator) — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 14:11:31 -0500

Merit Solutions has decided to publish a new Microsoft Dynamics Development blog, "Development Matters: Dynamics Development News that Matters". Be sure to check back frequently for news on Microsoft Dynamics and Custom Application Development. The first two posts of the new blog include:

Layers in Dynamics AX 2009
Layers are a hierarchy of levels in the application source code that enable you to make modifications and additions without interfering with the application objects in the next lower level. When you make an object modification on one level, the modification overshadows the object on a lower level. You could, for example, decide to add e-mail information to a standard form. The addition would be saved on your level only. The revised form replaces the standard form. However, you can always return to the original form at the next lower level by removing the new form.

Advanced Lot Management Part 1: Installation
Merit Solutions Advanced Lot Management (ALM) is the application that allows efficient control of lot tracked materials (raw or finished goods) within Microsoft Dynamics GP (versions 9 and 10.0). ALM is focused on two pieces of information: Lot Status and Expiration Date. This information affects when and how material can be used. Learn how to install the ALM application

Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 in Testing Microsoft Dynamics – Part II

nospam@example.com (Petar) — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 09:00:00 -0400

The Fourth Step – Doing Some Real Stuff

Regardless of whether or not you have completed steps 1 and 2 (and assuming that you have installed Microsoft Virtual PC 2007), you are now ready for some real stuff. Let’s create the first virtual HD:

Start the Microsoft Virtual PC

Start Virtual Disk Wizard and click Next.
Select Create a new virtual disk.
On the Virtual Machine Name and Location page, type the name and location of the configuration file to be created and used with the virtual disk. Then click Next to continue.
Leave default dynamically expanding option and click Next.
Enter the size to which the virtual disk can expand and click Next.
Click Finish to complete the process.

After creating the virtual hard disk, you are ready to create the virtual machine.

Start the Microsoft Virtual PC
Click New to start the New Virtual Machine wizard and then click Next to continue.
On the Options page, click Create a virtual machine, and then click Next to continue.
On the Virtual Machine Name and Location page, type the name and location of the configuration file to be created and used with the virtual disk. Then click Next to continue.
On the Operating System page, select the operating system that you will use, and then click Next to continue.
On the Memory page, adjust the RAM memory for the virtual machine. I recommend that you allocate half the RAM to the Virtual PC image.
Click Next to continue.
On the Virtual Hard Disk Location page, select the .vhd file you will use.
Select Enable undo disks and then click Next to continue.
On the Completing the Virtual Disk wizard page, click Finish to create the virtual hard disk.

Congratulations! You are now ready to use your virtual machine.

Tip: Selecting undo disks is very important. If we have this option enabled, we will be asked whether we want to commit changes made from the start of virtual machine or not. This is very useful for any testing.

The Fifth Step – Using some real tips and tricks

Assuming that you have prepared your VPC to be a good template machine, you can use it to create different branches of it. For example, you need two VPCs, one for Microsoft Dynamics GP and the other for Microsoft Office. The key for this is – differencing disks. By using them, you can save both time and hard disk space.

Creating and using difference disks

A difference disk is an extension of a base Virtual PC. It stores modifications (differences) that you have made to the base Virtual PC.

To create a difference disk, you must create a new .vhd file and provide a reference to the parent .vhd file.

Start the Microsoft Virtual PC
On the File menu, click Virtual Disk Wizard
Click Next to continue
On the Disk Options page, select Create a new virtual disk, and then click Next to continue
On the Virtual Disk Type page, select A virtual hard disk, and then click Next to continue
On the Virtual Hard Disk Location page, type the name and location of the difference disk. By default, the .vhd file is saved in the My Documents folder. Use the Browse button to select a different location.
On the Virtual Hard Disk Options page, select Differencing, and then click Next to continue.
On the Differencing Virtual Hard Disk page, specify the name and location of the parent virtual hard disk file. Click Next to continue.
On the Completing the Virtual Disk wizard page, click Finish to create the virtual hard disk.

Tip: Once you begin to use a VHD as a parent virtual hard disk, do not make any changes on it. Changing it will render useless any differencing disks that use it as a parent VHD. When creating a hierarchy of difference disks, any disk functioning as the base disk must be read-only because it cannot be modified.

Tip: You can create a difference disk from a difference disk

View Part I

Dynamics AX Offshore Development, Local Delivery

nospam@example.com (administrator) — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 15:23:23 -0400

Are you considering a Dynamics AX 3.0 / 4.0 upgrade to AX 2009? Is Dynamics AX Offshore Development an option you are considering?

Offshore development companies have a distinct advantage over traditional software development companies: Microsoft Dynamics AX has been widely used in Europe for 10 years. However, offshore development companies can bring with them cultural divides, gaps in communication, and a lack of personal relationships.

Merit Solutions combines Microsoft Dynamics AX Offshore Development with local project management, implementation, and consulting. Access the cost savings of offshore development while working with a local team you can get to know and trust.

Contact Merit Solutions for any of your .NET and X++ integration needs.

Dynamics Software Development: Less Risky, Higher Quality

nospam@example.com (Nenad) — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 10:31:00 -0400

Iterative, less risky, timely, higher quality Dynamics software development, why not?

Many times in postmortem software development projects, reviews uncover the same issue of requirements not being met at an adequate level. This has caused many software development companies to move towards a more agile approach in the software development life cycle for the Microsoft Dynamics family of products.

Internally, Merit Solutions' engineers are taking the lead in the adoption of this new approach. Increased communication has proven to be one of the keys for success, and even the shortest daily meetings (online, in person, or over the phone sometimes under five min long) are very productive and help prevent us from having “fires” on the projects. Our clients have already reacted positively to our continuous integration, shortened release schedule, transparency of the projects’ progress, test driven development and ability to address challenges while they are small. At the end, the outcome is a higher quality product, with more iterations that save time and money for our clients.

I have to mention that Construx resources have been very helpful in getting our team to become more flexible and meet every unique client requests. Even without being extreme, we have benefited greatly from the recommendations and guidance they have been providing in their training sessions and educational materials (one of their white papers, “Optimize Agile for Your Organization” is a great starting point for novices in this area).

Static fields and methods in .NET Remoting

nospam@example.com () — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 14:28:00 -0400

.NET Remoting is a very powerful way for writing distributed applications. What is also important to note is that it is very easy to use - users have a full comfort of working in local address space, but they are actually creating and using remote objects.

Object field contents are stored and methods are executed remotely. However, remote instances won't behave as you expected them to when you use static fields or methods in your remote class (one that ihnerits MarshallByRefObject). That's because static methods (and properties) are always executed locally. This actually means that non-static (object) and static (class) methods have different behavior, and you should keep this in mind when designing your remote class.

There is one curiosity regarding the static fields. It turns out that there are two copies of each of them - a local and a remote one! If you access the static field directly (if it is public), or via a static method or property, what you get is the value of the local copy. However, if you use a non-static method, it will be executed remotely and will thus return a remote value of the static field.

This may be a little bit confusing, so it is one more reason to be careful when you are considering the use of static data in your remote class.

VMware Workstation and MS VPC - The operation completed successfully!

nospam@example.com () — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 09:14:00 -0400

Recently the need has arisen to set up a virtual machine that will run a 64-bit version of Windows Vista on one of our servers.

Microsoft VPC 2007 with several running VM's was already installed, but unfortunately this version of VPC doesn't support 64-bit guest operating systems. So, we had to look for alternatives that would work with our current environment correctly.

There aren't so many virtualization products that will let a 64-bit guest enter the house so far. Actually, there are just two of them - Microsoft Hyper-V and VMware Workstation. The former is still not available as a separate product, but is a part of Windows Server 2008. The latter isn't free, but can be evaluated for 1 month, so I have decided to give it a try. However, it turned out that VMware Workstation and Microsoft VPC refuse to work together!

Actually, when MS VPC is started, VMware reports a strange error, saying "The operation has completed successfully". I know that it doesn't sound like an error message at all, but the real world seems a little bit more complicated. Fortunately, there is an exit.

One possible solution for this problem is to convert your VM's created by Microsoft VPC and run them with VMware. This can be achieved by using the Import option from VMware Workstation's File menu. An intuitive wizard will be shown so you can migrate easily.

However, note that some settings are not 100% replicated in the VMware clone (for example network settings), so you may need to spend some time configuring your new virtual machine to make it fully capable for its usual use. Another solution would be to identify the source of the collision and try to get rid of it. I haven't done much experiments, so you are encouraged to try to explore this and post your results here.

Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 in testing Microsoft Dynamics (Part I)

nospam@example.com (Petar) — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 09:14:53 -0400

Having been heavily involved with testing Microsoft Dynamics custom products, I found Microsoft Virtual PC to be a must have tool. Not only because it saves a lot of money for not having to acquire different PCs in order to test products in different environments, but it also saves a lot of time. It just takes several simple rules to follow and knowing the functionalities that Microsoft Virtual PC has to offer.

What I will share are tips and tricks I gathered over the years, best practices, as well as other people’s advice.

Getting Started

Before we set off to making full use of Microsoft Virtual PC, there are some things we need to be aware to take care of. I use Microsoft VPC for most of my work. Actually, the only software on my machine that didn’t come with the OS, other than antivirus, Microsoft Office 2007, some IMs and MagicDisc (I’ll explain why later on) – is Microsoft Virtual PC 2007. Over time, I have learned that keeping my machine as clean as possible and doing everything else on VPC is the best way to go. Not having to reinstall the OS every once in a while – plus keeping the host machine running fast, saving as much resources as possible for VPCs – has a very high payback. I’m now in the situation of having a year old OS and plans for formatting the OS partition during some easy summer days.

The First Step – Do I Have the Right Equipment?

The first step in making sure you will benefit from using VPC is to acquire the proper hardware for it. If you intend to save time and money by using VPC, make sure to invest in a fast processor, a fast and spacious hard drive that you don’t use for your OS (host drive) and a lot of fast RAM.

Tip: There is no performance gain by logically partitioning your host drive

The requirements for each person’s needs vary a lot, but as a rule of thumb - add at least one Gb of RAM for each VPC you intend to use simultaneously over the amount of RAM you need for your OS. Of course, using more than one VPC calls for another monitor, but as I said, that depends on individual needs.

Tip: If you use and share multiple VPCs, consider using Microsoft Virtual Server. I will not cover this product in these series.

The Second Step – I Bought the Hardware – Now What?

Obviously, the very next step after acquiring the hardware would be to install it on the OS. It really doesn’t matter if it is Windows XP Professional, Windows XP Tablet Edition, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista Business, Windows Vista Enterprise or Windows Vista Ultimate – Microsoft Virtual PC will work on all of these. My OS of choice is Window XP Professional with all of the latest updates.

In case you already have a machine that you’d like to use for utilizing VPC, the next step would be to clean the mess from your host machine. You don’t have to do that, but I strongly recommend it. You will have to do it anyway at some point, so why not prior to setting up the VPCs so you benefit from a good start? My suggestion includes nothing more than your backup strategy prior to any OS partition formatting and listing all the necessary software you will need after you install your OS of choice.

Tip: The VPCs you create later on will still be perfectly good to use if you decide to go with skipping OS reinstall.

The Third Step - Defragmenting the Host Machine Drive

I strongly recommend defragmenting the hard drive(s) you will be using for VPCs. By doing so, you will ensure that your host machine runs smoothly, thus making the most of the VPCs you will be adding later on.

1. Shut down all applications on your computer.

2. Run the Disk Cleanup tool. (Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Cleanup)

3. Empty the Recycle Bin.

4. Run the Disk Defragmenter several times until it completes within a few seconds (Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter). It can take some time to run, ranging from 30 minutes to several hours.

(UPDATE: View Part II)