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A couple of months ago, I got a brand new Dell laptop. To future-proof it, I ordered it with enough RAM that it needed 64-bit Windows to fully use all that muscle. So, once my in-house IT department (AKA my wonderful husband) installed Windows 7 on it, I fired it up for the first time and went through the process of setting it up to connect to the servers at work.
Oops! I immediately had a problem. The Citrix client that the company I work for provides for download and installation won't even install to 64-bit Windows, and according to Server Guy (yes, that's his official title), the 64-bit clients it does make require an upgrade to the servers. We have multiple large e-commerce sites, so it's difficult to imagine we'll be in a situation to risk that kind of disruption any time soon.
So my new computer sat on a desk for over a month, being used solely to check files in and out, while I used my trusty Toshiba m205 Tablet running XP to do anything that required a direct data link to the server. I adore this little machine (which I am using to type this), but it has a flaw. Every once in a blue moon it will get a corrupt BIOS, which requires a reboot from CD. If that sounds like no big deal, I challenge you to get a computer with no CD/DVD drive to boot from CD. So when my computer went down last week, there was no getting it back up in time to do that day's rush jobs.
This forced me onto the new machine, where I ran into one hassle after another just trying to work, so I thought I'd share a few of the things I discovered to help ease the pain for anyone else making the transition.
First, as an emergency measure, I installed NCP Secure Entry client. It's supposed to be able to import a Citrix profile, but I found that this did not work for me. Luckily, I was able to get assistance from Server Guy to walk me through this, because the setup wizard wanted a lot of information from me that I didn't begin to know. So I wouldn't call this the most intuitive VPN client ever (and it's not free like the Citrix client), but it does allow you to get connected to a Citrix VPN from a 64 bit Windows machine.
So, I was off and running. I set up my SQL Server connections, got my first page built in Dreamweaver, and hit F12. 404 Error. What? I looked at my file structure and looked at the url in the address bar. C:\inetpub\wwwroot\thesite\thefile.asp, http://localhost/thesite/thefile.asp. All good, but there it was, staring me in the face, a 404 Error. I looked more closely, and I realized it wasn't a 404 not found. Instead, it was HTTP Error 404.3 - Not Found. The page you are requesting cannot be served because of the extension configuration. If the page is a script, add a handler. If the file should be downloaded, add a MIME map.
What on earth do you add as a script handler to make IIS recognize an asp classic page, I asked myself. So I went on the hunt. About ½ an hour of searching later, I had my answer—newer versions of IIS don't install asp by default! This isn't a tough fix once you know what the problem is, but figuring out the problem isn't the easiest thing in the world, especially when you're under deadline pressure.
Early the next morning, I had finished the site and got all set to upload it in Dreamweaver. Nothing. At the time, I didn't have time to debug it, and this was working again, so I did the "copy the site to a USB drive" method of getting the site to a computer that I knew could connect to the server. On further testing, I discovered that I needed to both have "Use Passive FTP" and "Use IPV6 Transfer Mode" selected. Neither of these settings is necessary from my XP machine, and, in fact, the "Use IPV6 Transfer Mode" setting doesn't exist in Dreamweaver 8, which is what I use on this machine (and why that is is a story for another day).
Maybe now I have my new machine set up for work, I can move everything to it. But it will never be as cute as my m205!
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I haven't read a concise article on the implications of IPV6 in Vista/Windows7 yet...that's an interesting roadblock to hit. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you for your comment. It inspired me to go looking for more information on IPv6. Even though this isn't specific to Vista/Windows 7, it was the most English-like article I could find. It seems to me, having read this article, that IPv6 shouldn't be necessary to connect to this server from Dreamweaver, but since I have my VPN client set up to use it as per what's been working for others at my company, that setting is necessary in Dreamweaver itself. I think that maybe IPv6 is by default a passive format and that's why I had to check "Use Passive FTP", but that's just a guess on my part.
This discussion makes it sound like using IPv6 transfer mode is why I had to add another check for a REMOTE_ADDR of "::1" in the logic that redirects to a secure server if not running from a local server—something I hadn't connected to the transfer mode.
Again, thank you for your comment—it inspired me to learn something new!
I'm afraid that we'll be hearing more stories such as this as Windows7 gets closer to release.
Your problems show a good example of what we're in for; problems due to changes Microsoft has made in Windows 7 and problems due to changes that people will not make themselves.
Newer versions of IIS not installing classic ASP by default? That has got to be one of the dumbest thing I've ever heard of. Sounds like some paranoid goofball out there felt it was unsafe to have classic ASP running if they weren't using it. But yet again, a change Microsoft made for little reason. Well, hoping to push people to .Net is in there somewhere I bet. I'm sure they meant well because, after all, who in this day and age of .Net would someone want to use classic ASP? Sheesh.
Your company should have done the update to their servers to accommodate 64-bit systems long before you tried to use it. In an effort to future-proof yourself you actually prepared for the future, they should have done the same. It'll be easier and cheaper to do it now instead of waiting until all computers are 64-bit by default, which will be within a generation or so. I understand the hassle and cost involved in doing such a thing but better to do it now when it's an option then wait until it is required almost immediately.
Hopefully switching to IPv6 will not cause serious problems or we'll be stuck with people refusing to complete their switch. But it'll probably be years before the switch even fully starts because of the people fearful of switching due to pontential snags.
I've been running Windows7 64-bit since the beta and I could not have been happier with the experience. Granted I don't have as much third-party strings to go though as you seem to, I only have a typical domain connection. I highly recommend for anyone out there thinking of updating to Windows7 to get the 64-bit version.
That is, unless you have some third-party holding you down to 32-bit for some reason.
I don't believe that the switch to making IIS not install ASP classic by default is to force people to ASP.Net, because that's not installed by default either.
Most of the articles I found about switching to IPv6 suggest that it's not a trivial task, and that a lot of stuff might stop working on an IPv6 network. We normally operate at break-neck speeds, so we don't have a lot of time for troubleshooting these kinds of problems.
Wow, .Net isn't installed by default either? I hope it can serve HTML files by default at least? Sheesh.
Oh, I'm sure there will be problems with changing over to IPv6, there almost always is when switching over to a new protocol. But I hope people figure out how to make it somewhat painless because it would be nice for everyone to have a static IP again. Heck, I could assign IPs to my lightbulbs to check their status.
But switching to IPv6 has not exactly been a quick process as the protocol's been around for over ten years.
You know, there's a joke in there about IPv4 based off of Bill Gates' supposed 640k comment. "4 billion IPs ought to be enough."
i will check this book. thankyou
Sorry I don't have the link, but look for 77 windows 7 tips on technet. #30 is about rdp issues. It talks about mRemote from mremote.org as being a "help" in this area.
Thanks for the tip