Problems with Visual Studio, Web Projects, and SourceSafe

[Tim Haughton]

Hello, I seem to be encountering a problem that many others have
encountered before me. Unfortunately, even the mighty Google seems
reluctant to yield any solutions.

We are developing some webservices. We have multiple developers who
have Visual Studio 2003 and SourceSafe 6.0d. None of our developers
have IIS installed on their machines. We have a central test server
that we want to work off which runs IIS and .NET 1.1. All of our
developers have administrative rights on the test machine.

Here are the steps which lead to our problem...

1) I create a directory on the server underneath wwwroot called
TimHTest:
'http://devdotnet/TimHTest'

2) I create a blank solution on my local machine called TimHSolution.

3) I add a C# ASP.NET web services project calles TimHWebTest. I set
the location to 'http://devdotnet/TimHTest'.

When I 'OK' this, I get an error saying "The default web access mode
for this project is set to file share, but the project folder at
'http://devdotnet/TimHTest' cannot be opened with the path
'\\devdotnet\wwwroot$\TimHTest'. The error returned was:

'Unable to create web project 'TimHTest'. The UNC share
'\\devdotnet\wwwroot$\TimHTest' does not exist or you do not have
access.'


Of course, the share does exist, and we all have admin rights there.
Now, we would be stuck right here, but we happened to notice that if we
remove the $ from the UNC path, so it reads
'\\devdotnet\wwwroot\TimHTest' the project can be created successfully.
So that's what we do. I suspect that the fact that it goes so wrong at
this early stage is really indicative of something with our setup.

4), Using VS, we add the whole solution to source control.

Now, the developer who creates the project can happily develop and all
is well. The problem comes when another developer wants to get the
project out of VSS, or the owner (me) deletes his local copy and gets
it back our of VSS.

5) Another developer gets the project out of source control using
either the VSS client to get a local copy, or using VS's ;open from
source control' method, the effect is the same.


We now have a new copy on a developer's machine. The solution file
looks OK, the server paths seem fine:

Microsoft Visual Studio Solution File, Format Version 8.00
Project("{FAE04EC0-301F-11D3-BF4B-00C04F79EFBC}") = "TimHTest",
"http://devdotnet/TimHTest/TimHTest.csproj",
"{7E400EF2-287A-4FD6-8448-844EFDFA0166}"
ProjectSection(ProjectDependencies) = postProject
EndProjectSection
EndProject
Global
GlobalSection(SourceCodeControl) = preSolution
SccNumberOfProjects = 2
SccLocalPath0 = .
CanCheckoutShared = true
SolutionUniqueID = {0C7DA24D-26AD-4706-86AE-432395165B83}
SccProjectUniqueName1 = http://devdotnet/TimHTest/TimHTest.csproj
SccProjectName1 = \u0022$/TimHSolution/TimHTest\u0022,\u0020ADOAAAAA
SccLocalPath1 = \\\\devdotnet\\wwwroot\\TimHTest
CanCheckoutShared = true
SccProjectEnlistmentChoice1 = 2
EndGlobalSection
GlobalSection(SolutionConfiguration) = preSolution
Debug = Debug
Release = Release
EndGlobalSection
GlobalSection(ProjectConfiguration) = postSolution
{7E400EF2-287A-4FD6-8448-844EFDFA0166}.Debug.ActiveCfg = Debug|.NET
{7E400EF2-287A-4FD6-8448-844EFDFA0166}.Debug.Build.0 = Debug|.NET
{7E400EF2-287A-4FD6-8448-844EFDFA0166}.Release.ActiveCfg =
Release|.NET
{7E400EF2-287A-4FD6-8448-844EFDFA0166}.Release.Build.0 = Release|.NET
EndGlobalSection
GlobalSection(ExtensibilityGlobals) = postSolution
EndGlobalSection
GlobalSection(ExtensibilityAddIns) = postSolution
EndGlobalSection
EndGlobal


When the Solution is opened in VS for the first time, we get this:

A dialogue pops up titled 'Set Project Loaction - TimHSolution'. It
asks me to confirm the server path for the project TimHTest. The path
it has is 'http://devdotnet/TimHTest', which is correct. When I click
'OK', I get this error: 'One or more of the project's destination paths
are invalid. To open a solution, specify a valid path for each
project.'

Another brick wall. If I replace the server name with its IP address:
'http://10.249.68.51/TimHTest', I get this:

'Unable to create web project 'http://10.249.68.51/TimHTest'. The UNC
share '\\devdotnet\wwwroot$\TimHTest' does not exist or you do not have
access.' So that $ is back, and I can't get rid of it. This is as far
as we've got. We've read MS white papers on web projects and source
control integration, and followed them to the letter, unfortunately
we're still no better off.

Anyone smarter than me have a clue how to get our team off the floor?
Many thanks,

Tim H

 

[Ken Dopierala Jr.]

Hi Tim

This link will take you to a presentation about how it all works:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;328845

The presentation is almost 2 hours long. With what you are doing it sounds
like you'll be interested in the non-isolated version which starts in part
30 of the presentation. I've never used this model. I've always worked
where each developer had their own copy of the project and updated the
master copy as needed. Also each developer had IIS so they could run and
debug locally before committing changes. Good luck! Ken.