asp+My Experiences with ASP+ PDC bits
Now that the ASP+ sdk "pre-beta" has been released to the masses. Many people are scrambling to get it
installed and start to play with C#, ASP+ and many other toys that come with the SDK. Being the
webmaster of ASPFree, I've had the privilege to work with two versions of ASP+ builds. And I may add, how
stable both versions have been! Its definitely been an experience, this article I hope to express some of
the things to help guide individuals who have to install and support this in their environment.

First of all, "DON'T INSTALL ON YOUR PRODUCTION SERVERS!!", I can't stress this enough, this is "pre-beta"
software. Microsoft WILL NOT support pre-beta software. ASPFree is "production" I guess, but it doesn't
hurt anything if the site crashes or some pages don't display. The world won't come to an end, I use this
environment to learn new technology and share with others. I do have a development machine that I test
things before installing on the server that runs ASPFree. Some of the tricks I share in this article
are just my own experiences. These are the things I found helpful in keeping the samples up and working
for my visitors on ASPFree.com.

How do I get ASP+ installed then?
Before I'd do anything, do a complete backup...even on your development machine. I'd recommend a fresh
built machine with Windows 2000 and IIS 5.0, then install IE 5.5 and lastly the PDC ASP+ bits. Many of
the newsgroups I monitor, some people are having issues if they installed the PDC Visual Studio 7 beta
then trying to put on the ASP+ sdk. I can't comment to this because I haven't installed VS 7 beta. All I
can say install in this order, a fresh install of Windows 2000 w/IIS 5.0, IE 5.5 and PDC build of ASP+ .
Things should work fine!.

What if I have Classic ASP applications on my server?
If your installing ASP+ on a development machine with existing traditional ASP applications, things will
work just fine. I've installed the ASP+ bits many times and have yet to blow up any of my ASP pages.
ASP+ is designed to run side-by-side with existing ASP pages. If you doubt this claim, view ASPFree.com.
Since day one, I've mixed .asp and .aspx pages together with NO problems at all!

The First Build story
We had a couple of small issues with the first build that was installed on ASPFree. It ran pretty good
for about a week or so then we had a few odd things happen. Being "Pre-beta", I'd expected this to happen
sooner. I was very happy how stable the beta's were and the small amount of issues I really had! When
the samples would die or some other error popped-up, I'd re-compile the samples and that would take care
of them. Considering the traffic load ASPFree.com visitors put on them, they held up very well.

You ask how did I re-compile the samples?
1. Open a command prompt.
2 Map to the NGWSSDK\samples directory. If you took the default install, its c:\program
files\ngwssdk\samples directory.
3. run nmake /all This will compile all of the samples again.

Another trick I found helpful when weird errors would come up, I'd use the "KILL.EXE" command that comes
with the NT/2000 resource kit. This allows you to terminate processes without restarting the server.

To "kill the ASP+" process,
Open the task manager (Right click on the start-bar)
Find the process xspwp.exe and/or the PID(Process Identifer)
open a command window (Start, run, cmd)
Type in "kill xspwp.exe" or "kill xxxx(4-digit id number)
Here is a picture of what I'm referring too.


Using the kill command has proved useful in both builds of the SDK that has been used on ASPFree. The
1st build was somewhat buggy and once in awhile things basically stopped working. The PDC build, the
one Microsoft just released to the world this week, is much more stable and I haven't had any problems.

Other strange things such as "This EVIL Process, NULL String in XXX" or whatever the error. Usually
killing the xspwp.exe process and letting another one start up usually fixes things. Please keep in mind
this article is based on "Pre-beta" software, using the kill command to fix these problems are rare now
with one exception.

What is the XSPWP.exe process?
This is the worker process that handles all of the ASP+ tasks.


Using the KILL command to help clean up virtual memory
Now this part is my own twisted way I came up with to keep the virt