Slow Progress

I spent a frustrating morning with a client recently trying to use a Progress database as the source for an Integration Services package. The fix, as is so often the case, was simple, but I figured it was worthwhile documenting it here. I'm afraid that it's a more technical post than I usually put here, but if I can save someone else the same trouble we had then it'll be worthwhile.

The problem was as follows: we were trying to automate importing data from a Progress database to an MS SQL database using an SSIS package built on a 64-bit Windows 7 machine. We had an ODBC link set up (using the 32-bit OpenEdge drivers) that appeared to be working fine for the Import/Export Wizard and source previews and the likes - we could see and query data - but failed with ODBC error messages when run as an SSIS package from within the Business Intelligence Development Studio. "ERROR [IM002] [Microsoft][ODBC Driver Manager] Data source name not found and no default driver specified" 

Google searching the problem wasn't very encouraging. We tried a dozen different workarounds, from editing the connection strings to bypass the ODBC DSN, registry hacks, trying to fake a 64-bit ODBC connection, but nothing helped. Then, as sometimes happens, I remembered a setting in BIDS that I'd seen a long time ago, never used and then forgot about.

In BIDS, select "Properties" from the "Project" menu. Select "Debugging" on the left-hand side of the Property Pages dialog, then change the value of Run64BitRuntime under "Debug Options" to "False". That simple. Once I'd done that, the import package ran like a train.

Read more »

Windows 8: Neither fish nor flesh?

Now that the Windows 8 Consumer Preview has arrived, we have a better idea of what Microsoft has in mind with the next version of the OS. I say "version", but this is quite obviously more than just a version, it's a radical break with the past at every level from the UI surface to the technical underpinnings.

The Developer Preview release seemed so far from finished that it was hard to draw any conclusions from it. The major impression it left was of the yawning gap between the new Metro interface and the old desktop metaphor, and the jarring jumps between the two. With the Consumer Preview release, this gap, while still present, seems to have been smoothed over to some degree.

It's very clear that the new UI is aimed squarely at tablets and notebooks with touchscreen interfaces. This is no bad thing, but it's difficult to pass judgement when testing on a traditional desktop PC. Using a mouse with the Metro UI definitely requires some adjustment, but is logical. The biggest single mental adjustment is in seeing the traditional Windows desktop reduced to a mere app. We've been trained since Windows 95 to view the Desktop as the root of all activity on our machines - if you start Windows Explorer, your computer, your network locations, the Control Panel and everything else appear as nodes of the desktop - and it requires a big mental shift to see it differently.

That's not to say that it doesn't make sense, though, especially considering what's going on behind the scenes. The old and trusted Win32 engine is still present for backwards-compatibility, but the new WinRT engine with the Metro UI on top is obviously the way forward. It's all of a piece with the WPF and XAML technologies that Microsoft have been promoting at developer events for years now, and now they're deeply rooted in an OS written from the ground up with them in mind. This is earth-shaking for developers (in the best sense, I think).

What does it mean for the rest of us? For the home user, Windows as a tablet OS may prove to be an attractive alternative to iOS, but as I say, without having the chance to try out the touch interface it's difficult to judge. It certainly looks extremely polished, and in both form and function makes the ancient iOS interface with its undistinguished uninformative rows of icons look very dated.

For the business user, it's more difficult to see the benefit in the absence of killer Metro-style apps. Windows 8 will support any application that runs on Win7, but Windows 7 is such a supremely capable OS that it's difficult to see the business benefit of upgrading. I'm inclined to think that businesses will only upgrade once a critical mass of useful Metro-style apps is available, and by the time these apps are available and offer functionality superior to the traditional equivalents we're probably looking at Windows 9...or further.

Which is not to say that Windows 8 is in any way a failure. This feels to me like the right move, the radical break with the past that Microsoft have been talking about since Longhorn, while backwards compatibility is crucially preserved for now by the inclusion of the Win32 engine. This is an architectural argument, however, and it remains to be seen whether the new OS will be a sales success. I certainly hope so; everyone (not just Windows users) will benefit from a strong and convincing bold step forward in the OS space. Microsoft are to be applauded for their daring.

Consumer Protection

I'm sure that Neelie Kroes and all the monopolies people at the European Commission mean well, but I can't see whose interests are served by having Microsoft ship operating systems that don't include a browser. Anyone reading this knows where to find and how to install every major browser within five minutes, and most of us run two or more browsers as a matter of course, and not because the EU think it's a good idea, either.

On the other hand, your mother buys a new PC from the local electrical superstore with Windows pre-installed and when she gets home she has no web browser. And that's probably the number one thing she wants from her new PC, unless she's spending her evenings playing WoW. Is the European Commission helping her?

I fully realise that the issues are complex, but remedies like these surely help no-one, least of all the consumer.

Seven steps to heaven

The Windows 7 Release Candidate build has been humming away happily on a test PC here for the last month, and I'm impressed up to now. So much so, in fact, that I'm very tempted to install it on my main working machine. Like I said before, it's stable, lightning fast, and has a host of useful improvements and additions.

The hands-down coolest feature I've come across this week, though, is the Problem Steps Recorder. This little applet is the answer to the prayers of helpdesks, independent developers (i.e. your humble servant) and anyone who's had to talk their parents through troubleshooting a faulty modem over the phone. What it does is record every action the user carries out in an application, allows him to comment on the problem and highlight problem areas on screen, then produces a simple but thorough step-by-step report including screenshots, full text and technical background, plus a slide-show of the same, in HTML format, zipped and ready to send. It works like a charm.

All I need to do now is persuade my customers to upgrade to Win7 pronto...

Interesting developments

The Windows 7 Release Candidate build was made available to developers today, with a public release following next week. This surely means that a Release-to-Manufacturing build is only a couple of months away, despite Microsoft's official shipping projection of "early 2010".

I'll be evaluating the build myself in the coming weeks and am curious to see how it differs from the beta. The most interesting addition to the RC build was revealed a couple of days ago - XP Mode, a fully virtualized Windows XP environment running within Windows 7. Assuming this works as advertised, this should be the killer feature that will finally prompt businesses and enterprises that have up to now not upgraded to Vista to make the jump. It's far less of a leap of faith to move to a new OS if you know that, at very worst, you'll still be able to run certain contrary applications in native-XP mode thereby preserving full backwards compatibility.

It's a really smart move on Microsoft's part. For this and other reasons, I think that Windows 7 is going to be an enormous, Windows 95-size, hit. I'll post more here once I get a good look at the RC build.

Windows 7: first and second impressions

I've had the Windows 7 beta running on a test machine here for the past month, and the overall impression up to now has been very strong. It's stable, super fast (I'm running a 64-bit version on a two-year-old 8 Gb Core 2 Duo PC) and behaves in general like Vista should have.

That's not to say that I dislike Vista; there's been a lot of knee-jerk criticism of Vista by people who haven't actually worked with it (personally, I've had no problems worth mentioning on three different Vista machines) but Windows 7 does have an extra layer of polish.

User Account Control, for instance, is a lot less obtrusively implemented: no more entering administrator passwords to delete an icon from your desktop. Window management is much improved, and the confusing Vista Explorer windows have been updated with a much cleaner and simpler layout. To be honest, though, the most impressive thing about Windows 7 as far as I'm concerned up to now is just stability and performance: it goes like a train. When was the last time Microsoft released an OS that was faster than its predecessor on the same machine?