BizTalk 2006 R2 - 2 Oct, Microsoft Bryanston

OCS - 13 Nov, Vodaworld

This past week I battled to install MSCRM for almost 6 hours. I've done countless and fought every problem so believe me when I say this is such an odd event in my life now days that it actually is enjoyable trying to find out the problem. Now normal MSCRM install issues happen either at the environmental diagnostic wizard stage, or during the actual install. This happened much earlier, in fact when I tried to add a license key. When Adding the key and hitting add I got  a dialog saying:

The specified license is invalid.

For additional details see logfile C:\Documents and Settings\XXX\Application Data\Microsoft\MSCRM\Logs\crm30svrsetup.log.

Odd, but maybe it is wrong. I try it a few times and think well I'll pop on my trust 90 day trial to get up and running and deal with Microsoft on issuing a new key. Guess what he trial key failed too.

I'm not posting this on my IW blog (see right bar) because it's more than a MSCRM issue, because then I thought maybe something in the OS is wrong so lets install all the patches and reboot. One of the patches was Internet Explorer 7 which also refused to install with an error: Setup could not verify the integrity of the installation files. Make sure the Cryptographic service is running on this computer.

What now? I tried numerous articles and suggestions gleamed from the Internet including a monster (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/822798) on from Microsoft which has reinstall Windows as an option listed (no I didn't do that, this box is running other applications just fine). But from what I learnt is that all Microsoft software is digitally signed but if something goes wrong with the certificates on the machine then it's borks the installation of those applications. MSCRM in my mind had the same problem since (I guess) it uses the digital certif to do the CRC (or similar) check on the key I used.

What was interesting was all the certificates were 100% fine, but if I right clicked on the MSCRM install MSI file and checked it kept saying the certificate had been revoked. Odd? Since it's not revoked on my machine or any other machine. And if Microsoft revoked a certificate like this why don't I know, hell, why are they still shipping IE with it? Something must be wrong.

What I found was a rouge revoked certificate had been installed, where it came from I do not know but it was there. To remove it I opened IE 6, went to the Tools Menu -> Internet Options. Then on the Content tab clicked Certificates, and on the last tab (Untrusted Publishers) I was able to see the rogue certificate and remove it. After that all installed ok.

Now just a side thought round this, but Microsoft recommends digitally signing all software. So if I was an anti-virus company or security company that took this serious I would not only sign the install of the software but the runtimes and update definitions. The downside is that if a virus/trojen could install a revoked certificate (not sure what privileges you need on XP, but I guess this is a UAC controlled operation on Vista) then it could bork all your security. Scary how 1 file can do that.

Update 13 Feb 2008: Trust me to have the wrong link for the monster article, then send it to a client as the solution to there problem. DOH! Fixed now.

Book 3 is now up on DeviantArt, this time is is Pinky and the Brain!

You may have noticed this week has been exceptionally quiet, well thats been for two reasons. This past weekend I fell horribly ill. Ill like I actually went to a doctor (only the second time in 6 years) and was flat on my back in bed for all of the weekend and haven't really felt myself until Tuesday night. In addition to that I hit my cap on the MTN 3G the company provides so not quick posts from work have been possible. Anyway things should get back to normal next week.

All the shiny details on whats in it at http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/windowsvista/pages/windows-vista-service-pack-1-beta-whitepaper.aspx

Some highlights:

• DirectX 10.1 support
• Bitlock any drive
• Approx 1Gb in file size!
• New file system support for flash drives (exFat)
• Lots and lots of performance improvements
• For the MSCRM followers a big one is improvements in JavaScript speed in IE 7 on Vista
• Reliability (improved can't really be used here )

 All this goodness Q1 2008 (According to the team blog )

Being bored is part of life, and as people we try our best to avoid it. When bored we do things like play Solitaire, send gifts on facebook, or blog  to try avoid it. Well I say no more, from now on embrace boredom, make it a part of your life, when bored tell the world your bored, and do it with Twitter.

Twitter is a smart and simple idea: Simply put, in a 140 letters or less, answer the question: What are you doing right now?

It's great fun, and easy to do, and makes you really transparent (more so than boggling can).

If you feel like following me, you can at http://twitter.com/rmaclean

Follow up to the Dr Cox piece: I want to be Van Wilder

Suddenly today both outlook and word decided to start giving a new error message when I tried to launch: "could not create the work file. check the temp environment variable". After hitting OK it would launch. This is an odd one, and I am not sure of the cause (I have a theory I'll ponder below) but the solution was to run a check disk (chkdsk c: /F). Which fixed it nicely. I saw a number of security descriptor (AFAIK it was that, not an MCSE here) issues during the chkdsk, so I suspect something got corrupted.

The cause of the corruption may have been that over the weekend the IT team where I worked migrated everyone to a new domain via profile copy (doubt thats it) and deactivated UAC on the Vista users (think thats it). I am a UAC fan and turned it on again (using the msconfig tool) this morning and I think somewhere between being non-UAC admin and UAC admin the security catalog got confused causing the error. Just my pondering and I have no proof or way to test it (or interest in trying to get it to happen again) so take it with the pinch (handful, bucket, truck) of salt as needed.

My employer, the i5 Group (www.i5.co.za), won the Microsoft ISV partner of the year at Saturdays gala event

This was for the work done around the Rezonance product brand which I have had significant interaction with, so this means a lot for me. It's also a huge surprise for me since the South African ISV market is very strong (thinking of the K2 guys).

Well done to everyone involved!!

Through my experiences with software development a lot of time how good (polished) a software looks is almost as important as if it works well. It seems easier to get people to grant an extension on that deadline if the software looks good. A key point for any development on Windows (and in my main area Microsoft CRM) is icons. Be them for tool bars, menus, start menus or (in MSCRM) entities and ISV.Config changes good icons are a must.

To date I've collected around 11000 and sometimes never have the right one but it's a good collection to have and build from. I do share these with my coworkers but a lot of the time they ask me where I get them from so I have decided to share some of the places I got them from.

This is all inspired by the great set of 105 icons released today Sekkyumu so the first item is hers, but these are in no real order. If I can think of anything special about the site I will put it in but some places I just found some icons there. All these sites have free icons available and most also have paid for icons. I do recommend supporting these guys by buying (or getting your customers) to buy icons from them if you use them alot.

• Developper Icons by Sekkyumu - DeviantArt is also a great place in general to search.
• IconKits - These guys have some great free ones and there is a points system (each month you get a point and if you recommend someone you get points) which enables access to more icons.
• Evraldo.com
• GlyphLab - I got exposed to these guys when they bundled their icons with Delphi 2005, which still beats the pants off of the ones that ship with Visual Studio.
• FastIcon
• Icon Experience
• FamFamFam - Of all the icons I have their Silk ones (and there is over a thousand in the set) have graced more MSCRM deployments than any others.