The pre-requisites are:

- Visual Studio .Net Codename “Orcas” beta 1 Standard, Professional or Team Suite edition.

note: The Visual Web Developer Express Codename “Orcas” edition will work as well but the experience is not optimal.

- .Net Framework 3.5 (Pre-Release version)

- Sql Server 2005 database

- Microsoft Codename “Astoria” May 2007 CTP

- Virtual Pc or Virtual Server 2005 R2 (if you are going to set up a virtual machine )

1. Visual Studio .Net Codename “Orcas” Bèta 1

For this it’s up to you to decide on which way to go. You can either download the bèta software and install it directly on your machine or install it as a virtual machine.

Since most of the software isn’t final yet I prefer to install it as a virtual machine. So I downloaded the VSCTPBASE file which is a pre-installed virtual machine by Microsoft you can use for testing purposes. The advantage is that you can re-use this image becuase it’s set up in such a way that it contains the basic needs for a virtual machine and you can install it together with other images that contain the specific technologies that you want. In this Case I downloaded the Visual Studio .Net Codename “Orcas” Bèta 1 Team Suite VPC. This is download is seperated in 9 files you can merge after download.

Tip: Use a download manager to download all these files because I’ve lost connection a lot during the downloads.

Okay when you’ve downloaded the files you can get working:

- Extract the base image (VSCTPBASE.exe) to a folder of your choice. I took D:\VM’s\Base.
- Extract the 9 files containing the bèta vs.net. For this I took D:\VM’s\vsnet orcas beta 1
- Create a new folder Astoria Environment. I picked D:\VM’s\Astoria Environment
- Copy the files from step 1 and 2 into the newly created folder. This way you won’t mess up the images in step 1 and 2 and it enables you to use them again if you want to test something else in another vm.

Issues with Differencing Disks (I’m using Virtual Server 2005 R2)
The Orcas image is a differencing disk which means that it needs a base disk to operate properly. The problem lies in the fact that the differencing disk has got it’s base disk hardcoded in the configuration and thus probably cannot find the base image because the paths you are using will differ from the ones the creator of the images was using. You should change that path using the configuration of the differencing disk

When starting the virtual machine for the first time you will probably run in the same problem as I did. What the hell is the user’s password ??? Well this is mentioned on the download pages of the images.

<<TODO insert image of MSDN download page showing login passwords>>

Finally it might be a good idea of installing the Virtual Machine addon for an optimal experience. To do this follow these steps:

- Log into the Guest Os.
- Go to the administrator site.
- Go to the configuration page of the virtual machine.

- Click on the Virtual Machine Additions.
- In the new screen you check the “Install Virtual Machine Additions” and press OK. (remember that the vm must be running.)

Okay now you are logged in and it you can proceed to part 2 of the installation. The .net framework 3.5 installation.

2. .Net Framework 3.5 Pre-Release installation

If you are using the virtual machines like I do you can skip this step because the .Net Framework 3.5 Pre-Release is already installed in the image.

If you are installing it directly onto your machine it shouldn’t be more than just executing the installer.

3. Microsoft Codename Astoria

Finally the “fun stuff” installing astoria. This shouldn’t be too difficult because it’s just a MSI.

1. Execute the installer file and check the License Agreement checkbox of course.

2. Press the install button and the installation will begin and after installation press the Finish button.

Well euhm to be honest, that’s it… really the effort worthy to write an article about it eh?

Okay maybe 1 last thing, check if it’s installed correctly:

If you need to install the northwind database you can download it from MSDN

& wmv & zune

Silverlight video

One announcement in particular caught my eye it was the project codenamed Astoria . Astoria is a technology that will expose a data store through an ADO.NET Entity model using HTTP as transport technology.
It’s called a data service which can be consumed by web clients. The advantage is the HTTP protocol that is being used. This means that everywhere where you can access the internet you can also access the data service. It will pass through proxies, firewalls and so on…

Another nice thing about it is that Astoria not only allows “Read” functionality using the HTTP GET verb, but also “Create” using HTTP POST, “Update” using HTTP PUT and finally “Delete” using HTTP DELETE.

There are 3 formats in which the data is being sent over the wire:

- XML
- RDF & XML
-JSON

The main target groups are the “new” web technologies, like SilverLight & AJAX, but you can also use it in regular desktop applications. All you need is an internet connection.

Currently they released a first CTP that is meant to give you an idea on how they see the concept of Data Services. You can download it already at the site http://astoria.mslivelabs.com . There are some other downloads as well as an online service that demos the technology in a limited form (only reading is possible).

Some links to get you started:

Whitepapers: http://astoria.mslivelabs.com/resources.aspx
Downloads: http://astoria.mslivelabs.com/downloads.aspx

FAQ: http://astoria.mslivelabs.com/faq.aspx

I’m currently busy downloading the prerequisits like the Visual Studio .Net “Orcas” bèta 1. I’m downloading the VCP images.