Can Classic ASP pages run in Azure? - asp-classic

I'm looking into Azure and unsure if Classic ASP (i.e. ASP 3.0 with .ASP extensions) can run in Azure?
I found this blog post from January 2009 indicating Classic ASP can NOT be run in Azure. But on this interoperability page it looks like now, other platforms like PHP can be run on Azure. I still see no mention of Classic ASP though.
Can Classic ASP pages run in Azure?

Check this out - http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Cloud+Cover/Cloud-Cover-Episode-31-Startup-Tasks-Elevated-Privileges-and-Classic-ASP, at about 15 minutes in they tell you how to run Classic Asp in Azure
The actual startup command is at 23:51 within the video.
I've tried replicating the code that they have on the show but I get an error - "CloudServices64 : Cannot find file named 'approot\bin\startup.cmd'" for startup task startup.cmd when I try to build the project. Hopefully its just me and you'll have better luck.
To solve the error "CloudService...." - have a look at http://207.46.16.248/en-us/library/gg456327.aspx It tells you that you need set the properties on the file to "copy to output directory" to always

Yes, the instructions for enabling it are here:
http://coderead.wordpress.com/2011/09/20/running-classic-asp-on-azure/

Not yet, but as soon as the new "virtual machine role" becomes available, you'll be able to configure your own virtual server(s) to support classic ASP. No timeline given AFAIK, but "soon" has been mentioned.
These servers will run on the Azure hardware, but they won't run the Azure Guest OS 1.x, so you cannot easily use Azure features like Storage or AppFabric... then again, you might not want to from a classic ASP environment :-)
EDIT: at the time of asking my answer was correct (there was no full IIS available), but a lot has changed, so the answer in 2012 would definitely be "yes", as detailed below.

Nope. You can attempt to get around recoding your ASP pages with something like the ASP Classic Compiler.

Related

Classic ASP, IIS8 & VB6

I was hoping to get some people's expertise as I'm currently outside my main domain. I'm currently working for a client that has an old system written in VB6 COM Objects. They use these to do basic Database interaction. These COM Objects are used in a Classic ASP website.
I've been tasked with getting the site up, running and in a build-able environment (Windows 8.1 is what they want to use).
I've been working through all the blockers associated with this and I believe I have it in a running state (as in I've configured IIS and been able to run the website, log in and click around and so far nothing has crashed).
I can make changes to the code in Visual Studio 6 Enterprise and those changes are working so I'm confident I've got that about 90% of the way there.
I've now got 2 problems both somewhat related:
Problem 1:
Problem 1 is now debugging, both the ASP & the VB code.
I can put a break point in the VB code and 'Step-Into' it (to attach) and then run the site and the code that runs in the global.asa file gets run and hits that breakpoint no worries, can step through as I would expect.
The problem then comes when I go to 'login' to the system. I use the same user/password that works if I'm not 'attached' the system crashes with a "An unhandled exception ('Error in loading DLL') occurred in w3wp.exe [3284]." - If i try to load up a debugger from this Visual Studio 6 is not an option in the list. If I then detach and I can do everything as before.
Does anyone know what could be causing this? Or have another way to be able to debug/step through this?
Problem 2:
They had previously been 'running' the website through Visual InterDev 6.0 - they could add breakpoints to the Classic ASP code and be able to step through then into the VB components.
The problem is that although I can install InterDev on my machine, I can't actually set it up. It appears to need FrontPage Server Extensions which although they can be 'installed' on IIS 8.5 they don't seem to be officially supported by Microsoft. So I've managed to install it without any issues but it doesn't seem to be configured in the same way that InterDev needs it to be able to setup a solution file/run from it.
My Question is this: Has anyone been able to configure FrontPage Server Extensions in a way that InterDev works?
OR is there any other tools I could use to 'run' a Classic ASP site that would allow me to debug it properly.
Let me know if you need any more information.
Thanks in Advance,
Michael
I think you actually don´t need Interdev in order to debug the classic ASP code. Just create a blank solution in Visual Studio and add all the classic ASP files from the virtual directory (editor and debugging capabilities for classic ASP files are still supported, even in the latest version of Visual Studio).
I assume you run the web application in your local IIS... once you have the solution, open the script of interest, put some breakpoints and than attach the Visual Studio debugger to the web server´s worker process (which should be w3wp.exe). Maybe you need to manually select the Script code type (automatic code type detection might not work).

run classic asp without iis

I need to get a classic asp project up and running but do not have IIS installed on my computer. Is there away to run the project without it? I currently have visual studio 2005
thanks
jason
There is something called Abyss Web Server - I've never used it myself so can't vouch for it but from its description and features it looks promising.
If money is the issue, Microsoft came up with IIS Express some while ago which is free to download and use and from this question looks like it's supporting classic ASP as well.
I have no idea whether you can even get hold of this software anymore but Sun used to maintain a project called Sun One Active Server Pages (aka ChilliSoft ASP) which allowed you to run ASP sites without IIS
There may be some weird and wacky solutions (like a "compiler" to ASP.NET etc) out there, however I really doubt any such thing would be worth it.
I would make more sense to pursue the answer to this question: "Why don't you install IIS on your machine?".
godaddy.
$5/month until you cancel it.
instant gratification
call them now, and then start building your asp app a few hours later.
why hassle with the path you are inclining towards?

Converting asp.net/VB website membership from 2.0 to 3.5

We had a working website built on framework 2.0 with membership. After we converted it to framework 3.5 using the Visual Studio automated conversion mechanism by opening it in Visual Studio 2008 and following the prompts, the membership system is now broken. Dammit, all we wanted was some newer AJAX.
The rest of the site appears to be functioning fine, but when it comes to logging in or managing security on the site, it fails.
So the errors we receive when trying to manage security via the built-in admin pages, seem pseudorandom; everything from 'user cannot log in to database' to 'this file is being used by another process' to 'there's a problem with your datastore'.
What sort of datastore are you using? SQL Express MDF file in your App_Data folder? External SQL Server? Did you change anything in web.config?
So far as I know, there were no real changes to Membership features between 2.0 and 3.5... I think you've got something else going on.
You can rollback your changes and test the old system, right?
Thanks Bryan for your response, but this turned out to be a complete disaster and it's something I would NEVER do again. I just came back to say this to anyone who tries it in the future: "You just made a very bad mistake."
Yes, we ended up rolling back, if that's what you call it when you have to re-get everything from SourceSafe to a completely new directory because there is no auto-rollback feature with the framework conversion, only a backup folder that has been screwed with and dumped into another folder and will never work again because all references are now broken and the web.config has a bunch of illegal entries, and the IIS metabase ended up corrupted, and intermittent database locking caused permissions to be wiped, and around 15 or 20 other problems.... there is no solution to this issue. Not really.
Of course I've personally updated many projects using the Visual Studio upgrade system. But never a website, and never one this complex. And now, never again. :-)

Will running aspnet_regiis.exe -ir create any problems?

I've asked a question about changing the version of .Net sites in the IIS. If it affects classic asp sites etc (See Does asp.net setting affect classic asp (IIS 6 settings))
And that seems fine. So my follow-up question is, will running this command get me fired? What it does is changing the default value (and all existing?) of the .net version to 2.0.
This wont affect any of the .net sites since they're allready versioned to 2.0.
The classic asp pages needs to get its app pools updated so its functionoal with 2.0 but may I run into any other troubles?
I've tried doing this on a test environment and no sites whet down during the installation period (from the command) but I did not have any classic asp sites or any .net sites running though (which I should test, come to think about it) but may something else break?
Is this command doing anything else? We have some very large sites running and we cannot have downtime periods so I need to be 100% sure that this command is safe. Since all sites go down everytime we change a new sites .net version number we need to get this fix live asap.
Any good ideas?
This should not cause any side affect as it relates to what the IIS does with .NET pages (e.g. aspx extensions).
Since the classic asp pages are not handled by the .NET extensions in the IIS I can see no reason to worry.
EDIT:
According to MSDN you can use an option
-norestart - inhibits the restart of the World Wide Web Publishing Service after installing or updating ASP.NET script maps. If you do not use this option, all application pools are recycled.
so you can see from that application pools will be recycled.
long time since I asked, but Dror, thanks for your edit. I'll be sure to try it.
I actually found a solution to this problem some months ago.
You can export a sites configuration, and you get a XML file, edit this file and set the site name etc to something (like dev1). Then you import this and you got yourself a new site with .net pre-configured. Just make sure you change the name and other things that cannot be the same as another site (like host things, cant remember exactly what parameters there were) because that would cause a problem I guess.
Happy iising

Is there a small classic ASP server like ASP.NET Development server that comes with Visual Studio?

I would like to hear if there is a small classic ASP server, similar to the ASP.NET Development server that comes with Visual Studio?
We are a small group that supports a legacy (classic) ASP site, and would therefore like to have a small server that easily can be executed on a Windows XP machine. Currently we're stuck with IIS 5.1 on our development machines (and because we're running XP Pro, we cannot update to IIS 6 or 7).
I've tried installing the Cassini web server, but that doesn't seem to work with classic ASP either.
You're not going to get anything extra from ASP by running on IIS 6 or 7. Are you having any specific issues with being stuck on IIS 5.1?
Have you tried Baby Web Server? - http://www.pablosoftwaresolutions.com/html/baby_web_server.html
The short answer is No, there is no small web server that runs classic ASP. There are many alternatives, as mentioned here, such as IIS or Apache plug-ins, but none that has a similar small footprint like the ASP.NET Development Server that comes with Visual Studio and that supports debugging.
There is a small footprint web server that runs Classic ASP.
Its called Abyss Web server. Abyss Web server is produced by Aprelium software and can be downloaded free of charge. Abyss Web server can be configured to run with ASP.net OR Classic ASP.
The Server can be configured to run ASP.net without any addition downloads.
To run Classic ASP on the server a program called ActiveHTML written by Selisoft must be downloaded and configured to allow Classic ASP to run on the Abyss web server. Active HTML is on a 45 day free trial and if you like it the purchase price is currently around 30 to 40 euros depending on whether you need a client or server version.
Hope this helps.
Anthony
Abyss web server http://www.aprelium.com/ supports classic ASP (also ASP.Net, Ruby, and PHP) with a 3rd party extension that cost $$$. But at one point there was a free version of the third party component, you MIGHT be able to find a copy of that still floating around. Not sure about debugging.
Baby ASP Web Server can take care of things for you, PLUS you don't have to install it, so it doesn't plop all sorts of crazy settings into your registry.
Get it here
Your only real choice is to either run Windows server or Vista in order to get the latest version of IIS.
Cassini doesn't support classic asp.
According to this post it is not possible to run ASP on Cassini. A couple of google searches later I have still not been able to find any other alternatives either.
What functionality is it that you're after? If it is the quick-and-easy running features of VS, you can quite easily make the IDE debug on IIS (although ASP cannot technically be "debugged" - what you really do is just run it with the Ctrl+F5 command).
Here is a web site that allows you to run classic ASP pages from any web server (including IIS and Apache), but it costs money:
http://www.selisoft.com/en/ahtml/index.phtml

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