.NET From India

Windows Feedback Program

Microsoft seems to have started a new program aimed at the end users (most of the developer related interactions seems to now be concentrated at Connect), so I am assuming this is more for the end consumers and widespread feedback loop.

If you are a XP or Vista user and agree to answer surveys and also let MS collect usage information from your PC, you can get some free MS softwares.

You can sign up at http://wfp.microsoft.com/. Do note you need to sign up for both the programs to be eligible to get the free products (Restricted to US only and for XP and Vista OSes only). Also for the second part, you will have to download and install an App that will collect and send information to MS automatically (Ahh, when will the Trolls on the secret data collection technology of MS start??)

As per the site the following are the list of software avaialble for distribution free for particpants:

Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate (32-bit and 64-bit DVD)
Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007
Microsoft Money Plus Premium
Microsoft Student with Encarta Premium 2008
Microsoft Streets and Trips 2008

DivX Pro Free Offer is Back..

For a limited time DivX is offering the Pro version of their software for free for the holidays. Use the link below to get your copy. (email id required for registration)

DivX Pro Free

Reporting Services 64-bit Gotcha

I was developing a set of reports on a x64 machine running Win2K3 64 and SQL 64. The database that was used to get the data was Sybase. After a little bit of research, I decided that I would use the Sybase drivers that are provided by Sybase, rather than the OLEDB drivers. So I set up the drivers, create the reports and everything is fine. The preview works fine; I fine-tune the report and then deploy it.

Access the deployed reports and it give an error that the data source is not available. Come back to BIDS (Business Intelligence Development Studio) and try it, the report works. After a few times of redeploying the server etc, I went and checked the data source in the ODBC Manager and surprise!! No Data source definition.

Then it remembered, there is only a 32-bit version of BIDS (I had created the data source from inside BIDS). So I go and check in the 32-bit ODBC Manager and there is the data source. Sybase has two different client driver packs, one for the 32-bit and one for the 64-bit world. So I go ahead and install the 64-bit version, setup the ODBC connection and change the Datasource in the Reports server. The reports start working fine.

So, if you are developing and deploying on the same 64-bit machine, remember that the drivers used by BIDS and Reporting Services can be different.