Welcome to the Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) Line of Business (LOB) Adapter SDK installation and configuration guide.

About the WCF LOB Adapter SDK

The WCF LOB Adapter SDK is a collection of run-time engine and tools that help adapter developers create service-oriented interfaces to existing LOB systems by using WCF. The goal of the SDK is to facilitate uniform development of reusable, metadata-oriented, WCF-based adapters that enable enterprise applications, databases, and messaging platforms to integrate with each other.

This SDK is based on WCF, and it surfaces an adapter to an LOB system as a WCF binding. For an adapter consumer, the adapter can be accessed like a typical WCF service; the consumer does not have to learn a new programming model. The same adapter developed can be reused in multiple .NET applications including custom .NET applications, Microsoft® BizTalk® Server 2006 R2, Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007 SP1, and Microsoft SQL Server™ Integration Services (SSIS) through adapter developer provided ADO.NET shim. In addition, the adapter provides metadata browse, search, and retrieval functionality for the adapter consumer to selectively generate WCF contracts that reflect live type modeling of the LOB system.

System Requirements

To install the WCF LOB Adapter SDK, you need a computer that meets the following requirements:

  • Supported platforms: x86-based and x64-based

  • Supported operating systems: Microsoft Windows Server® 2003 SP1 or later; Windows Vista®; and Windows® XP SP2

  • Processor: 1.6 GHz Pentium III or greater

  • RAM: 1 gigabyte (GB) of available physical RAM (The amount of physical RAM depends on what applications are running on the client computer. You can use Task Manager to identify how much physical RAM is available on your computer.)

Software Prerequisites

Make sure you have the following components installed on the system where you will install the WCF LOB Adapter SDK:

  • Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0

  • Microsoft Visual Studio® 2005

    Note
    You need this only if you want to either build custom adapters or develop solutions that use the adapters built by using the WCF LOB Adapter SDK.

    Note
    You need Visual Studio 2005 SP1 if the user wants to use the adapters within Web, Web service, or WCF projects (that is, the projects that use Web.Config). For more information, see the "Known Issues" section of the WCF LOB Adapter SDK documentation.

  • BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Beta 2 or later

    Note
    You need this only if you want to use the adapters with BizTalk Server.

Installing the WCF LOB Adapter SDK

After ensuring that you have the necessary software prerequisites installed, you must also do the following before installing the WCF LOB Adapter SDK:

  • Remove any previous installations of the Microsoft BizTalk Adapter Pack from your computer.

  • Remove any custom adapters built using prerelease versions of the WCF LOB Adapter SDK, using these instructions.

  • If you have installed prerelease versions of the WCF LOB Adapter SDK, you must remove the previous version by using Add or Remove Programs.

  • Ensure that Visual Studio 2005 is not running. If it is running, close it before proceeding with the installation steps.

  • If you choose the Complete setup type, ensure that BizTalk Server 2006 R2 is installed on the computer.

To install the WCF LOB Adapter SDK

  1. Download the setup files from the Microsoft Download Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=96184 to a temporary location on your computer.

  2. To start the installation wizard, navigate to the folder containing the setup files and click AdapterFramework.msi (for an x86-based platform) or AdapterFramework64.msi (for an x64-based platform).

  3. On the Welcome screen, click Next.

  4. If you accept the license agreement, click Next.

  5. In the Choose Setup Type dialog box, select the type of installation you want:

    • To install the runtime and tools, click Typical.

    • To select the features that you want to install and the installation location, select Custom.

      To install the base WCF LOB Adapter SDK runtime features, select Runtime.

      To install the WCF LOB Adapter SDK development tools including the Adapter Development Wizard, Visual Studio Plug-in for generating a .NET Proxy (Add Adapter Service Reference Plug-in) and Visual Studio Plug-in for generating XML Schemas in a BizTalk Project (Consume Adapter Service Reference), select Tools.

      To install the sample Contoso and Echo adapters, select Samples.

    • To install all the features, click Complete.

  6. Click Install.

  7. Specify whether you want to get automatic updates for updates related to the WCF LOB Adapter SDK.
Note
If you have other applications running during the installation, the Microsoft Update dialog box may disappear to the back of all the applications. It appears that the setup is still continuing, when it is actually waiting for you to make a choice. To remedy this, minimize other open applications and then select the running Setup process to make a choice in the dialog box.

  1. To keep the WCF LOB Adapter SDK updated, select Use Microsoft Update when I check for updates (recommended).

  2. Click OK, and then click Finish.

Post-Installation Instructions

For important notices and information about the release, see the Readme document.

To learn more about the WCF LOB Adapter SDK, use the Help file available in {Install Folder}\Documents\WCFLOBAdapterSDK.chm.

To modify the WCF LOB Adapter SDK

  1. Click Start, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel.

  2. In Control Panel, click Add or Remove Programs.

  3. In the Add or Remove Programs utility, select Windows Communication Foundation LOB Adapter SDK, and then click Change.

  4. On the Welcome screen, click Next.

  5. In the Change, repair, or remove installation dialog box, do one of the following:

    • To select the components that you want to install, click Change.

    • To repair errors in the most recent installation, click Repair.

    • To remove the WCF LOB Adapter SDK from the computer, click Remove.

  6. If you choose to modify the installation:

    • Click Next.

    • Click Change, and then click Finish.

  7. If you choose to repair the installation, in the Ready to repair WCF LOB Adapter SDK dialog box, click Repair, and then click Finish.

  8. If you choose to remove the adapters, in the Ready to remove WCF LOB Adapter SDK dialog box, click Remove, and then click Finish.
To remove the WCF LOB Adapter SDK

  1. Click Start, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel.

  2. In Control Panel, click Add or Remove Programs.

  3. In the Add or Remove Programs utility, select Windows Communication Foundation LOB Adapter SDK, and then click Remove.

  4. In the dialog box, click Yes.

If you have developed any custom adapters using the WCF LOB Adapter SDK, and you have registered these adapters on your computer, you must also complete the following procedure.

To remove custom adapters after uninstalling the WCF LOB Adapter SDK

  1. Remove the custom adapter from the global assembly cache (GAC).

    • Open a Visual Studio 2005 command prompt.

    • Remove the custom adapter .dll from the GAC using command gacutil /u.

  2. Remove the references to the custom adapter binding from machine.config

    • Navigate to the machine.config file under <system drive>:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\<version>\CONFIG

    • Open the file by using a text editor.

    • Search for the element bindingExtensions, client and bindingElementExtensions under system.serviceModel\extensions.

    • Remove the WCF binding that pertains to your custom adapter.
To provide feedback to Microsoft about the WCF LOB Adapter SDK

  1. To submit feedback, click the following URL: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=96185.

  2. Sign in using your Windows Live ID or Microsoft Passport Account.

  3. Select Feedback in the left pane. On the page, click Submit Feedback.

  4. Search “Feedback” to see if the issue has already been submitted. If you find an issue similar to your own, you can validate and/or vote on the issue to increase its visibility. Otherwise, continue to the next step.

  5. Click Submit Feedback found beneath the search results table.

  6. Fill out the feedback form and then click Submit.

    Note
    You can also submit questions and feedback at this community-based forum.

Copyright

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