IIS Tips & Tricks # 2: Set Default page for a website in IIS

                         In few websites, if we type the website name, (like www.someurl.com) it will automatically loaded the page www.someurl.com/index.aspx . This is because of the setting of the “Default Document” feature of IIS. 

                           In this post we are going to discuss about this feature of IIS.

1. Open IIS, by type the command “inetmgr” in Run window.
2. Select “Default Document” and click.
3. In the feature view, we can see some type of Document orderly kept.

Default Document - Feature View

          The top most had the high priority and the last one had least priority.
As per the above figure, the document “Default.htm” had the high priority, the file “Default.aspx” had the lowest priority. Which means whenever the user types a url (like www.someurl.com) then IIS look any one of the file exist in the above order on that Virtual Directory. If it finds any one of the file, it will load that page.

         IIS also allow, add/remove the custom default document per website. For example if we are specify a page (say home.htm) as the default document which does not exist in the website then IIS will look into that website and Alert the user as shown below, which explicitly state that that each time when we type the url IIS will look in that order. 

Add Custom Default Document

            So as per the alert, it is advisable to move the default document at the top level, which will increase the performance in the sense IIS can avoid to go further down in the list.

Readers, do you have any other tip, please comment me.

Hope this helps!

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Visual Studio Tips & Tricks: 5 - Hexa Decimal values displayed during Debug the application

                  Recently, I had a wired problem in Visual studio. In this post i’m going to discuss about it. The problem is, when I try to debug my application in Visual Studio 2010, the values are displayed in Hexadecimal format. Please take a look into the below picture.

Values of Variable Displayed in Hexa Decimal Format

The reason is somehow the “Hexadecimal Display” option has been checked in the “Watch” window.

“Hexadecimal Display” option in Watch Window

So that all the values are displayed in Hexadecimal form in watch window too.

So just disable the “Hexadecimal Display” in the watch window’s float menu. The display will correctly display in the decimal form.

Values of Variable Displayed in Decimal Format

Hope this helps someone!

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VB.Net : A Word about “Nothing”!

                              It’s a common misunderstand of a new programmer in vb.net about the keyword “Nothing”. The main purpose of this keyword is set the default value for an variable type. For example,the default value  for  the  Boolean type variable is “False”. In some cases, we may want to set the default value of that type of the variable. At that time, Nothing keyword comes into picture.

Protected Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
        Dim strString As String = "Sample String"
        Dim intVar As Integer = 100
        Dim decVar As Decimal = 100.01
        Dim dblVar As Double = 100.233
        Dim blnVar As Boolean = True
        ' Set the variable's Default value by using Nothing 
        strString = Nothing
        intVar = Nothing
        decVar = Nothing
        dblVar = Nothing
        blnVar = Nothing
        lblResult.Text = "Default value of String variable: " & strString & vbCrLf & _
                        "Default value of Integer variable: " & intVar & vbCrLf & _
                        "Default value of Decimal variable: " & decVar & vbCrLf & _
                        "Default value of Double variable: " & dblVar & vbCrLf & _
                        "Default value of Boolean variable: " & blnVar & vbCrLf

    End Sub

Just copy the above code under the Button's click event. Hope this hepls a bit!

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VB.Net ByRef Variable : A Small Warning

In VB.Net, programmers often used the variable by reference using the keyword ByRef. Normally, reference variables not copied like Value type variables. There are some scenarios arise to use or pass a variable as reference to another function/subroutine and change them within the function/subroutine.

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Create Virtual Directory in IIS

                  In previous posts I have explained how to create a virtual directory from Visual Studio.
In this post I’m going to tell how to create a virtual directory in IIS.
What is Virtual Directory?:
Virtual directory meant that, it is a mapping between the actual web application files and IIS. That is we map the website files to the IIS in Virtual Directory. If you see in IIS, it look like a directory but it actually points the exact web application path.
Create Virtual Directory:
Here I’m going to create a virtual directory in IIS for the web application which is located in the path :
“G:\DotNetExamples\AllInOne”.
Step 1:
Open IIS. To open IIS, press windows key + R key, which opens “Run” window and type “inetmgr” and press enter, which opens the IIS.

Step 2:
In IIS, Right click on the “Default Web Site” and select the “Add Application” in the float menu.

Step 3:
In this “Add Application” window, we need to specify the “Virtual Directory” name and the physical directory where the actual web site files are located. Leave the application pool as is. Click OK.

Step 4:
Now the Virtual Directory has been created under the “Default Web Site”. To test the application Right click the virtual directory and choose “Manage Application à Browse” which will open the application in the respective default browser.

Hope this helps!

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