Whidbey Beta 2 hosting

As you know Whidbey Beta 2 is about to be released - just a few more days to go - and it will have a "GO LIve" license just like .NET 1.0 had. This essentially allows you to publicly and commercially deploy solutions built with Beta 2 under certain conditions (mainly, that you dont redist .NET 2.0 framework runtime - your users get it from MS, and that you buy the full version once it is RTM).

Now, a LARGE part of what I do with .NET is web development. My current hosting company has denied my request to install .NET 2.0 beta runtime on the servers as it would be unstable. A lot of other hosts turned me down too saying if I wanted to run such software I need to buy a dedicated server (which runs to a minimum of $200 a month!).

Does anyone know a hosting company that will allow .NET 2.0 BETA hosting on their shared plans?

www.discountasp.net looks promising but they've NOT committed to installing beta 2.

Webhost4Life actually offered ASP.NET 2.0 beta 1 before they were forced to remove it. I have a feeling they may add it now that they legally can, although they haven't said anything about it to my knowledge.

http://www.webhost4life.com

Does anyone know the exact date yet, or is this all still up in the air?

I talked to WebHost4life and about 4 others who are saying a decision will be made AFTER Beta 2 is released.

I'm being told by some VERY reliable sources that Beta 2 will be released before the weekend.

Wouldn't that also imply that a CTP of Avalon/Indigo is not far off, seing as how MS promised that one would be released that is in synch with Beta 2? Any word from your source if the Express SKU's will be available at the same time as Whidbey Beta 2?

From what I know (through a series of unfortunate uninstalls and reinstalls), the currently available Avalon/Indigo CTP available to MSDN Universal Subscribers requires VS .net 2005 Beta 2 to be installed to work with VS. Beta 1 DOES NOT WORK WITH IT! At least not on any of my test systems.

I get all software via MSDN subscriptions so I'm not too aware of the public releases. Though I think the Express editions will be released publicly (not sure!) along with the MSDN Sub only release of Beta 2.

I'd install .NET 2.0 and let you host on my friends and my server but it messes up the .TEXT installation. Believe me, i've tried before.

Try removing ASP.net 2.0 permissions from the IIS MMC. I did that when some beta features collided with existing applications. You can choose to NOT execute a particular framework version for selected IIS apps.

I believe orcsweb (http://www.orcsweb.com/) are going to support BETA 2 - at least that is what they led me to believe in previous email exchanges.

Ian

IanBlackburn wrote:

I believe orcsweb (http://www.orcsweb.com/) are going to support BETA 2 - at least that is what they led me to believe in previous email exchanges.

Ian

Well, they might. But the prices are unbelievable, imo.

My current blog is hosted on a win2003 system with asp.net, 1GB space, 1 domain name, unlimited traffic and more. Price: 10 Euro (~ 14 US$) a month.

Come on, this seems to me like usury......

EDIT: The components are nice though, but I don't really need them.

Stitch 2.0 wrote:

My current blog is hosted on a win2003 system with asp.net, 1GB space, 1 domain name, unlimited traffic and more. Price: 10 Euro (~ 14 US$) a month.

Who's your host?

A german company called domainbox (www.domainbox.de).

But the offer I use isn't available anymore.
The comparable offer would be Windows.3:

DomainBox wrote:

- Windows 2003 Hosting
- Incl. own domain
- 1000 MB webspace
- 1000 Email Accounts
- 300 Subdomains
- ASP and ASP.NET 1.1
- MS SQL DB with 400 MB
- FTP access
- Frontpage extensions
- Site statistics
- Own error pages

The package is 16 Euro (~ 20 US$) a month

Looks interesting. Damn I wish my German was better, though.

Windows.2 would prolly be sufficient for my needs. You're running dasblog on it right?

Yep, If you like I could translate some of the page for you.... not too much though

nukeation wrote:

From what I know (through a series of unfortunate uninstalls and reinstalls), the currently available Avalon/Indigo CTP available to MSDN Universal Subscribers requires VS .net 2005 Beta 2 to be installed to work with VS. Beta 1 DOES NOT WORK WITH IT! At least not on any of my test systems.

I get all software via MSDN subscriptions so I'm not too aware of the public releases. Though I think the Express editions will be released publicly (not sure!) along with the MSDN Sub only release of Beta 2.

Actually, the CTP states that Beta 2 is required, but in fact Microsoft employee's have confirmed that the current drop of the CTP will not be compatible with Beta 2 of Visual Studio 2005. They stated that another CTP will be dropped in synch with Beta 2.

I guess this is the side-effect of Microsoft releasing beta and pre-beta products. They need to focus on the actual product (not making the geeks happy by giving them betas) and the beta and CTP versions sometimes (if not often) have clashes and problems.

Oh well, betas are better than nothing till RTM - which was the case not many years ago. I'm still happy to wait a day or two more for VS2005 Beta 2.

Btw, the best hosting I've seen so far is webhost4life.com - or so it seems - unlimited bandwidth - not THAT I like. Anyone ever used them? I'd love to hear from OUTSIDE the company if they are good enough. I'm definetely gonna try 'em out if they put beta 2 up.

nukeation wrote:

I guess this is the side-effect of Microsoft releasing beta and pre-beta products. They need to focus on the actual product (not making the geeks happy by giving them betas) and the beta and CTP versions sometimes (if not often) have clashes and problems.

Actually, I think that CTP's and Beta's help Microsoft to focus on the actual product. I'm sure a Microsoft employee will soon chime in about how the CTP's have allowed early adopters to experiment and voice feedback, changing features and the course of development for the better. Releasing such previews allows the product to better fit the customers product.

Hearing what a customer thinks about a feature, and how they think it should be done and why is a good piece of information if you ask me...

Edit: If you check the WinFX newsgroups, you will find that anytime someone asks about a feature and if it can work a different way, there is always a Microsoft employee asking "Can you explain a scenario in which this behaviour would work better for you?"

Oh, I don't doubt that at all. In fact, I've been very active for a long time in providing feedback and taking user studies and all that sort of stuff. My comments were merely pointing out that sometimes even Microsoft's (one of the most powerful planning companies) plans don't sync perfectly all the time.

I don't think VS2005 and Longhorn would be as good as they are (or rather will be) without all the feedback from the actual users. In fact, I remember my ISV buddy telling me (I'm paraphrasing here) "We like good feedback, but we love bad feedback/complaints even more." - very true, wouldn't you say?