Overview The XmlSerializer is an excellent utility to turn your classes into XML and vice versa very very easily. So long as you aren't using it on dynamically generated types, but are repeatedly on the same types, then the XML serializer is quite performant. However, as great as the XmlSerializer is, I’ve found it a pain to debug. You have 2 choices: Look through the XML and find the invalid field Step through every property in the debugger for your class and find the property that is failing Problem When your XML document gets to the point of having hundreds of elements, this b... [More]

The AuthentiX FAQ gives information on how to make AuthentiX the application work with IIS 6 sucessfully, but applying this fix, the site has not worked regardless of the change specified. Since the current version used is out of support, and the client is looking to upgrade to Forms Authentication, I had to make do with the problem. Over the weekend, I had to fix an issue where IIS 6.0, whilst running in IIS 5 Isolation Mode, suddenly (possibly due to a Windows Update) completely crashed IIS, so that it was unusable. IIS 6 kept coming up with the error “The path for the specified directory c... [More]

One of our clients use a 3rd party authentication tool called AuthentiX, which allows directory level authorisation and the use of multiple data sources to be used for IIS. Although ASP.NET has Forms Authentication, AuthentiX has been in use by the client for over 10 years and so co-existence with ASP was required to allow the retrieval of the username. Its usage is quite simple. If the code is executing on your page, they have been authenticated (or have they?) and given access to it. A code snippet of this COM component looks like this: protected void Page_Load(object sender, Event... [More]