Testing web app on a server?

[John Straumann]

Hi all:
I am working on an ASP.NET application that is running on a Virtual Server
installation of WS 2003. My co-worker wanted to do some testing, so I sent
him a copy of the VPC for him to run locally. However we are hitting a
couple errors:

The project is in C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\Dev\API and after I made a bunch of
changes to the project I zipped up the entire API directory and sent it to
him. Unfortunately when he unzipped the file and replaced his API directory
with the one I sent him, the entire application broke and gave him all kinds
of errors. Strangely, when I unzipped the file on my server, after just
Zipping it up, and replaced my directory it also broke....I also tried just
sending him the ASPX and .CS files that I changed, but that didn't work
either.

Can anyone make a suggestion as to how I can send him the changes? Would we
have to open the project on his server and rebuild it?
The next issue we are seeing is when he tried to test the web forms on the
server, we are seeing strange behavior with text fields not working (i.e. do
not allow input), not being able to get data from text fields, etc., etc. I
added the URL of the web application to the "Trusted Sites" zone, but that
did not seem to help.Can anyone offer a suggestion here? I know testing on a
server is not recommended, but in this case we really don't have a choice.

Thanks for any and all input.

John.

 

[William Niver]

Howdy!

When you send someone a copy of your site to test or publish, send them the
version which is created from right clicking on the project and clicking
"publish website", not your "working files". Make a note of where the files
are stored when you perform this operation.

Yes, you can also have him build the project on his machine. Being
unfamiliar with the project (or the specific error messages you are
recieving), there are likely references, dependencies or possibly even
something registered in the GAC which needs to be present, but which is not.
You can then examine any build errors he is recieving (or debug the
application on your co-workers' machine if it does compile) to find out
exactly why it is failing.

Also, be certain that all the machines are configured to use the same
version of .Net with the site.

In the future, posting the specific errors you are recieving makes it a lot
easier to give you a better answer as to what is likely to be the culprit.

Hope that helps!

(If not, please let us know!)

William