Server

Today I tackled upgrading my development server from BizTalk 2006 (Developer Edition) to R2 (Developer Edition). You can read my previous post on installing R2 on a clean machine. Detailed instructions (for all supported install scenarios) can be downloaded from Microsoft Downloads (See below for another link).

Upgrading was extremely easy, and I encountered no errors or warnings. I used the same cab file I downloaded for my clean install, since it was the same platform (Windows Server 2003 32 bit). You need to stop all BizTalk related services, and IIS (this is detailed in the instructions) during the install, and then restart them after the upgrade is finished. There wasn't even a reboot required.

One thing I'd like to point out, is that upon first glance, it looks like you are still running BizTalk 2006. The banner in the admin console doesn't mention R2, there is no new group in start/programs, even though the upgrade process lists an unistall step of BizTalk 2006 and an install of R2, there is no R2 program listed in Add/Remove programs, and the 2006 is still listed. Re-Running the R2 installer gives you options to repair, modify or remove, so the installer seems to think everything is correctly installed.

Not quite convinced I decided to look into this further. There is a registry key, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\BizTalk Server\, which lists versions. I had a sub key for 3.0 and 3.5_Migrated. On my clean install, there is no 3.5_Mirgrated key, the admin console, and Add/Remove programs all list 2006 (not R2), so I guess that's just the way it is. If you are in the admin console and go to Help\About Microsoft BizTalk Server Administration, it lists version 3.6.1404 (compared to version 3.5.1602 before the upgrade). I guess I had an expectation that it would say R2 somewhere.

Another gotcha, is that the new WCF adapters are not installed by default. After the upgrade process, you have to re-run the installer and choose modify. Then you can add the WCF adapters, both under the BizTalk runtime, and admin tool. That goes for any optional component. If it wasn't installed before the upgrade, you have to go in and add it after the fact.

Workstation

Figured now was as good as time as ever to upgrade my workstation (development components) as well. The link I posted above didn't have a guide for installing on Vista, but a quick search found another page on Microsoft Downloads that did have a Vista Guide. I wasn't planning on reading the guide, but I couldn't get the install process to even start under Vista, so figured some trickery might be involved.

The first thing I did was find the redistributable components for Vista, so I could start downloading those while reading the install guide. The link to the components in including in the Technical Appendix in the install guide, and at the time of this post, the direct link is: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=81432, and weigh in around 30MB.

Since I just want the development tools, I skipped to page 21 in the guide, which are where the install instructions start. There was no special steps listed for Vista. I ended up rebooting my computer, and still couldn't get it to start (clicking install BizTalk from the setup screen didn't seem to kick off the msi process). I tried running the msi directly, and got the expected error saying to run setup. So I went back to setup, and this time it worked, weird.

After I actually got the installer running, everything after that was as easy as the server upgrade. I could have appreciated support for VS 2008, but 2005 isn't all that bad. The only time I would notice a difference is if I am working on a class library instead of a BizTalk artifact.