We're going to create a Flash swf, running from a web browser, which communicates with an Access database via ASP.NET over IIS, on a WinXP Pro Service Pack 2 laptop. If you don't know some of those terms, or have heard of them but never used them, this tutorial is for you!

This is not intended to be a robust chatroom application, nor is it even intended to show off good coding technique. For that matter, it's not even intended to be used, period, except to serve as a basic primer on the various technologies involved. Come on in and get your feet wet; just stay out of the deep end!

One word: Availability – most Flash developers, particularly those in corporate environments, will have easy access to these items. You've obviously got Flash, or you wouldn't be reading this; Windows XP (and Vista) are on something like 85% of all personal computers, and already come with IIS and ASP.NET; and finally Access comes with Microsoft Office, which most people have.

I know... Windows Server, Linux or Apache make for far better servers; just about anything makes a better database than Access; and nobody in their right mind would use a laptop as a platform… but it's about 80% likely that right now, you're using a similar configuration to read this and want to try the examples without any hassle. Hence my choice.

In the spirit of setting up a faked "chat room" client-server application in Flash, we'll be setting the IIS/ASP/DB thing as a "queue server" in which each user has his or her own table in the database, to which other users can add messages consisting of a "code" and "data", e.g. "CHAT" and "Wassup, G?". The client simply grabs everything from his table periodically, and does analysis of the contents in Flash, clearing the table for any more submittals by other users. This is useful for simple peer-chats and simple games. The example shown is NOT robust, NOT efficient, and NOT recommended for any practical use; rather, it is an introduction to the installation and integration of the various technologies involved, so that you, the Flash developer, can get started doing Peer-to-Peer and Client-Server communications with only a minimal knowledge of the technologies involved.

In other words… there are better ways of doing this; this is just one of the simpler ways. If you figure a better/simpler/cooler way, share it. If you know how to do this with other technologies, share it. And when giving tutorials, PLEASE give details - not everyone knows what you assume to be common knowledge (see the "aspnet_regiis bugfix", below… server guys all know this one by heart, but it took me 2 hours of digging to realize it was in my .Net folder and needed to be run from the command prompt).

 

Assumptions:

You know Flash well enough to geek around with server/xml connections a bit, and are working on a WinXP/Vista machine with Microsoft Office already installed. Just in case, you should have your OS and Office installation disks handy, in case you need to load a component. For setup, a network connection may also be required, but is not necessary once installation is complete.

Corporate Users: If you are using a computer supplied by a corporation, rather than your own personal computer, you should be aware of two things:

• System Administrators typically cripple certain system functions on corporate machines: some of the functionality you need may be unavailable, and some of the screens shown may not exactly match what you see here. If you experience any problems, please speak with your system admin to see if anything can be done.

• Corporations typically frown upon employees creating their own websites, even if for business purposes. Be sure to check that you are not violating any security practices/policies before attempting this tutorial.

STEP ONE: SETUP
Create a folder on your hard drive that everything is going to go into; we'll refer to this as your "Dev" folder. It can be anywhere.

STEP TWO: INSTALLING .NET
Install .NET if you don't already have it (you may not need this at all as .Net often gets installed by other programs).

.NET Framework" followed by a version number. If you have Windows Vista installed, you are pretty much guaranteed to have at least Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 (This tutorial is based off of .Net Framework 2.0, but should work in any version (I think)) It's common to have multiple versions, as shown below:

If you don't have it, no worries – just go to the Windows Update site http://www.update.microsoft.com, do a custom update and check off any .Net options. You may need to do this several times to get all the updates, etc. There's nothing to configure or worry about here; it's just tedious.

IIS is now installed, but if you're on Windows XP there's a good chance it doesn't work properly. When IIS is installed after .Net 2 is installed, any .Net 2 specific ASP calls will fail mysteriously. It's a common bug, and a real pain to diagnose unless you speak to someone who's already encountered it.

The fix: you need to run a small undocumented .Net utility that re-registers .Net with IIS. The utility is named aspnet_regiis.exe, and it is located under C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\vx.y.zzzz\ (where x.y.zzzz is a version number) and you should call it with the -i parameter: aspnet_regiis.exe –i from a command prompt.

The easiest way to do this is to navigate to c:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\. Inside you'll see several folders starting with a "v" followed by several numbers, which represent the various framework versions. Pick the v2.whatever folder (on mine it's v2.0.50727) for WinXP. (Vista users should choose the v3.xxx folder, but I'm not sure if the bug affects you anyway, so check elsewhere for details)

Inside this folder you'll find the aspnet_regiis.exe file. Verify that the file is really there, but don't try to run it - it's just a DOS app.

Instead, we want to copy the full address path of the file. Select the address field, and copy it to the clipboard (ctrl-C or right-click and select Copy).



If you don't have the address field showing, you can also right-click the aspnet_regiis.exe file, and click Properties. Select the entire "location" field, and copy that text instead.


Now go to Start: Run, and Paste the address into that field. Just after that, type \aspnet_regiis –i and click OK. On my machine, the full line would look like this:

C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\aspnet_regiis –i

This takes a minute or so to run, and fixes the bug.

To verify everything is working, open up IE or Firefox and enter http://localhost/ in the URL field. If you get either a "403" error or some kind of bland "you should really have a webpage" kind of remark, it's working. If the error is a "404" or any number higher than 500, there's a good chance something's unhappy with the security configuration on your computer, and you should seek a system administrator for further help.

IIS is now installed, but needs to be configured.