Will VFP9/MS Soap 3 work on Windows Server 2012?

[RoadRunnerOz]

Hi:

I can't seem to find a definitive answer anywhere.
We have a large multiuser app running on win2000/2003 terminal servers with the data sitting on a win2003 box.
It works fine. Company policy now dictates we must migrate everything to windows server 2012.
We have set up a test environment in windows server 2012. The main app "seems" to work fine testing with a single user.
The problem is we have three we applications that use MS Soap 3.
I can't even run the setup programs without getting a soap error
I suspect the second error is the result of the first.
I googled MS Soap 3 and found it is obsolete and unsupported after win server 2003.
On msdn it says to rewrite the com object in C# or VB.net.
No one here wrote the web service nor does any one know C or VB!
Anyone have experience with this and/or win2012?

Thanks



The script and errors:
#### CREATING WEB SERVICE WSDL FILES ####


E:\Installers\Filechecker\Install on E drive>echo #### WEB SERVICE WSDLs ####
#### WEB SERVICE WSDLs ####

E:\Installers\Filechecker\Install on E drive>for %a in (e:\filechecker\install\*
.wgen) do "C:\Program Files (x86)\MSSOAP\Binaries\wsdlstb3.exe" %a e:\filechecke
r\app\%~na.dll e:\filechecker\vdir\%~na.wsdl

E:\Installers\Filechecker\Install on E drive>"C:\Program Files (x86)\MSSOAP\Bina
ries\wsdlstb3.exe" e:\filechecker\install\FileChecker.WGen e:\filechecker\app\Fi
leChecker.dll e:\filechecker\vdir\FileChecker.wsdl
Error: hr = 0x80004005
ErrorInfo-Source: WSDLGenerator
ErrorInfo-Description: WSDLGenerator:Could not find the typeinformation for the
requested COM object HRESULT=0x80004005: Unspecified error

#### ERROR ####

FILECHECKER Web Services WSDL's don't seem to have been created!




Michael Ouellette

 

[atlopes]

Michael

Do you need the MS SOAP 3 Toolikt to create or to access SOAP-based Web Services?

 

[Olaf Doschke]

Could not find the typeinformation for the requested COM object

Seems you have to first install the soap toolkit on that server. It comes on the VFP7-9 CD, it has some prerequisites that are not on the VFP8 installation.

Or your own COM Server has to be registered first, though that should be a job of the installer. So I'd try installing the soap toolkit on that Win2012 server, even if it is out of support by MS it should still work. It's something you want to fix, as out of support libraries become security holes. And the support phase for that kit was even extended but also that extension ended January 2015. It means not even security fixes for that toolkit.

Bye, Olaf.



Olaf Doschke Software Engineering

https://www.doschke.name

 

[RoadRunnerOz]

Soap toolkit has been installed. I did that first.

Michael Ouellette

 

[Olaf Doschke]

If that doesn't help, what about installing prerequisites that once were part of the OS? MSXML3 and 4. The prerequisite check of VFP had the known issue to not install these when MSXML6 was detected.
I know VFP functions like XMLTOCURSOR (MSXML3) and XML Classes like XMLTable (MSXML4) depend on these. And I think the Soap Toolkit also depend on these.

No fear, several MSXML versions can be installed in parallel, just like several Office versions and .NET framework versions. Just make sure you also have the latest service packs.

Bye, Olaf.

Olaf Doschke Software Engineering

https://www.doschke.name

 

[vernpace]

Been there, tried that.

VFP COM+ web services cannot be installed (does not work) on servers whose version is greater that Windows Server 2003. You will have to use .NET interop. Check out Rick Strahl's wwDotnetBridge on GitHub:

https://github.com/RickStrahl/wwDotnetBridge

 

[RoadRunnerOz]

Olaf:

all available versions of MSXML were installed initially and confirmed.
Thanks

Michael Ouellette

 

[RoadRunnerOz]

Vernpace:

Thanks.

I started reading the webpage and it's all greek to me!
I'll investigate more thouroughly next week when I am actually working!

Michael Ouellette

 

[Olaf Doschke]

ErrorInfo-Description: WSDLGenerator:Could not find the typeinformation for the
requested COM object HRESULT=0x80004005: Unspecified error

Well, you can't even find out what COM object is missing, right?

You find various problems when googling that error. It obviously is about a missing OLE Class, but sometimes it was caused by an XML file having a BOM, edited with notepad and saved as UTF-8, notepad introduces a byte order mark to mark that file as UTF-8, but XML parsers then error on these bytes.

So, did you edit some XML config files with notepad?

Have you installed VFP itself on the Win2012 Server? Though itself isn't necessary, only runtimes, it might provide some necessary parts.

Bye, Olaf.

Olaf Doschke Software Engineering

https://www.doschke.name

 

[RoadRunnerOz]

Olaf:

Used the original script files and installed VFP before anything else, both 7 & 9!
Vernpace may have the solution.


Michael Ouellette

 

[Olaf Doschke]

Well, I can just disprove what vernspace said:

VFP COM+ web services cannot be installed (does not work) on servers whose version is greater that Windows Server 2003.

We had made a Soap based service and while that initially ran on Win2000 (I guess, been a long time ago and started perhaps 2002 with VFPÜ7, does that make sense?) and later on Win2003, we also reestablished it on Win2008 Servers, I see nothing that's disallowing to run the VFP runtime, older C runtimes, also older OCXes and the OLE/COM registration also still works as ever.

I fon't have hands on it, as my and that customers ways split, but it's not true you can't get things going.

It's another thing that it's simpler to reimplement a web service in they ways currently intended from both Microsoft and their currently major supported platform .NET and from the Web.

But I doubt you can't get Soap going, unless you describe something depending on further modules, eg a third party service. But we might put that aside considering all you already tried.

So I still think you're just missing some prerequisite, you might install the Soap Toolkit and you might install the VFP Runtime installer, put some of the necessary dll files into the service directory. The installer scripts you run obviously are not a comfortable setup doing all the necessary steps but work based on prerequisites.

In our case the VFP Soap service actually also queried an API of some other web service and made it an easier VFP endpoint, but it wasn't just HTTP requests to that web service, it included combining data from several sources, partly DBF, partly something third or fourth party, not even MSSQL or MySQL. Electric Paper, some document management and paper form framework.

If you have dependencies like that you might already be done from the VFP and Soap perspective, but forgot other dependencies. Also, we didn't cover yet, what may be necessary to do in IIS.

Bye, Olaf.

Olaf Doschke Software Engineering

https://www.doschke.name

 

[RoadRunnerOz]

Olof:

I recently installed the same services on a win 2003 server. Everything went smoothly. I'm following the same process.

Michael Ouellette

 

[Olaf Doschke]

Then you can profit of many things:

a) all components, which are already preinstalled, C/C++ runtimes
b) all other supportive software, IIS in an older version being configured by that setup correctly.
c) ...

I can't give an exhaustive list, but I can state Soap based VFP services can also run on later Serer OSes than 2003, at least 2008.

YouI look at this as too narrow, when you only see "the setup works on 2003 but not 2012".

Bye, Olaf.

Olaf Doschke Software Engineering

https://www.doschke.name

 

[vernpace]

This may help to explain things:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...t-versions-2-0-and-3-0-on-windows-server-2003

https://west-wind.com/presentations/creatingandconsumingfoxprowebserviceswithdotnet.pdf

For years, we were forced to keep using Windows Server 2003 for an aero space client that was using our VFP web services. We were not big fans of .NET. Still not. Eventually, our client had to upgrade their servers, so they went with another vendor. We lost a big contract because of our "inflexibility".

 

[RoadRunnerOz]

Update:

I discovered one of the files that soap was calling is XML (FileChecker.WGen). It's referencing a url that the new environment doesn't have access to.
Hopefully today I can work out what the new urll should be.

Thanks for all your help. Also today I have been given access to an "expert" on webservices, so that should help.

Michael Ouellette