Question

I have just installed Microsoft Robotics Studio 2008 R2, and I must admit that I’m shocked to discover how paths are handled.

First of the studio wants to install itself into my personal profile (this is on Vista):

C:\Users\MyUserName\Microsoft Robotics Dev Studio 2008 R2

I assume this is because during development I have to write files to the robotics studio folder making C:\Program Files a no go.

Then when I create a new robotics project a lot of absolute paths pointing to the robotics studio is added to the project. If I check my project into source control and another developer checks it out onto his machine the absolute paths will not resolve and the project will not compile.

Also, since all services are collected into a single folder in the robotics studio folder developing multiple independent services on a single computer appears to be at least confusing.

Do you have any good strategies for handling this mess?

Answer 1

I have now figured out a way to change a Microsoft Robotics DSS Service visual studio project into something that you can compile and run in you own source tree independent of the installation path of the robotics studio. Here is a description of what you need to do to modify the project:

1. Add the robotics studio bin path to you PATH environment variable to be able to execute dssproxy.exe without supplying a full path. I have installed robotics studio into the program files folder to avoid accidentially writing files to the robotics studio folders.

2. Open the Properties page for the project and select the Build tab. In the Output section change the Output path to Debug\bin. For .NET projects it is customary to compile into folders bin\Debug and bin\Release but the robotics hosting service expects to live in a folder named bin and will store data in the folder above the bin folder.

3. Go to the Signing tab and select a new key in the Choose a strong name key file box. You can either generate your own key at that point or use the sn.exe utility to generate a new key. Or if you have your own policy for creating keys follow that. The sn.exe utility can be found in the tools folder of robotics studio.

4. In the Build Events tab edit Post-build event command line:

   dssproxy.exe /dll:"$(TargetPath)" /proxyprojectpath:"$(ProjectDir)Proxy" /keyfile:"$(SolutionDir)Key.snk" $(ProxyDelaySign) $(CompactFrameworkProxyGen) /binpath:"." @(ReferencePath->'/referencepath:"%(RootDir)%(Directory) "', ' ')

   Pay attention to the argument to /keyfile. Enter an expression that locates the strong name key file created in the previous step.

5. Copy the files DssHost.exe and DssHost.exe.config (or DssHost32.exe and DssHost32.exe.config for the 32 bit hosting service) from the robotics studio bin folder into the project folder and add these files to the project. Set the Build Action to Content and Copy to Output Directory to Copy if newer. Do the same for the manifest file for your service. Actually, the manifest file doesn’t have to be in the same folder as the service, but copying it to the output folder enables you to do XCOPY deployment.

6. In the Debug tab change the Start external program to the DssHost.exe in the output folder of your project. You will have to build the project once to copy the file to the output folder. Clear the Working directory. Set the Command line arguments to

   /p:50000 /t:50001 /m:DSSService1.manifest.xml

   Change the manifest file name to the proper name in your project. You can modify the port numbers used either here or in the DssHost.exe.config file. If you are running in a protected Windows environment (UAC) you will have to use the httpreserve command to give yourself access to a particular port. You have to run this command as administrator.

   Debug settings are not stored in the project file and each developer will have to create personal settings.

You should also update the Release configuration accordingly.