Question

I tried to create a OData web service using VS 2008 without any luck. I downloaded ODataDemo from Odata.org, installed Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1, and ADO.NET Data Services Update for .NET Framework 3.5 for Windows XP. However, I don’t see any reference to ADO.NET Data Services Framework. When I tried to add a new ADO.Net data services, I cannot find out any templates for this.

For example, I cannot find ADO.Net data web service from Add|New Item…(| Web | WCF Data Service).

Not sure if I miss any packages or libraries? Or if there are any .Net 3.5 or VS 2008 example projects for OData available?

By the way, I tried to download VS2010 Express. It just too slow on my Windows XP and I cannot find out any templates for Web service or ADO.Net wcf data service. I am not sure if there is any other REST web service toolkit available for VS 2008? I think I tried REST WCF Toolkit from CodePlex long time ago, but I cannot find it there. Basically what I need is a tool kit to create REST service to provide a collection of data in xml or json.

Answer 1

I’m using VS2008 Professional.

I installed the ADO.NET Data Services Update for .NET 3.5 for XP, and was able to add an ADO.NET Data Service to my web application project. What I did was:

1. Created a new web application project;
2. Right-clicked on the project and selected Add -> ‘New Item…’;
3. In the Add New Item dialog, the third item in the 2nd column (at least for me) was ADO.NET Data Service. I selected that and all was good.

The template for this item can be found on your file system at (based on my machine):
c:\program files\microsoft visual studio 9.0\common7\ide\itemtemplates\web\csharp\1033

You should see a ZIP file there named ‘AdoNetDataServiceCSharpWebsite.zip’. If you don’t, then it’s not installed on your machine. If it’s there, then there’s some other problem. Check permission on that file, also. Make sure you can read it.

Let me know of any other info you have on this so I can help.

Good luck!!