Commerce Server Blog

With commerce server SP 2, the developers can start developing their application in visual studio 2008 but after installing commerce server SP 2, you may not find project template in visual studio. By default commerce server doesn’t install these templates and you have to manually install them.

Prerequisites:

• Install commerce server 2007
• Install commerce server 2007 SP2

Follow these steps to enable templates in visual studio 2008.

1. Open control panel – go to add /remove programs. Select “Microsoft Commerce Server 2007 Developer Edition” and click on “Change/Remove” button.
2. Installation wizard will be opened. Select “Modify” and click on next button.
3. Select “Project Creation Wizard” check box from the available components (as shown below) and complete the installation.
    
4. Now when you open the Visual studio, you can able to see commerce server templates in visual studio (as shown below)
    
5. If you try to create commerce server C# ASP.NET web application, you may get “Package Load Failure” exception. This is known issue with visual studio packages where the full path of commercepkg.dll is missing.
    
6. Follow these steps to fix this problem.
   • Open Registry
   • If you are using x86 OS then navigate to
     [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftVisualStudio9.0Packages{1FAF7679-A5C1-4369-9F00-F87E8386F599}]
   • If you are using 64-bit OS then navigate to:
     [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREWow6432NodeMicrosoftVisualStudio9.0Packages{1FAF7679-A5C1-4369-9F00-F87E8386F599}]
   • If you see the “CommercePkg.dll” in the registry “InprocServer32″ registry key, change this value to the full path to that dll:
   • For x86 OS:
     Change the “InprocServer32″ value to “C:Program FilesMicrosoft Commerce Server 2007CommercePkg.dll” 
   • For 64-bit OS:
     Change the “InprocServer32″ value to “C:Program Files (x86)Microsoft Commerce Server 2007CommercePkg.dll”

After performing above changes you can now create commerce server C# asp.net web application using visual studio 2008.

Gartner has released a report on July 18, 2008 under the title “Magic Quadrant for E-Commerce ” by analyst Gene Alvarez – delivers valuable information about the eCommerce market.

Garter states that the consumerization of online technologies is creating a demand for rich Internet experiences with user-generated content. Today’s buyers desire Web sites to speed up the process of finding a product, enable comparisons of products, provide tools to help buyers understand the product, and have community-based information to help them to make the final buying decisions — all with knowledge of “who” they’re serving across multiple points of interaction.

Source: Gartner.com

The article talked about Microsoft Commerce Server 2007 and tells that it will enable customers to create full-featured Web business applications and extend their business across networks, while allowing the integration of e-commerce solutions within the customer’s existing infrastructure.

As per this article, Microsoft Commerce server SP2 has a strong set of e-commerce capabilities such as

• Shopping cart management
• Taxation
• Personalization
• Transaction Management
• Settlement
• Product visualization
• Multi-channel Integration with Kiosk, mobile devices, POS systems, interactive TV & gaming
• Web 2.0 capabilities such as social commerce.
• Community aspects – product reviews
• Rich interactive applications
• Drag and Drop in web applications
• Compare pages,
• Single page checkout
• Integration with Microsoft live search.

Thanks to Gartner for creating such a comprehensive article. You can read entire article at Gartner site

http://mediaproducts.gartner.com/reprints/microsoft/vol4/article1/article1.html

Microsoft has release Commerce Server 2007 service pack 2, which provides following functionality.

• Support of running Commerce Server 2007 on windows server 2008 with full support of IIS 7.0 when it is configured in classic or integrated pipeline mode. 
• Support working on Microsoft Vista SP1. 
• Fixes to performance & security issues 
• It includes compatibility with Visual Studio 2008, .NET 3.5. 
• Note: No new features are introduced in SP2.  Installing SP2 on non-English versions of Commerce Server 2007 is not supported. 

Here are the links for SP2 download 

Commerce Server 2007 Starter Site Release 2
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=10F9C18E-3E15-4AB9-9C40-A424876D1630&displaylang=en 

Commerce Server 2007 Service Pack 2 – Standard Edition
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=5E150DFB-16D7-41E2-A315-3B8833311832&displaylang=en 

Commerce Server 2007 Service Pack 2 – Enterprise Edition
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=9A50CFDC-E983-4359-86DE-5AE9F6A5A806&displaylang=en 

Commerce Server 2007 SP2 Partner SDK
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=0386DD2F-3A96-4033-A326-207351014DB1&displaylang=en 

Documentation refresh
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=DF6915DC-047E-443D-8E25-DB331CBC87BA&displaylang=en