Have you ever tried to configure the BizTalk ESB Toolkit 2.0 on Windows XP? If so, you probably didn’t get too far. According to the system requirements, the ESB Toolkit requires Windows Server 2003 or newer. However, the original release – ESB Guidance 1.0 – ran just fine on Windows XP.
If you’ve tried to use the ESB Configuration Tool (EsbConfigurationTool.exe) on Windows XP, you probably made it through the first step which creates the Exception Management database. The next step, Exception Web Services, probably didn’t go so well. You may have gotten an error like The following exception occurred while retrieving member “Create”: “The system cannot find the path specified.”
The reason for the error is that the tool assumes that you’re using Windows Server 2003 or newer – which implies IIS 6 or newer – all of which have the concept of IIS Application Pools. Since IIS 5.1 (Windows XP) does not have AppPools, the Configuration Tool’s script blows up.
This is hardly a reason to keep us from using the ESB Toolkit 2.0 on Windows XP! Who wants to create all of those vdirs and databases by hand? Not I… All that was necessary to make the tool work on XP was to slightly modify the built-in PowerShell scripts to avoid referencing IIS AppPools. I decompiled EsbConfigurationTool.exe, tweaked the scripts, removed the strong name key (since it’s no longer signed by Microsoft) and recompiled the EXE. Voila! The tool now works perfectly on Windows XP.
I am attaching the modified version of the tool to this post in the hopes of saving some of you from the same hassle. Just unzip and overwrite your existing EXE. Enjoy!
Download EsbConfigurationToolXP.zip
