File Based Web Server Development on a LAN

[Mark]

The new file based web server that comes with Visual Studio 2005 allows you
to develop and debug an ASP.NET on a remote computer rather than having to
rely on IIS. Assuming you've got decent LAN bandwidth, is anyone out there
developing applications off of a file server share/network drive? Is this
scenario realistic or will there be clear limitations/performance
implications as projects get really large?

We will be using Team Foundation Server for source control, but in the event
that a developer wants to keep a file(s) checked out for several days at a
time, this scenario would mean that the developers work was getting backed
up. There are alternatives like shelving, branching, etc, but this setup
would certainly be "easy" to manage assuming it scaled well and the network
was reliable.

Has anyone had success doing this? Thanks in advance.

Mark

[Steven Cheng[MSFT]]

Hi Mark,

Welcome to the ASP.NET newsgroup.

Regarding on the file storage for web application development through vs
2005 in team development scenario, here are some of my understanding and
suggestions:

For file based webserver, it does ease our development environment
requirement and make project move and dispatch much easier. For remote
file share(UNC share), it is possible in theory, however, we recommend that
you use a local copy on the local development machine. Because when use VS
2005 ide to open web site project on remote UNC share, it will use the SMB
protocol(what the windows network file io use to commuincate between remote
machines) to communicate with the server (which host the UNC share). On
some client operating system (like xp), the max SMB message count is by
default limited, and when developing ASP.NET site in vs 2005 through remote
UNC share, it'll require heavy SMB traffic with the server that may exceed
the limitation which cause problem. I've ever seen some customers meet such
problem. So for your scenario, I'd suggest you only store the website
project on the Team development server and let each developer check out it
to client development machine and work with the copy locally.

Regards,

Steven Cheng
Microsoft Online Support

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