Today is the official launch of the Asp.Net MVC beta (can get the bits here) so I can finally blog about the upgrade process for Dimecasts.net

First things first, what is new in this drop:

• The added the MVC assemblies into the GAC.  This was done to allow global system usage.  Please note you can (and still should) do \bin deployment with the needed MVC assemblies for your application
• They changed, moved, renamed a few of the HtmlHelpers.  For example Html.Form is now Html.BeginForm
• The created an HttpVerbs enum for usage in the AcceptVerbs attribute.  This is nice because now i do not have to have 'magic' strings.
  
  Was
  [AcceptVerbs("Post")]
  
  Now
  [AcceptVerbs( HttpVerbs.Post ) ]
  
• Made great improvements to the ModelBinding process (more on this in another post)
• Many, many more.  Read the release notes for more information

Onto the actual upgrade process:

• Changes to the Web.Config class
  • Add the following line to the <compilation><assemblies> section
    <add assembly="System.Web.Mvc, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35"/>
  • Add the following to the <namespaces> section
    <add namespace="System.Web.Mvc.Html"/>
  • Added the following to the <httpHandlers> section
    <add verb="*" path="*.mvc" validate="false" type="System.Web.Mvc.MvcHttpHandler, System.Web.Mvc, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35"/>
• Looks like Microsoft.Web.Mvc is no longer in use so I needed to remove that.  Was not a big deal as I was only using 1 method from that assembly anyway.
• Needed to make various changes based on Html helpers being changed (ie needed to change my Html.Form to Html.Begin form)
• Needed to copy the new assemblies into my local /library folder because I do not want to use the GAC version.  This is because the hosting company I use may not have the beta installed and I am not going to count on it ever being installed.

Well I guess that does it.  Was not near as painful as other releases, but was still a bit of effort.

Please note that www.dimecasts.net has NOT been upgraded publicly yet.  This is because I have some pending changes that are not ready for prime time yet.

Hope this helps someone.

Till next time,