DB2 with Visual Studio.NET 2005 Beta 2

                                                  By

                                           Anil Mahadev

                               DB2 User and Database Enthusiast

As most of us have heard and been using .NET for quite a while now. So I will not delve into the     details of the .NET Framework, CLR etc.

I presume that the audience have got an understanding of the .NET Framework,CLR, ADO.NET,DataAdapters etc.

This is going to be a Level 200 Session where I will be helping .NET 1.1 Developers using IBM DB2 as their preferred Data Provider , to take a look at using .NET 2.0 and Visual Studio.NET 2005 features.

As well the steps needed to developing a simple Database Application with features of adding and updating existing records to a DB2 database.

In this article , I shall be giving you all the overall idea of what needs to be done in order to work with an IBM DB2 Database and Requirements for .NET 2.0.

Hardware Requirements

A Pentium IV Class Machine

512 MB RAM (1 GB Recommended)

500 MB for DB2 Personal Edition 8.2.

2.5 GB for Visual Studio.NET 2005 Beta 2

Display of 1024 X 768

Pointing Device

Standard Keyboard

Software Requirements

Microsoft Windows 2000/XP/2003 (With latest Service Packs)

IBM DB2 UDB 8.2 (Any edition from 8.1 onwards with latest FixPacks. This article uses the 8.2.2 Personal Developers Edition)

Microsoft Visual Studio.NET 2005 Beta 2.(You can order a copy by visiting

Http://msdn.microsoft.com.

and then search for Beta 2 DVD Kit.)

(Note: You must have .NET 1.1 framework runtime for the demo to run smoothly. For .NET 2.0 , The entire package will be installed for you during the installation.)

Since we now have all the requirements met , lets Begin !!!!.

The first thing one has to do , is by launching the Visual Studio 2005 Command Prompt.

And enter the following as shown in Fig 1.1

db2nmpreg

And you will get an error message , stating that its a .NET 1.1 assembly and cannot be installed.

 To solve the above problem; Follow the below steps

1)     Navigate to where you have installed Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2.

2)   Now goto --> D:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\SDK\v2.0\Bin

3)     And type sdkvars; Now you environment is set to understand all commands as shown in the below Fig 1.2

4)      

So now that we have made sure .NET understands all the forthcoming commands to be passed at the command prompt, we can now install our IBM.Data.DB2.Dll to the

Global Assembly Cache.

Note: This procedure is done on purpose so that people who don't have Visual Studio.NET 2003 might face issues and have not installed DB2.

Navigate to the following directory where IBM DB2 is installed.