Hands On With MDGP 2018 RTM: Installing the .NET Prerequisite

Microsoft Dynamics GPMicrosoft Dynamics GP 2018 RTM has now been released. In this series of posts, I will be stepping through the installation of Microsoft Dynamics GP and additional products and then will move on to taking a look at the new functionality which has been introduced.

The series index for this series of posts is here and will automatically update as posts go live.

Before Microsoft Dynamics GP 2018 RTM, or any of the related additional products, can be installed there is one prerequisite which cannot be handled by the installer process. This is the .NET Framework 3.5 feature which is installed using the Add Roles and Features Wizard available via Server Manager on Windows Server or using Turn Windows features on or off accessible via Program and Features on Windows.

If the PC or server you’re planning to install Microsoft Dynamics GP 2018 RTM onto has an Internet connection, then the .NET can be installed simply by using the wizard. However, if, for whatever reason, you don’t have an Internet connection available, the install process isn’t quite that smooth.

On both server and PC you can do an offline install and I have blogged about this previously:

  1. Offline install on Windows.
  2. Offline install on Windows Server.

Both of the above posts were for previous versions of Windows, but both are still relevant for the later versions.

Click to show/hide the Hands On With MDGP 2018 RTM Series Index

GP Power Tools Updated for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2018 RTM

Winthrop DCWith the recent launch of Microsoft Dynamics GP 2018 RTM, the ISVs are releasing updated versions of their add-ons for the new version.

One of these, Winthrop DC, has a product called GP Power Tools (GPPT) which I was blogging about earlier in the year.

Winthrop have announced that GPPT and their other products (Batch Posting Service Toolkit and Visual Studio Integration Toolkit) have all been updated for the Microsoft Dynamics GP 2018 RTM version.

How to Install Microsoft SQL Server 2017: SSRS 2017 Not Supported on a Domain Controller

Microsoft SQL ServerIn this short series of posts, I am going to be covering the installation of Microsoft SQL Server 2017; the installation process for this version is somewhat different to previous ones, in that SQL Server Management Studio and SQL Server Reporting Services have been separated out from the main installer.

The series index can be found here. I am not a SQL expert and this series of posts is intended only for use on demo or test environment and not production ones.

I often create two types of demo or test environment; one will have multiple virtual machiens createdin order to replicate a typical live environment, and the second has only a single virtual machine.

While prepping a test environment of the latter type in readiness for the launch of Microsoft Dynamics GP 2018 RTM, I encountered a problem with SSRS:

Microsoft SQL Server 2017 Reporting Services installation issue

Microsoft SQL Server 2017 Reporting Services

Setup blocked

The following issues blocked Setup

Installing Reporting Services on a domain controller is not supported

This is a major departure from SQL Server 2016 and previous, all of which allowed SSRS to be installed on a Domain Controller; for most systems this will be absolutely fine, but I’ll no longer be able to use single virtual machine demo or test environments.

How to Install Microsoft SQL Server 2017: Avoiding Max Request Length Error in SSRS

Microsoft Dynamics GPIn this short series of posts, I am going to be covering the installation of Microsoft SQL Server 2017; the installation process for this version is somewhat different to previous ones, in that SQL Server Management Studio and SQL Server Reporting Services have been separated out from the main installer.

The series index can be found here. I am not a SQL expert and this series of posts is intended only for use on demo or test environment and not production ones.

In the last post I configured SSRS, which is fine for most uses. However, Microsoft Dynamics GP requires an additional configuration step. This is not done through the Report Server Configuration Manager, but by editing a config file.

The reason this is required is because of an error produced when deploying the SSRS reports. If you do not change the setting, the error you will receive is the following:

GP — The deployment has exceeded the maximum request length allowed by the target server. Set maxRequestLength="20690" in the web.config file and try deploying again.

Microsoft Dynamics GP

The deployment has exceeded the maximum request length allowed by the target server. Set maxRequestLength="20690" in the web.config file and try deploying again.

To avoid this error, requires the SSRS web.config file to be amended. The file, for SQL Server Reporting Services 2017, is located in C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services\SSRS\ReportServer.

Below is a snippet of code from the web.config file with the added node highlighted:

<httpRuntime executionTimeout="9000" requestValidationMode="2.0" maxRequestLength="20690" />

Add the above, save the file, and SSRS is now ready for the Microsoft Dynamics GP reporting services reports to be deployed.