Since shipping Visual Studio 2005, we have heard from some users complaining about the fact the Visual Studio 2005 doesn’t support debugging classic ASP code. Today I want to talk about what we recommend you do to debug your ASP code.

If you have Visual Studio 2003 already, why not continue to use it? Visual Studio 2005 can run on the same machine as Visual Studio 2002 or Visual Studio 2003. While Visual Studio 2005 has loads of new features, they aren’t aimed at the classic ASP developer. So we recommend that you continue using Visual Studio 2003 for your ASP debugging needs.

The Microsoft Commerce Server 2002 Software Development Kit (SDK) contains six samples that demonstrate the use of the Targeting system, Product Catalog system, Order Processing system, and the Profiling system.

To use these sitelets after you install Commerce Server 2002 Service Pack 2, you must modify some of the code in the sitelet. For instructions, see Service Pack 2 Changes for Sitelets

The primary goal of the Catalog Sitelet is to demonstrate how to use the Catalog object model to browse and search a product catalog, providing you with a functional example of the catalog API in action.

The Catalog Sitelet consists of a package file, which you unpack using Commerce Server Site Packager. The source code for the sitelet is included in this package. You can deploy the sitelet to a server running Commerce Server 2002 without the need for code modifications. After the Catalog Sitelet has been deployed, you can use it to browse and search a sample catalog.

The Catalog Sitelet demonstrates the two query mechanisms supported by the Catalog object model, and also demonstrates using the Catalog object model to provide catalog browsing functionality.

.If you are running Windows XP Professional on your computer you can install Microsoft's web server, Internet Information Server 5.1 (IIS) for free from the Windows XP Pro installation CD and configure it to run on your system by following the instructions below: -

1. Place the Windows XP Professional CD-Rom into your CD-Rom Drive.

2. Open 'Add/Remove Windows Components' found in 'Add/Remove Programs' in the 'Control Panel'.

3. Place a tick in the check box for 'Internet Information Services (IIS)' leaving all the default installation settings intact.

4. Once IIS is installed on your machine you can view your home page in a web browser by typing 'http://localhost' (you can substitute 'localhost' for the name of your computer) into the address bar of your web browser. If you have not placed your web site into the default directory you should now be looking at the IIS documentation.

Some time ago I wrote an article for WebReference called "10 Reasons To Develop in ASP". After publication I received several e-mails from people telling me that I've convinced them to give ASP a try, but they didn't know where to start. So now in this article, I will try to give some paths to learning ASP.

Let's start with explanation of what ASP is all about. ASP (Active Server Pages) is a server-side scripting technology, enabling developers to generate dynamic content for their Web sites. You just embed ASP code into your HTML pages, name them with ".asp" extension and place on the server. Sounds simple - and it really is, but some background knowledge will help you develop ASPs faster and more efficiently.