Install ASP.Net MVC without administrator rights? - asp.net-mvc

Unfortunately, my company's IT policy doesn't allow me admin privileges to my own machine. However, I want to start working ASP.Net MVC; but the installer won't install the framework w/o admin rights. Is there anyway I can install MVC manually; like copying relevant DLLs somewhere, etc. Any constructive advice is greatly appreciated.

You can download & compile ASP.NET MVC yourself - and either include it as a referenced project, or just grab the resulting binaries and add them to your project like any other DLL.
Look for the link to MVCBetaSource.zip on this page - it's a pretty straightforward build using Visual Studio, and (if I recall correctly) includes the few binaries (System.Web.Abstractions and System.Web.Routing) that aren't part of the MVC source itself.

As of preview 3 or 4, ASP.Net MVC became binnable. What I've done in my solutions is have a 'binary references' folder at the root of the solution and make references to those local files in each project that needs them. You should copy:
System.Web.Abstractions.dll
System.Web.Mvc.dll
System.Web.Routing.dll
Once done, refer to these assemblies and things should work just fine. The biggest hurdle you face is extracting them from the MSI.

MVC is bin deployable, so if .Net 3.5 is installed with SP1 you should be good. Just make sure you mvc dll gets put in your bin folder and deploys out. The tricky part is the wildcard in IIS6, IIS7 will do this automatically but for 6 you need to make a rule, good luck.

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ASP.NET MVC source code missing solution file

I recently inherited some source code developed by someone else who is no longer with the company. However, the solution file was missing and I'm not even sure which version of MVC it was using. I'm experienced with ASP.NET, but not well-versed in MVC so I'm unsure how to go about rebuilding the solution the proper way. Looking for any tips/guidance on how to go about this.
Create a new, blank solution.
Open the solution in Windows Explorer.
Copy the project files into the solution folder.
Within Visual Studio, right-click the solution in Solution Explorer, and then chose the option to Add Existing Project....
Navigate to the solution folder (if necessary), and then select the .csproj (or .vbproj) file. The project will added into the solution.
Now, whether you can compile the solution/project depends on whether the version of MVC is compatible with the tooling installed in your instance of Visual Studio. If the project has NuGet dependencies, they should be restored the first time you build, depending (again) on your version of Visual Studio and tooling.
Edited:
Since you say that even the project file is missing, you can, assuming there are no external dependencies, create a new MVC project and then copy/paste the files into it (or drag & drop the files from Windows Explorer). Assuming there is a Views folder, it will have it's own web.config file. That config file will have bindings for the version of MVC the project was developed with.
MVC4 and newer projects tended to default to using Razor syntax, so the views will be littered with stuff like #Model. If it's using the older WebForms syntax (like <asp:ContentPlaceholder>), it's probably MVC3 or older.
Go to web.config file in the project and look for:
assembly="System.Web.Mvc,Version=3.0.0.0 ..."
In this example is.MVC 3, look for your version

How do you properly get/deploy ASP.NET MVC?

I'm thoroughly confused about how to properly deploy ASP.NET MVC with my application. As far as I understand, there are the following ways you can get it on a machine:
You can download a separate installer and install it on a machine that has the approprite .NET framework (although which MVC version requires which .NET framework?)
Some versions come along with .NET framework itself (though I can't find which version of MVC is shipped with which version of .NET);
Some versions are installed with Visual Studio (though again, no idea which versions are installed with which versions of VS). In this case, you can set Copy Locally to true for these references and perform a "bin deploy". You might need to add some extra references though (not sure which though).
You can also download MVC as a NuGet package, in which case it also downloads some other unrelated packages like WebPages, Infrastructure and Razor (which is my personal WTF - wasn't Razor a core part of MVC?). In this case the build process will automatically do a "bin deploy" by default (I think...)
So... WTF? What is the proper way to add MVC to your development workstation, what is the proper way to add the references to your project (NuGet? GAC?), and what is the proper way to deploy it to the target server (separate installer? .NET installer? bin deploy?)
"Proper" Development:
The "proper way" (by which I mean standard/redistributable way) would be using Nuget for your references. This means you can easily manage different versions and anybody else working on your project has a standard repository from which to pull the external requirements.
The NuGet documentation has a decent explanation of how to add references.
To install the appropriate version of MVC for developing through Visual Studio, just download and install it from the ASP.NET MVC website. This will install the necessary templates for you to create a new MVC project in Visual Studio. This will also include the necessary binaries, etc.
"Proper" Deployment:
Use bin deploy to deploy to your webserver. This means you don't need full admin priviledges to install the MVC requirements.
Phil Haack's guide will walk you through the process of bin deploying MVC3+
Keep in mind, the web server does need the appropriate .NET platform installed. You should install this via the appropriate redistributable installer if it is not already installed on the server.
Referring to the deployment i publish my asp.net app (i usually make web applications) to the file system in a directory (you can set also a server there, but i don't like it) and make an upload to the server with an FTP client of all the deployed folders. All the changes that i make to the app after (like bug correction) i deploy all the app again and upload single parts.
I hope i get your question in part, this is my first answer in SO.

Can not remove Default.aspx from Asp.net MVC 3 Application

I am working on a project that started out using ASP.Net MVC 1 and has since been upgraded to ASP.Net MVC 3. It is my understanding that if I am running my ASP.NET MVC 3 app on IIS 7 using the integrated pipeline that I no longer need the Default.aspx file. However after I have removed the file from the project and physically deleted it I get the following error every time I try to compile in Release mode:
Description: Could not load type 'ProjectName.Default'.
File: Default.Aspx
I have verified that there is no instance of ProjectName.Default or Default.aspx in my project file. I have even done a grep search in all of my files in the project for any mention those names and still have found nothing. What do I need to do to be able to remove Default.aspx from my ASP.Net MVC 3 app and get it to compile in release mode. It compiles just fine in Debug mode by the way.
From the debugging listed here you probably had a cached version of your compiled code. While Visual Studio builds the code behind files into a single DLL, ASP.NET compiles each aspx file into a DLL as well (depending on how you configure it, there can be variations on this). These DLLs are located at %WINDIR%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\Temporary ASP.NET Files note that this directory is sensitive to .Net version, could be in 2.0 or 4.0, it is also in some way dependent on bit-ness, as there is a similar directory in Framework64.
I tried to clean my solution, delete the project temp files, remove all the leftover crud I could think of. Unfortunately none of this worked so I had to take the brute force approach and checkout a new copy of my project. After doing this I no longer had the error occur when building the new copy that had Default.aspx removed. Unfortunately this solution did not provide me any insight into what leftover file Visual Studio was holding onto.

Hosting my ASP.NET MVC 3 Application

What do I need to do to my Windows 2008 / IIS 7.5 server to allow me to host my new MVC3 applications. It already has .NET 4.0 Framework installed...
I dont want to use the /Bin deployment that I read of on the Internet.
Thanks Paul
You just need to run the MVC3 installer!
All of the DLLs required by your app that are not part of the framework itself SHOULD be deployed into your applications ~/bin folder. Putting DLLs in the GAC is evil.
Benefits of ~/bin deployment:
Your application is guaranteed to have the correct (which is not always the same as the latest) version of each assembly that it requires
Redploying your application keeps those dependencies in sync with your app's requirements.
If you remove the app from the server, you don't leave shrapnel from the installation laying around that is no longer required.
~/bin installation is much, much cleaner than any alternative. I'd like to hear your reasons for avoiding it.
Requirements for MVC3:
Download and install MVC3.
Update your web application project to reference the MVC3 assemblies. (You might create a new, empty MVC3 app and compare the assembly references it includes)
Rebuild and run your unit tests. (You do have a test project, don't you?)
Have a serious look at Razor - it rocks.
It's refers to MVC2 but should work all the same
http://weblogs.asp.net/jgalloway/archive/2010/07/13/server-installation-options-for-asp-net-mvc-2.aspx
If you have access to RDP into your server perhaps the Web Platform installer is the "easiest"
http://www.asp.net/downloads

Installing a modified version of ASP.NET MVC

I have made a relatively simple change to the MVC 1.0 source code to correct a bug in the DropDownList HtmlHelper (discussed in another question).
I was able to rebuild the MVC solution, ran all the tests, including the one I hadd added to show the bug I was fixing, and built a new DLL.
But how do I use that?
I tried moving the new MVC dll into the project and changing all the project references to point to it, but when I try to run the MVC website, it's throwing an exception saying there's a conflict between my version of MVC and the MVC in the GAC.
I tried to use gacutil.exe to remove the one from the GAC, but it says it can't do that because it would make another program (the Microsoft Installer? fail.
What do I have to do to install my newly built version in place of the "official" version?
If you want to remove it from the GAC without uninstalling MVC (which includes the Visual Studio templates you probably need), you need to do this in the registry:
Find registry key HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Assemblies\Global and look for key starting with System.Web.Mvc – delete it
Now you should be able to use gacutil.exe to remove System.Web.Mvc from the GAC, and you should be able to use your version from your /bin folder.
How about changing the version number when you compile the modified MVC framework?

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