StarTeam® Web Edition 2008 Release Notes

Last updated: January 17, 2008

Welcome to Borland® StarTeam® Web Edition 2008. Borland StarTeam Web Edition is an ASP-based web application for use with the StarTeam Server. Borland StarTeam provides an automated and comprehensive software configuration management (SCM) system for supporting the management of assets and application life cycle tasks, all from within a single repository.

This file contains important information that might not appear in the documentation. Read this file in its entirety.

For an overview of the new features in the current release, see the What's New topic in Administering and Using StarTeam Web Edition 2008 (sweinstall_en.pdf).

Note: The information in this readme represents the known issues at the time of this release. For late-breaking information that may become available after the release, check the Borland web site for the most recent version of this readme: http://info.borland.com/techpubs/starteam.

System Requirements/Prerequisites

StarTeam Web Edition must be used in conjunction with a StarTeam Server. This release of StarTeam Web Edition is compatible with StarTeam Server version 2008 and backward compatible with StarTeam Server 2006.

StarTeam Web Edition supports the following host operating systems running MS Internet Information Server (IIS):

System Area	Requirement
Platforms	Microsoft Windows Server 2003 (32-bit) Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 (32-bit)
Web browser	Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 and 7.0 on Windows XP (not Vista)
Processor	1.3+ GHz Pentium 4 (minimum) Dual 1.3+ GHz Pentium 4 (recommended)
RAM	1GB (minimum) 2GB (recommended)
Hard disk space	Minimum of 1GB available hard disk space (additional space is recommended if you are installing over a network)
Software	TCP/IP (Sockets) Protocol IIS 6.0 Microsoft Windows Script 5.6 or later - This must be installed on the same computer running IIS. You can download the latest script technology at the following URL: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=c717d943-7e4b-4622-86eb-95a22b832caa&DisplayLang=en . Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 and 7.0 on Windows XP (not Vista)
Display	SVGA, high color mode, 1024x768 or greater
Hardware	CD-ROM drive or access to a CD-ROM over a computer network

Note: StarTeam Web Edition minimum hardware requirements are the same as Microsoft's stated minimum hardware requirements for each supported operating system. For MS Windows workstation operating systems optional Internet Information Systems components must be installed. For best results Borland recommends StarTeam Web Edition be hosted on a dedicated computer due to the memory resources required for Microsoft IIS and Active Server Pages. Many resources are available for tuning web servers and specifically Microsoft IIS. One such resource is available on the Microsoft web site - http://www.microsoft.com/serviceproviders/resources/techresarticlesiistuning.mspx.

Client computers accessing Web Edition should use Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 or 7.0 on Windows XP and should have access to the URL address for the web server on which Web Edition is installed.

By default, MS Windows IIS host servers are configured to use Sun J2RE version 1.6.0_02. A reserved version of the J2RE is installed in a separate folder as part of the StarTeam SDK runtime. This is the only supported configuration and should not be modified by the user.

Borland recommends using Sun J2RE version 1.6.0_02 on browser client computers. This was the most recent release version available from Sun at the time of product release and therefore received the greatest amount of testing. Previous J2RE versions in the 1.4.2_x series may also be used with Web Edition but Borland may not provide fixes or patches for issues that can be resolved by upgrading the JRE.

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Installation Instructions

Please see the StarTeam Web Edition Installation and Administration Guide (sweinstall_en.pdf) section titled, Setting Up and Installing StarTeam Web Edition . Web Edition documentation can be found on the product DVD. If the product DVD is not available documentation may be found on the Borland web site at this URL http://info.borland.com/techpubs/starteam/.

Known Issues

The following are known issues in StarTeam Web Edition 2008.

• Inactivity Time Out: If the inactivity time out is enabled on the StarTeam Server the connection time out property on the IIS server must be set to a period of time that is less than the setting on the StarTeam Server. For example, the default setting for the connection time out on IIS servers is 900 seconds (15 minutes) so the inactivity time out on the StarTeam Server should be set to more than 15 minutes. If this setting is incorrect the browser clients will not be able to reconnect and will receive error messages until the IIS server is restarted.
• Custom Fields: Custom fields should be added only when Web Edition is not in use. If a custom field is created while a browser client is connect the browser client will receive error messages when attempting to modify records. Restarting the browser client will resolve this issue if it occurs.
• Maximum characters: Internet Explorer has a maximum uniform resource locator (URL) length of 2,083 characters, with a maximum path length of 2,048 characters. This can impact StarTeam Web Edition if a combination of connection, server, project, view, and folder names exceeds the IE limit. In such cases a project connection will behave as a dead link. When using double byte characters this limit may be reached more frequently. It is recommended that administrators and system users avoid using unnecessarily verbose names for StarTeam connections, servers, projects, views and folders.
• Process Items: When the active process item is deleted the change is not reflected by the indicator on the top bar until the user changes components or manually refreshes that browser pane.
• Inaccurate times: Times displayed in the History pane may be off by one second using any browser. This happens if your IIS has an older version of JScript.dll. Download the latest version of JScript.dll from Microsoft to solve the problem. JScript.dll version 5.5 displays the times correctly.
• Avoid using browser buttons: Use of the Back and Forward browser buttons can cause unexpected behavior in StarTeam Web Edition. For example, a user can add a change request, click the browser’s Back button and add the same change request a second time. Remind users to use the StarTeam Web Edition toolbar buttons—not the browser buttons. You might want to hide them in the standard browser toolbar.
• Focus problems with Internet Explorer: Internet Explorer forces a window created via the Java windowing system to remain the active window. This means that, during a long check-out operation for example, other Windows applications are unavailable to you. The focus keeps returning to the check-out progress dialog from any application you start to use while you are waiting.
• Permissions problems on UNIX systems: Changes to file permissions can occur during file operations in which StarTeam Web Edition rewrites the file.
• As you add or check in text files that require keyword expansion, StarTeam Web Edition rewrites the file. The Java VM assigns default permissions to the rewritten file. If the default permissions give you fewer privileges, you may no longer be able to edit the file. These permissions are platform-specific, and StarTeam Web Edition has no way of changing them after the fact.
• During a check-out operation, StarTeam Web Edition always rewrites the file. Again, this may change the file’s permissions. For example, you may not be able to execute the file.
• Deleting working files: If you delete the working copy of a file during a StarTeam Web Edition session and then perform an update status operation, the file’s status may not be updated correctly to Missing. To correct this problem, refresh the window (using the StarTeam Web Edition refresh button—not your browser refresh button) and perform the operation again.
• Foreign archives: StarTeam Web Edition does not handle foreign archive passwords. If users must access wrapped files (files stored in Visual SourceSafe or PVCS wrapped by StarTeam), users must first log on to the wrapped project from a StarTeam client every time the StarTeam Server is restarted. Then they can access the same files from StarTeam Web Edition.
• When using a screen resolution of 800x600 or lower some online help topics may not completely display even if the browser pane is fully maximized. A workaround is to select the text in the display and sweep the mouse beyond the bottom of the help browser window to cause it to scroll downward.
• The See History access right is required to checkout the current revision of files.
• Under certain conditions an invalid 'Permission Denied' error may result in the browser while using XP SP2 after multiple folder selections precede a toolbar button selection or if a filter is selected after selecting a folder. The workaround is to select a menu item before continuing to use the product.
• Uploading large file attachments for Web Edition may result in a server error when used with IIS 6.0 (2003 Server). This is because IIS 6.0 limits the size of files that can be uploaded.  The default setting is 200k.  This can be increased by editing the file 'metabase.XML' which is located in c:\Windows\System32\Inetsrv. Edit the value 'AspMaxRequestEntityAllowed' to '1073741824' (this is 1GB) or an appropriate value according to user requirements.
• Linux/Solaris clients whose default version of java is not supported may need to set their NPX_PLUGIN_PATH variable to point to an installation of the supported JRE. For example:
  • setenv NPX_PLUGIN_PATH /usr/java/plugin/sparc/ns4
  • setenv NPX_PLUGIN_PATH /usr/local/JRE1.4.2_01/plugin/sparc/ns
• If using the Microsoft Java VM, the StarTeam project option "Mark unlocked working files read-only" has no effect. Checked out files are always read/write.
• If you select the StarTeam project option "Mark unlocked working files read-only" (and the Microsoft Java VM is not used), an error message displays informing you that Web Edition is unable to set the working file read/write due to a limitation in Java. The only way to change from read-only back to read/write is to perform a force check-out operation with the lock status set to "Exclusive".
• Before accessing Web Edition from a Web browser, your computer must already have the Java plug-in software that enables Java support for the browser. If you attempt to launch Web Edition without this plug-in, an error message asks you to ensure that Java support is enabled for the Web browser. Note that the Java Plug-in software is a component of the Java Runtime Environment (JRE), but it is not installed by StarTeam products. The Java Plug-in allows applets written in the Java programming language to run inside various Web browsers. The Java Plug-in software is not a standalone program and cannot be installed separately, so you need to install an appropriate JRE on any computer from which a user will access Web Edition. For more information, refer to http://java.com/ and http://java.com/en/download/faq/java_plugin.xml.

Limitations

The following are limitations in Layout Designer which ships with StarTeam Web Edition.

• The Item Reference control is not available in Web Edition.
• The Attach, Userlist, History, Link and Label controls must each be used on a separate tab.
• Two or more controls having identical properties cannot be used on the same tab.
• There is no Folder component (Folder tab) in Web Edition.

Getting Help

Borland Technical Support

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