Two months after the beta hit Adobe Labs, ColdFusion Builder 2 is now available! You can find information and links to learn lots more about it, to try it, and to buy it at http://www.adobe.com/products/coldfusion-builder.html. And be sure to check out the ColdFusion Builder team's blog at http://blogs.adobe.com/cfbuilder.

ColdFusion Builder 2 now comes in a free edition called ColdFusion Builder 2 Express! I'm not seeing much in the way of details ColdFusion Builder 2 Express listed on the Adobe site but Ray Camden's blog post about it and Ben Forta's blog post about it are good places to get a bit of information.

2012-01-08: given the age and content of this post, it is difficult at this point to conceive of a legitimate comment that could be posted. Yet comments continue to be posted: spam. So it seems wise to me then to stop the insanity by closing comments to this post. Should you have a legitimate comment you wish to post here, please contact me via the contact form here on my blog. Thanks!

Kendall and I are married! And as such, I really, really need to update our blog at blog.kendallandjosh.com!

Oh--and I should also point out that since the end of November 2010, she too works for Adobe. She's an Account Manager for the Omniture Business Unit so we're a happy little Adobe family. :)

I have a bunch of rules set up for Exchange (they filter messages directly to certain folders and such). I like my rules: they do what I want them to do which fundamentally is keep out of my Inbox stuff that isn't addressed directly to me. The stuff in the Inbox is the stuff I really care about. Today I needed to set up an Out of Office message. Guess for what messages I wanted it to fire? Only those that actually make it to the Inbox of course! It turns out that this is FAR from a trivial matter. It apparently used to be that the Out of Office "rule" fired, it fired only AFTER all the other rules. This is exactly what I wanted but it seems that back in 2006, Microsoft deemed this a bug and "fixed" it. I can certainly understand that some would want their Out of Office rule to fire first and therefore be applicable to all incoming messages--but can't Microsoft understand that some of us wouldn't want that? Didn't they design the feature the initial way intentionally? Even if not, couldn't they find some users happy with it? What I'm driving at is this: it's not a bad idea to accommodate users who didn't like the initial behavior but it is, however, a terrible idea to stop accommodating users who do like the initial behavior! And it didn't have to be an either/or thing: if they would have just provided a simple flag (checkbox) in the Out of Office Assistant that allows us to choose to apply our regular rules prior to the Out of Office rule if that's how we want it or to apply our regular rules after the Out of Office rule, I'd be in fine shape right now. Come on, Microsoft!!!

But since I don't have such a flag, I had to come up with a system for beating Exchange at the Out of Office game. There are two main approaches you can take if you're in this situation (and neither is anywhere near perfect):

2011-04-21 UPDATE: you actually can't beat Exchange at the Out of Office game. You're stuck. You can read what I originally wrote below this paragraph but, for reasons I will give in a moment, I don't recommend following those approaches. The best thing to do is just set the external Out of Office message and hope it doesn't cause problems. Of course the actual best thing would be for Microsoft to make it such that your regular rules can be applied before your Out of Office rule. But until they do that, you need to set the external Out of Office message and live with the results--and if you can't live with the results then don't set an Out of Office message. But definitely do not use a regular rule that replies to every message you receive--if you do this, you run the risk of completely filling up your mailbox. The reason is that some irresponsible senders (I'm talking about you E*Trade!) will send you messages that, when replied to, generate another message to you (perhaps, as was the case with my E*Trade situation, it will tell you that the email box to which you sent your message is not monitored). If such a message were generated only once per incoming sender (which is the way that Out of Office messages work), this would not be irresponsible--it would in that case be informative and helpful. But when the message is sent out in response to every single message then it's irresponsible because what it creates is the possibility of filling up a recipient's email box because it creates an infinite loop of the recipient's rule sending a message and the irresponsible sender's server responding back with a message which causes the recipient's rule to send another message which causes the irresponsible sender's server to respond back with another message and so on and so forth. Fortunately, I happened to check my email and see this happening fairly soon after it started and then, by marking the offending E*Trade sender as a Junk Mail sender, I was able to terminate the loop after a "mere" 498 messages were sent to me. But it could have been a lot worse and if the point is to be able to not have to monitor your email box (as it was for me--I just got lucky in my timing) then it's not a risk to which you want to expose yourself. So anyway, all that said, read on if you want to but unfortunately, you won't find any info that's really practical to use as long as there are irresponsible senders in the world.

1. Do not use Out of Office at all; use a regular rule instead. Instead, add a regular rule after all your others that sends out a template that, while not an actual Out of Office message, at least conveys the same info. Out of Office is specifically designed to fire only 1 time for every sender (that too should be configurable) and this approach cannot emulate that: it sends the reply every time the rule's conditions are met and if that's a problem for you then this approach won't work.

2. Use Out of Office plus a regular rule. Remember, my ideal is that my Out of Office message fires only on those message that have already made it past my other rules. And this means that in my ideal approach, my Out of Office would never be sent to an internal distribution list or an external mailing list because my rules handle all mail sent to internal distribution lists and external mailing lists. But if I turn on Out of Office, it's going to fire off prior to my regular rules--and that means it's going to send Out of Office messages to internal distribution lists and external mailing lists, right? The answer to both parts is not necessarily. On the first part, internal distribution lists: when you turn on the Out of Office assistant, it will send Out of Office messages to senders from within your organization and so yes, messages could be sent to internal distribution lists. However, if your Exchange administrator sets the SuppressOOFsToDistributionLists flag on the Exchange Server, such messages won't be sent. In my case, I figured if the Exchange admins don't have that flag set, it must not be too big of a deal if my Out of Office messages go to internal distribution lists. If that is a big deal to you then you really have no choice but to use a regular rule as described in option 1 (you can use 2 rules, 1 for internal people and 1 for external people; keep reading to see how I set my rule to not fire for internal people; you could do that on the first rule with "stop processing more rules" then create basically the same rule again, but with different content for the internal people, and put it after the first rule). So what about external mailing lists? I don't believe setting that flag prevents the sending of Out of Office messages to external mailing lists so you have to take a different approach. It turns out that you can turn off/on the sending of Out of Office messages to senders outside your organization even when you've turned your Out of Office message on (so you can send to just those inside your organization or to both those inside and outside your organization; however, you can't send to just those outside your organization; this too makes utterly no sense to me) and if you do this then you have the opportunity to set up either a regular rule as in the manner described in approach 1 or you can set up a special Out of Office rule in the Out of Office Assistant: it turns out these rules fire AFTER your regular rules, the net of which is that they're like setting a regular rule at the bottom of your other rules, it's just that these rules are turned off/on with your Out of Office, which is nice. The problem with the special Out of Office rules, however, is that they aren't as sophisticated as regular rules. So what I had to do was set up a regular rule as described in option 1 plus I added one condition to the rule: it doesn't fire for any message with "adobe.com" in the sender's address. Thus, the result of all this is that internal people get the internal Out of Office message (and because it's a normal Out of Office message, they get it only 1 time, not every time they send me a message) and external people get a template that conveys the same info as an Out of Office message, but they get it every time they send me a message. I'm actually fine with external people getting the message every time they send me one as that will remind them I'm out in cases where there's a gap of time between their emails and they might have forgotten--and I'm okay with holding internal people to a higher standard of remembering that I'm out after being notified once! Note that in my case, I needed the internal people at the external people to receive different content anyway but of course the content of both messages could be the same if that's what you want in your situation.

The public beta for ColdFusion Builder 2 is now available on Adobe Labs! Check it out at http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/coldfusionbuilder2!

ColdFusion 9 is the best release of ColdFusion ever--so of course you want to run your ColdFusion applications on it! :) But how do you get there from where you are now? It depends on what release of ColdFusion you're on currently; this blog post is for those on ColdFusion MX 7 (the releases variously known as ColdFusion MX 7, ColdFusion MX 7.0.1, ColdFusion MX 7.0.2, ColdFusion 7, ColdFusion 7.0.1, and ColdFusion 7.0.2) or ColdFusion 8 (the releases variously known as ColdFusion 8, ColdFusion 8.0, and ColdFusion 8.0.1). If you're on ColdFusion MX (the versions variously known as ColdFusion MX, ColdFusion MX 6, ColdFusion MX 6.1) or earlier (releases such as ColdFusion 5, ColdFusion 4.5, ColdFusion 4, etc.) you should check out the companion blog post to this one.

If you're on ColdFusion MX 7 or ColdFusion 8, you are eligible to upgrade to ColdFusion 9 because, as noted in the following link, the valid upgrade paths to ColdFusion 9 are from ColdFusion MX 7 and ColdFusion 8:

• http://www.adobe.com/products/coldfusion/upgrade

The ColdFusion team has worked very hard to maintain backward-compatibility in ColdFusion 9 for applications coded for previous versions of ColdFusion: in many cases, your code will simply run without any changes when you move it to ColdFusion 9. But of course you shouldn't just deploy your production applications to ColdFusion 9 and hope they work: you should test your applications fully before deploying them to production. And to get you started with the greatest chance of success, you should first use the ColdFusion Code Compatibility Analyzer to determine if your code is valid for ColdFusion 9:

• http://help.adobe.com/en_US/ColdFusion/9.0/Admin/WSc3ff6d0ea77859461172e0811cbf3638e6-7fe0.html#WSc3ff6d0ea77859461172e0811cbf3638e6-7fd6
• http://help.adobe.com/en_US/ColdFusion/9.0/Developing/WSc3ff6d0ea77859461172e0811cbec0d04c-7fee.html

I recommend reviewing the tag and function changes to ColdFusion. Be sure to note the addition of functions with names that collide with user-defined functions in your code (for instance, ColdFusion 9 introduced the SpreadsheetNew() function; if your code has a user-defined function called SpreadsheetNew() you will need to change the name of that user-defined function and all references to it in your code before upgrading to ColdFusion 9):

• http://help.adobe.com/en_US/ColdFusion/9.0/CFMLRef/WSc3ff6d0ea77859461172e0811cbec17576-7fef.html
• http://help.adobe.com/en_US/ColdFusion/9.0/CFMLRef/WSc3ff6d0ea77859461172e0811cbec1a60c-7ffa.html

It's very important to read the release notes for ColdFusion 9.0.1 and ColdFusion 9 in case some might apply to your environment:

• http://www.adobe.com/support/documentation/en/coldfusion/releasenotes.html#9
• http://www.adobe.com/support/documentation/en/coldfusion/releasenotes.html#901

There are a couple of blog posts that, while written for moving to previous releases of ColdFusion, are certainly worth perusing:

• http://www.sargeway.com/blog/index.cfm?mode=entry&entry=6DBD3FC6-C29F-05EC-8BC78715AD424685
• http://www.carehart.org/blog/client/index.cfm/2009/8/10/cf8_migration_resources

When you're ready to install ColdFusion 9, make sure your environment is in compliance with the ColdFusion 9 system requirements and systems support matrix, then review my blog post on the installers for ColdFusion 9, and then review the "Installing Adobe ColdFusion 9" documentation:

• http://www.adobe.com/products/coldfusion/systemreqs
• http://blog.joshuaadams.com/index.cfm/2010/6/3/ColdFusion-8-and-9-ColdFusion-Builder-and-Flash-Builder-4-Installers
• http://help.adobe.com/en_US/ColdFusion/9.0/Installing/index.html (HTML version, containing comments from users and Adobe employees)
• http://help.adobe.com/en_US/ColdFusion/9.0/Installing/coldfusion_9_install.pdf (PDF version with no comments)

Once you have installed ColdFusion 9, you'll want to install ColdFusion 9 Update 1 to bring your install up to ColdFusion 9.0.1; for more information, including links to additional information and the installer, on this free update for ColdFusion 9, see the following FAQ:

• http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/849/cpsid_84973.html

Next you'll want to check out the Hot Fixes and Cumulative Hot Fixes available for ColdFusion 9.0.1:

• http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/529/cpsid_52967.html

And finally, it's extremely important that you check out the security bulletins and advisories for ColdFusion and apply any relevant security Hotfixes--and while you're at it, consider signing up to receive security notifications via the Security Notification Service so you don't miss any security bulletins or advisories for ColdFusion in the future:

• http://www.adobe.com/support/security/#coldfusion
• http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/entitlement/index.cfm?e=szalert

Adobe has worked hard to make the upgrade process as smooth and easy as possible. The process involved varies depending on:

• Your current product version and edition as well as, in the case of ColdFusion Enterprise, your current deployment type.
• Your desired product version and edition as well as, in the case of ColdFusion Enterprise, your desired deployment type.

To upgrade to ColdFusion 9 Enterprise from ColdFusion 9 Standard while maintaining a Server (a.k.a. standalone) installation:

1. Enter your license key for ColdFusion 9 Enterprise (or your ColdFusion 9 Enterprise upgrade license key valid for upgrading from ColdFusion 9 Standard) in the ColdFusion Administrator in the System Information section accessible via the link marked with an "i" Information icon in the upper-right. No reinstall of ColdFusion 9 is required and, since you will be using the same installation of ColdFusion 9, you will not need to import any settings (they'll already be there). This works this way because there is a single runtime (per platform and language; the same is true for the installer) for ColdFusion 9 which acts as a particular edition based on what license key(s) are entered: if you enter a license key for ColdFusion 9 Enterprise (or a valid combination of ColdFusion 9 Enterprise upgrade license key and appropriate upgradeable ColdFusion license key), the runtime will act as ColdFusion 9 Enterprise; if you enter a license key for ColdFusion 9 Standard (or a valid combination of ColdFusion 9 Standard upgrade license key and appropriate upgradeable ColdFusion license key), the runtime will act as ColdFusion 9 Standard.

To upgrade to a Server (a.k.a. standalone) installation of ColdFusion 9 from a Server installation of any release of ColdFusion MX 7 or ColdFusion 8 (NOTE: the process is the same for Server installations of both ColdFusion Enterprise and ColdFusion Standard):

1. Run the ColdFusion 9 installer to install ColdFusion 9
2. Browse to the ColdFusion 9 Administrator to launch the Configuration Wizard and allow it to import the settings from ColdFusion MX 7 or ColdFusion 8

To upgrade to ColdFusion 9 Enterprise from multi-server and J2EE installations of any release of ColdFusion MX, follow this documentation and TechNote (written for upgrading from ColdFusion MX 7 to ColdFusion 8 but the principles apply for upgrading from ColdFusion MX 7 or ColdFusion 8 to ColdFusion 9):

• http://help.adobe.com/en_US/ColdFusion/9.0/Installing/WSe9cbe5cf462523a0-b18e31f121c8f9f003-8000.html
• http://www.adobe.com/go/kb405205

If as a part of your upgrade to ColdFusion 9 you wish to switch to an installation type you are not currently using (for instance, if you wish to switch to a Multi-Server installation from a Server installation), you must perform a new installation of your chosen ColdFusion 9 installation type and then manually migrate your settings from your current ColdFusion installation.

As long as you choose to use the built-in web server during installation of ColdFusion 9, your installation of ColdFusion MX 7 or ColdFusion 8 will not be altered or removed by the installation of ColdFusion 9. You will therefore be able to continue running ColdFusion MX 7 or ColdFusion 8 while you test your new ColdFusion 9 installation.

If during installation of ColdFusion 9 you choose to use the same external web server as you are using for ColdFusion MX 7 or ColdFusion 9, note that the CFIDE and CFDOCS directories in the root of your external web server will be replaced by the CFIDE and CFDOCS directories for ColdFusion 9. If you wish to avoid this, you must instead choose to use the built-in web server during installation of ColdFusion 9. As Michael Collins explains in the following blog post, you can later use the Web Server Configuration Tool to configure your external web server for ColdFusion 9:

• http://blogs.adobe.com/mcollins/2007/11/test.html

If you wish to configure your external web server to work properly with both ColdFusion MX 7 and/or ColdFusion 8 and ColdFusion 9 on an ongoing basis (as opposed to working with only one release of ColdFusion), you can do so, but you will need to do some manual configuration of your web server; see the following blog post by Adobe Community Expert Charlie Arehart for more information (even if you're not using Microsoft IIS and Microsoft Windows XP, the principles described will apply):

• http://carehart.org/blog/client/index.cfm/2007/8/21/multiple_cf_versions_on_IIS_XP

Installing ColdFusion 9 will not uninstall ColdFusion MX 7 or ColdFusion 8; this is by design: it is possible, and desirable in some circumstances, to run multiple versions of ColdFusion at once. There is no need for you to uninstall ColdFusion MX 7 or ColdFusion 8 once you are no longer using it (note that if you simply stop it from running, the only resource it uses is some space on your hard drive). However, if you wish to uninstall ColdFusion MX 7 or ColdFusion 8 after installing ColdFusion 9, you should first make a backup copy of the CFIDE and cfdocs directories in your web root folder because the uninstallation of ColdFusion MX 7 or ColdFusion 8 can remove these directories. After you uninstall ColdFusion MX 7 or ColdFusion 8, simply restore these directories from backup. The uninstallation of ColdFusion MX 7 or ColdFusion 8 can also remove "index.cfm" from the list of default documents in your web server. Therefore, if having "index.cfm" listed in your web server as one of the default document is required for your ColdFusion application, you may have to add this listing to your web server after the uninstallation of ColdFusion MX 7 or ColdFusion 8. See your web server's documentation for information on adding default document listings. Alternatively, you may be able to use the ColdFusion 9 Web Server Configuration Tool to do it for you:

• http://help.adobe.com/en_US/ColdFusion/9.0/Admin/WSc3ff6d0ea77859461172e0811cbf364104-7fd6.html

Still have questions? First, visit the Installation section of the ColdFusion Support Center. If you can't find your answer there, feel free to contact me or, particularly if your question is one you believe would benefit other readers of this post, add a comment on this post.

One final note: Adobe offers implementation consulting for a fee and in addition, we have a number of partners who can help you with implementation and troubleshooting; if you would like more information on these offerings, please contact me.

ColdFusion 9 is the best release of ColdFusion ever--so of course you want to run your ColdFusion applications on it! :) But how do you get there from where you are now? It depends on what release of ColdFusion you're on currently; this blog post is for those on ColdFusion MX (the releases variously known as ColdFusion MX, ColdFusion MX 6, ColdFusion MX 6.1) or earlier (releases such as ColdFusion 5, ColdFusion 4.5, ColdFusion 4, etc.). If you're on ColdFusion MX 7 (the releases variously known as ColdFusion MX 7, ColdFusion MX 7.0.1, ColdFusion MX 7.0.2, ColdFusion 7, ColdFusion 7.0.1, and ColdFusion 7.0.2) or ColdFusion 8 (the releases variously known as ColdFusion 8, ColdFusion 8.0, and ColdFusion 8.0.1), you should check out the companion blog post to this one.

Since the valid upgrade paths to ColdFusion 9 are from ColdFusion MX 7 and ColdFusion 8, if you are on ColdFusion MX or earlier you cannot upgrade to ColdFusion 9. However, you can still migrate your ColdFusion applications from ColdFusion MX or earlier to ColdFusion 9. Note that unlike the valid upgrade paths available for moving to ColdFusion 9, migrating from ColdFusion MX or earlier to ColdFusion 9 does not allow for automated migration of ColdFusion settings like datasources, mappings, custom tag paths, and so on; instead, you must migrate your ColdFusion MX or earlier settings to ColdFusion 9 manually.

There are two great resources you should check out if you're on ColdFusion 5 or earlier; these were not updated for ColdFusion 9, to a large extent because there really wasn't any need: the concerns involved when migrating from ColdFusion 5 to ColdFusion 9 are generally the same as those involved when migrating from ColdFusion 5 to ColdFusion MX or ColdFusion MX 7. The two resources are the "Migrating ColdFusion 5 Applications" section of the ColdFusion MX LiveDocs and "Migrating Applications to ColdFusion MX 7":

• http://livedocs.adobe.com/coldfusion/6/Migrating_ColdFusion_5_Applications/cf_migration_guide.htm
• http://download.macromedia.com/pub/documentation/en/coldfusion/mx7/cfmx7_migrating.pdf

The ColdFusion team has worked very hard to maintain backward-compatibility in ColdFusion 9 for applications coded for previous versions of ColdFusion: in many cases, your code will simply run without any changes when you move it to ColdFusion 9. But of course you shouldn't just deploy your production applications to ColdFusion 9 and hope they work: you should test your applications fully before deploying them to production. And to get you started with the greatest chance of success, you should first use the ColdFusion Code Compatibility Analyzer to determine if your code is valid for ColdFusion 9:

• http://help.adobe.com/en_US/ColdFusion/9.0/Admin/WSc3ff6d0ea77859461172e0811cbf3638e6-7fe0.html#WSc3ff6d0ea77859461172e0811cbf3638e6-7fd6
• http://help.adobe.com/en_US/ColdFusion/9.0/Developing/WSc3ff6d0ea77859461172e0811cbec0d04c-7fee.html

I recommend reviewing the tag and function changes to ColdFusion. Be sure to note the addition of functions with names that collide with user-defined functions in your code (for instance, ColdFusion 9 introduced the SpreadsheetNew() function; if your code has a user-defined function called SpreadsheetNew() you will need to change the name of that user-defined function and all references to it in your code before migrating to ColdFusion 9):

• http://help.adobe.com/en_US/ColdFusion/9.0/CFMLRef/WSc3ff6d0ea77859461172e0811cbec17576-7fef.html
• http://help.adobe.com/en_US/ColdFusion/9.0/CFMLRef/WSc3ff6d0ea77859461172e0811cbec1a60c-7ffa.html

It's very important to read the release notes for ColdFusion 9.0.1 and ColdFusion 9 in case some might apply to your environment:

• http://www.adobe.com/support/documentation/en/coldfusion/releasenotes.html#9
• http://www.adobe.com/support/documentation/en/coldfusion/releasenotes.html#901

There are a couple of blog posts that, while written for moving to previous releases of ColdFusion, are certainly worth perusing:

• http://www.sargeway.com/blog/index.cfm?mode=entry&entry=6DBD3FC6-C29F-05EC-8BC78715AD424685
• http://www.carehart.org/blog/client/index.cfm/2009/8/10/cf8_migration_resources

When you're ready to install ColdFusion 9, make sure your environment is in compliance with the ColdFusion 9 system requirements and systems support matrix, then review my blog post on the installers for ColdFusion 9, and then review the "Installing Adobe ColdFusion 9" documentation:

• http://www.adobe.com/products/coldfusion/systemreqs
• http://blog.joshuaadams.com/index.cfm/2010/6/3/ColdFusion-8-and-9-ColdFusion-Builder-and-Flash-Builder-4-Installers
• http://help.adobe.com/en_US/ColdFusion/9.0/Installing/index.html (HTML version, containing comments from users and Adobe employees)
• http://help.adobe.com/en_US/ColdFusion/9.0/Installing/coldfusion_9_install.pdf (PDF version with no comments)

Once you have installed ColdFusion 9, you'll want to install ColdFusion 9 Update 1 to bring your install up to ColdFusion 9.0.1; for more information, including links to additional information and the installer, on this free update for ColdFusion 9, see the following FAQ:

• http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/849/cpsid_84973.html

Next you'll want to check out the Hot Fixes and Cumulative Hot Fixes available for ColdFusion 9.0.1:

• http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/529/cpsid_52967.html

And finally, it's extremely important that you check out the security bulletins and advisories for ColdFusion and apply any relevant security Hotfixes--and while you're at it, consider signing up to receive security notifications via the Security Notification Service so you don't miss any security bulletins or advisories for ColdFusion in the future:

• http://www.adobe.com/support/security/#coldfusion
• http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/entitlement/index.cfm?e=szalert

Once you have completed the installation of ColdFusion 9, you will need to manually migrate your settings from your ColdFusion MX or earlier installation to your ColdFusion 9 installation.

As long as you choose to use the built-in web server during installation of ColdFusion 9, your installation of ColdFusion MX or earlier will not be altered or removed by the installation of ColdFusion 9. You will therefore be able to continue running ColdFusion MX or earlier while you test your new ColdFusion 9 installation.

If during installation of ColdFusion 9 you choose to use the same external web server as you are using for ColdFusion MX or earlier, note that the CFIDE and CFDOCS directories in the root of your external web server will be replaced by the CFIDE and CFDOCS directories for ColdFusion 9. If you wish to avoid this, you must instead choose to use the built-in web server during installation of ColdFusion 9. As Michael Collins explains in the following blog post, you can later use the Web Server Configuration Tool to configure your external web server for ColdFusion 9:

• http://blogs.adobe.com/mcollins/2007/11/test.html

If you wish to configure your external web server to work properly with both ColdFusion MX or earlier and ColdFusion 9 on an ongoing basis (as opposed to working with only one release of ColdFusion), you can do so, but you will need to do some manual configuration of your web server; see the following blog post by Adobe Community Expert Charlie Arehart for more information (even if you're not using Microsoft IIS and Microsoft Windows XP, the principles described will apply):

• http://carehart.org/blog/client/index.cfm/2007/8/21/multiple_cf_versions_on_IIS_XP

Installing ColdFusion 9 will not uninstall ColdFusion MX or earlier; this is by design: it is possible, and desirable in some circumstances, to run multiple versions of ColdFusion at once. There is no need for you to uninstall ColdFusion MX or earlier once you are no longer using it (note that if you simply stop it from running, the only resource it uses is some space on your hard drive). However, if you wish to uninstall ColdFusion MX or earlier after installing ColdFusion 9, you should first make a backup copy of the CFIDE and cfdocs directories in your web root folder because the uninstallation of ColdFusion MX or earlier can remove these directories. After you uninstall ColdFusion MX or earlier, simply restore these directories from backup. The uninstallation of ColdFusion MX or earlier can also remove "index.cfm" from the list of default documents in your web server. Therefore, if having "index.cfm" listed in your web server as one of the default document is required for your ColdFusion application, you may have to add this listing to your web server after the uninstallation of ColdFusion MX or earlier. See your web server's documentation for information on adding default document listings. Alternatively, you may be able to use the ColdFusion 9 Web Server Configuration Tool to do it for you:

• http://help.adobe.com/en_US/ColdFusion/9.0/Admin/WSc3ff6d0ea77859461172e0811cbf364104-7fd6.html

Still have questions? First, visit the Installation section of the ColdFusion Support Center. If you can't find your answer there, feel free to contact me or, particularly if your question is one you believe would benefit other readers of this post, add a comment on this post.

One final note: Adobe offers implementation consulting for a fee and in addition, we have a number of partners who can help you with implementation and troubleshooting; if you would like more information on these offerings, please contact me.

http://www.joshuaadams.com/bday

It's almost time for my 12th annual WhirlyBirthday--and this year there's a new celebration to add: my engagement to Kendall!

Everyone is invited. Yep, everyone (and if you don't live in Atlanta, you're additionally invited to crash with me while you're here). I'd love to have you, your friends, your family, etc! It's not just about WhirlyBall--after all, there's dinner beforehand. But really, it's about hanging out too and there will be a great group there so don't worry about it if you don't know many or any others who are coming--you'll meet people.

So come on: check out the details and RSVP that you'll join us via this URL:

http://www.joshuaadams.com/bday

I hope to see you there! It will be a ton of fun--and it will be better with you there! Please join us!

Josh

Kendall and I are engaged! I've posted all the details on the blog I have set up for us at http://blog.kendallandjosh.com!

Well, okay, so I don't know that the title of this post is strictly true: you may be able to run the Adobe Updater even if you're not logged into Windows as a user with administrative rights--but I don't know how you launch Adobe Updater other than from the Help menu of an Adobe product and the point I'm really making in this post is that if you aren't logged into Windows with administrative rights, you either won't have the menu option "Check for Updates" (this was the behavior I observed in Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader) or the menu option "Adobe [Product Name] Updates" will be "grayed out" and unavailable to be selected (this was the behavior I observed in Adobe ColdFusion Builder).

So the point is this: make sure you're logged into Windows with administrative rights if you want to update your Adobe products! If you find this same behavior on another operating system, please post a comment to let me know.

I'm posting this because when I searched to figure out what the problem was, I couldn't find anything; fortunately, it dawned on me what the issue was. But some keywords for search engine indexing are in order here: Adobe Check for Updates menu item not shown, Adobe Check for Updates menu item not available, Adobe Check for Updates menu item not there, Adobe Check for Updates menu item missing, cannot run Adobe Updater.

I am commonly asked questions about the installers for ColdFusion 8 and 9, ColdFusion Builder, and Flash Builder 4 so I thought I'd make my long-overdue return to the world of blogging by compiling here some details that are hard to ascertain elsewhere.

Before I get into the details: you can find the EULAs for all the Adobe products mentioned here at http://www.adobe.com/products/eulas. Regardless of what the technical limitations are or aren't with any of this software, you're bound to the terms of the EULA for whatever product you're using. Okay, now let's get on with it.

ColdFusion 8 and 9 Installers

For ColdFusion 8 and ColdFusion 9 (the following facts are actually true for certain earlier versions as well but as all earlier versions and their corresponding installers are no longer available from Adobe, I'm not going to concern myself with them here), there is for any given platform and language (e.g. Windows 32-bit English, Windows 64-bit Japanese, Solaris 64-bit English, etc.) only a single installer for ColdFusion. This means that no matter if you want Enterprise, Standard, Trial, or Developer, you use the same installer--the way the download links are labeled may seem to imply otherwise, but do not be mislead! Take Windows 64-bit for example: there is only 1 installer for Windows 64-bit English (and then another for Windows 64-bit Japanese), not separate installers for Enterprise, Standard, Trial, and Developer. It doesn't matter where or from whom you purchased ColdFusion nor does it matter via which sales program you purchased: you still use this same single installer for your platform.

How ColdFusion behaves (that is, which of Enterprise, Standard, Trial, or Developer it acts as) once installed is dependent on choices you make during installation. If you supply your Enterprise license key (a.k.a. serial number) during installation, you get the Enterprise edition and if you supply your Standard license key during installation, you get the Standard edition. If you do not supply your license key during installation, you can choose either to have ColdFusion install as the Trial edition or the Developer edition. If you've supplied an Enterprise license key or chosen either the Trial edition or the Developer edition, you'll then be given the choice to install ColdFusion in the Server (a.k.a. "standalone") configuration, the Multi-server configuration, or the J2EE configuration. If you have supplied your Standard license key, you will only be able to install in the Server configuration (Multi-server and J2EE configurations are only available for Enterprise, Trial, and Developer).

So this single installer for your platform then allows you to install any of the following:

• Enterprise in the Server configuration
• Enterprise in the Multi-server configuration
• Enterprise in the J2EE configuration
• Standard in the Server configuration (Standard does not allow the Muti-server or J2EE configurations)
• Trial in the Server configuration
• Trial in the Multi-server configuration
• Trial in the J2EE configuration
• Developer in the Server configuration
• Developer in the Multi-server configuration
• Developer in the J2EE configuration

The ColdFusion 9 installers can be accessed via http://www.adobe.com/go/trycoldfusion.

The ColdFusion 8 installers can be accessed via http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/tdrc/index.cfm?product=coldfusion8.

Two important notes:

• ColdFusion 8 Standard is only available for the 32-bit platforms on which ColdFusion 8 is supported (even for the Server configuration). If you install a 64-bit version of ColdFusion 8, you must supply a ColdFusion 8 Enterprise license key. If you try to supply a Standard license key, the key will not be accepted.
• Though ColdFusion 9 Standard is available for 64-bit Linux, there is a known issue with ColdFusion 9 not accepting standard license keys during installation on 64-bit Linux. But this is only an issue during installation: you can apply the key after installation via the ColdFusion Administrator.

UPDATE: The story is much the same for the ColdFusion 9 Update 1 installers (these bring your ColdFusion installation up to ColdFusion 9.0.1): there is only a single installer per platform (this single installer is for all languages on the given platform); these installers can be found at http://www.adobe.com/support/coldfusion/downloads_updates.html#cf9. For more information on this free update for ColdFusion 9, see the FAQ available at http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/849/cpsid_84973.html.

ColdFusion Builder Installers

For ColdFusion Builder, the story is much the same: there is for any given platform and language (Windows English, Mac English, Windows Japanese, and Mac Japanese) only a single installer for ColdFusion Builder; how ColdFusion Builder behaves once installed is dependent on the license key (a.k.a. serial number) you apply. It doesn't matter if you want to do a Standalone installation or if you want to install ColdFusion Builder as a plug-in to Flash Builder or any other Eclipse installation--you use the same installer either way. When you fire up ColdFusion Builder, you'll be asked for a license key and if you don't supply one, you'll get the Trial edition, which is a fully functioning version of ColdFusion Builder that can be used for 60 days after installation. To keep rolling along beyond 60d ays, you'll just need to supply (after legally acquiring, of course) a valid license key when starting ColdFusion Builder. Here too it doesn't matter where or from whom you purchased ColdFusion Builder nor does it matter via which sales program you purchased: you still use the same installer; there really is only one installer for any given supported platform and language.

The ColdFusion Builder installers can be accessed via http://www.adobe.com/go/trycoldfusionbuilder.

Incidentally, if you're installing both ColdFusion Builder and Flash Builder 4 and/or any other Eclipse plug-ins in the same eclipse environment on Windows, my recommendation is that you install ColdFusion Builder in the Standalone configuration and then install Flash Builder 4 and/or the other Eclipse plug-ins as plug-ins to the ColdFusion Builder installation. The reason for this is that when it is the base install, you can have ColdFusion Builder associate ColdFusion files (.cfm, .cfc, and so on) in Windows so that when you open one of these files from Windows, it will open properly in ColdFusion Builder. This may not sound like much but trust me: this is actually a nifty little feature for an Eclipse-based IDE. Speaking of Flash Builder 4...

Flash Builder 4 Installers

For Flash Builder 4, the story is much the same but there is an important difference: for any given platform and language (and there are numerous languages available), there is one installer to use if you're doing a Standalone installation and another to use if you're doing an Eclipse Plug-in installation. So for any given platform and language, there are two installers and you need to choose the right one for the installation type you're going to perform. But note that there are not separate installers for Flash Builder 4 Standard and Flash Builder 4 Premium: just as ColdFusion 8 and 9 behave as Standard if you supply a Standard license key and Enterprise if you supply an Enterprise license key, so too does Flash Builder 4 behave as Standard if you supply a Standard license key and Premium if you supply a Premium license key. Like ColdFusion Builder, when you fire up Flash Builder, you'll be asked for a license key and if you don't supply one, you'll get the Trial edition, which is a fully functioning version of Flash Builder 4 Premium that can be used for 60 days after installation. To keep rolling along beyond 60 days, you'll just need to supply (again, after legally acquiring, of course) a valid license key when starting Flash Builder 4. Here too it doesn't matter where or from whom you purchased Flash Builder 4 nor does it matter via which sales program you purchased: you still use one of the same two installers (the Standalone installer if you want to do a Standalone installation or the Eclipse Plug-in installer if you want to install Flash Builder 4 as a plug-in to ColdFusion Builder or any other Eclipse installation) for your platform and language.

The Flash Builder 4 installers can be accessed via http://www.adobe.com/go/try_flashbuilder.

ColdFusion Builder Beta 3 is available on Adobe Labs:

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/coldfusionbuilder

Download it, install it, rock it!

I just had an experience where every time I would launch ColdFusion Builder beta 2, it would consume as much RAM as it could get. ColdFusion Builder seemed to launch properly but I couldn't interact with it: it was unresponsive as it went about its rampant RAM consumption and I had no choice but to kill the process.

I have Flash Builder 4 beta 2 installed as a plug-in and I was running it in Trial mode and accordingly every time I launched ColdFusion Builder, Flash Builder presented me with a registration screen. Normally, I'd have to clear this screen before ColdFusion Builder would launch completely but during the time when ColdFusion Builder was getting all whacked out on RAM, it was launching completely even while presenting this screen.

But the good news is that I got ColdFusion Builder working again by removing my "Adobe ColdFusion Builder workspace" directory; ColdFusion Builder then created a new one on its next launch and all was well. This is a drastic step that effectively completely resets ColdFusion Builder--but of course, that's a lot better than what I was dealing with. But actually, I was able to bail myself out on that and perhaps this will work for you too: rather than completely deleting my "Adobe ColdFusion Builder workspace" directory, I just renamed it (you could of course also move it) and then when the new one was created upon my next restart, I did a folder comparison of the 2 and I copied over a number of directories and files. By and large, what I copied over were those directories and files that were missing from the new directory, not those that were simply changed. In the end, as well as I could tell, when I next launched ColdFusion Builder, it not only launched properly but it was back in the state I wanted it in.