AffiliateWiz installation issues

[Brewhaus]

With our recent upgrade to Server 2008 and .Net 4.0 we were forced to upgrade to AffiliateWiz 10. However, we have not been able to get it to work. We tried the fix above, but still come back with Could not load file or assembly 'CommerceBuilder.Services' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified. Has anyone successfully integrated AffiliateWiz 10 with AC 7.0.7 on Server 2008? Even Joe from AffiliateWiz cannot get it running, and at one point he ended up taking down our AC site trying.

[NC Software]

I've used it for a long time (Aff Wiz 10) with 7.0.7 on Server 2008 R2 / .NET 4. I have them as two separate sites, i.e. Aff Wiz is NOT a virtual directory, in fact I have it on a separate server now, they used to be on the same server, so that's not a big deal. I just upgraded to Aff Wiz 11.

Aff Wiz ships the 32 bit DLL by default. You can set your App Pool in the Advanced settings area to enable 32-bit support and see if that fixes your issue or contact Joe R. at AdComplete and request the 64-bit DLL if you don't already have it or need it.

It sounds to me like you have your two sites nested and you're having a web.config inheritance issue. You can try copying your /bin files from AC 7.0.7 into the Aff Wiz bin folder and see if that helps as well.

My recommendation is separate and isolate the sites. I had a security breach a few years back and I think it happened via the Aff Wiz file uploader hence why I have server separation and 18 million other new security blocks in place after that lovely event!

[Brewhaus]

We have the 64-bit DLL, but despite asking Joe several time how / where to implement it he has not told me. Placing Aff Wiz onto a separate site does not bother me at all (a few bucks for another domain name- pretty minor, really). You appear to be running the same setup that we are (AC 7.0.7, Aff Wiz 10, Server 2008 R2, .Net 4.0). So, would I simply move the AffiliateWiz folder from our current AC site's folder, install the 64-bit DLL (please advise on this, as Joe has not given us that information), and it should be good to go?

[NC Software]

Remove the AffWiz.dll (or whatever it's named) from the /bin folder of AffWiz and put in the 64-bit DLL of the same name, that's all there is to it. You don't need another domain name, just a host header, for example, my AC site is "www . nc-software . com" and my AffWiz is "a . nc-software . com" then run as separate sites. Putting any other .NET whatever under AC can and will cause headaches due to web.config inheritance, I highly discourage it!

Get AffWiz running on your separate IIS web site. Yes, get all of the files out of your AC folder structure. For example, I have:

D:\Webs\Store
D:\Webs\AffWiz

Then IIS has two web sites pointing to these and every web site should use its own AppPool. Make sure your AppPools are using .NET 4 integrated, and no need to run 32-bit mode in the advanced settings of the AppPool.

First get your AffWiz configured and setup per AdComplete's installation guide. Then you can start working on the integration (custom URL) that sends the information at checkout to AffWiz for affiliate tracking.

It's not that hard, step back and start over, get AffWiz out of AC, setup AffWiz as a standalone and you should be fine.

[Brewhaus]

Thanks, Neal. I FINALLY got it running. Question (as it has been years since I set up a domain this way)- do I have to set up DNS to handle affiliates.hotsaucedepot.com, or just an IIS entry?

[NC Software]

Yes, you will need to add a DNS entry as it's a unique domain name even though to you it's a host header.

[NC Software]

I use a.nc-software.com because the URL's that go out to your referrals will see "affiliates" in your domain and know it's a loaded URL, i.e. someone is spamming for money in return. I use an inconspicuous URL on purpose, hence what I chose.

[Brewhaus]

I guess that I never thought about it, but by moving the affiliate software from

http://
www.
hotsaucedepot.
com/affiliates...

to

http://
www.
a.hotsaucedepot.
com,

our affiliates will have to change all of their links, won't they? I hate progress.

As for setting up website

a.hotsaucedepot.
com,

do I just set it up in IIS as a new website? Is there anything to do in DNS to handle this? I did this once several years back, but do not recall how I handled it.

[NC Software]

Yes, you will need to use the utility in Aff Wiz to update your URL's, it's in one of the menus, probably tools area. And your affiliates will need to redo their linkage.

Yes, you will need a DNS entry for your domain, most likely an A record or CNAME depending on your IP assignments.

[Brewhaus]

Great- I will get this done. Thanks for the help!