Category: Dynamics NAV

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Dynamics NAV HOW TO Microsoft

HOW TO create NAV Web Instances with multiple builds in the same machine

After my post HOW TO create NAV Instances with multiple builds in the same machine, it’s time to expand that post including a “super-easy method” to add a new NAV Web Instance for a different build.

The concept once again is that you are working with a version of Dynamics NAV (particular build) installed in your machine of which you have already configured the Web Client and now you want to create a new NAV Web Instance for a different build (scenario of my previous post).

Under the hook

Let analyze, for example, the structure of the Web Client for NAV 2017.
The following picture, from Internet Information Service (IIS) Manager, shows that there is a website called Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2017 Web Client that can contain one or multiple NAV Web Instances. In this case, it contains a NAV Web Instance named DynamicsNAV100 which is a Virtual Directory (we can notice it from the icon) that contains an Application called WebClient.

Right-click on DynamicsNAV100 and selecting Explore it will open the content of the virtual directory in a File Explorer window:

So now we know the content of the Virtual Directory, which includes actually two items, and the location where it is stored, at the path

C:\inetpub\wwwroot\DynamicsNAV100

What are these two items?

  1. web.config is a file containing the configuration of the NAV Web Instance
  2. WebClient, with an icon similar to a shortcut, is a Symbolic Link.

Right-click on the symbolic link WebClient shows in the properties, in the Shortcut tab, the path of the NAV Web Client folder as Target:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Dynamics NAV\100\Web Client

However, double-click on the symbolic link WebClient allows the user to navigate inside NAV Web Client folder “pretending” that those files are stored in the Virtual Directory folder.

Hint: If a symbolic link is deleted, its target remains unaffected.

At this point, we have enough knowledge to manipulate this information to achieve our goal.

HOW TO create NAV Web Instances with multiple builds in the same machine

In this example, I consider NAV 2017 but the same concepts can be applied to multiple versions of NAV.

Prerequisites/Preparation:

  • Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2017 (10.0.14199, CU 1) installed including Web Server Components
  • Cumulative Update package, in this example the latest CU 39 (build 10.0.30160), downloaded from the Microsoft Support website

After you installed NAV 2017, the Web Client files will be inside the following path:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Dynamics NAV\100\Web Client

Copy the content of the Web Client folder from the Cumulative Update package (DVD zipped) 

C:\Temp\CU 39 NAV 2017 W1\NAV.10.0.30160.W1.DVD\WebClient\Microsoft Dynamics NAV\100\Web Client

Into a new folder:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Dynamics NAV\100 - Build 30160\Web Client

Now you can create a new Web Server Instance using PowerShell command, e.g.

New-NAVWebServerInstance -WebServerInstance SecondWebInstance -Server MyServer -ServerInstance NAV2017CU39 -ClientServicesCredentialType Windows -ClientServicesPort 7146

Then navigate to the following path 

C:\inetpub\wwwroot\SecondWebInstance

Delete the WebClient link and then recreate it to point to the new version folder created before:

mklink /d "C:\inetpub\wwwroot\SecondWebInstance\WebClient" "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Dynamics NAV\100 - Build 30160\Web Client"

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Business Central Docker Dynamics NAV HOW TO Microsoft PowerShell

HOW TO remove docker dangling and unused images

Let us extend the concept of Spring Cleaning to our computers, virtual machines and servers where we are using Docker.

I was starting writing some PowerShell script from the list of the docker images

PS C:\> docker images

and thinking which filters to apply when I thought that maybe docker contains already a command that does some good cleanup.

Here the result of my research, we can use docker image prune, in my case I added also the parameters -a to remove all unused images (all images without at least one container associated to them) and -f that stands for Force to do not prompt for confirmation:

PS C:\> docker image prune -a -f

Note: every docker image related to Microsoft Dynamics NAV or Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central takes usually 10-20 GB of space.

If you use navcontainerhelper for the creation of the Docker containers I suggest you to have a look also of the content of the folder under the following path:

C:\ProgramData\NavContainerHelper

You could find old database backup or source file objects downloaded that could be deleted as well.

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