Updating Windows Azure Cloud Service To .NET 4.5 and Windows Server 2012

1. Open the solution in Visual Studio.
2. Right click on the cloud project in the Solution Explorer. In the accompanying picture, the solution name is “Sdk1dot7”, the web role project name is “MvcWebRole1”, and the cloud project name is “Sdk1dot7”. Right-click on the cloud project “Sdk1dot7”.
   
    
3.  Click on “Properties”. The properties sheet will show an “Upgrade” button. Note in the picture below, the properties page shows that this project was built the June 2012 SP1 Windows Azure Tools version. Click the “Upgrade” button. After the upgrade, if you check this properties sheet again, it should show that the current Windows Azure Tools version is October 2012.

Manually edit the .cscfg file and change the “OSFamily” attribute of the “ServiceConfiguration” element to read “3”. 

1. In the Solutions Explorer click on the “ServiceConfiguration.Cloud.cscfg” file under the cloud project.

    

2. Change the circled entry to “3” and save the file.

1. Open the properties sheet of the WebRole project by right-clicking the WebRole project and clicking on “Properties”.

   

2. In the “Application” tab look for the “Target framework” dropdown. It should show .NET 4.0. Open the dropdown and select .NET 4.5. You’ll get a “Target Framework Change” dialog box, click “Yes” to proceed. The Target Framework should now read .NET 4.5
   
3. Rebuild by hitting ‘F6’. You might get some build errors due to namespace clashes between some new libraries that have been introduced in .NET 4.5. These are easy enough to fix. If you cannot, feel free to add the comment and I’ll respond.

Deploy the new application to your staging slot in the cloud.

You can deploy from within Visual Studio or from the Windows Azure Portal. In this blog, I’ll show the steps to deploy through the portal.

1.  Right click on the cloud project and select the “Package…” option.
2. Click on the “Package” button on the dialog box that pops up.
3. After the packaging is complete, a file explorer window will pop up with 2 files in it – the .cspkg and .cscfg.
4. Go the Windows Azure portal at https://manage.windowsazure.com and select your cloud service. Click on the “Staging” tab (circled in red in the accompanying picture above).

    

5. Once on the staging tab, click on the “Update” button on the bottom panel (circled in green in the accompanying picture below).
6. You’ll get a dialog box prompting for the cspkg and cscfg that you generated from Visual Studio in step 4.c. Select “From Local” button for both and upload the files that were generated in step 4.c. Remember to check the “Update even if one or more roles contain single instance” if you have a single instance role. These options are circled in red in the picture below. Click on the check marked circle to proceed.
7. At this point you will have your application running on OS family 3 and using .NET 4.5 in the staging slot and your original application using OS family 1/2 and .NET 4.0 in the production slot.

Perform a VIP Swap of the production and staging slots

1. On either the production or the staging tab, click on the “swap” button located in the bottom panel next to the update button (circled in green in the accompanying picture).
2. After this operation completes, you will have your application running on OS family 3 and using .NET 4.5 in place of the original application.

Delete your existing application in the cloud.

1. Go the Windows Azure portal at https://manage.windowsazure.com and select your cloud service. Click the “STOP” button in the bottom panel (circled in green in the accompanying picture). Click “yes” on the dialog box that pops up.
2. After your application is stopped, delete it by clicking on the “DELETE” button (circled in red in the accompanying picture). In the sub-menu that pops up, select “Delete production deployment for ….”.