Don’t be fooled: I am the first to talk about this addin; BTSG NoS Addin is a creation of my dear friend Nino Crudele.
Who is Nino Crudele?
I think if you didn’t know who Nino was after his session at BizTalk Summit 2014, you don’t need any introduction anymore: Nino Crudele lives in Italy and has been a Microsoft Integration (BizTalk) MVP for 7 years. Besides that, he is also a Virtual Technology Specialist for BizTalk Server, a role in which he works closely with Microsoft Italy. He enjoys this role as it enables him to work with many different clients, seeing BizTalk in different scenarios from a technical, size, and criticality perspective.
📝 One-Minute Brief
This guide provides a step-by-step walkthrough for installing the BTSG NoS Addin for Visual Studio 2012. Developed by Nino Crudele, this productivity tool simplifies BizTalk development. The post covers software requirements (.NET 4.5+), the installation process via the setup wizard, and how to properly activate the tool using the Visual Studio Add-In Manager to unlock advanced BizTalk features.
BTSG NoS Addin Installation
Installing the BTSG NoS Addin in your Visual Studio development environment is straightforward. Most of the prerequisites will be present, and you can simply run the MSI or executable file from an Administrator command prompt.
Software Requirements
This table lists the software required for running the BTSG NoS Addin.
| Software Required | Description | Required for |
| Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 | Supported versions: Professional, Premium and Ultimate editions. | |
| Microsoft .NET Framework | Minimum .NET Framework 4.5 | This is required for all the Addin components |
To install BTSG NoS Addin
- Execute the BTSGSetup.exe file with administrative rights by right-clicking on the file and selecting the Run as administrator option.
- On the Welcome to the BTSG NoS Addin Installer Setup screen, click Next to continue.
- On the Completed the BTSG NoS Addin Installer Setup screen, click Finish to complete the installation of the Addin.
- Click OK, and you are ready to use the BTSG NoS Addin in your BizTalk Server projects.
To load the BTSG NoS Addin to Visual Studio
- Open the Visual Studio project, then on the Tools menu, click Add-In Manager.
- In the Add-in Manager window, select the add-in from the list.
- Check the box next to the add-in in the Available Add-Ins column, and then click OK.
Right-click on one of your BizTalk artifacts, and you can see the new options provided by BTSG NoS Addin:
State of the art
Nino worked over the last four months on this addin and we are currently undertaking a comprehensive battery of tests. We found 3 small bugs that are currently being fixed before it’s a beta release.
So why am I posting this on my blog? Well, Nino is overworked fixing all the small bugs and making small improvements.. and I’m helping him test the addin and also creating some documentation 🙂
BTSG NoS Addin will be available soon… You just need to be a little more patient… stay tuned to Nino’s personal blog!
Bring on the Jackhammer!!! 🙂
Nino is working hard and I think that Jackhammer will be release soon. 😀
After reading the above, I still have no idea what is “BTSG NoS Addin” and why I would want to install it anywhere. Please answer the questions: “What’s in it for me?”.
Hi Neal,
The purpose of NoS addin id to help a BizTalk Developer, why not, a BizTalk Administrator too in a lot of different situations, by improving the developer experience and why not reduce the development time in new or existent BizTalk projects.
It will provide several functionalities like quick search inside artifact, fast register/unregister in GAC, find critical, internal or external dependencies… and many fore functionalities like JackHammering, which will compare your VS artifact with the artifact deployed in BizTalk environment, you can also extract the artifact (Orchestration, map, schema etc) from BizTalk environment and put it in the VS solution… several features that are usefully in our day by day work and a time saver in a lot of situations.
We are working in the documentation of all this features.
Thanks for the overview. I find that people who create free utilities still need to sell the user on the benefits, just as though it were a product that was being sold. There are hundreds of free utilities out there, and as developers, we don’t have time to install and play with them all. We need to know that the benefits outweigh the costs of our time. I’ve never heard of JackHammering before, do you have any links on it?
Hi Neal,
Agree with you.. is impossible to test them all, we need to select a few good ones and hopping that other people will advise us to new ones.
Nino has presented this addin for the first time in BizTalk Summit 2014 – London and his session will be published soon in BizTalk360 website where you can see all of his session and the benefits of this addin for BizTalk developers and Admins. I will post the link when it’s available.
Good work men. Do we anticipate a Visual Studio 2013 version any time soon?
The congratulation need to be sent to Nino, his the man behind this addin :).
Regarding to your question, BizTalk Server is not compatible with Visual Studio 2013… so there will not be any release for VS2013 for now.
Hi,
Is BTSG NoS Addin supported in Visual Studio 2010?.
Regards,
Aboorva
Hi Aboorva,
Not yet, this beta version is only available for Visual Studio 2012. Nino will work on a next release compatibility for Visual Studio 2010, you can check his post at: http://ninocrudele.me/2014/04/06/biztalk-nos-add-in-beta-version-has-been-officially-released-through-visual-studio-gallery/
Thanks sandro.
Hi Sandro,
I installed the add-in and upon trying to start the ADD-IN.. but got “failed to load or threw an exception”. Is this a known error?
Regards
Praveen.
Hi Praveen,
Please send this and all possible information to btsgnosaddin@outlook.com, that Nino will try to help you.