14 DAY TRIAL // At over four months since it launched version 4.1 of the Entity Framework (EF 4.1), Microsoft is providing the first refresh for the release. ADO.NET Entity Framework 4.1 Update 1 is now available to customers – they’ll need to head over to the Microsoft Download Center in order to grab the bits.
The ADO.NET Entity Framework 4.1 Update 1 standalone installer is available through the Download Center, which means that customers can deploy it without actually updating any previous installations.
At the same time, users that already deployed the RTM version of EF 4.1, can leverage the ‘EntityFramework’ NuGet package, but they’ll have to first remove any previous installations if done with the standalone package.
With the ADO.NET Entity Framework 4.1 Update 1, the software giant has resolved a number of issues impacting users of the RTM variant.
“Bug fix to remove the need to specify ‘Persist Security Info=True’ in the connection string when using SQL authentication. In the EF 4.1 release ‘Persist Security Info’ was required for Code First to be able to create a database for a connection using SQL Authentication,” a member of the ADO.NET team stated.
“The update includes a fix to remove this requirement. Note that ‘Persist Security Info’ is still required if you construct a DbContext using a DbConnection instance that has already been opened and closed.”
In addition to resolving problems reported by customers, the Redmond company has also introduced new features with the refresh.
Essentially, ADO.NET Entity Framework 4.1 Update 1 includes a couple of new types which support design-time tools for Code First. The two new types are:
“DbContextInfo can be used to instantiate and interact with a derived context as well as determine information about the origin of the connection string etc.
“IDbContextFactory<TContext> is used to let DbContextInfo know how to construct derived DbContext types that do not expose a default constructor. If your context does not expose a default constructor then an implementation if IDbContextFactory should be included in the same assembly as your derived context type,” the ADO.NET team representative added.
ADO.NET Entity Framework 4.1 Update 1 is available for download here.