WinForms tool for controlled Microsoft BizTalk Server 2020 platform operations during maintenance windows. The tool captures runtime snapshots, creates shutdown and restore plans, executes those plans in a safe order, and writes diff reports for validation.

Current State

Application: C# WinForms
Target framework: .NET Framework 4.6.1
Solution: BizTalkPlatformManagementTool.sln
Project: src/BizTalkPlatformManagementTool/BizTalkPlatformManagementTool.csproj
Primary namespace and assembly: BizTalkPlatformManagementTool
Legacy PowerShell archive: archive/powershell/BizTalkPlatformManagementTool.ps1

Features

Snapshot before and after downtime as JSON, CSV and HTML
Diff between before.json and after.json
Controlled shutdown from the current runtime state
Controlled restore from before.json
State-aware emergency restore from a preserved before.json, including Enterprise SSO startup
WMI-free validation and file selection for preserved recovery snapshots, including 2.1.3 snapshots
Host instance handling for the selected BizTalk server
Dry-run mode enabled by default
WMI access through root\MicrosoftBizTalkServer
Startup check for administrator rights
Detailed operation logging in the GUI and daily rolling log files under ProgramData
Best-effort plan execution: one isolated WMI failure is recorded while remaining independent steps continue
Idempotent execution that skips artifacts already in the requested target state
Durable per-step result reports even when a shutdown or restore completes only partially
Environment status indicator based on host instance state
Clear and Close actions in the main toolbar
No compile-time dependency on BizTalk ExplorerOM assemblies
Transactional Windows installer/updater with SHA-256 payload validation and rollback
Bounded activation retries plus a verified copy fallback for first installs and atomically backed-up updates when Windows/EDR blocks only the staging rename
Installer diagnostics with stable phase codes, complete child-process output, exception chains and a ProgramData-to-Temp log fallback
WMI-free runtime self-test plus automated regression test executable

Safe Usage

Start the app with Run as administrator on a BizTalk server or a management host with WMI access.
Keep Dry run enabled.
Click Diagnose to verify WMI access.
Click Snapshot Before.
Click Shutdown and review shutdown-plan.json.
Disable Dry run only when the plan is correct.
After maintenance, click Restore using the saved before.json.
Click Snapshot After and Compare.

If a shutdown was interrupted and only the original before.json remains, select that file with State..., run Validate State, keep Dry run enabled and click Emergency Restore. The recovery plan never overwrites the source snapshot, ensures the ENTSSO service is running first, skips already-correct runtime states and continues after isolated step failures. Disable Dry run only after reviewing the timestamped emergency plan. A real run automatically writes a timestamped target/actual diff when the post-operation snapshot succeeds.

The environment indicator shows Started, Stopped, Partial or Unknown from the most recent snapshot. Clear removes the visible status and operation log grids; it does not delete files.

The application requests administrator rights through its UAC manifest and checks them again during startup. Only one GUI instance can run per Windows session.

Before a real shutdown or restore, the exact fresh plan is saved and a second dialog shows its executable step count, target server and plan path. Restore is rejected when the snapshot server does not match the selected target (short name and FQDN of the same host are accepted).

Operation Order

Shutdown:

Disable receive locations that were enabled.
Stop orchestrations that were started.
Stop send ports that were started.
Stop host instances that were started on the selected server.

Restore:

Start host instances that were previously started.
Restore send ports to Started, Stopped or Bound.
Restore orchestrations where safe.
Restore receive locations last.

Orchestrations that were Bound are deliberately left unchanged during restore to avoid accidentally making them Unbound.

Outputs

before.json, after.json
shutdown-plan.json, restore-plan.json
shutdown-after.json, restore-after.json
shutdown-result.json, restore-result.json
Timestamped emergency-source-before-*, emergency-restore-plan-*, emergency-restore-result-*, emergency-restore-after-* and emergency-restore-diff-* files
diff.json, diff.csv, diff.html
Snapshot sidecars: *.csv, *.hosts.csv, *.html
Runtime logs under %ProgramData%\BizTalkPlatformManagementTool\Logs

Log files are retained for the current day plus the previous four days. Older BizTalkPlatformManagementTool-*.log files are removed on startup. If ProgramData is unexpectedly unavailable, logging falls back to the executable directory.

Troubleshooting

The Operation Log shows the WMI class, key property, key value and method for real shutdown and restore steps. WMI objects are resolved with a broad SELECT * FROM <class> query and a client-side key filter so names containing special characters do not break the WMI query parser.

Execution is deliberately best-effort. A failure such as an adapter-specific validation exception is written as Failed in the result report, but later independent plan steps are still attempted. The GUI ends in a failed/operator-review state when any step failed; it never reports a partial execution as an unconditional success. The post-operation snapshot is attempted independently and its own failure is preserved in the same report.

Snapshot and plan JSON files are written as UTF-8 without BOM. Loading is tolerant of existing files that contain a UTF-8 BOM or a visible BOM marker from previous encoding conversions.

JSON snapshots and plans are written through a same-directory temporary file and atomic replacement. Snapshot comparison keys artifacts by application plus name, preventing collisions between equal artifact names in different applications. CSV fields that could be interpreted as spreadsheet formulas are neutralized.

Installer, update and uninstall diagnostics are retained for 90 days under %ProgramData%\BizTalkPlatformManagementTool\InstallerLogs. The setup UI can open that directory directly. If the primary log cannot be created, setup reports and uses a %TEMP%\BizTalkPlatformManagementTool\InstallerLogs fallback. See Installation for phase codes and the support checklist.

Build

Open BizTalkPlatformManagementTool.sln in Visual Studio on Windows with the .NET Framework 4.6.1 Developer Pack installed, then build the Release|Any CPU configuration.

The app targets .NET Framework 4.6.1 for compatibility with customer environments that do not have newer .NET Framework developer packs installed.

Use scripts\test-release.cmd for the build and regression suite and scripts\package-release.cmd for the tested installer ZIP, Certutil-compatible Base64 TXT and SHA-256 file. See Installation for decoding and update/rollback details.

Source Documentation

All C# types and methods in the application, setup, packager and regression project use XML documentation comments. Method contracts include param, typeparam and returns elements where applicable. Release builds generate one XML documentation file per assembly, so malformed or missing public documentation becomes visible during compilation.

Targeted German inline comments explain non-obvious operational decisions such as WMI client-side filtering, shutdown/restore order, atomic file replacement, CSV formula neutralization and installer transaction boundaries. Trivial statements are intentionally not paraphrased in comments; the comments record the reason or safety constraint behind the code.