Solution: After a bit of investigation, I found that the error was happening because the method call from SQL Server was attempting to use the HttpProxy on the Server machine. If the proxy is not set to null explicitly in your code, then you will get this error.

So to fix it, set the Proxy of the request object to null as follows (see line # 3) .
C# Version

FtpWebRequest request =
(FtpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create((string)ftpServerAndFolder + "/" + (string)uploadFileName);
// set proxy to null to avoid the System.InvalidOperationException: The requested FTP command is not supported when using HTTP proxy.
request.Proxy = null;
request.Method = WebRequestMethods.Ftp.UploadFile;
request.Credentials = new NetworkCredential((string)ftpUser, (string)ftpPassword);

VB.Net Version

FtpWebRequest request =
CType(WebRequest.Create(CType(ftpServerAndFolder + "/" + CType(uploadFileName, string, String))), FtpWebRequest)
' set proxy to null to avoid the System.InvalidOperationException: The requested FTP command is not supported when using HTTP proxy.
request.Proxy = Nothing
request.Method = WebRequestMethods.Ftp.UploadFile
request.Credentials = New NetworkCredential(CType(ftpUser, CType(ftpPassword, string, String)))

.Net 3.5 – The default installation would have placed the ildasm executable in the following folder.

C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.0A\bin

.Net 2.0 – The default installation would have placed the ildasm executable in the following folder

C:\Program Files\Microsoft.NET\FrameworkSDK\bin

If you open a Visual Studio version Command Prompt window and type ildasm, it should work. However, if it doesn’t or if you are more used to doing stuff in the regular command prompt window, then the best way to save time wasted in searching for this exe everytime is, to first locate it one time by doing a search for “ildasm.exe” under your “Program Files” folder, and then adding the path to the bin directory where the exe is located in your environment’s PATH variable.

This way, you can run ildasm.exe from any command prompt in the future.

Further Reading

• ildasm.exe Tutorial on MSDN
• ildasm.exe Execution Parameters (Command Line Arguments) on MSDN

stringBuilder sbr = new StringBuilder();
// loop
// more code
// clear sbr variable
sbr.Length = 0;

Why ?

It is a well know fact in the .Net community that using StringBuilder for string concatenation and manipulation is far more efficient that using the string class. The problem arises when you need to clear the StringBuilder variable. For regular string variables, you would simply set the variable equal to “”. However, you cannot do that with the StringBuilder class. Moreover, the StringBuilder does not have a Clear() method as one would expect.

So when using a StringBuilder in a loop, for example, to read from a DataReader and write to a FileStream line by line, you are left with atleast 3 choices.

1. Use the Remove() method, to remove all the characters in the variable.
2. Use new to recreate a new instance of the StringBuilder
3. Use the Clear() method.

Using the Remove() method is not efficient, and could also throw an error if your variable has no characters in it. Using new to recreate the instance is obviously a performance overhead. So Of these 3, I would recommend that the last option.

Using the Clear() method is the safest and most efficient !

Highlights of the article include

• Strong Naming for Assembly Identity
• What’s in a (Strong) Name ?
• The Mechanics of Strong Naming
• Keeping Secrets with Delay Signing