« Newer Entries  
  Older Entries »

Opera 10 Final Released

By David, on September 2nd, 2009

As promised, Opera 10 final was released on Sep 1st

http://www.opera.com/

Leave a comment   Applications   , , ,  

Solution: Explorer open each folder in same window error and SQL Management Studio, IE and Team Explorer errors

By David, on August 19th, 2009

Problem(s):

  • When attempting to open a folder in Windows Explorer, the folder opens in a new window, even if “Open each folder in the same window” is selected in Folder Options.
  • Some links in Internet Explorer don’t open correctly
  • Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio: An error with a message like “Unable to cast COM object of type ‘System.__ComObject’ to interface type ‘Microsoft.VisualStudio.OLE.Interop.IServiceProvider’. This operation failed because the QueryInterface call on the COM component for the interface with IID ‘{6D5140C1-7436-11CE-8034-00AA006009FA}’ failed due to the following error: No such interface supported (Exception from HRESULT: 0×80004002 (E_NOINTERFACE)). (Microsoft.VisualStudio.OLE.Interop)
  • Visual Studio Team Explorer: When browsing using the Team Explorer window, you may get COM errors similar to those in the SQL Management Studio error above

Explanation:

I’m not sure of the exact details, but this is what I think I’ve found. Perhaps someone at Microsoft would correct or elaborate on this.

Previously, actxprxy.dll (ActiveX Interface Marshaling Library) was used as the proxy for a multitude of system interfaces, such as IShellFolder and IServiceProvider.

In Windows 7 (and probably Vista also), the GUID of this library has changed from {B8DA6310-E19B-11D0-933C-00A0C90DCAA9} to {C90250F3-4D7D-4991-9B69-A5C5BC1C2AE6}

Secondly, there is also a new Proxy/Stub provider found in ieproxy.dll of Internet Explorer (IE ActiveX Interface Marshaling Library). Some interfaces that previously used actxprxy.dll are now registered to use ieproxy.dll.

Now various problematic software (such as Vault 3.x) will try to register against actxproxy using the old GUID, and for interfaces now proxied by ieproxy.dll.

Solution

You must use regsvr32 to re-register the two proxy DLLs, then reboot

You can use the below batch file to do this.

You must run this batch file with administrative privileges (right click on the file and choose Run as administrator):

RunAsAdministrator

If you don’t run the batch file as an administrator, you will get an error as pictured:

ActxprxyRegisterError

[Download RegisterActxprxyAndIeproxy.cmd]

RegisterActxprxyAndIeproxy.cmd source:

@echo off

:: 32 bit and 64 bit
IF EXIST "%SystemRoot%\System32\actxprxy.dll" "%SystemRoot%\System32\regsvr32.exe" "%SystemRoot%\System32\actxprxy.dll"
IF EXIST "%ProgramFiles%\Internet Explorer\ieproxy.dll" "%SystemRoot%\System32\regsvr32.exe" "%ProgramFiles%\Internet Explorer\ieproxy.dll"

:: 64 bit only (32bit on 64 bit)
IF EXIST "%WinDir%\SysWOW64\actxprxy.dll" "%WinDir%\SysWOW64\regsvr32.exe" "%WinDir%\SysWOW64\actxprxy.dll"
IF EXIST "%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Internet Explorer\ieproxy.dll" "%WinDir%\SysWOW64\regsvr32.exe" "%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Internet Explorer\ieproxy.dll"

Don’t forget to reboot after re-registering the DLLs!

Edit: The script has been updated to support 64-bit Windows

40 comments   Applications, How To   , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  

Using batch parameter modifiers to get specific portions or file info from a full filename

By David, on August 19th, 2009

From Using batch parameters [microsoft.com]:

Cmd.exe provides the batch parameter expansion variables %0 through %9. When you use batch parameters in a batch file, %0 is replaced by the batch file name, and %1 through %9 are replaced by the corresponding arguments that you type at the command line

These batch parameter modifiers variable arguments are immensely useful.

That document is missing some examples, so I’ve put together a simple table:

%1

Original argument

“C:\Users\DMoore\Documents\Document Name.txt”

%~1

Expands %1 and removes any surrounding quotation marks (“”).

C:\Users\DMoore\Documents\Document Name.txt

%~f1

Expands %1 to a fully qualified path name.

C:\Users\DMoore\Documents\Document Name.txt

%~d1

Expands %1 to a drive letter.

C:

%~p1

Expands %1 to a path.

\Users\DMoore\Documents\

%~n1

Expands %1 to a file name.

Document Name

%~x1

Expands %1 to a file extension.

.txt

%~s1

Expanded path contains short names only.

C:\Users\DMoore\DOCUME~1\DOCUME~1.TXT

%~a1

Expands %1 to file attributes.

–a——

%~t1

Expands %1 to date and time of file.

19/08/2009 02:53 p.m.

%~z1

Expands %1 to size of file. (bytes)

9
Leave a comment   How To, Software Development   , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  

Opera 10 Beta 3 is out

By David, on August 14th, 2009

Opera 10 Beta 3 is out! The timing is uncanny because the last time I did a clean install of Windows 7, Beta 2 came out hours after I had done a new install.

Today I installed Windows 7 RTM on my machine at work, and then hours later, a new beta of Opera 10. What the?

[Opera 10 Beta 3 @ opera.com]

Leave a comment   Applications   , , , , ,  

Opera 10 Beta is out

By David, on June 4th, 2009

Opera 10 Alpha last night prompted me to automatically update, and lo and behold it installed the Beta 1.

The most noticeable change is the default skin, which is lighter and more consistent, using some new etching effects and icons everywhere. More changes are on the horizon for this for Beta 2, from the skin designer John Hicks.

A cool new enhancement is you can drag down the tab bar to get thumbnails for all the tabs, known as Visual Tabs:

There’s now an interface to customize the Speed Dial (rather than manually editing ini files)

Opera Turbo, the Opera proxy service that offers compression of web pages (suitable for low-bandwidth connections) is built in and can be switched on or off or set to auto mode (turning itself on if it detects you’re on a slow internet connection). I have tested this out while I’m on 64kbps, and it’s ok but it’s probably not worth it unless Opera have some New Zealand or Australia proxies. I suspect it would work great in Europe.

Leave a comment   Applications   , , , ,  

Unit testing multi-threaded, asynchronous code and/or events

By David, on June 3rd, 2009

I’ve been writing some unit tests recently that test some multi-threaded functionality.

Typically this involves hooking up some event handlers then waiting for some asynchronous code to fire the event before proceeding with the unit test and assertions.

The ManualResetEvent class (MSDN) seems a good choice for this, and this post has a small example of using it in a unit test:


[Test()]
public void AfterRunAsync()
{
    ManualResetEvent manualEvent = new ManualResetEvent(false);

    TestTestCase tc = new TestTestCase(1, "", 0, 0);
    bool eventFired = false;
    tc.RunCompleted +=
        delegate(object sender, AsyncCompletedEventArgs e) {
            Assert.IsInstanceOfType(typeof (TestTestCase), sender, "sender is TestCase");
            bool passed = tc.Passed;
            string output = tc.Output;
            eventFired = true;
            manualEvent.Set();
        };
    tc.RunAsync();
    manualEvent.WaitOne(500, false);
    Assert.IsTrue(eventFired, "RunCompleted fired");
}
Leave a comment   .net, How To, Software Development   , , , , , , ,  

Remote debugging from Visual Studio 2008 on a domain machine to a machine not on the domain

By David, on May 28th, 2009

This details how you can debug an application running on a remote machine from Visual Studio on your local machine, as if the remote application was running on your local machine.

The keys are:

  1. There must be a user account with the same username and password on the remote machine and the local machine (MACHINE account, not domain account).
  2. Visual Studio 2008 Remote Debugger must be installed and running on the remote machine under the user account in point 1

Create local machine account

  1. Right click My Computer > Manage
  2. Expand Computer Management > System Tools > Local Users and Groups
  3. Right-click Users under Local Users and Groups and choose New User…
  4. Enter in the username e.g. DebugUser
  5. Enter and confirm the password
  6. Un-check “User must change password at next login” and tick “Password never expire”
  7. Click Create
  8. Click Close

Create remote machine account

  1. Log on to the remote machine and repeat the steps for “Create local machine account”
  2. You must use the same username and password
  3. Find the user in the Users list and double-click to edit them
  4. Go to the Member Of tab
  5. Click Add…
  6. Type in Administrators and hit Enter or click OK
  7. Click OK

Run Visual Studio 2008 Remote Debugger

You have several options for launching the Remote Debugger.

  1. If you install Visual Studio 2008, the Remote Debugger folder can be found in %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE. In the Remote Debugger folder are separate folders for the x86 and x64 versions. Perhaps the easiest solution is to share this folder over the network, allowing you to launch the debugger over the network without having to install anything on the remote machine.
  2. Alternatively, you can find the Remote Debugger setup on the first disc for the Visual Studio 2008 setup, in a sub folder called Remote Debugger.
  3. Or, you can download it from here

It’s a good idea to run this as a Windows application as recommended by the Visual Studio 2008 Remote Debugger Configuration Wizard (and in my opinion easier to troubleshoot).

At this point if you’re not logged in as the new user you created, you might want to do that now so that you can run the Remote Debugger under them.

Once you’ve followed instructions for installing, run the remote debugger if it isn’t already by going to Start > Programs > Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 > Visual Studio Tools > Visual Studio 2008 Remote Debugger.

It should say that it’s running an instance similar to DebugUser@RemoteMachineName

Connect to the remote machine with Visual Studio

  1. In Visual Studio on your local machine, go to Debug > Attach to process…
  2. Make sure the Transport drop-down at the top is set to Default
  3. In Qualifier, type in the name of the Remote Debugger instance e.g. DebugUser@RemoteMachineName and hit Enter
  4. You should then see the list of remote processes in the list and can select the one you want and click Attach.
2 comments   .net, How To, Software Development   , , , , , , , , , ,  

Set up IP filtering in uTorrent and keep your ipfilter.dat up to date easily

By David, on May 27th, 2009

The IPFilter Updater application now has its own page: http://www.davidmoore.info/ipfilter-updater/

uTorrent is one of the most popular BitTorrent clients out there. In my opinion it’s the best.

You can set up IP filtering in uTorrent to block bad seeds and peers from a list maintained by the community.

How to set up IP filtering in uTorrent

  1. Open up uTorrent and go to Options > Preferences from the menu or click the Preferences button in the toolbar
  2. Select the Advanced option in the tree
  3. Find ipfilter.enabled in the list and make sure it’s set to true
  4. Click OK

How to get and update the ipfilter.dat

I’ve written a simple program that will download the ipfilter.dat from SourceForge and copy it into the file where uTorrent expects it.

uTorrent IPFilter Updater [ Requires .NET 3.5 ]

UPDATED  26 Jan 2010: Now requires .NET 3.5, and allows mirror selection

  1. Extract the files to a folder, and run IPFilter.UI.exe
  2. Wait for it to download the mirrors, select the one you want, and click Go
  3. Once the file has downloaded and extracted, you can close the window

Enhancements

Done:

  • Download and extract zip file to speed up the download time and minimize the download usage
  • Allow selection of mirror you want to use

To Do:

  • Automation through command-line arguments, for scheduled tasks

Source Code: http://github.com/DavidMoore/IP-Filter-Updater/

How to get uTorrent to pick up the new ipfilter.dat

You have two options:

  1. You can simply exit and restart uTorrent to load theIPFilter or
  2. You can leave uTorrent open and reload the IPFilter by selecting the Peers tab, right clicking in the list and choosing Reload IPFilter. Annoyingly you need a selected torrent for this to work.

Looking in the Log should show a message similar to “Loaded ipfilter.dat xxxxxx entries)”

Because IP ranges and addresses change often, it’s a good idea to update your filter list often too.

31 comments   Applications, How To   , , , , , , ,  

Could not load file or assembly ‘x’ or one of its dependencies. Strong name validation failed.

By David, on May 26th, 2009

In some of the work I’m doing right now, I’m manipulating an assembly after compile time – having it disassembled into IL, tweaked, then re-compiled back into an assembly.

The assembly is signed and what is being done to the assembly is breaking the strong name. This is quite comforting to know; the strong name wouldn’t be so strong if it was that easy to hack an assembly with a strong name.

When trying to load the hacked assembly, I am getting an exception (FileLoadException in this case but I’m guessing this may differ depending on your assembly load method) with the message “Could not load file or assembly ‘MyAssemblyName’ or one of its dependencies. Strong name validation failed.”.

The first interesting thing here is that the assembly named in the error message isn’t the hacked assembly; the hacked assembly is one of MyAssemblyName’s dependencies and is what’s triggering the error.

Make sure that you check the dependencies of the assembly named in the exception message when troubleshooting. The problem may be with one of the dependencies.

In my case the exception isn’t a surprise because of what’s being done to the assembly. But until I resolve that, how can I get around this for now?

You can exclude an assembly from strong name validation for development purposes using the Microsoft (R) .NET Framework Strong Name Utility tool aka sn.exe:

"%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.0A\bin\sn.exe" -Vr "C:\Path\To\Assembly.dll"

Make sure you change the sn.exe path depending on which version of the .NET Framework SDK you have installed. If you’re having trouble, get into the  ”%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft SDKs\Windows” dir and search for sn.exe, and use the newest one you can find.

You might find it handy to add this as a Post-build event command-line for your project from within Visual Studio in Project Properties > Build Events:

"%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.0A\bin\sn.exe" -Vr "$(TargetPath)"

So how do you switch the strong name validation back on for your assembly?

Use the -Vu switch:

"%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.0A\bin\sn.exe" -Vu "C:\Path\To\Assembly.dll"

Leave a comment   .net, How To, Software Development   , , , , , , , ,  
« Newer Entries  
  Older Entries »