SQL 2008 setup error: Rebuild the performance counters of a SQL Server 2005 or 2008 instance

It happens if you changed the language of your system using MUI.

Here are the pills:
http://www.sqldev.org/sql-server-setup--upgrade/error-on-install-performance-counter-registry-hive-consistency-check--statusfailed-89399.shtml

Importance of order

Hi.
Just what I understand while trying to update a super-customized database came from client to our newest version:
There can never be too much journaling and logging!!!
Every megabyte you spent for detailed history of your application life can save you hours of your life those you'll damn hundred times otherwise.
Think early :-)

Self-hosted WCF service with SSL certificate security

Spent the whole day trying to force my self-hosted service to respond.

Finally what has helped is two lines below to execute (port, certhash, path and user name are up to you. Not sure about appid yet :-) ):

netsh http add urlacl url=httpS://+:2202/PatientService user=DOMAIN\user

netsh http add sslcert ipport=0.0.0.0:2202 certhash=ea81a9b4c330247f966d23d7e21266171f92cd47 appid={4EF5AB95-0A11-43b1-842C-51D56687CC7A}

Now need to understand - WHY??

Dynamics magic in C#

Just Wow! :-)

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cs/dynamicincsharp.aspx

Trying Word 2010

See how to post directly from Word

SQL Server 2008 setup: Error "Restart Computer Failed"

When trying to install SQL Server 2008 I found that it requires me to restart computer even after I did it two times.
It was really bad.

However, there are kind people around!
Especially here:

http://www.sqlcoffee.com/Troubleshooting051.htm

So the reason was in pending after-reboot file copying requested (and never performed)

I believe this might cause some mistakes if you really have pending files, so make sure to reboot first.

Needed to script the MS SQL database including data.

Strangely :-), but Microsoft did it well:
http://blog.sqlauthority.com/2007/11/16/sql-server-2005-generate-script-with-data-from-database-database-publishing-wizard/

Visual Studio 2008 also have such tool built in.

(However I am not sure about complex databases (like encrypted) yet...)

how can I set the authentication mode for a SQLServer from code?

Change
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\\MSSQLServer\LoginMode
1 = integrated only, 2-mixed

For you will need to use MSSQL.n, where n relates to the instance you are interested in. You can find the right value by looking at HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\Instance Names\SQLame, and looking for the value that matches your instance name. SQL Express has an instance name of SQLEXPRESS, and the default SQL 2005 instance has a name of MSSQLSERVER. (on my box ...\Instance Names\SQL\SQLEXPRESS has a value of MSSQL.4)

From here: http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic439615-359-1.aspx

Good explanation of what "Company culture" really is

http://www.slideshare.net/reed2001/culture-1798664

PM Labs 2009 conference by Luxoft Training Center

Hi all,

Last Saturday (2009 July 25th) I've attended a quite funny event - PM Labs 2009 held by Luxoft Training Center, this year in Kiev. There way some issues, but generally it look like a most interesting PM community event in Ukraine - thanks Luxoft.

There was an assumption that it may be too headhunting-targeted, but it was rather an advvertisement of training center services those are not so imposing.

More info is here: http://www.pm-labs.ru/news/105

So let's go on!

Azure Cloud over firewall: HTTP protocol incompatibility

Hello there,

Just got a real problem - out corporative Squid firewall does not support HTTP 1.1 properly, and Azure data storage strictly requires it.
As a result, accessing Azure data from local application is not possible at all.
For example, log viewer application are useless.

And of course it is really hard to kick our administrators to change it.

Issue with parsing command lines containing path in c#

Hi!
Another strange detail of .NET/C#:
I needed to pass two pathes to c# command line arguments, and wasn't able to control whether they are ended with backslash or not. Really it was a C# post-build tool so arguments were passed by MsBuild. Final command line looked like following:
"C:\My Path\My Program.exe" "C:\First Path\" "C:\Second Path\"
However C# command-line parser treats \" as esacape sequence
so for this sample
args[0]=="C:\\First Path\" "
and args[1]=="C:\Second"
and even args[2]=="Path\"".
Absolutely unacceptable, isn't it?
The only way to solve it I can see is to get the whole original command line from Environment.CommandLine and have your own parser. Please remember that this value includes executable name as well that may be or may be not quoted too.

Some explanation is here:
http://www.eggheadcafe.com/conversation.aspx?messageid=31268633&threadid=31268617

Converting Word document to clean HTML

Just got a request to convert our User Manual from Word 2007 to nice HTML format. As you may know Word provides really ugly formatting when exporting to HTML. There is another option named "Filtered HTML" that provides much cleaner one but still not acceptable.
I tried different approached found from Google - exporting and cleaning by Tidy, manual replaces, even using Gmail preview function (send document to GMail account and use preview on site).
Still looks ugly. I did not try DreamWeaver funcion for Word HTMl cleaning yet, maybe found one to try.
If it didn't help - need to copy-paste without formatting and format manually :-(.

Really Format Manual seemed to be the only possible solution - did it finally in Expression Web I had at hand. Funny tool but still missing some important features like formatting copier.

Troubles accessing WCF service on Vista

Got this problem seconf time so need to describe it for future.
(Strange that there are so few comments on it found by Google.
Do any other developers use Vista? Or they know some secret way?
One of useful advises I met was "Get rid of Vista")

So, back to the problem.
I tried to debug by WCF service-based application on Vista
after succesfully running it on Windows XP.
However, it did not work.
First idea was to restart VisualStudio with Administrator permissions that is usual.
But it did not work again and gave smth. "is in Faulted state" error.

Magic words are the command:
netsh http add urlacl url=http://+:9001/ user=DOMAIN\user
Replace URL and user domain/name with your data.

More details are here:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/598643/hosting-a-wcf-service-in-vista
and here
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms733768.aspx

By the way, thanks a lot for all the guys from http://stackoverflow.com/. Great job!

(Sidenote. Why is it so complex to request permissions elevation from .NET? I got samples from Microsoft here but it is very unconmmon anyway)

My Azure Crawler is quite working now, will publish it soon either if have time to improve or not.
Also, going to try cloud solution from Google and maybe Amazon but it seems last one have no free option, and I haven't internet-enabled card now (another big story)

Cloud computing: Microsoft Azure

Recently I had a closer look at Microsoft implementation of cloud computing paradigm: Azure plateform. Despite of issues those are inevitable for pre-release product, it looks really promising and quite developer-friendly.
Hope to show something runnable and presentable soon!

I'll be adding my thoughts here for now, andlater structure them up

0. Use StorageClient helpers from Azure SDK. It'll save you lots of effort

1. When you save data in Table storage - always fill both Partition and Row key, or you'll be unable to delete records. Also remember that keys cannot contain / \ # , ?

2. Select operations to Table storage are limited to 1000 records and is surely limited by 1000 charcters per text field. It brings sound limitations for your data operations. For example, it does not make sence to select all records - instead you should have some filtering field (partition key or smth else) able to divide data to bunches below 1000 items each.

3. Read focumentation or goggle for other workarounds like foreign keys simulation.

Visual Studio Team System 2008 Test Load Agent troubles

Recently we had an idea to test one of sites being developed from multiple client locations - so have a distributed test.
Since I am usually oriented at Microsoft product and moreover I remember old Web Application Stress Tools from Microsoft thst was really good for that time, I believed there should be something for distribute testing in Visual Studio 2008 Team Suite Edition.
Sounds logically? Not for Microsoft!
VSTE does not support distributed testing.
If you really want it so much - you should install separate product: Visual Studio Team System 2008 Test Load Agent
Pricing? Well.. Around $5000 for volume license. No other options.
But! there is a 90-day Trial here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=572e1e71-ae6b-4f92-960d-544cabe62162&displaylang=en
Again but! It does not work for me - I have VS 2008 SP1 but trial is compiled against pre-SP1 libraries. Really there are LOTS of reasons it may not work for you at all. Some of them are here: http://weblogs.asp.net/okloeten/archive/2008/09/09/6612870.aspx.
So it seems we'll look for some other product - more friendly and worth its money...

How to make InputBox in WSH JavaScript

I was just asked if Windows Shell (WSH) JavaScript has something like Visual Basic InputBox function.
It seems no.
So here is a small .NET utility showing the box and saving value to given environment variable.
See usage sample in *.js file.

http://www.savefile.com/files/1913944 (LET ME KNOW IF THIS SERVICE ISN'T WORKING)

How to unlock locked file in TFS

Just solved a problem.

Imagine some bad guys left your team and did not check in their files.
So you cannot deal with them anymore from Visual Studio.

Here is great explanation of how to rescue:
http://blogs.msdn.com/rimuri/archive/2006/03/06/544686.aspx

Also - description of TFS command-line tools you'll surely need:
http://blogs.msdn.com/buckh/articles/CommandLineSummary.aspx

Just a bit about politics (sorry, can't bear...)

With nowadays Russia approach to internal and external affairs I'm feeling like just after Munich'38.
Don't like to be around if it continues. Remember - Hitler had no nuke but managed to kill millions. Putin has :-(