@ Head : Vista

Work around for MsChart 6.1.89.12 and 6.1.89.13 bug

bill — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 03:06:01 GMT

Last month (December 2008), Microsoft released some security updates for VB6 components such as the MS Chart control

The first update http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932349 updates MS Chart to 6.1.98.12.
The second update http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957924 updates MSChart to 6.1.98.13.

Both these versions have a serious bug that will crash the application or cause instability, the chart not to draw or display garbage strings on the screen.

The problem occurs if you display a DataPointLabel, eg:

Dim dpl As DataPointLabel
Set dpl = MSChart1.Plot.SeriesCollection.Item(1).DataPoints.Item(-1).DataPointLabel

dpl.LocationType = VtChLabelLocationTypeAbovePoint
dpl.ValueFormat = "0.00"

To work around this, add a manifest to your VB6 application, and copy the manifest and an earlier version of MSChart alongside your exe. The manifest contents needed are:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>

<assembly xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" manifestVersion="1.0">

   <assemblyIdentity name="Project1" version="1.0.0.0"

                     processorArchitecture="X86" type="win32" />

   <file name="mschrt20.ocx">

      <comClass clsid="{3A2B370C-BA0A-11D1-B137-0000F8753F5D}"

                       tlbid="{65E121D4-0C60-11D2-A9FC-0000F8754DA1}"

                       progid="MSChart20Lib.MSChart.2"

                       description="Microsoft Chart Control 6.0 (OLEDB)" />

   </file>

</assembly>

Save that with a .manifest extension, e.g. Project1.exe.manifest. Make sure you replace the name and version attributes in the assemblyIdentity node with your application’s name and version.

Hopefully there will be a fix to fix the fix soon, but in the meanwhile use side-by-side (SxS) COM and an old version of the mschrt20.ocx to work around this new bug.

Registered Organization on 64 bit

bill — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 02:15:54 GMT

When I’ve started new Visual Studio projects on my Vista x64 box, the Company field would always show up as “Microsoft”… somewhat presumptuous and definitely annoying. At first I thought the problem was with the templates, but upon inspection they had the correct template parameters, $registeredorganization$. A quick look in my registry and those keys looked right; then it dawned on me. Visual Studio runs as a 32 bit process, not 64, so it effectively looks in :

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion

And that’s the solution. In there RegisteredOrganization was set to “Microsoft”. Changing that to your organization’s name solves the template issue.

Be warned: Windows Update Extras !!

bill — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 14:25:12 GMT

I was reading a newsgroup posting of someone reporting a problem with “Tinker” on Vista x64. They said they got it via Windows Update. Of course I had no idea what Tinker was, so I checked my Windows Update and there it was under Ultimate Extras.

Those devils at Microsoft have released a real time snatcher of a game. Be warned, you may like it !! ;)

SQL 2008 + VS 2008 = dll hell

bill — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 04:37:54 GMT

If you have Visual Studio 2008 installed, you can’t install all of the SQL 2008 bits because of shared components for Visual Studio 2008. SQL 2008 wants to use Visual Studio 2008 SP1 components and that might/will break your Visual Studio 2008 setup. Good news is SP1 for Visual Studio is said to be available on MSND subscriber downloads after August 11th.

This COM based dll hell though surely has wider implications. What of those who developed for Visual Studio Extensibility and have their own Visual Studio shell ? Oh the joys of shared COM components. ;) Memories ……

Running SQL 2008 Upgrade Advisor

bill — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 13:23:48 GMT

I downloaded the SQL 2008 Upgrade Advisor. When I tried to install it I got this :

It says a “Windows service pack” , yet Windows Update tells me my system is up to date. Well it might help if I read the download’s system requirements ;) What I needed to do was install windows Installer 4.5

Strange it isn’t listed on Windows Update/

Upgrade from Dual Core to Quad

bill — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 15:29:44 GMT

Today I bought an Intel Quad Core Q6600 to replace my old Dual Core. I was amazed at how easy it is to swap processors. The box I was upgrading was an old Dell Dimension E520 .. when I say “old” I mean more than 12 months and hence out of standard warranty <g>

First step is to identify if you can upgrade. I searched the web for my model along with Q6600 and found success stories on Dell’s forums. I then checked the Intel site where you can select multiple processors and compare the chipsets and all looked good. So I bought the Q6600, which are pretty cheap at the moment :)

The Dimension E520 has a better heat sink and fan combination than what came with the Intel Q6600, so I kept my old heat sink, giving the base a wipe over and a clean with isopropyl alcohol. Removing it for cleaning was a breeze, only two screws holding it onto the motherboard then it hinges off the processor. I also gave the case and heat sink a blast of compressed air to remove the dust that was in there.

Removing and swapping the processor is really easy… you just push the wire clip out and up, and the retaining brackets lifts off the processor chip. The chip just lifts out, no prying or tools needed. It’s so easy I feel ashamed I haven’t done it before ;) (but then again I generally replace systems, not parts). A quick squirt of heatsink gunk, slap the heatsink back on, and everything was done. A quick check with SIW.exe showed the temperatures are good too :)

And now the fun begins !! With 4 cores I can start playing more seriously with parallel (concurrent) programming. 2 cores wasn’t enough really, and although 4 is just the start, it should be enough to run basic tests :)

Text preview filters for Vista|Windows 2008

bill — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 05:41:20 GMT

I really like the preview pane in explorer in Vista, but it doesn’t have previews for a lot of text based files registered. You can of course write your own or download and install some other preview filters, but personally I find a text preview is all I generally need. So I re-use the existing Text preview handler and apply it to a range of file types including batch files, .bat, xml, .reg files, .vb and .cs files etc. Just copy and run the following .reg file

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.xml\ShellEx\{8895b1c6-b41f-4c1c-a562-0d564250836f}]
@="{1531d583-8375-4d3f-b5fb-d23bbd169f22}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.reg\ShellEx\{8895b1c6-b41f-4c1c-a562-0d564250836f}]
@="{1531d583-8375-4d3f-b5fb-d23bbd169f22}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.cmd\ShellEx\{8895b1c6-b41f-4c1c-a562-0d564250836f}]
@="{1531d583-8375-4d3f-b5fb-d23bbd169f22}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.bat\ShellEx\{8895b1c6-b41f-4c1c-a562-0d564250836f}]
@="{1531d583-8375-4d3f-b5fb-d23bbd169f22}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.VBS\ShellEx\{8895b1c6-b41f-4c1c-a562-0d564250836f}]
@="{1531d583-8375-4d3f-b5fb-d23bbd169f22}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.vb\ShellEx\{8895b1c6-b41f-4c1c-a562-0d564250836f}]
@="{1531d583-8375-4d3f-b5fb-d23bbd169f22}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.vbproj\ShellEx\{8895b1c6-b41f-4c1c-a562-0d564250836f}]
@="{1531d583-8375-4d3f-b5fb-d23bbd169f22}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.cs\ShellEx\{8895b1c6-b41f-4c1c-a562-0d564250836f}]
@="{1531d583-8375-4d3f-b5fb-d23bbd169f22}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.csproj\ShellEx\{8895b1c6-b41f-4c1c-a562-0d564250836f}]
@="{1531d583-8375-4d3f-b5fb-d23bbd169f22}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.sln\ShellEx\{8895b1c6-b41f-4c1c-a562-0d564250836f}]
@="{1531d583-8375-4d3f-b5fb-d23bbd169f22}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.snippet\ShellEx\{8895b1c6-b41f-4c1c-a562-0d564250836f}]
@="{1531d583-8375-4d3f-b5fb-d23bbd169f22}"

How many files ??

bill — Sat, 31 May 2008 15:34:57 GMT

Windows Defender told me it scanned 12,843,673 objects !!!

Admittedly that included another drive with Win 2008 on it, but that's still a lot of files. I noticed that the objects includes the contents of help files including MSDN. Even still, I figure it would take me half year to look at each of them for just one second !!

So this got me curious as to how many files there are on my Vista drive. It has Visual Studio, Office and some other stuff.

At root level, there's over one hundred and forty thousand files (140,000) and nearly twenty thousand folders !! Twenty thousand folders I thought, nah couldn't be... that's crazy. So I looked around a little more..

The windows directory tree contains over 70,000 files and about 14,400 folders ! 14,400 folders... you've got to be kidding me ....

The windows\winsxs directory tree has 41,400 files and 10,560 folders ! All this sxs compatibility sure does take up a lot of space and folders. But there's still 3,800 or so folders elsewhere in the windows tree...

There's almost a thousand folders inside the Windows\System32 tree, but turns out the main source in there is almost 700 that are in the DriversStore, (again a compatibility thing). Of the remaining 2,800 folders or so in the windows tree, Microsoft.Net was 100, the Inf tree was 220 or so,the installer tree about 100 or so, etc. The remaining big one was the Assembly path (aka the GAC) which had almost 1,700 folders !!

Sure does seem a lot........

Windows 2008 (and Vista) f'ugly

bill — Sat, 17 May 2008 08:35:19 GMT

I turn off Aero and themes, and all is good except for the start menu shut down and log-off icons which are just incredibly ugly:

Notice the search icon is showed in colour, but the shut down and log-off are some crappy black and white images. What the f is up with that ?

Nice recovery...

bill — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 06:22:07 GMT

I was working with Visual Studio and a few other applications, and put the computer to sleep while I took a break. Shortly after I resumed the computer did a hard restart. I presume it is something to did with Vista and the power management, but the nice thing was Visual Studio actually recovered the temporary project for me :)

Is Vista more secure ?

bill — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 17:04:31 GMT

Kathleen talks about security being Vistas biggest asset.... for me, a power user who use to run XP in limited access mode, using run as admin scripts, it isn't really anymore secure. In fact, I now find it harder to find a good software firewall that shows me what's happening and allows me to easily change things. But for me, the biggest problem with Vista is I simply don't trust it. The reason for this is the shell is explorer right ? Yet explorer in vista is extremely buggy. Even though I have it set not to remember any folder views, it seems to randomly decide to change views as I browse from folder to folder. Then recently I had it no longer allow me to select any more than one file at a time ! To fix that I had to browse the online forums to find that I should try deleting mru bags or similar in the registry and also try resetting all views.

So am I really meant to feel that the software is secure when explorer itself is so incredibly buggy ? After all these years they still can't even write a reliable file explorer ! Given the short comings of such a major and central piece of software, it's hard for me to really believe that any of the rest is more secure. Like if you bought a new car that supposedly had improved safety features, yet the dash was rattling apart, would you really feel more safe in it ? With Vista I don't.

Update on Snippet Editor

bill — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 03:45:20 GMT

I've finally given the Snippet Editor a major make over including a new look.

To go with this, I've given it a new home on my web site:
http://billmccarthy.com/Projects/Snippet_Editor

And I've added a Snippets category to this blog for feedback, info etc. I'll update the web page with new releases if/when they occur including a change history.

Enjoy :)

P.S. I'd love to get feedback on the new UI, especially the "About" screen ;)

Snippet Editor 2008 release

bill — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 11:49:00 GMT

I've updated the Snippet editor to work with Visual Studio 2008 and 2005 releases.

Note this release requires .NET 3.5.

Changes/fixes:

Added 2008 product range to the list of products
Fixed replacement of the install root variable for Visual Studio that was resulting in a double \ midway of file paths
Removed VB's single instancing and replaced it with named pipes messaging. This fixes various issues to do with firewalls, and the remoting VB tries to do. See Visual Studio Magazine November for details on the NamedPipes usage.
Set the required permissions to run the application as Administrator for Vista. Without this, the app would run, but snippets would be saved in the VirtualStore where Visual Studio wouldn't see them properly. The problem revolves around Visual Studio having the snippet stores in the Program Files tree.

~~The download includes the source and the release build. (in the bin\release path)~~

UPDATE: The files are now available from my web site (http://billmccarthy.com/Projects/Snippet_Editor)

Enjoy :)

WebDAV fix for Vista

bill — Tue, 29 May 2007 03:55:40 GMT

If you're using Windows Vista and are unable to add a web folder (http network location), and you're getting error message like :

"The folder you entered does not appear to be valid. Please choose another."

Then try downloading an installing this update for WebDAV from Microsoft. It worked for me J

Vista seems so hard...

bill — Tue, 08 May 2007 15:37:32 GMT

I've only been seriously on Vista for a week or so, but so far I have found many frustrations, thankfully I've managed to work around.

They removed the ability to mark a file type as "Prompt to download". You use to get to this via file associations, now you need to use the registry.
I had all sorts of weird problems in Internet Explorer around using Microsoft's download tool, or reading blogs etc. Turned out the problem was I moved my %temp% path, and internet explorer couldn't write to the Low directory in that until I marked the directory as having low permissions:
icacls %temp%\Low /setintegritylevel LOW(OI)(CI)
That fixed the problem. Even looking tat that now, and given there was no error message from IE, I'm really amazed I got that one solved ;)
I went to open a PPT deck today and couldn't open it in Vista with PowerPoint 2007. On my XP PS2 machine using PowerPoint 2007 I could. The error message in Vista was it couldn't find some printer, yet I deliberately have my print spooler stopped in XP and in Vista. Manually starting it when needed. Well for some reason in Vista I needed to manual start the print spooler, yet in XP I didn't.