Carlos Quintero (Microsoft MVP) blog

Visual Studio Extensibility with Add-ins

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The strange case of VS 2010 (Beta 2 /CTPs) closing at startup or failing to create add-ins
As you know if you develop add-ins, Visual Studio 2005 introduced XML-based add-ins that use an .AddIn file that you must place in the proper folder for Visual Studio to show the add-in in the Add-In Manager . Which XML parser Visual Studio uses to parse...

Posted by carlosq | 2 comment(s)

The strange case of error 0x80070005 "Access Denied" using PEVerify.exe with an add-in referencing a Visual Studio assembly not in the GAC
It took me quite a lot of time to fix the problem of Error 0x80070002 "The system cannot find the file specified" using PEVerify.exe to verify add-in with referenced assemblies from Visual Studio not in the GAC . I found the problem yesterday...

Posted by carlosq | with no comments

The strange case of Add Resource \ New Image menu empty when an add-in is loaded in Visual Studio
These days I have been playing a lot with resource images in managed satellite dlls and one thing that I was noticing sporadically was that the Add Resource \ New Image menu on the toolbar of the document window of a resource.resx file was empty, while...

Posted by carlosq | with no comments

The strange case of Visual Studio getting "out of memory"
I started programming in the old times of 16-bit MS-DOS, where you had only 640 KB of memory, and you had concepts like "expanded memory" and "extended memory" and memory bank switching to use more than 640 KB and then wonderful things...

Posted by carlosq | with no comments

The strange case of Microsoft.mshtml assembly missing
I received the following bug report from a customer: System.IO.FileNotFoundException: File or assembly name Microsoft.mshtml, or one of its dependencies, was not found. My MZ-Tools add-in references this component. Actually it doesn't use it (it was...

Posted by carlosq | with no comments

The strange case of <Unknown Error> 8013150A loading a Visual Studio add-in
Visual Studio add-ins are not very friendly when trying to auto-update them (at least as of Visual Studio 2008), so when deploying an add-in for internal use within an organization, one creative idea is to put the assembly dll in a shared network folder...

Posted by carlosq | 1 comment(s)

The strange case of ProjectItem.Open(EnvDTE.Constants.vsext_vk_Designer) trying to check-out a form file
Today I have solved a problem that was bugging me for months. I was aware of it but I hadn't paid much attention to it (because I knew it was not a problem of my MZ-Tools add-in) until today, when I decided to take a closer look. The problem was the...

Posted by carlosq | 1 comment(s)

The strange case of infinite recursion in an add-in severely crashing Visual Studio 2005 and 2008
Don't you love when Visual Studio severely crashes? I really hate those moments because I am always afraid that if it is a problem of VS and not a problem in my code, I am in trouble... Some time ago I explained The strange case of Visual Studio 2008...

Posted by carlosq | with no comments

The strange case of "%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Datos de programa\Microsoft\MSEnvShared\AddIns" add-In file path
(Or why it is a bad idea for an add-in to add add-in file paths to Visual Studio) When Visual Studio 2005 introduced XML-based add-ins, which used an .AddIn file rather than COM registration), rather than providing just two fixed folders to place such...

Posted by carlosq | 7 comment(s)

The strange case of Visual Studio 2008 severely crashing loading an add-in
Some months ago a customer of my MZ-Tools add-in reported a crash in Visual Studio 2008 Team Suite when loading it. When an add-in crashes loading it, usually Visual Studio captures the exception or COM error and shows a semi-friendly messagebox indicating...

Posted by carlosq | 3 comment(s)

The strange case of toolwindow not showing when the add-in is loaded on startup
Visual Studio preserves the visibility state of its own toolwindows (Solution Explorer, etc.) but not of toolwindows created by add-ins. It is up to the add-in to store the state of its toolwindows when unloaded, and restore them when it is loaded again...

Posted by carlosq | with no comments

The strange case of add-in setup not detecting running instances of Visual Studio 2008 on Windows Vista
If you are creating a setup for your Visual Studio add-in, chances are that you don't want running instances of Visual Studio when the add-in is going to be installed or uninstalled. For my MZ-Tools add-in , I use the free InnoSetup , which is script...

Posted by carlosq | with no comments

The strange case of <Unknown Error> 8013141A loading a Visual Studio add-in
A developer posted a couple of days ago in the MSDN forum about Visual Studio Extensibility that loading his add-in caused and exception with error number <Unknown Error> (8013141A) . Of course, searching with Google doesn't always offer much...

Posted by carlosq | 1 comment(s)

The strange case of empty Add-In Manager (not showing XML-based add-ins)
There is a problem that I have never experienced but it was happening for a few people in Visual Studio 2005 / 2008. The symptoms were: - The Add-In Manager is empty - The Add-In only shows registry-based add-ins, not XML-based add-ins (using an .AddIn...

Posted by carlosq | 4 comment(s)

The strange case of no ext_ConnectMode.ext_cm_UISetup phase fired, not even once
Continuing today with some tests about the The OnConnection method and ext_ConnectMode.ext_cm_UISetup of Visual Studio add-ins of my last post , I created a sample add-in using the code of the first sample (temporary UI) of my article HOWTO: Adding buttons...

Posted by carlosq | 4 comment(s)

The strange case of "No such interface supported" (Error 80004002) loading a Visual Studio add-in
Some days ago I received an angry complaint from a prospect of the trial version of my MZ-Tools add-in, who uninstalled it because, somehow, he didn't want the add-in loaded at startup during the evaluation period but he wanted to load it manually...

Posted by carlosq | 4 comment(s)

The strange case of System.BadImageFormatException: Could not load file or assembly 'Microsoft.mshtml'
A couple of days ago another customer of my MZ-Tools add-in reported this exception: "System.BadImageFormatException: Could not load file or assembly 'Microsoft.mshtml, Version=7.0.3300.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a'...

Posted by carlosq | with no comments

The strange case of Package 'Visual Studio Explorers and Designers Package' has failed to load properly
I was getting the error "Package 'Visual Studio Explorers and Designers Package' has failed to load properly" when working with add-ins in VS 2008 since a couple of days ago, along with "COM object that has been separated from its...

Posted by carlosq | with no comments

The strange case of InvalidCastException using EditPoint.FindPattern with Visual Studio Database Projects
Many months ago I reported to Microsoft through Microsoft Connect an InvalidCastException that happened when using the EditPoint.FindPattern with .sql files of a database project of Visual Studio 2008 Team Suite (or VS 2008 Edition for DB Professionals...

Posted by carlosq | with no comments

The strange case of System.UnauthorizedAccessException when registering a Visual Studio add-in for COM Interop
Today I received a bug report for a new customer of my MZ-Tools add-in for Visual Studio (who purchased directly the product without trying the trial version) and the first thing that he encountered when running the setup was: System.UnauthorizedAccessException...

Posted by carlosq | 1 comment(s)

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