Although I am reinstalling machines on such a regular basis, I keep forgetting enabling tab completion for cmd.exe. Therefore I am putting a note to self in my blog...

Where to define:

How to do it automatically (copy / paste / save as .reg / double-click):

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Command Processor]
"CompletionChar"=dword:00000009

Downloaded SQL 2008 Trials to my local disk and wanted to move them to an external harddisk:

"The action can't be completed because the file is open in Microsoft SQL Server 2008" - that leaves me slightly puzzled.

Sharding was introduced for FSFS repositories in Subversion 1.5, but only now I moved to a sharded repository (at time of this writing: Subversion 1.6.1). This meant - as usual - a dump / create / load dance. Followed by the pack operation:

svnadmin dump c:\subversion\sharpdevelop > c:\sd.dump
svnadmin create c:\subversion\sharpdevelop
svnadmin load c:\subversion\sharpdevelop < c:\sd.dump
svnadmin pack c:\subversion\sharpdevelop

Without svnadmin pack, you only get sharding. Executing svnadmin pack puts all the shards together into a single file. This makes certain operations such as svnadmin hotcopy way faster.

Don't ask why, but I needed an eDirectory setup - here is the proof (Novell Netware running in VPC 2007 on Windows 7):

The only stumbling block is that the network card is not properly detected, but this trick still works. The necessary driver is unsupported but lives in c:\nwserver\drivers\unsupdrv\ at this point of the installation process.

Wrapping up Tech∙Days by posting the live sessions I watched:

• DEV307 Starting Test Driven Development with Mock Objects   
• DEV320 Debugging managed code using WinDbg   
• OFC302 SharePoint Workflow for the Masses   
• OFC400 Enterprise SharePoint Workflow: Building and Managing a High-Performance Workflow Environment   
• DEV300 ASP.NET Model-View-Controller: Separation of Concerns and Unit Testing   
• WIN300 Scripting the Microsoft .NET Framework Using Windows PowerShell   
• WEB401 In-depth MVC   
• DEV309 Automating Task and Other Productivity Improvements for Windows Presentation Foundation Development

In a larger project, I got the following error message:

Visual Studio could not open the file "c:\TestAutomation\BuildVerificationTests.orderedtest" because the file contains tests. A test can be opened only within a test project. Add the file to a test project, add the test project to the open solution, and then try again.

Reason: The solution contains a service model (Service Factory). Right-clicking and selecting Unload Project (on the service model) fixes the problem with not being able to open the ordered test.

If your Team Build informs you that "The following fields have incorrect values: ..." you are most likely the victim of someone modifying the Bug work item type, adding mandatory fields without default values.

Resolution: <SkipWorkItemCreation>true</SkipWorkItemCreation>

Importing table data is an easy enough task in SQL Server 2005 - but this week we stumbled across this error message:

Error 0xc0202009: Data Flow Task: SSIS Error Code DTS_E_OLEDBERROR.  An OLE DB error has occurred. Error code: 0x80004005.
An OLE DB record is available.  Source: "Microsoft SQL Native Client"  Hresult: 0x80004005  Description: "Expected the TEXT token in data stream for bulk copy of text or image data.".
 (SQL Server Import and Export Wizard)

Funny thing is, there were only nvarchar(max) columns on the table, and no binary columns whatsoever. A bit of searching and more staring at the table definition finally pointed out us in the right direction - the target table has a computed field in it, like so:

[MyComputedColumn] AS
 (
  [dbo].[MyFunction](OtherColumnAsParameter)
 ),

Although we had told SSIS to <ignore> it, this error came up. The only work around for SSIS: remove the computed field before doing the import.

References:

http://www.eggheadcafe.com/conversation.aspx?messageid=30015415&threadid=30015404
http://sqlug.be/forums/thread/821.aspx

Adding an alert via the Team Foundation Power Tools Alerts Editor (October 2008) is innocent enough:

If you close and reopen the Alerts Editors, the alert definiton is still there (in the above screenshot for "A work item was assigned to me"). However, closing & reopening VS is a different thing - now your alert definition is gone - poof, vanished mysteriously.

It took a while and quite a bit of searching, but finally I found out why and made a slight change:

The username that is pre-filled in in the "Send to:" field doesn't work - you have to use your email address! That much for trusting defaults, but I'm more than happy that it now works as advertised.

No, this time it is not Microsoft - it is NetGear that is not providing an x64-capable version of their software. The very latest VPN client software for a ProSafe router (FVS338) doesn't work (install) on Vista x64: 

I think it is needless to say that I am not amused. Who are you kidding in late 2008?

At PDC 2008 we got a nice Freescale JM badge board to test with Windows 7 and its Sensor API. I definitely wanted to try it, but didn't have the luxury to re-pave a machine just for this.

VirtualPC doesn't support USB (a lack that annoys me immensely, not only now, but also for Windows Mobile development), so I had to look for another option: VirtualBox. It supports USB. I decided to give it a try (VMware was on my list too, but when I saw their registration requirement for a trial version I balked).

Installed the x64 version of VirtualBox, and inside it the 32 Bit version of Windows 7. First stumbling block - the virtual machine additions. In default mode, they refuse to install on Windows 7 (too new). But you can help it see the "light":

The additions are required, otherwise no USB support (or easy network, but you could work around that one via emulating a different NIC).

Next, plug in the sensor development kit badge and tell VirtualBox to route it into the VM:

The "CMX Systems USB HID sensor demo for HC9S08JM devices" is what you are looking for. At least that's what Vista calls the device.

Now all you need to do is boot up your Windows 7 VM again and install the SDK from the supplied disc. Note that I achieved the best results by following the guideline at the end of the document entitled "Sensor Development Kit Driver and Firmware.rtf", to be found in the Documentation folder.

When done, you can try the MSDN reader demo (nope, Marbles not going to work inside a VM). As a proof, here is a screenshot of everything running in VirtualBox (yes, the light sensor works):

By the way, there is a MSDN forum Development with the Windows Sensor and Location Platform just for this topic. If you don't know what I was talking about, check out the session recording Windows 7: The Sensor and Location Platform: Building Context-Aware Applications.