Don't mind the geek!

Feedback forum for MSMQ Studio

Kjell-Åke Andersson — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 22:17:39 GMT

I wanted to make it easier for you, the users of of MSMQ Studio, to provide feedback on the application and also to be able to vote on what you think is important for you.

So go to the feedback forum and post your ideas and vote on other ideas.

InternalsVisibleTo and Unit Testing

Kjell-Åke Andersson — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 21:45:39 GMT

I’m posting this as a reminder for myself!

When doing unit testing of internal and private members of an assembly which has a strong name you have to add the InternalsVisibleToAttribute to it.

In C# it should look like this:

[assembly: System.Runtime.CompilerServices.InternalsVisibleTo("My.Assembly.UnitTest, PublicKey=00240000048000009400000006020000002400005253413100040000010001002b942c093e3324a162084ae586f6de65ca4d79f82fd5e4939bd4a26ac5cfe0d42fae6b1b29e659a0710eb5b62e551bcde2494f17d3098f1dc664e0bf9e596e28effd9549bf4aff6dd3c00e28d66d7951ab86df06a8682070df557de4cfc8510ddb9fdb5de1c1f17235eaa3590d38114e4960a95820c375204050bc967c56a3c1")]

To get the public key from a strong named assembly you have to use sn.exe with the –Tp option.

This would give you the following result:

PS c:\....> sn -Tp My.Assembly.UnitTest.dll

Microsoft (R) .NET Framework Strong Name Utility Version 3.5.30729.1

Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Public key is

00240000048000009400000006020000002400005253413100040000010001002b942c093e3324

a162084ae586f6de65ca4d79f82fd5e4939bd4a26ac5cfe0d42fae6b1b29e659a0710eb5b62e55

1bcde2494f17d3098f1dc664e0bf9e596e28effd9549bf4aff6dd3c00e28d66d7951ab86df06a8

682070df557de4cfc8510ddb9fdb5de1c1f17235eaa3590d38114e4960a95820c375204050bc96

7c56a3c1

Public key token is 77a86484916e64d9

Set the PATH environment variable for .NET tools in your PowerShell profile

Kjell-Åke Andersson — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 11:07:41 GMT

To set the PATH environment variable for your PowerShell profile you have to do the following:

Make sure you have a folder called WindowsPowerShell in My Documents.
Create a file called profile.ps1 in the new folder and open it.
Copy the following into the new file:

$paths = @();
$paths += $env:PATH;
$paths += join-path (get-itemproperty "HKLM:SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft SDKs\Windows").CurrentInstallFolder "bin";
$paths += join-path (get-itemproperty "HKLM:SOFTWARE\Microsoft\.NETFramework").InstallRoot "v2.0.50727";

$env:PATH = [string]::Join(";", $paths);

Close the file.
Open a new PowerShell prompt.

Debugging windows services

Kjell-Åke Andersson — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 08:45:52 GMT

When I need to debug a windows service I usually make a call to Thread.Sleep and then attach the debugger manually.

   1:  protected override void OnStart(string[] args)

   2:  {

3:

   4:      Thread.Sleep(10000);

5:

But now I have realized that there is an easier solution to this problem and it is to launch the debugger by yourself!

   1:          protected override void OnStart(string[] args)

   2:          {

3:

   4:              #if DEBUG

   5:              if (Properties.Settings.Default.Debug)

   6:              {

   7:                  System.Diagnostics.Debugger.Launch();

   8:              }

   9:              #endif

WiX Service Account Dialog

Kjell-Åke Andersson — Fri, 30 May 2008 09:21:41 GMT

In my current project we had a need to be able to enter the service account details during setup for the service which is hosting our WCF services. I couldn't find a dialog that does this using WiX so I created my own.

In my setup project I used the WIXUI_FeatureTree template as a base. To "hook in" the new dialog you will have to override the template because if you just add new Publish elements they will not override the existing elements.

   1:      <UIRef Id="WixUI_ErrorProgressText"/>

   2:      <UIRef Id="WixUI_Common" />

3:

   4:      <Binary Id="WarningIcon" SourceFile="warning.bmp"/>

5:

   6:      <UI Id="MyWixUI_FeatureTree">

   7:        <TextStyle Id="WixUI_Font_Normal" FaceName="Tahoma" Size="8" />

   8:        <TextStyle Id="WixUI_Font_Bigger" FaceName="Tahoma" Size="12" />

   9:        <TextStyle Id="WixUI_Font_Title" FaceName="Tahoma" Size="9" Bold="yes" />

10:

  11:        <Property Id="DefaultUIFont" Value="WixUI_Font_Normal" />

  12:        <Property Id="WixUI_Mode" Value="FeatureTree" />

13:

  14:        <DialogRef Id="ErrorDlg" />

  15:        <DialogRef Id="FatalError" />

  16:        <DialogRef Id="FilesInUse" />

  17:        <DialogRef Id="MsiRMFilesInUse" />

  18:        <DialogRef Id="PrepareDlg" />

  19:        <DialogRef Id="ProgressDlg" />

  20:        <DialogRef Id="ResumeDlg" />

  21:        <DialogRef Id="UserExit" />

22:

  23:        <Publish Dialog="ExitDialog" Control="Finish" Event="EndDialog" Value="Return" Order="999">1</Publish>

24:

  25:        <Publish Dialog="WelcomeDlg" Control="Next" Event="NewDialog" Value="LicenseAgreementDlg">1</Publish>

26:

  27:        <Publish Dialog="LicenseAgreementDlg" Control="Back" Event="NewDialog" Value="WelcomeDlg">1</Publish>

  28:        <Publish Dialog="LicenseAgreementDlg" Control="Next" Event="NewDialog" Value="CustomizeDlg">LicenseAccepted = "1"</Publish>

29:

  30:        <Publish Dialog="CustomizeDlg" Control="Back" Event="NewDialog" Value="MaintenanceTypeDlg" Order="1">Installed</Publish>

  31:        <Publish Dialog="CustomizeDlg" Control="Back" Event="NewDialog" Value="LicenseAgreementDlg" Order="2">NOT Installed</Publish>

  32:        <Publish Dialog="CustomizeDlg" Control="Next" Event="NewDialog" Value="ServiceAccountDlg" Order="1">1</Publish>

33:

  34:        <Publish Dialog="ServiceAccountDlg" Control="Back" Event="NewDialog" Value="CustomizeDlg">1</Publish>

  35:        <Publish Dialog="ServiceAccountDlg" Control="Next" Event="NewDialog" Value="VerifyReadyDlg">1</Publish>

36:

  37:        <Publish Dialog="VerifyReadyDlg" Control="Back" Event="NewDialog" Value="ServiceAccountDlg" Order="1">NOT Installed OR WixUI_InstallMode = "Change"</Publish>

  38:        <Publish Dialog="VerifyReadyDlg" Control="Back" Event="NewDialog" Value="MaintenanceTypeDlg" Order="2">Installed</Publish>

39:

  40:        <Publish Dialog="MaintenanceWelcomeDlg" Control="Next" Event="NewDialog" Value="MaintenanceTypeDlg">1</Publish>

41:

  42:        <Publish Dialog="MaintenanceTypeDlg" Control="ChangeButton" Event="NewDialog" Value="CustomizeDlg">1</Publish>

  43:        <Publish Dialog="MaintenanceTypeDlg" Control="RepairButton" Event="NewDialog" Value="VerifyReadyDlg">1</Publish>

  44:        <Publish Dialog="MaintenanceTypeDlg" Control="RemoveButton" Event="NewDialog" Value="VerifyReadyDlg">1</Publish>

  45:        <Publish Dialog="MaintenanceTypeDlg" Control="Back" Event="NewDialog" Value="MaintenanceWelcomeDlg">1</Publish>

46:

  47:        <Dialog Id="ServiceAccountDlg" Width="370" Height="270" Title="[ProductName] Setup">

  48:          <Control Id="Back" Type="PushButton" X="180" Y="243" Width="56" Height="17" Text="!(loc.WixUIBack)" />

  49:          <Control Id="Next" Type="PushButton" X="236" Y="243" Width="56" Height="17" Default="yes" Text="!(loc.WixUINext)">

  50:            <Condition Action="disable"><![CDATA[ACCOUNT = "" OR PASSWORD = ""]]></Condition>

  51:            <Condition Action="enable">ACCOUNT &lt;&gt; "" AND PASSWORD &lt;&gt; ""</Condition>

  52:          </Control>

  53:          <Control Id="Cancel" Type="PushButton" X="304" Y="243" Width="56" Height="17" Cancel="yes" Text="!(loc.WixUICancel)">

  54:            <Publish Event="SpawnDialog" Value="CancelDlg">1</Publish>

  55:          </Control>

  56:          <Control Id="BannerBitmap" Type="Bitmap" X="0" Y="0" Width="370" Height="44" TabSkip="no" Text="WixUI_Bmp_Banner" />

  57:          <Control Id="BannerLine" Type="Line" X="0" Y="44" Width="370" Height="0" />

  58:          <Control Id="BottomLine" Type="Line" X="0" Y="234" Width="370" Height="0" />

  59:          <Control Id="Description" Type="Text" X="25" Y="23" Width="280" Height="15" Transparent="yes" NoPrefix="yes" Text="Enter service account details.">

  60:          </Control>

  61:          <Control Id="Title" Type="Text" X="15" Y="6" Width="200" Height="15" Transparent="yes" NoPrefix="yes" Text="{\WixUI_Font_Title}Service account" />

  62:          <Control Type="Text" Width="322" Height="26" X="25" Y="56" Id="BodyLabel" Text="Specify the logon account for the [ProductName] service." NoPrefix="yes">

  63:          </Control>

  64:          <Control Type="Text" Width="275" Height="10" X="25" Y="98" Id="AccountLabel" Text="&amp;Account name (Example: domain\user or user@domain):" />

  65:          <Control Type="Edit" Width="194" Height="15" X="25" Y="111" Id="AccountTextbox" Property="ACCOUNT" />

  66:          <Control Type="Text" Width="275" Height="10" X="25" Y="135" Id="PasswordLabel" Text="Pa&amp;ssword:" />

  67:          <Control Type="Edit" Width="194" Height="15" X="25" Y="148" Id="PasswordTextbox" Property="PASSWORD" Password="yes" />

68:

  69:          <Control Width="12" Height="12" FixedSize="yes" Type="Bitmap" X="25" Y="170" Id="Warning" Text="WarningIcon"/>

  70:          <Control Id="WarningLabel" Type="Text" X="40" Y="170" Width="200" Height="40" Text="The account entered here will not be validated. Make sure that the account details entered are correct." />

  71:        </Dialog>

  72:      </UI>

Purge the BizTalk Tracking Database

Kjell-Åke Andersson — Wed, 14 May 2008 23:40:51 GMT

We've had a problem with disk space our development server and one of the issues was that the BizTalk Tracking Database (BizTalkDTADb) grew to over 2 Gb. But tonight I found this great article on how to purge the database and to schedule the purging.

BizTalk Developers, have you enabled DTA Purge and Archive (BizTalkDTADb) SQL job on your development machine?

Great LINQ To SQL tips

Kjell-Åke Andersson — Wed, 14 May 2008 12:06:29 GMT

I found today a great article with 10 tips for using LINQ To SQL more efficient.

10 Tips to Improve your LINQ to SQL Application Performance

Never merge a dbml-file again!

Kjell-Åke Andersson — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 00:27:04 GMT

When you are using Visual Studio 2008 for development and Team Foundation Server 2005 for version control you should add the following rule to TFS in case you are using Linq To Sql.

This will make sure that your dbml-files cannot be checked out my multiple users and this will definitely help you as it is an absolute royal pain in the *ss to merge these files!

Who's on Southpark?

Kjell-Åke Andersson — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 00:30:39 GMT

Open PowerShell Prompt Here

Kjell-Åke Andersson — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 10:57:13 GMT

I've been using PowerShell for a while now but it still hasn't replaced the command prompt for me yet. I have been using the "Command Prompt Here" Power Toy a lot to make it easier to open up a command prompt at a specific location from the explorer. So now I added some settings to the registry that will do the same but with PowerShell instead.

Here is the registry script for making such an entry in explorer:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\PowerShell]
@="Open PowerShell Prompt Here"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\PowerShell\Command]
@="\"C:\\Windows\\System32\\WindowsPowerShell\\v1.0\\powershell.exe\" -NoExit -Command [Environment]::CurrentDirectory=(Set-Location -LiteralPath:'%L' -PassThru).ProviderPath\""

What's wrong with this picture?

Kjell-Åke Andersson — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 09:16:52 GMT

While reading my bunch of daily blogs I found out that Microsoft posted an overview of service pack 3 for Windows XP. Of course this seemed like something that I would like to check out. But then when I got to the download page I was treated with the option to either download the document as an PDF or XPS. I don't have any special preference for any of these formats, but what's interesting is that the XPS is 114 kb larger than the PDF? This triggered me to compare the two documents too see what the XPS offered me over the PDF. As it turns out it is actually nothing more! The two documents contains the same information!

If Microsoft wants me to use their new document format, then why would I use it as it makes documents 34% larger (this is just an estimate)! I would have understood that it was larger if it had contained animations and music, but when the content is the same???

LLLLLLLLLLINQ!!

Kjell-Åke Andersson — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 09:46:09 GMT

I've played around some with LINQ now when .NET 3.5 is released and I have to say that I think it is great! LINQ will definitely be a great boost for smaller development shops and small IT departments where there is a need for a to build small internal applications quickly. For large scale development I'm not as sure if it will be used that much as there is already a lot of different solutions for handling the data access (CSLA.NET, nHibernate, SubSonic etc.).

I've also found the tool LINQPad which seems to simplify LINQ development. Here is a screenshot from it.

They fixed it!

Kjell-Åke Andersson — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 10:47:23 GMT

I submitted a bug for Visual Studio 2005 regarding the server settings for Web Application Project projects. This bug caused us a lot of problems as we are four developers doing all development on a single server using Remote Desktop to access it. Now when we have switched from VSS to TFS this doesn't cause us so much problems as each user can check-out the project file without locking it exclusively. We will soon switch from VS 2005 to VS 2008 and then we will not have this problem at all.

UPDATE! This issue is also fixed for VS 2005, see this post Tips & Tricks- Web Server Settings for Web Application Projects now can be stored per user as well

No LINQ and SQLCLR!

Kjell-Åke Andersson — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 14:44:12 GMT

We have decided to develop all our stored procedures and functions for our project using SQLCLR. The main reason for this is maintainability and version control. Unfortunately it seems like we cannot use LINQ to ease the development of the sql-statements as the .NET 3.5-assemblies is not on the approved list in either SQL 2005 or 2008. I hope they will test the assemblies and fix this in service pack soon.

Mitch Fatel is hilarious!!

Kjell-Åke Andersson — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 12:32:36 GMT

I have been listening to Mitch Fatel's albums Miniskirts and Muffins and Super Retardo and I have to say that this guy is a genius! He is like a stand-up comedy version of Forrest Gump who prefers sex and muffins.

AssemblyInfo Updater

Kjell-Åke Andersson — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 10:04:38 GMT

We had a need to update the AssemblyVersion attribute in our projects and we had to do it without installing any msbuild tasks. So I created a small cmd-line application that can update the AssemblyInfo.cs file and update existing attributes.

Download AssemblyInfo Updater

Using elements and attributes

Kjell-Åke Andersson — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 10:55:22 GMT

I had a discussion last week with one of the devs (Andreas Assermark) in the project regarding when to use attributes or elements in xml documents used for messaging. What came out of was that when expressing business data in the xml document it should be done using elements and attributes should be used to express meta data about the business data as what type of data it is, when it was updated, if it has been printed e.t.c.

Here is an example of how such an xml document could look like:

<Order xmlns:meta="http://geekproject.com/meta" 
  Invoiced="true" Printed="false" Closed="false" meta:Created="2007-09-15 10:00:00">
  <Header>
    <OrderNumber>10104353</OrderNumber>
    <Address Type="Customer">
      <Name>GeekProject Inc.</Name>
      <Street>100 Nerd Road</Street>
      <PostCode>123 55</PostCode>
      <City>Tinseltown</City>
      <Country>Neverland</Country>
    </Address>
    <Address Type="Delivery">
      <Name>GeekProject Warehouse</Name>
      <Street>15 Storage Street</Street>
      <PostCode>123 70</PostCode>
      <City>Tinseltown</City>
      <Country>Neverland</Country>
    </Address>
  </Header>
  <Lines>
    <Line>
      <StockCode>ARP-57</StockCode>
      <Quantity>5</Quantity>
    </Line>
    <Line>
      <StockCode>TXY-99</StockCode>
      <Quantity>12</Quantity>
    </Line>
  </Lines>
</Order>

In this document I have put all business data into the elements where it is easy to get a quick overview of what is actually in the document. In the Address element I have an attribute named Type which allows me to add a specific delivery address if the order should not be delivered directly to the customer.

In the Order element there is three attribute named Invoiced, Printed and Closed. Using these attributes I can display the status of the order without interfering with the actual business data. I have also added a namespace named meta to the document to allow attibutes to be added that describe the state of the document from a system standpoint.

By using this format in a xml document you will get documents that are more stuctured and hav a more logical grouping of the information.

Search companion has gone blank!

Kjell-Åke Andersson — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 15:05:49 GMT

We got some problems on our development server last week including that the Search Companion in Windows Explorer was completely blank, if you right clicked on RAR or ZIP-files the context menu didn't show up, web pages with AJAX post-backs didn't work e.t.c.

The solution to this was found after several hours of searching and was the following:

cd %systemroot%/system32

regsvr32 wshom.ocx

regsvr32 jscript.dll

regsvr32 urlmon.dll

Even though I installed the latest version of Windows Script 5.7 it didn't correctly register theses files.

Change authorization to ease SQL Server development

Kjell-Åke Andersson — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 14:11:34 GMT

When you are not connected to a domain SQL Server might give you an error like the following:

An exception occurred while enqueueing a message in the target queue. Error: 15404, State: 19. Could not obtain information about Windows NT group/user '[Domain]\[User]', error code 0x54b.

To fix this you could execute the following in SQL Server:

ALTER AUTHORIZATION ON DATABASE::[<Database>] TO [sa];

MSMQ Studio 0.7.5

Kjell-Åke Andersson — Tue, 15 May 2007 12:43:23 GMT

Fixed so that the body of the message is also copied when copying messages.

MSMQ Studio 0.7.4.0

Kjell-Åke Andersson — Sun, 13 May 2007 23:26:45 GMT

While the family is sleeping I decided to add two more features to MSMQ Studio.

Copy messages between queues
Set autorefresh rate for message list view

MSMQ Studio

MSMQ Studio 0.7.3.0

Kjell-Åke Andersson — Wed, 09 May 2007 06:31:35 GMT

In this version I have only fixed so that it is now possible to delete messages from a queue.

MSMQ Studio

Map Oracle Datatypes to .NET Datatypes

Kjell-Åke Andersson — Tue, 08 May 2007 14:50:02 GMT

In my current project we have been using Oracle as a database. And we have been quite sloppy with defining the correct datatypes for integers and decimals, we have just been using the Oracle datatype NUMBER without specifying precision or scale for both. So I thougth I would create a list with the correct values for precision and scale for integer, decimal, single e.t.c.

Int16 = NUMBER(4,0)
Int32 = NUMBER(9,0)
Int64 = NUMBER(18,0)
Single = NUMBER( < 8, < 44)
Double = NUMBER( < 16, *)
Decimal = NUMBER(*,*)

What happened to Windows Live Writer???

Kjell-Åke Andersson — Tue, 08 May 2007 12:50:22 GMT

I have been using Windows Live Writer for quite a while to update this blog. But what happened to it? Their blog is practically dead since it hasn't been updated since November 2006.

Send MSMQ message from SQL Server

Kjell-Åke Andersson — Thu, 03 May 2007 08:19:19 GMT

I got a question from a customer if there was any solution to send a message via MSMQ from SQL Server. After some searching I found two different solutions to the problem. The first solution is to install a extended procedure (XP_MSMQ) and the second is to modify the security settings for System.Messaging and use the CLR integration in SQL Server.