26 May 2010

What is this – _.vshost.exe and _.vshost.exe.config files in my BIN compile folder

If you’ve built Windows apps you’ve probably come across the VSHOST.EXE and VSHOST.EXE.CONFIG files in your BIN\DEBUG folder while building the SETUP or deployment project.  I’ve been asked many times what these files are an if they should be deployed with the application.  The answer is…
NO
These files are part of the Visual Studio Hosting Process used during debugging and should NOT be deployed with your app.  For more see this MSDN article.


Cheers
C

16 May 2010

New hotlinks to SharePoint resources

I have added two new hotlinks to the top of my blog site, one for Capacity Planning and one for Architecture & Topology.  The both point to permanent pages on my blog that I’ll be keeping up to date with the latest and greatest links to these resources, as they become available.  So go ahead and bookmark these for future reference. 

http://crayveon.com/architecture-topology/ 

http://crayveon.com/sharepoint-2010-capacity-management-performance-planning/

Cheers
C

12 May 2010

SharePoint 2010 Editions feature comparison


LogoSharePoint2010_3_7C42F627
There is a GREAT feature comparison page, now available, that shows a nice layout of what features are available in each of the SharePoint 2010 Editions i.e. Foundation, Standard and Enterprise. A good, better, best chart if you will. Check it out here:
http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/en-us/buy/pages/editions-comparison.aspx

Cheers
C

1 TB Western Digital USB 2.0 External Drive for $112.34!

WOW!  I just picked up this deal from Dell.  Sweet!  Thought I’d share.  It expires after tomorrow though.  Very useful for storing all those ISO images I link to my VMs!


Cheers
C

10 May 2010

Latest Hyper-V VMs Available for Download

Here’s a quick list of the lastest Hyper-V Virtual Machines available for download from Microsoft.  If you’re setting up a little private playground lab, this will save you tons of time and get you working out the latest and greatest software in a flash.
Start by grabbing the latest IW VM loaded with Office and SharePoint 2010 goodness:
If you have Exchange cravings, satisfy them here:
Want to throw OCS in the mix too?  Here you go:
See how system health plays with all these:
Of course, if you want to look at migration scenarios you could restore your restore you data to this VM and run an upgrade/migration:
Lastly, if you want to just have the OS baseline and do all the other installs yourself, start here:

Happy downloading!


Cheers
C

04 May 2010

How do I – Solve the – Unexpected error creating debug information file .pdb. The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process. – compiler error?

As a SharePoint Developer, you may run across this error at some point.
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It is most common when you’re trying to recompile a SharePoint binary, from a Visual Studio session ON the actual SharePoint server.  Of course, in most normal situations, it’s unthinkable to run the compiler on the server, but as SharePoint developers, we know there is no other way to code for the platform so it’s pretty much SOP for us.
The problem lies in the locks that are taken by the compiler process on the debug info file.  Often the locks are taken by your last debug session and unfortunately the locks aren’t always released, even though you’re the same user from the same application.  Call it a multi threading anomaly or something.  Whatever it is, this happens in Visual Studio 2008.
Enter Process Explorer!  This little gem by Mark Russinovich from SysInternals, has been around for a long time, now in it’s 12th version.  Microsoft bought SysInternals a couple of years ago, and with it, Mark’s great mind.  I must say, it was probably one of the smartest acquisitions that Redmond has ever made.  But I digress.  So, if you have Process Explorer installed (if you don’t, download it now and do so), it generally lives in the C:\Program Files\Process Explorer folder.  To unlock your files and resume your compilation, follow these easy steps:
  1. Open Windows Explorer.
  2. Browse to the C:\Program Files\Process Explorer location, or any other alternative location where you may have installed Process Explorer to.
  3. image
  4. Double click “Procexp.exe” to launch Process Explorer.
  5. Once Process Explorer opens, it will display a list of all active processes on your system.  Odds are that your .pdb file is NOT shown here.
  6. In the top menu, click the “Find” menu item.
  7. In the drop down menu, click the “Find Handle or DLL” menu option.  NOTE: If you’re a shortcut kinda guy or gal, you could have accessed this option with the “Ctrl+P” keyboard hotkey combo.
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  9. In the Process Explorer Search dialog window, enter the name of your DLL, or in our case, the name of our .pdb file.
  10. Click “Search” or press “Enter”.
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  12. Process Explorer displays the process that has the lock and wouldn’t you know it, it’s Visual Studio itself. 
  13. Double click on the “devenv.exe” line.
  14. Process Explorer now closes the dialog window and the “devenv.exe” item is added to the displayed list.
  15. Right click the “devenv.exe” line in the displayed list.
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  17. On the popup menu, click the “Close Handle” menu option.
  18. Process Explorer will display a warning message noting stability and crashes that may be caused by closing the handles on this file.  Of course we understand this and we click “Yes”.  Or alternatively, we don’t understand but as a Windows user, we blindly click “Yes” to just make the popup go away. 
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  20. After closing the handles, we return to Visual Studio and press F5 or click Rebuild and tada!  
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Happy coding!


Cheers
C

Microsoft Authentication Library (MSAL) Overview

The Microsoft Authentication Library (MSAL) is a powerful library designed to simplify the authentication process for applications that conn...