Data Sources Toolbox functionality reversed

Data Sources Toolbox functionality reversed

• agent_smith

  Josh:
  
  I wonder if the installation of any other version of VS could be causing the problem.  The other programmer in our group who never installed a beta has VS 2003 installed.  The DataSource in his VS2005 installation is acting exactly like mine and I installed the Beta 2.
  
  When I applied your 'fix' it worked but the other programmer has not had time to try it.
  

• Support

  Yes, I do believe that is the problem here. I did not know where these settings were stored and so could not find them to verify myself, but it sounds like a likely cause for the bug.
  
  I do know that there are a lot of people dealing with this bug right now, so I hope MS can take this information and run with it!
  
  Thanks,
  Josh
  

• Asif Shehzad

  Thank you JoshSommers, that certainly looks like it worked.
  

• espionage

  By the way, I do have VS 2003 installed and it does work fine still, and so does VS final (now). I have found several handy utilities in my searches through the forums, they are listed below, they seem to work very well for catching certain specific bugs:
  
  First, the prior version removal tool is clutch because it does the complete uninstall for you:
  http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/ LinkId=47598
  
  Next there is this problem checker tool which will detect and repair any of 12 different specific common install bugs:
  http://astebner.sts.winisp.net/Tools/ttool.zip
  
  I hope these help you out...
  Josh
  

• aLee89

  Hi,
  
  With the details you provided regarding the Data UI Customization, I think I understand the issue. I've spent many hours installing / uninstalling Beta 2 and RC trying (unsuccessfully) to reproduce this bug as well. I wish I've thought of this before :(
  
  Here's a possible explanation for this issue. I will verify it.
  - When you change Data UI Customization, the settings are saved under C:\Documents and Settings\<UserName>\Application Data\Microsoft\VisualStudio\8.0\DataBindingSetting\WinFormControls.xml. The full assembly name, including the version is saved.
  - Between Beta and RC, the version number was changed.
  - MSI engine does not know about this file so it remains there between updates.
  - Data Sources tool window loads the settings file, cannot find the controls with the old version numbers and fails.
  
  This bug gets through because usually the test machines are reformatted for each build.
  
  Sorry for the troubles you've went through and thank you for posting the information. 
  
  Best regards,

  
  
  

• Osamakhattab

  Josh:
  
  Both of us are quite new to VS and the other programmer (he) is working primarily in web stuff.   I rather doubt he has ever customized this list in Windows forms in 2003 though I might have.
  
  It seems that uninstalling VS in any of its incarnations leaves 'tracks' in the machine.  I'm in the process of checking this out on another machine by uninstalling VS2003 before installing VS2005.  I will endeavor to delete all traces of VS2003 before I install VS2005.
  
  From HuyN comments, it appear an install on a re-formated machine doesn't have the problem so when it fails, it has to be getting its data from somewhere that confuses it.
  
  
  
  

• sohman

  I have read other suggestions for fixes to this and they are ridiculous. The solution is not to uninstall everything that is remotely related to vcisual studio and then reinstall, it is far more simple than that. I really feel sorry for anyone who has tried to fix by uninstalling and reinstalling because I did that and it didn't work. By the way the Visual Studio 2005 installer is ridiculous- exactly 2 hours to do a repair on the installation and three reboots. Who does Microsoft think has time for that Especially when the initial install was full of major bugs- which is bad enough, but then to have to sit through a painstakingly slow installation is just ridiculous- and by the way it seems like the MS approach to every VS solution is to uninstall everything and then reinstall. The uninstall takes two hours too- so you are lookinga t a minimum of 4 hours to do a uninstall/reinstall- which is absolutely ridiculous and Microsoft should ahve to pay all of us for the time we have all wasted trying to make their hastily released product function correctly. But lets not get confused into thinking MS cares at all about us developers.
  
  By the way I never had RC1 so it is not limited to RC1. I had beta 1 then beta 2 then final. The problem did not pop up unitl final. For beta 1 and beta 2 I used the MS removal tools and did not do any manual uninstalling whatsoever.
  
  The problem is that for some reason in the dialogue where you can select which controls go with each data type, there were multiple versions of some controls listed. For example for the String datatype, there were two textbox controls listed and selected, for the [LIST] data type, there were two GridView controls selected. One of the controls in each case is version 2.0.0.0, and the other is version 2.0.2600.0. However on one developer machine, there were not any duplicates, but this solution worked for that machine as well.
  
  The solution:
  
  1) Go into tools->options and then select Windows Forms Designer -> Data UI Customization.
  
  2) Select each datatype that is in the drop down list, and deselect all controls. Do this for each and every datatype. This should bring the datasources back into view when you are looking at a form designer window.
  
  3) To be able to again drag and drop the table or field onto a form, you will need to go back into the Ui Customization dialog and select the correct form controls to associate with each datatype, and it is also a good idea to set a default for each. When I deselected all checked items, and clicked ok, and then went back in, the invalid duplicate controls were no longer listed in the dialog, so you cannot accidentally re-select the wrong controls.
  
  I have applied this fix to three seperate machines now in three seperate networks each with a differnt install/uninstall procedure having been used and it has worked for all three.
  
  Thanks Microsoft for another poorly released product. You'd think that Microsoft, giant that it is, creator of the operating system, creator of the installer engine would have figured out a way to distribute their own product in a reasonable manner.
  
  So long DLL hell, welcome to generalized MS hell- or installer hell, or gac hell, or visual studio hell- you name it microsoft has several levels of hell you can be in.
  

• JEROMEMAS

  Thanks from me as well.
  

• WickedlNl

  Josh:
  
  Just in way of follow-up.  It appears that I was wrong about the problem the other programmer was having.  It appears that the failure of the Data Source to properly display the source is only related to a previous installation of a beta version.
  
  The error he 'seemed' to be having was not the one you, I and others were having due to a previous beta install.
  
  Sorry for the confusion.
  

• wabroussard

  Hi,
  
  This is a well-known issue with Visual Studio 2005 RC. However we have not been able to reproduce this issue and debug it on a clean machine.
  
  One possible reason for this is installing Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005 that use different versions of .NET Framework.
  
  Are you installing Visual Studio 2005 on a clean machine
  
  You can try the work around suggested by other users in this post http://forums.microsoft.com/msdn/ShowPost.aspx PostID=89678.
  
  Best regards,
  
  
  
  

• Fille

  I'm not sure this problem has anything to do with installations from beta to rc to final.  Another programmer is having the same problem with his installation and he never installed any previous versions of VS2005
  

• lorserker

  I would say it is certainly a possibility, particularly if he/she has used the datasources in the same way in 2003. I never used data sources like that in 2003, so I'm not sure.
   
  I think the key to what causes this is having at some point customized that list. I know that in beta 1 or 2, I customized the list of which types of controls go with which data types. I don't know about anyone else, but that is one thing that is common between the three machines where my fix worked. Each of us had at one point or another done something in that dialogue in a previous version of VS, so it is possible that if the same modification or customization rather was done in 2003 that it could carry over to 2005.
  
  Just a hunch, but it can't hurt to have them try and see if it works. I'd be interested to know if it does.
  

• Bobby123

  In this particular scenario, the situation as lined out by the MS employee who responded, and what allowed me to fix this error on three seperate machines with three seperate types of installations leads me to believe that his/her hypothesis is thus far the best I have seen to explain why this problem happened.
  
  If someone has this problem and has not had any previous version of Visual Studio installed, I'm not sure how they would have the data sources created to be able to know that they are not showing correctly, so in that case it might not be this same problem. But if you have installed a pre-release version of VS, and are having this problem, then the likely cause and solution are the above stated.
  

• Nabulaer

  I Installed VS2005 on a notebook that had VS2003 installed and the Data Source came up just fine.  I doubt anything was customized in the settings of the VS2003 installation, so perhaps your supposition that customization may affect it could very well be correct.
  
• Data Sources Toolbox functionality reversed