Steve Hathaway's Q&A profile

• Windows Forms Menus not fading in/out in VS2005 / .NET 2.0

  Hello, I'm using VS2005 Pro July CTP with the .NET Framework 2.0 that ships with it. Things are generally working well but I have noticed that I am not able to get the fade-in, fade-out style/animation on my menus... including menus from a MenuStrip as well as context menus. Of course, the feature is enabled at the OS level, and all other menus fade in appropriately (including Office 2003). Is there some default option that I am overlooking, or is there a known issue with this I have tried experimenting with the RenderMode option, but still can't get the fading. I appreciate the help, --Mike I filed a bug: ...Show All

• Visual Studio Tools for Office activeCell.Value2 problem

  hi, i use following to get the text in a active cell. string temp = this.ActiveCell.Value2 my problem is when the active cell is empty i get error "Object reference not set to an instance of an object." i want to do something when the active cell is empty it generate a empty string not an exception. I have the same problem for MS PowerPoint. thanks. Assuming "this" is a VSTO worksheet, you'd need something like this: string s = this.Application.ActiveCell.Value2.ToString(); Regards, Steve ...Show All

• SQL Server SCD and populating dimensions and facts

  Hello, This is my first task in attempting to populate a fact and dimension table from SSIS. I have a Fact table Sales and dimension tables Customer and Location. The data I am getting to fill this structure is in one file. where each record contains the sales information as well the customer information and location details on the same row. I am using the SSIS to fill this structure by using the slowly changing dimension for the Customer dimension. I am filling the customer dimension by using the slowly changing dimension. If I have 2 records having same BusinessKey but each with a different first name, where first name is set as a ...Show All

• Game Technologies: DirectX, XNA, XACT, etc. DirectInput or WndProc?

  I've noticed the in the August SDK (and previous ones) that all of the samples use a WndProc function to handle keyboard and mouse input. I assume there is a good reason that DirectInput is not being used. Could someone please enlighten me as to what it is.... Does using WndProc give better performance than DirectInput   Jason Barrett wrote: all of the samples use a WndProc function to handle keyboard and mouse input. I assume there is a good reason that DirectInput is not being used. My understanding is that it maintains the clarity/simplicity of the sample code by not introducing anothe ...Show All

• Visual Studio VS2005 July CTP under Virtual PC - shortcutCLTDbg32.txt can't be read

  I've been trying to install the July CTP of VS2005 Professional under Virtual PC SP1  which is running Windows Server 2003 SP1 and it invariably fails towards the end of the main install trying to read D:\VS\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\SDK\v2.0\GuiDebug\shortcutCLRDbg32.txt telling me the file was not found and offering me the choice of Retry (which loops failing with the same message) or Cancel (which does a rollback). That file is on the disk and appears to be a multi-stream file. It can be opened in Notepad in the host operating system (Windows XP SP2) ie outside the VPC with no problems. Notepad displays its content ...Show All

• Visual C# Windows Service: Specified Service Already Exists

  I keep getting this error when trying to install this windows service, written in C#. I have uninstalled and installed this service many times, and only this last time has it seemed to break. Looking in the Admin Settings --> Service window, I still see my service. It can't start and I see no way to remove it otherwise. What happened, and how can I fix this I have found suggestions on using Win32API to test for and remove the service, in the overridden Installation class for the Deployment package I'm using, but cannot find any such methods described under Microsoft.Win32. have you tried rebooting the machine Sometimes whe ...Show All

• Visual C# how can i get a substring in a string and then change its color?

  for example if I type /* in the textfield all preceding characters should change to color green and when I type */ the change should stop. You have two options. 1 - use a rich text box, and parse the text so that you change the color 2- write your own control derived from the textbox to do this. ...Show All

• Visual Studio Project file extension guidance

  So it probably doesn't matter what file extension we use for project files, it would be nice if there were a set of quasi-standard extensions.  I believe these exist: .proj - generic msbuild project .csproj - C# msbuild project .vbproj - VB msbuild project .targets - shared set of targets, properties, etc I was wondering what extension to use for a project file that contains only properties that are to be shared   Any suggestions .props or .proj or just use .targets even though there aren't any targets in the project. The XML editor automatically gets associated with any unknown extension so long a ...Show All

• Visual Studio Express Editions different schema?

  hi i am creating a small and simple database with 2 tables i have my forms set up and linked to a dataset.xsd and i can edit and remove data as required however my main problem is setting up a search box so i can reduce the amount of rows on show at any time so my prblem comes when i set up a new query from my car_details table adapter the code is nice and simple as follows SELECT Car_details.*, Customer_details.* FROM Car_details INNER JOIN Customer_details ON Car_details.Car_id = Customer_details.Car_id WHERE (Car_details.Car_reg = @Car_reg) when i first created it i got a message saying it had a different schema t ...Show All

• Visual C# Usage of DataView in my custom DataBase Class

  I make one database class, in which there is a dataView method. In the aspx file, this method was invoked with the purpose to display the data in database. But here the aspx file failed to display the data, not even the error message in the catch block. Can anybody tell me why cs file: using System; using System.Data; using System.Data.SqlClient; namespace database { public class DBClass { private SqlConnection conn; private SqlCommand comm; public DataSet ds; public SqlDataAdapter dad; public DataView dv; private string sql; private string connStr; private string errInfo; public void database() { errIn ...Show All

• Visual C++ Problem: Using _beginthreadex in DllMain

  I want to spawn a thread with _beginthreadex in my Dll,but it doesnt work. the code : // ThreadFunc unsigned __stdcall ThreadFunc( void* pArguments ) { MessageBox(NULL, L"yanxizhen Test", L"Test", MB_OK); _endthreadex( 0 ); return 0; } // // DllMain // BOOL APIENTRY DllMain( HANDLE hModule, DWORD ul_reason_for_call, LPVOID lpReserved ) { switch (ul_reason_for_call) { case DLL_PROCESS_ATTACH: _beginthreadex(NULL, 0, &ThreadFunc, NULL, 0, 0); break; } return TRUE; } Thanks! ...Show All

• Visual Studio strange file not found error..

  I have the following in my .csproj file: < Target Name = " AfterBuild " > < Copy SkipUnchangedFiles = " true " SourceFiles = " $(TargetPath);$(TargetDir)$(TargetName).pdb;$(TargetDir)$(TargetName).xml " DestinationFolder = " c:\gsp\common\bin " /> </ Target > (We test the software in an other location than $(TargetDir)) And occasionally I get the following error, although I have verified several times that the file indeed exists. Error 1 Unable to copy file "C:\GSP\Library\GspLibrary\bin\Debug\GspLibrary.xml" to "c:\gsp\common\bin\GspLibrary.x ...Show All

• Visual Studio Express Editions Distributing a multi-user application

  Hi there, This post stems from a problem that many of us are having: the fact that we don’t see our database being updated. I understand now why this is the case as there have been many posts on the subject. We are expecting to see the database updated (in the Database explorer or in the Solution explorer) when in actual fact a local copy of the database (in the bin folder) is being updated (unitl you rebuild your app in which case it gets over written again). My question is, if VB2005E works with a local copy of the database, how can I distribute the application to multiple users Will all the users have their own local database Can ...Show All

• SQL Server Simple backup job failing

  Hi All, I have a small script that is failing : BACKUP DATABASE CorporateComplaints TO DISK = 'E:\MSSQL\BACKUP\Insight_Dump.BAK' WITH INIT -- Declare the variable to be used. DECLARE @MyCounter INT DECLARE @MySpid INT DECLARE @MYSQL varchar(50) -- Initialize the variable. SET @MyCounter = (SELECT Count(spid) FROM SysProcesses WHERE SysProcesses.dbid = ( SELECT dbid FROM SysDatabases WHERE SysDatabases.name = 'CorporateComplaints2' )) print'mycounter '+ cast(@MyCounter as varchar (5)) -- Test the variable to see if the loop is finished. WHILE (@MyCounter > 0) BEGIN -- Kill process. EXEC sp_refreshview ActiveProcessesView ...Show All

• Software Development for Windows Vista 5.1 Surround Sound with WMVHD files

  I have code based around the PlayWnd DirectShow sample that works quite well except that it always mixes the 5.1 audio down to stereo. I have tried to implement the high resolution audio solutions mentioned on the MSDN site without success. I would be interested in a code segment or direction on how to play a WMVHD file with 5.1 surround sound if anyone has been successful in achieving this. MediaPlayer works fine so I know it can be done. Thanks, David ...Show All