.xls is not a valid Win32 application with Windows Vista SP1

Annoying little problem I've been having with my office applications for a few weeks. At various times, I would try to open an Excel or word document and I would get the error:

"% is not a valid Win32 Application" or "This file does not have a program associated with it for performing this action..."

The only thing I knew for sure was that it would happen during the times I would hibernate my computer. (I hibernate my computer in the evening most of the time)

The actual problem turned out to be a Vista bug with running certain applications for a long period of time. Although not directly related to hibernate, by working all day and then hibernating my computer I was effectively leaving my computer running for a long period of time.

This is a known problem and it has been fixed with a Reliability update from Microsoft:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=952709

SQL: Could not obtain information about Windows NT group/user

I received the following error when doing a sql install:

CREATE ASSEMBLY [Dan.ImportFile]
AUTHORIZATION clrUser
FROM 'E:\Dan\SQL\ImportFile.dll' WITH PERMISSION_SET = EXTERNAL_ACCESS

Msg 15404, Level 16, State 19, Line 1
Could not obtain information about Windows NT group/user 'DOMAIN\usersql', error code 0x5.

What I am trying to do is give sql access to a .net assembly through a user/login/assymetric key.

Traversing through the web and looking for the cause led me to the following article:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/834124


Although this was great, it didnt get me to the final solution. The problem actually ended up being pretty simple. My sql server service is running under a domain account. The domain account password was expired so when the lookup tried to access the active directory we received the error message.

SOLUTION: Update the password on the SQL Server service(s)

Confirmation of the problem could be found in the windows security event log where my DOMAIN\usersql account was failing logon.

MSN Messenger displaying active status when user is away

I've been having problems for a few months with the online status of messenger. What happens is they leave their computers on all day and periodically their messenger status shows them as active when nobody is actually at the computer. This drives me nuts because I never know when they are actually there... effectively defeating the whole purpose of status.

Recently I have had them try a few changes and it looks like it is working again. Here is what they did:

1. Open the Control panel -> Power Options.


2. Under whatever plan you currently have selected, choose "Change plan settings".


3. Click "Change advanced power settings"


4. Scroll down to the bottom and expand item "Multimedia Settings" and then "When sharing media"
   
5. Change option from "Prevent idling to sleep" to either "Allow the computer to sleep" or "Allow the computer to enter into Away mode"


6. Click OK to save changes.
   

* Note: you may want to change this option on the other power plans you have in case you switch in the future.

I dont know what the option "Prevent idling to sleep" actually does but it does seem to trigger MSN messenger into thinking you are active at the computer.

No anchor member was specified for recursive query Problem

Recently I've been playing around with Common Table Expressions (CTE) and I've had a little difficulty figuring out exactly what the syntax is for it.
The main problem I was having was figuring out how the recursive member integrates with the CTE table. I kept getting the following error.

No anchor member was specified for recursive query "MemberRelation".

After a few hours of troubleshooting I realized that I didnt fully understand what the first line of code for the CTE was doing. In actuality, it is describing the table layout of the result set. (Not a table in the database.) Now the expression is working and making sense:

with MyRelation
(
ID1,
ID2,
Level
)
as
(
-- Anchor member definition
select ID1
,ID2
,0 as Level
from relation as e
UNION ALL
-- Recursive member definition
select e.ID1
,e.ID2
,Level + 1
from relation as e
join MyRelation R on R.ID2 = e.ID1
)
-- Statement that executes the CTE
select top 1 * from MyRelation
where Level = 3
option(Maxrecursion 3)
GO

TFS - Getting files that have changed since a particular date

One of the most annoying parts of source control in visual studio is the lack of some basic features that are in other source control systems. One such feature is to get files that have changed since a particular date. You can do this in TFS, but it isnt straightforward.

Here is how you do it:

1. Create a new folder on your local hard drive to be used temporarily.

2. In visual studio, create a new workspace mapping the directory in source control you want to get the changes on, to the folder created in step 1 above.

3. Under source control, right-click on the folder and select "Get Specific Version..." on the directory that you want to get the changes on.

4. From the Version checkbox, choose "Changeset" and enter the changeset that has the files without the changes you are retrieving.

5. Click Get to get all the files.

6. Once complete, go to the directory on your local hard drive (created in step 1) and delete all the files you just retrieved.

7. Under source control, right-click on the folder you wish to get the changes on and select "Get Latest Version"

After all the files are done downloading, your local folder will only have files that have changed since you last retrieved the files in step 3. Why? - "Get Latest Version" doesnt actually look at the files on your local machine to determine what files need to be updated. Instead, it keeps track of the files you downloaded on the server and gets any changes from your previous download.

GenerateAndPersistNewIndex causing "Not enough storage is available" error

Here is a good “gotcha” for the GenerateAndPersistNewIndex setting in the Fuzzy Lookup component delivered with SSIS and SQL 2005.

Problem: MaxMemoryUsage set to 0 (Unlimited) - When this is set to 0, and the MatchIndexOpetion set to GenerateAndPersistNewIndex, the package will fail stating: "Not enough storage is available to complete this operation"

Fix: Set MaxMemoryUsage to 256

There are a few things really odd things that I've discovered:

· The description of MaxMemoryUsage from MS says it applies to the transformation process, not the index creation process.

· With MaxMemoryUsage set to 0 and plenty of RAM, the package may still fail even though it isnt close to maxing out the RAM.

· Even with MaxMemoryUsage set to 256, it is going past this memory requirement. (although I can see it is using a lot less memory than with a setting of 0)

Troubles debugging javascript with IIS 7 and asp.net

Seems like I'm always having problems debugging javascript on my development machine so today I decided to try and get to the bottom of the issue. (...well, that and I have nothing to do)

I've gone through all the usual recommendations on the web.... turn off "Disable javascript debugging" on IE; turn on script debugging in visual studio; turn on script debugging in IIS 7.0. All are required but still didnt seem to allow the debugger to break into the script.

As it turns out, my problem only showed when I used the Page.RegisterStartupScript method... loading my scripts via the code-behind. Reverting back to the original html include statements fixed everything. Not sure what was going on here... I did a little bit more investigation but nothing conclusive.

Before (Mainpage.cs):
public void OnInit()
{
string js = ReadResourceString("includescript.js");
ClientScript.RegisterStartupScript(typeof(Page), "UIScriptHelper", js);
}


After (Mainpage.aspx):
...
<head>
<script type="text/javascript" src="includescript.js"/>
/head>