Doug Seelinger's blog (The Agileer)

Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 – Multiple Monitors

2009-05-19T23:51:45Z

I just posted how the Windows 7 RC supports multiple monitors. Now, in a serendipitous turn of events so does Visual Studio 2010! Well, Visual Studio always did in a limited sense, if you wanted to fiddle around with the main window enough, but now it’s baked in. You can “tear off” not only the normally dockable windows, but source files as well and place them wherever you like.

Want to work on a source file “full screen” on one monitor and keep some other VS items visible? Go ahead!

Windows 7 RC – Multiple Monitors for RDC, Finally!!

2009-05-19T23:14:39Z

Previously, I’ve posted about the tease that was shown in the Windows 7 Beta concerning the ability to use multiple monitors in Remote Desktop.

Well, now in build 7100, it works!

Thanks guys!

Remote Desktop to Hyper-V and installing Guest Operating Systems

2009-05-09T20:24:17Z

I never log on locally to my Hyper-V server, since it’s just a headless server in my “Server Room” (i.e. a storage room in the basement next to my office). So Remote Desktop works find for most things. However, when you’re installing a guest operating system and haven’t yet had the chance to install the Hyper-V integration services on the guest OS, you’ll likely face a conundrum should you need to use your mouse. You can’t use the mouse via Remote Desktop on a guest OS without the Hyper-V integration services installed. You also can’t use things like “ALT-TAB” to switch windows.

I was stuck installing Windows XP in a VM because of this. I resolved it by going full-screen on the guest OS. This allows you to use “ALT-TAB” at least, which allowed me to hit OK on a modal dialog that didn’t have focus initially.

More Windows XP Mode

2009-05-09T00:30:52Z

I was SOOOO wrong in my last blog post. Windows XP Mode is so much more than just simply XP in a Virtual PC VM. First of all, any application that you install in XP appears in your Win 7 Start menu:

Not only that, but you can add pre-installed items (like I did for IE6, above), by creating a new shortcut in the “All Users” Start Menu folder (right-click the start button and select “Open All Users”) by dragging items into it.

Then, you can run XP apps that appear in the “Virtual Windows XP Applications” right from the Windows 7 desktop:

These windows look and act like Windows XP windows since… well, they are. The normal Windows 7 desktop manager functionality doesn’t work (eg. dragging the window to the top of the screen won’t maximize, as it will for most Win 7 apps). It’s still pretty cool to run your VM apps “outside” of the VM desktop. Note that the Icon in the Windows 7 Menu is the Virtual PC icon. And multiple XP Mode Windows “pile up” as multiple VPC icons on the taskbar:

Look! IE 6 & IE 8 side-by-side! (or overlapping, in this case)

By this time I was duly impressed. But wait! There’s more! I wasn’t prepared to see the XP system tray icons and warning popping up in the Windows 7 notification area, but they did:

I have a feeling that I may have only scratched the surface of what’s available in “Windows XP Mode” integration with Windows 7. So what are you waiting for? Jump into Windows 7 – the water’s fine. And if you need to go back to the kiddie pool for your old apps, then Windows XP Mode is there for you.

Windows 7 and Windows XP Mode – Cool!

2009-05-06T01:43:00Z

(NOTE: This is updated in a subsequent post to cover my ignorance)

I really love Windows 7 in all its 64-bit goodness. I get all my memory. It’s fast, it’s convenient.

But there’s one thing that I don’t like – my poor broadband modem isn’t yet supported. I need my broadband modem, because several of my clients just won’t let me jack-in to their network.

So the first time I dug into “Windows XP Mode” I came up a bit disappointed. What? It’s just Virtual-PC? Well, yes and no. It’s a newer, better version of Windows XP that I didn’t have to build myself. And… wait for it… I get to use my USB broadband modem in the the virtual machine.

Developer Default Build

2009-03-27T17:14:46Z

There are some things that I need on every box I build for development. While it’s true that these things change somewhat over time, there are still some non-negotiable items.

Visual Studio 2008 Team Suite + SP1 – there is no substitute
Team Foundation Server – we’ve got it here at work and I don’t have to maintain it myself like I would with Subversion. Not to detract from Subversion, however. Fine tool.
Notepad++ – For those quick little edits when you don’t want to have to spin up Visual Studio
ReSharper, ReSharper ReSharper – Don’t leave home without it. Not cheap, but worth every penny.
NUnit – Why not MSTest? One word - TestCase
RhinoMocks – Besides just being the best mocking framework out there, Ayende cracks me up regularly on his blog and on .NET Rocks!

I used to use TestDriven.NET all the time, but at $170 a pop for a pro license, I just can’t justify it when a quick command line bound to the Debug command for my test project does what I want it to. (Hey, there are a lot of mouths to feed in the Seelinger home.)

Extending the ILM “2” Schema in RC0

2009-03-13T23:11:09Z

The ILM “2” Schema for the ILM MA is missing a few items that have historically been in the Metaverse – and there are a whole lot of new items as well, but if you find yourself needing some of these attributes, like “st” for State, make sure you don’t forget to do the following after extending the schema via the Web Portal:

In Identity Manager, Refresh the Schema for the ILM MA
Go to the “Select Attributes” tab in the ILM MA’s properties and click “Show All”
Select your new properties

Now, when you go to the “Attribute Flow” tab for you MA your new attributes will be available for mapping.

Win 7 – Burning ISOs is built-in

2009-03-02T00:22:51Z

Windows 7 allows you to burn ISO files out of the box! Nice sleeper feature:

Now, if only it would allow you to mount ISOs as well. Fingers crossed.

Win 7 Beta RDC Tease

2009-03-01T05:45:47Z

(Update – This now work in build 7100!!)

I was pretty excited when I saw the following checkbox on the Remote Desktop:

But… unfortunately that bit of functionality doesn’t seem to be working quite yet. Oh well, maybe on the next build!

What does “ILM” mean in ILM “2”?

2009-01-29T03:55:48Z

ILM “2” can be a little confusing if you are already familiar with MIIS 2003 or ILM 2007.

In ILM "2", usually when the documentation refers to “ILM” it refers NOT to the MIIS database or MIIS sync stuff (not directly at least), but rather to the new ILM database, which stores the aggregated view of objects (again, NOT the Metaverse). It's kind of like a copy of what is in the Metaverse… kind of. There seems to be some duplication between “ILM” and the MIIS Metaverse, but I'll reserve judgment on that until I know more.

Windows 7 VHD

2009-01-12T09:51:22Z

If you decide to make a Virtual PC 2007 VHD out of the Windows 7 Beta, make sure that you have Virtual PC SP1, or when you go to install the Virtual Machine Additions, you may blue-screen Win 7. That was a couple of hours wasted for me.

SCVMM – How to copy a Hyper-V VM

2008-12-19T21:31:43Z

A few months ago I left EMC and came to Microsoft. When leaving EMC, about the only thing that I thought I’d miss (other than the great folks!) was VMware. I had never really played with Hyper-V before, but if you look at some of my old posts on http://agileer.com/blog, you’ll notice that I did a good bit with VMware Workstation and ESX Server.

Since coming to Microsoft and working with Virtual PC and Virtual Server, I’ve had to manually copy .VHDs and edit the XML of .VMCs, I thought that my worst fears were confirmed – and even after looking at the Hyper-V Manager, I couldn’t find an easy way of “cloning” (vmware terminology) a VM.

So going on the advice of other ‘softies, I installed SCVMM… and I hope we (MS) make that an easier task in the future (SQL AND a domain?!? C’mon, guys!). Granted, SCVMM is not really designed to be a single person’s personal VM manger. It’s designed for the “ENTERPRISE”. But it has one feature that I absolutely wanted – creating a new VM from an old one (ie cloning) in a nice, wizardly fashion:

So, hallelujah! I can clone again.

SCVMM Self-Service Portal: “A potentially dangerous Request.Form value was detected from the client”

2008-12-17T18:41:50Z

If you get this error while attempting to log in to the System Center Virtual Machine Manager’s (SCVMM) Self-Service Portal, then you probably have a password that contains “dangerous” characters – for me it was a “<”. While strong passwords are good to have, they can mess with ASP.NET. I’d hate to have to be the admin on that domain. You’d almost have to have a custom password filter DLL that rejected “dangerous” characters from passwords – not to mention a policy for your organization.

ReSharper – Crack for .NET Developers

2008-12-11T07:04:53Z

http://jetbrains.com – they hook you with a free 30-day copy, then you shell out the big bucks for it, and then you pay for upgrades almost yearly. BUT I MUST HAVE IT! Paying yet again. Why oh why doesn’t Microsoft get a site-license for this?

How To Enable ActiveX Controls on Windows Server 2008

2008-12-05T20:20:42Z

I was trying to download some software from MSDN to my new Hyper-V playground box, and of course it requires that ActiveX Control that launches the MSDN Downloader. Back in Windows Server 2003 it was relatively easy to enable this by removing the enhanced IE security “Component” accessible from the Add/Remove Software control panel applet. It took me awhile and a good bit of search engine time, but it’s sort of where one would expect it in 2008 – in the Server Manager: