Process Explorer is an excellent replacement for the default Windows Task Manager.  Process Explorer even automates this change via Options –> Replace Task Manager.  However, by default, this won’t launch Process Explorer elevated. ...

You can launch any item shown in the Windows Start menu elevated by highlighting the item and either right-clicking and choosing Run as Administrator, or hitting Ctrl-Shift-Enter.  Note that this does not work when launching items from the Run window...

It’s not obvious unless you are looking for it, but you can change the width of the horizontal scroll bar in Excel.  On the left-hand side of the scroll bar there is an anchor you can use to resize. Can become This can be very useful in a workbook...

For workbooks that contain more than one category of worksheet, you can use color to add visual distinction to the worksheet tabs along the bottom of the Excel window.  Right-click on the worksheet tab to bring up the dialog: Your tabs are now colorful...

Excel can help you understand or troubleshoot cell references by identifying the cells dependent upon the selected cell and those that the selected cell depends upon. One way to accomplish this is via the Go To Special dialog.  It can be launched...

Excel can help you understand or troubleshoot cell references by identifying the cells dependent upon the selected cell and those that the selected cell depends upon. One method for doing this is via the Formula Auditing group in the Formulas tab. Let...

There is currently a bug in our SQL Server 2005 PDF renderer which may cause it to generate incorrect glyphs for text in a complex left-to-right script.  The reason this occurs is that we need to embed font glyph indices and metric information into...

The latest SQL Server 2005 SP2 Cumulative Update (CU4) is now available .  You can get it by calling into customer support or by making an online request .   There are two fixes in the feature areas I own that are included in this update: (Bug...

Querying Reporting Services for a report couldn't be easier with Url Access ( http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms153586.aspx ).  For example: String report = "/Folder/Report" ; String filename = "Report.pdf" ; List <...

I am in the process of documenting the way my Katmai unit tests work. There’s nothing inventive about them – they are straightforward and meant to get the job done. I use the VSTS unit runner which works though not particularly well. I do not go through...

I was experimenting with using PowerPoint to create self-guided training material and discovered the ability to custom slide shows. I don't know a whole lot about creating sophisticated PowerPoint decks, but this is a pretty nifty technique that is simple...

A week or so ago, I finally upgraded my home wireless network to 54MBit/s via 802.11g . A bit of research led me to choose a Linksys WRT54GL v1.1 router. The stock firmware didn't support some of the features I wanted (like using DHCP to assign static...

Another useful but hard to discover feature of Vista's Windows Explorer is the ability to shift-right-click on a folder and launch a command window at that path: Note that this trick only works in the viewing pane and not in the tree view.

Useful but hard to discover feature in Vista. To copy a filename with full path information to the clipboard, shift-right-click on a file and choose Copy as Path. For example: Copies the following to my clipboard: "C:\dump\Reports\10435.rdl"

This is a continuation of my work on FAQ for the PDF renderer. A compiled version of these postings will will live at http://blogs.msdn.com/donovans/pages/reporting-services-pdf-renderer-faq.aspx . File Size Why are the PDFs exported from the Win/WebForms...

I am working on a FAQ for rendering to PDF in Reporting Services. This is my first installment, centered around font issues. A compiled version of these postings will will live at http://blogs.msdn.com/donovans/pages/reporting-services-pdf-renderer-faq...

Do you know about tracepoints ? They're a way to simulate the effects of a Debug/Trace.WriteLine in your code without actually modifying your source. They came in handy today when I was debugging an issue in Reporting Services 2005 when rendering the...

Ones I use all the time are: Alt-D Moves focus to address bar and selects the current location Ctrl-W Closes the current window/tab Ctrl-E Moves focus to the search box Ctrl-Q Thumbnail view of all open tabs Ctrl=(1-8) Moves to the corresponding tab ...

In a world where TFS and Visual Studio work together, I’d like to see the IDE make use of more of this meta information it has available on the server. For instance, let’s assume my checkins have been granular. If I am fixing a defect in a particular...

I’d like to see the idea of virtual files be added to the Visual Studio IDE. By this, I mean being able to easily define and assign custom tags to members. A dockable window or top-level menu shows all tags defined in this solution and selecting one or...

UPNP media servers like TVersity allow some degree of two-way communication between server and client. Could this infrastructure be used to create simple games that run across devices (say like a Skip Bo game played on my son’s Wii when he's vacationing...

While I'm on the topic of improvements I'd like to see done to Visual Studio, how about smarter Intellisense? For example: Why doesn't VisualStudio suggest the arguments for you when you have local variables with matching names?

I'd like to have the ability to attach “notes” to the code that bubble up and down (for example, RicoM ’s perf cost estimate notes). These notes are a special comment tag in the xml documentation for a method. They automatically appear as a distinctly...

An area I'd like to see improved in a future release of VS is around code navigation. Specifically, I'd like to see the following suggested improvement: When the developer enters a method in the active code window, an optional set of dockable windows...

I like being able to specify multiple home pages that automatically load when I launch IE, but I hate waiting on them to load. I went back and forth on this until it finally dawned on me to set the first home page to about:blank. Now when I start IE,...