Scattered Notes

Forcing handle creation in a .NET Windows Forms control

2011-04-27T09:31:00Z

I believe no serious .NET developer has never faced a System.InvalidOperationException with an error message stating "Invoke or BeginInvoke cannot be called on a control until the window handle has been created." when trying, for example, to add text to a RichTextBox control. This type of error is caused by the fact that the underlying Windows control handle has not yet been created. You can test handle creation by calling the IsHandleCreated method on the control. To force creation of the control's handle you can simply try reading the Handle property like this:

   if (!mycontrol.IsHandleCreated)
   {
       // This call forces creation of the control's handle.
     IntPtr handle = mycontrol.Handle;
   }

This code works because the Handle property in the System.Windows.Forms.Control class makes a call to the protected method CreateHandle if the control's handle has not yet been created:

public IntPtr get_Handle()
{
    if ((checkForIllegalCrossThreadCalls && !inCrossThreadSafeCall) && this.InvokeRequired)
    {
        throw new InvalidOperationException(SR.GetString("IllegalCrossThreadCall", new object[] { this.Name }));
    }
    if (!this.IsHandleCreated)
    {
        this.CreateHandle();
    }
    return this.HandleInternal;
}

Free "Programming Windows Phone 7" ebook by Charles Petzold

2011-02-24T12:10:00Z

If you are interested in learning about software development on the new Microsoft Windows Phone 7 platform grab your copy of the over 1000 pages long ebook "Programming Windows Phone 7" by Charles Petzold. Topics covered are both SilverLight and XNA programming on Microsoft Windows Phone 7. There is also source code to go along with the book ... here is the C# version of the samples and here is the VB.NET version of those same samples.

"Effective Windows PowerShell" free ebook

2010-12-20T13:57:58Z

Keith Hill has turned a set of blog posts into an interesting 61 pages long PowerShell ebook. Download your own copy here.

Want to integrate Bing Maps or Bing searching into your site?

2010-10-22T17:55:39Z

If you need to integrate Bing's searching capabilities or Bing Maps into your web site you should take a look at a couple of web application toolkits freely available from this page.

Quick introduction to Microsoft Expression Studio 4

2010-10-22T17:22:00Z

If you are interested in quickly understanding more about Microsoft Expression Studio 4, on this page you will find short videos that introduce you to most of the tools in the Microsoft Expression suite (i.e. Expression Web, Expression Blend, Expression SketchFlow, Expresssion Encoder). On the same page you'll find introductory tutorials to Microsoft SilverLight and to good design practices such as separation of HTML code from CSS formatting stylesheets. For videos on Expression Design look here. A couple of quick user guides are also available here both for version 3 and 4 of Microsoft Expression suite.

Want to learn Microsoft SilverLight?

2010-10-22T17:12:28Z

Are you interested in learning to develop using Microsoft SilverLight and aren't sure where to start from? On this page you'll find links to short videos that will quickly introduce you to the technology and the tools. Afterwards, to start building stronger skills you can go here where learning materials (mostly videos) to keep you busy for five full days are provided. Finally, if you want to play with code, don't forget to download the "Silverlight 4 Training Course" from this page. This training course contains extensive hands-on-labs that will probably satisfy your deside to get your hands a little dirty.

Prototyping and storyboarding with Microsoft SketchFlow

2010-10-22T16:46:00Z

If you are interested in learning about Microsoft SketchFlow, the tool that was first provided as part of Microsoft Expression Blend 3 for rapid, iterative and cost effective design and prototyping of application user interfaces, take a look here. From this page you can download 12 training modules complete with videos, demo code and documentation for each module.

Training, videos, webcasts and virtual labs on Microsoft products, solutions and technologies

2010-09-28T09:19:00Z

I gathered a list of leaning resources on Microsoft products, solutions and technologies and then tought they might be useful to others too. Following are links to free training, videos, webcasts and virtual labs that will hopefully satisfy all of your knowledge needs. If you have links to additional learning resources let me know and I will add them to the list.

Microsoft Showcase
http://www.microsoft.com/showcase/en/us/default.aspx

Channel 9
http://channel9.msdn.com/

Training Courses (identity management, Office 2010, SharePoint 2010, SilverLight 4, Visual Studio 2010, Windows Azure, Windows Phone 7, etc.)
http://channel9.msdn.com/Learn/Courses

MSDN How Do I videos
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/bb629407.aspx

TechNet How Do I videos
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/cc138021.aspx

MIX 2010 videos
http://live.visitmix.com/Videos

TechEd Online
http://www.msteched.com/

Microsoft TechDays 2010 Belgium
http://www.microsoft.com/belux/techdays/2010/

Microsoft DevDays 2010 Netherlands
http://www.devdays.nl/Agenda.aspx?pid=66&lang=en (download slide decks only)

Windows 7 videos
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/products/videos

PDC 2010 (professional developer conference)
http://player.microsoftpdc.com/schedule/sessions

PDC 2009 sessions on-demand
http://www.microsoftpdc.com/2009

ASP.NET
http://www.asp.net/get-started

SilverLight
http://www.silverlight.net/learn/

WPF & Windows Forms
http://windowsclient.net/getstarted/

Microsoft Expression
http://expression.microsoft.com/en-us/cc136522.aspx

Microsoft Surface
http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en/us/Pages/Technical/Training.aspx

Virtual Labs (MSDN & TechNet Virtual Labs)
http://www.microsoft.com/events/vlabs/default.mspx

MICROSOFT OFFICE

How Do I Videos for Office Developers
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/bb496949.aspx

Office Developer How-to Center
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/bb266408.aspx

Office 2010 training
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/training/

Backstage with Office 2010
http://www.office2010themovie.com/

WEBCASTS and VIDEOS

On-demand webcasts
http://www.microsoft.com/events/webcasts/ondemand.mspx

Monthly Archived Webcasts
http://www.microsoft.com/events/webcasts/library/default.mspx

Online Media Series: webcasts, videos, virtual labs and podcasts organized based on technology and on job role (dev, IT professional, IT executive, business executive, etc.)
http://www.microsoft.com/events/series/default.aspx

Migrating from WF 3.0/3.5 to WF 4.0

2010-09-27T15:16:00Z

A full set of documents have been released at the beginning of the year to suggest migration strategies of legary WF 3.0/3.5 code to the new WF 4.0 platform. You may download them all here. Documents seem to refer to version beta 2 of WF 4.0 and thus a few details might have changed in the final release of the new WF 4.0 technology. Along with these documents, code samples have also been released on Codeplex.

Prevent date/time synchronization in a Windows Virtual PC virtual machine

2010-08-24T12:31:00Z

If you need to prevent date and time synchronization between a Virtual PC 2007 virtual machine and its host machine, look at this post for the necessary steps but if you need to achieve the same result with a Windows Virtual PC virtual machine, you can do so by adding the following line to the vmc file for your virtual machine:

<preferences>
<hardware>
  <bios>
   ....
   ....
   <time_sync_at_boot type="boolean">false</time_sync_at_boot>
   ....
   ....
</bios>
</hardware>
</preferences>

You can achieve the above by also running the following visual basic script:

'Title: Script to disable timesync for a VM.

'Usage: cscript ScriptName <vmname>
Set objVPC = CreateObject("VirtualPC.Application")

'Get virtual machine name from command-line parameter
Set objVM = objVPC.FindVirtualMachine(WScript.Arguments(0))

'Disable TimeSync During Boot Time
errReturn = objVM.SetConfigurationValue("hardware/bios/time_sync_at_boot", false)

'Get object for GuestOS
Set objGuestOS = objVM.GuestOS

'Disable TimeSync During VM Execution
objGuestOS.IsHostTimeSyncEnabled = false

Copy the above in a file with the vbs extension and run it from a command-line prompt with the following instruction:

cscript MyScript.vbs "MyVirtualMachineName"

where MyScript.vbs is the name of your script file and MyVirtualMachineName is the name of your WMV virtual machine.

Claims-Based Identity and Access Control

2010-08-02T14:16:13Z

Interested in learning about claim-based identity and how you can leverage it to implement access control in your applications? The Patterns & Practices group in Microsoft has recently released "A guide to Claims-Based Identity and Access Control", a guide that, without getting too deep in the technicalities and standards involved by claim-based identity, is a nice introduction to this very hot topic. Get your PDF copy of this guide here. Along with this guide the P&P group has also provided source code samples (SingleSignOn, Federation, FederationWithMultiplePartners, ActiveClientFederation and WindowsAzure) to play with. Finally, on CodePlex you will find a community site that you might care to check out.

Mapping of Microsoft Office 2003 toolbar and menu functions to Microsoft Office 2010

2010-08-02T13:42:00Z

Moving from the Microsoft Office 2003 suite to the latest Microsoft Office 2010? Having a hard time mapping Office 2003 menu and toolbar functionalities to features in the Office 2010 ribbon tabs? Here you can download a zip containing various PDF documents (product guide, features and benefits, getting started guide) for each product in the Office 2010 suite. The zip also contains a useful Excel file that maps all functionalities in the different Office 2003 product menus and toolbars to corresponding functionalities exposed by the Office 2010 ribbon tabs. Also, take a good look at the enclosed product guides: I found them to be a great point to start learning about the new versions of the popular Microsoft Office productivity tools.

Windows SDK for Windows 7 and .NET Framework 4

2010-07-08T16:00:11Z

If you need the very latest Windows SDK, you can get the entire ISO file here. If you prefer the web installer version, you can get it here.

Download the C# 4.0 Language Specification

2010-04-29T16:05:00Z

Time to update your knowledge of the C# language! :-)
Get your copy of the C# 4.0 Language Specification here. You can choose between a Microsoft Word (.doc) and a HTML version of the spec.

Ramp up your development skills

2010-04-13T11:30:00Z

Ramp Up is an interesting initiative I discovered today that may help you quickly build your development skills in a few Microsoft technologies. Ramp Up is a free, online, community-based learning program, with a number of different tracks that may help you quickly become proficient in a few technologies. Following are today's available tracks:

Web Development with ASP.NET
Learn ASP.NET: for PHP Developers
Move from ASP to ASP.NET
Develop Windows Mobile 6 Applications
SharePoint for Developers - Part 1
SharePoint for Developers - Part 2
Developing Applications and Databases for Windows Azure and SQL Azure

MSDN Magazine digital edition now in PDF format

2010-04-13T10:56:00Z

Last year I noticed that the MSDN site was getting behind in providing the CHM (compiled HTML) version of each month's MSDN Magazine issue. In fact the last CHM file I was able to retrieve was the July 2009 issue. Today, getting back to the MSDN Magazine homepage I just could not find the usual link at the top of each month's issue page to download the CHM version of the magazine. Disappointed I was almost to close my browser when I noticed a "Digital Magazine Downloads" link and guess what .... digital copies of all the magazine issues are now available only that starting from August 2009 they are provided in PDF format. This is indeed great news! So, go get all the magazine issues here :-)

Get ready for Visual Studio 2010!

2010-04-13T10:32:00Z

Final release of Visual Studio 2010 is getting near and you need to get ready for it! :-)
First of all, you could download the very latest bundle of training material on Visual Studio 2010. From this page you can get the April version of the "Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Training Kit" (covered topics are C# 4, VB 10, F#, Parallel Extensions, WCF, WF, WPF, ASP.NET 4, Windows 7, Entity Framework, ADO.NET Data Services, Managed Extensibility Framework, Visual Studio Team System). After that, you could download the draft version of the book "Moving to Visual Studio 2010" from here. Finally, if you feel the need for more great articles and videos on Visual Studio 2010 and related technologies (i.e. Silverlight 4), you can access a bunch of them from here.

TechNet Chopsticks videos

2010-04-01T09:36:00Z

Microsoft Belux (Belgium) is hosting lots of what I think to be very interesting TechNet videos. Please give a look at them here.

SQL Server 2008 R2 for Developers Training Kit

2010-02-28T22:05:00Z

An updated version of the SQL Server 2008 R2 development training kit with over 100MB of videos, demos, presentations and hands-on-labs is available for download here.

Development material for Windows 7, .NET Framework 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010

2010-01-26T22:21:00Z

For all devs interested in the very latest Microsoft software development technologies there are two new bundles of presentations, hands-on labs, and demos for you to download. First there is the "Windows 7 Training Kit For Developers" (84MB) that will teach you how to leverage new features and capabilities available in Microsoft Windows 7 and then there the January release of the "Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Training Kit" (152MB) covering topics such as C# 4.0, Visual Basic 10, F#, WCF, WPF, WF, ASP.NET 4, Entity Framework, ADO.NET Data Services, Visual Studio Team System. Get them all now!

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 and Team Foundation Server 2010 Beta 2 virtual machines

2009-12-27T18:50:00Z

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 and Team Foundation Server 2010 Beta 2 virtual machines are available for Hyper-V, Windows Virtual PC and Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 SP1. If you want, you can get the ISO for Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate Beta 2 here. Great walkthroughs for Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Beta 2 are also available for you to try out the new features of version 4 of the .NET Framework and of the forthcoming version of Visual Studio. A Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Training Kit is available for download here.

"Microsoft Architect Insight Conference 2009" presentations and recordings

2009-12-26T14:00:00Z

Videos and presentations of the 19 technical sessions that took place in May 09 in London during the "Microsoft Architect Insight Conference 2009" are online for you to download them. Covered topics go from Software + Service to IT trends, from Oslo to Windows Azure. Go get them all here.

BizTalk project fails at being created

2009-11-17T09:17:00Z

It seems that Visual Studio 2008 updates may break BizTalk projects creation. To fix this situation you need to edit a system registry value. On x86 machines set the following:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\9.0\Projects\FAE04EC0-301F-11d3-BF4B-00C04F79EFBC}\PossibleProjectExtensions="csproj;btproj"

on x64 machines set the following:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\VisualStudio\9.0\Projects\FAE04EC0-301F-11d3-BF4B-00C04F79EFBC\PossibleProjectExtensions="csproj;btproj"

Evaluate Biztalk 2009

2009-10-31T14:45:00Z

If you are in the process of evaluating the Biztalk 2009 (the Microsoft platform for EAI, B2B and BPM) you might be interesting in reading the "Microsoft BizTalk Server 2009 Technical Overview" whitepaper and the "Understanding BizTalk Server 2006" whitepaper by David Chappell, that is still a valid document to provide an overview of the latest Biztalk platform. Finally, if you want to quickly try out a fully installed and configured instance of Biztalk 2009, download the virtual machine over here. The VM has everything you need to evaluate the product (BizTalk Server 2009, SQL Server 2008, SharePoint Server 2007, Microsoft .NET 3.5 framework and five hand-on-labs).

Run Wireshark on Windows 7 x64

2009-09-11T18:38:00Z

Today I tried installing the latest version of Wireshark (version 1.2.1 rev 29141) on my Windows 7 x64 laptop. What happened is that installation of WinPcap 4.1 beta5, bundled with Wireshark, failed making Wireshark unusable. What I did next was to go on WinPcap's website and download WinPcap 4.1 beta5. On the downloaded WinPcap's setup file I set it to run in "Vista compatibility mode" and then successfully installed it. At this point on the Wireshark shortcut icon I set Wireshark to always be executed in "Vista compatibility mode" and now this nice network monitor works just fine on my Windows 7 Ultimate x64.