Junfeng Zhang's Windows Programming Notes : Others

Configuring IIS to Run 32-bit or 64 bit Applications on 64-bit Windows (IIS 6.0)

junfeng — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 18:00:00 GMT

I was trying VMWare Server on a 64 bit Windows Server 2003 machine to see if I can use it to create a 64 bit guest OS.

It did not work. My CPU does not have the magic bits.

So I uninstalled it.

However, my 64 bit Virtual Server stops working. The administration web page simply refuses to load, with the error message "service unavailable".

After some fun investigation, I finally figure out what is going on.

VMWare Server setup changed the IIS configuration to run 32 bit application. After uninstall it, it did not change it back.

After manually change IIS to run 64 bit application, Virtual Server is working happily.

Here is how to switch IIS to run 32 bit or 64 bit applications.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/WindowsServer2003/Library/IIS/405f5bb5-87a3-43d2-8138-54b75db73aa1.mspx?mfr=true

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/894435

Java 2007: The year in preview

junfeng — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 19:00:00 GMT

This is an article on IBM web site preview what is coming in Java 7.

http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/java/library/j-java2007.html?ca=dgr-lnxw07java2007

Specifically,

Taking the JAM out of the JAR

Java 7 could fix the most long-standing source of irritation to Java developers: the various class loaders and associated classpaths. Sun is taking another whack at this problem with the Java Module System. Instead of a .jar file, data will be stored in a .jam file. This is a sort of "superjar" that contains all the code and metadata. Most importantly, the Java Module System will support versioning for the first time, so you can say that a program needs Xerces 2.7.1 but not 2.6. It will also allow you to specify dependencies; for instance, to say that the program in the JAM requires JDOM. It should also enable you to load one module without loading them all. Finally, it will support a centralized repository that can provide many different versions of many different JAMs, from which applications can pick the ones they need. If the JMS works, jre/lib/ext will be a thing of the past.

Finally, Java developers admit the CLR assembly model is better:)

Java SE 6 is released

junfeng — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 05:00:00 GMT

http://java.sun.com/javase/6/

People that want to run Java on Vista may be interested in this release. It fixes the bug where Vista Glass is disabled when Java Applet is running.

http://bugs.sun.com/bugdatabase/view_bug.do?bug_id=6345743

IE7 CPU spike and AJAX extensive web sites

junfeng — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 06:00:00 GMT

[Update: After discussion with IE team, I revised my article as following.]

When visiting some AJAX extensive web sites, IE7 may cause temporary CPU spike.

I have discussed this with the IE and Anti-Phishing team and they are investigating this, but it does not impact all Ajax sites. The best workaround that helps provide protection against Phishing while helping you to customize performance on certain sites is as follows

1) You can add the affected sites to your trusted sites by going to Tools->Internet Options->Security->Trusted Sites, and click the “sites” button.

2) In addition, you may also need to disable Phishing filter for the trusted sites zone by going to the same trusted sites configuration page, click the “custom level…” button, scroll down to “Use Phishing Filter”, and select “Disable”, then restart the browser.

Debugging mysterious application crash

junfeng — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 08:05:00 GMT

Today I was asked to help investigating why an application mysteriously crashes.

The symptom is very interesting. First, navigate to a directory with close to 128 characters long. In that directory, any managed WinForm application will fail to launch, while all other kinds of applications runs fine (including managed console applications, unmanaged console and GUI applications). What is more interesting is that, when you launch the WinForm application from a debugger, it works fine.

My first guess is that CreateProcess failed. I attach the debugger to cmd.exe and break on Kernel32!CreateProcessW. Unfortunately, CreateProcessW returns TRUE, which means the process is created successfully. I then realize that this problem does not repro under debugger, which means anything I do under debugger is not going to help.

I then launch FileMon.exe (downloaded from http://www.sysinternals.com) to monitor the files the application accesses. Sure enough, there are some invalid file names the application tries to access. Those invalid file names probably cause the crash. But I still have no idea why the application tries to access those files.

The next thing I do is to run the application under debugger again (where the application works fine), and look at all the DLLs the application loads. For all the DLLs, I check where it is loaded from. There is one dll loaded from temp directory. This is very suspicious. This is a very basic WinForm application (with an empty Form and does nothing). Why will it load anything from temp directory? This very much looks like a spyware or malware.

That DLL has a version resource, and there is a company name in the description. A web search shows the company has been alleged with spyware, while other sites claim that it is of legitimate use. A further search shows that that DLL is carried by a photo processing software, which is bundled with the digital camera the user purchased and installed in the machine.

Anyway this looks promising enough. I rename the DLL and run the WinForm application again. Nothing. The application still can’t be launched.

With frustration, I exam the list of the DLLs the application loads again. All of them are loaded from system32. I carefully check the version resource of every DLL. One DLL catches my eyes. From the description, it is a mouse application and is installed with the driver application comes with the user’s mouse setup CD. I do a tlist on it. Apparently all the GUI applications have it loaded and they all work fine.

Desperately, I rename the mouse DLL and re-launch the WinForm application. Boom! A form shows up in the screen. The application works correctly this time! Apparently, the mouse DLL is causing the application crash.

After uninstall the mouse software, everything works fine.

Two takeaways from this analysis:

Handling long path is hard. Win32 has a file name length limit of MAX_PATH (which is defined as 260). People are looking for ways to extend the limit, as the file system supports a file name up to 32767 characters long. Apparently this has huge AppCompat implication. As we can see from this example, current applications may already have difficulty handling file path within the MAX_PATH limit, let alone file name with 32767 characters long.
Injecting code into other people’s process is dangerous. In our example, the mouse application vendor apparently has a very good QA, as all the unmanaged applications work fine. Still, it misses other cases and causes huge user pain.

Locally Unique ID

junfeng — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 10:11:00 GMT

Sometimes you need a locally unique identifier. For example, you may want to create a temporary file but there may have may instances of your code running, and you don't want any of them to conflict on the file name.

You can try with a random file name, and call CreateFile on it. If CreateFile returns that the file has already exist, you try with a new name. If the file name is random enough, the collision will be small.

Or, you can create something almost guarantee to be locally unique.

Time only moves forward. The current system time is a good candidate for it.

On any given time, there could be multiple processes running. You need to distinguish those processes. The process ID is the obvious choice.

On a running process, you need something to separate the potential multiple thread. Thread ID is a good fit.

So, Current System Time + Process ID + Thread ID is a very good candidate for such locally unique identifier.

But it is not perfect, because the Current System Time does not have enough precision. It is possible that within the smallest measurement of the system time, a process will exist, and a new process will start with the same Process ID as the old process (and the same Thread ID). But the chance is so rare that you may not need to worry about it.

On Plug-ins and Extensible Architectures

junfeng — Wed, 25 May 2005 17:00:00 GMT

ACMQueue.com's March 2005 Edition has an article by Dorian Birsan from IBM.

On Plug-ins and Extensible Architectures
http://acmqueue.org/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=286

The discussion is based on Eclipse project. But much of the content is applicable to any host writer.

SQLCLR team starts blogging

junfeng — Thu, 05 May 2005 07:52:00 GMT

In case you don't know, SQLCLR team starts blogging now.

http://blogs.msdn.com/sqlclr/default.aspx

If you want to know about CLR in Yukon, watch their blog.

Ars Technica's Mac OS 10.4 Tiger Review

junfeng — Sat, 30 Apr 2005 12:11:00 GMT

http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/macosx-10.4.ars

This is really a fine piece of review.

I haven't read much about Mac OS X from a developer's prospective. From the review, Apple is doing some real good fundation work.

Best feature in Outlook 2003 --- Search Folders

junfeng — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 06:26:00 GMT

http://office.microsoft.com/training/training.aspx?AssetID=RC010778621033

Search Folders: The easy way to find, read, and organize your e-mail

After I discovered this feature, now I never read my inbox. It is *that* good.

Microsoft at Year's End

junfeng — Wed, 22 Dec 2004 23:21:00 GMT

MS.COM has a press release to look at Microsoft's accomplishment on year 2004, and things anticipated in 2005.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2004/dec04/12-14YearReview.asp

Honestly I can only remember XPSP2 as the big thing for the year.

Year 2005 should be exciting though, with .Net framework 2.0, SQL Server 2005, VS.Net 2005, Windows Server 2003 R2, and all the wonderful things done by other divisions.

IBM sells PC group to Lenovo

junfeng — Wed, 08 Dec 2004 05:00:00 GMT

It is final. IBM sells its PC group to Lenovo.

http://news.com.com/IBM+sells+PC+group+to+Lenovo/2100-1042_3-5482284.html?tag=nefd.lede

How well will it go? Nobody knows. But I am just very glad that a Chinese computer company will play an important role in the global IT industry.

Error 500--Internal Server Error ---- From http://www.theserverside.net

junfeng — Tue, 26 Oct 2004 07:42:00 GMT

One day when I visit http://www.theserverside.net, I hit this error:

Error 500--Internal Server Error

org.apache.tapestry.BindingException: Unable to resolve expression 'threadUpdated ? messages.getMessage("new-messages-in-thread") : null' for portal.components.ThreadSummaries$Enhance_141@ab98a8[Home/threads].

        at org.apache.tapestry.binding.ExpressionBinding.resolveProperty(ExpressionBinding.java:205)

        at org.apache.tapestry.binding.ExpressionBinding.getObject(ExpressionBinding.java:194)

        at org.apache.tapestry.AbstractComponent.renderInformalParameters(AbstractComponent.java:432)

        at portal.components.ThreadLink.renderComponent(ThreadLink.java:39)

        at org.apache.tapestry.AbstractComponent.render(AbstractComponent.java:857)

        at org.apache.tapestry.AbstractComponent.renderBody(AbstractComponent.java:624)

        at org.apache.tapestry.components.Foreach.renderComponent(Foreach.java:122)

        at org.apache.tapestry.AbstractComponent.render(AbstractComponent.java:857)

        at org.apache.tapestry.BaseComponent.renderComponent(BaseComponent.java:118)

        at org.apache.tapestry.AbstractComponent.render(AbstractComponent.java:857)

        at org.apache.tapestry.AbstractComponent.renderBody(AbstractComponent.java:624)

        at org.apache.tapestry.components.RenderBody.renderComponent(RenderBody.java:45)

        at org.apache.tapestry.AbstractComponent.render(AbstractComponent.java:857)

        at org.apache.tapestry.AbstractComponent.renderBody(AbstractComponent.java:624)

        at org.apache.tapestry.html.Body.renderComponent(Body.java:269)

        at org.apache.tapestry.AbstractComponent.render(AbstractComponent.java:857)

        at org.apache.tapestry.AbstractComponent.renderBody(AbstractComponent.java:624)

        at org.apache.tapestry.html.Shell.renderComponent(Shell.java:124)

        at org.apache.tapestry.AbstractComponent.render(AbstractComponent.java:857)

        at org.apache.tapestry.BaseComponent.renderComponent(BaseComponent.java:118)

        at org.apache.tapestry.AbstractComponent.render(AbstractComponent.java:857)

        at org.apache.tapestry.BaseComponent.renderComponent(BaseComponent.java:118)

        at org.apache.tapestry.AbstractComponent.render(AbstractComponent.java:857)

        at org.apache.tapestry.AbstractPage.renderPage(AbstractPage.java:300)

        at org.apache.tapestry.engine.RequestCycle.renderPage(RequestCycle.java:368)

        at org.apache.tapestry.engine.AbstractEngine.renderResponse(AbstractEngine.java:732)

        at portal.tapestry.PortalEngine.activateExceptionPage(PortalEngine.java:89)

        at org.apache.tapestry.engine.AbstractEngine.service(AbstractEngine.java:914)

        at org.apache.tapestry.ApplicationServlet.doService(ApplicationServlet.java:197)

        at org.apache.tapestry.ApplicationServlet.doGet(ApplicationServlet.java:158)

        at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:740)

        at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:853)

        at weblogic.servlet.internal.ServletStubImpl$ServletInvocationAction.run(ServletStubImpl.java:971)

        at weblogic.servlet.internal.ServletStubImpl.invokeServlet(ServletStubImpl.java:402)

        at weblogic.servlet.internal.TailFilter.doFilter(TailFilter.java:28)

        at weblogic.servlet.internal.FilterChainImpl.doFilter(FilterChainImpl.java:27)

        at org.apache.hivemind.servlet.HiveMindFilter.doFilter(HiveMindFilter.java:136)

        at weblogic.servlet.internal.FilterChainImpl.doFilter(FilterChainImpl.java:27)

        at org.apache.tapestry.RedirectFilter.doFilter(RedirectFilter.java:106)

        at weblogic.servlet.internal.FilterChainImpl.doFilter(FilterChainImpl.java:27)

        at weblogic.servlet.internal.RequestDispatcherImpl.forward(RequestDispatcherImpl.java:305)

        at portal.services.impl.NavigationRedirectorImpl.redirect(NavigationRedirectorImpl.java:165)

        at portal.services.impl.NavigationRedirectorImpl.redirect(NavigationRedirectorImpl.java:100)

        at $Interceptor_ffbcb6cbc8_22.redirect($Interceptor_ffbcb6cbc8_22.java)

        at $SingletonProxy_ffbcb6cb44_16.redirect($SingletonProxy_ffbcb6cb44_16.java)

        at portal.servlet.NavigationRedirect.doGet(NavigationRedirect.java:33)

        at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:740)

        at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:853)

        at weblogic.servlet.internal.ServletStubImpl$ServletInvocationAction.run(ServletStubImpl.java:971)

        at weblogic.servlet.internal.ServletStubImpl.invokeServlet(ServletStubImpl.java:402)

        at weblogic.servlet.internal.TailFilter.doFilter(TailFilter.java:28)

        at weblogic.servlet.internal.FilterChainImpl.doFilter(FilterChainImpl.java:27)

        at org.apache.hivemind.servlet.HiveMindFilter.doFilter(HiveMindFilter.java:136)

        at weblogic.servlet.internal.FilterChainImpl.doFilter(FilterChainImpl.java:27)

        at org.apache.tapestry.RedirectFilter.doFilter(RedirectFilter.java:106)

        at weblogic.servlet.internal.FilterChainImpl.doFilter(FilterChainImpl.java:27)

        at weblogic.servlet.internal.WebAppServletContext$ServletInvocationAction.run(WebAppServletContext.java:6356)

        at weblogic.security.acl.internal.AuthenticatedSubject.doAs(AuthenticatedSubject.java:317)

        at weblogic.security.service.SecurityManager.runAs(SecurityManager.java:118)

        at weblogic.servlet.internal.WebAppServletContext.invokeServlet(WebAppServletContext.java:3635)

        at weblogic.servlet.internal.ServletRequestImpl.execute(ServletRequestImpl.java:2585)

        at weblogic.kernel.ExecuteThread.execute(ExecuteThread.java:197)

        at weblogic.kernel.ExecuteThread.run(ExecuteThread.java:170)

Caused by: ognl.OgnlException: threadUpdated [java.lang.NumberFormatException: For input string: "1/27/2004 4:58:13 PM"]

        at ognl.OgnlRuntime.getMethodValue(OgnlRuntime.java:732)

        at ognl.ObjectPropertyAccessor.getPossibleProperty(ObjectPropertyAccessor.java:54)

        at ognl.ObjectPropertyAccessor.getProperty(ObjectPropertyAccessor.java:122)

        at ognl.OgnlRuntime.getProperty(OgnlRuntime.java:1443)

        at ognl.ASTProperty.getValueBody(ASTProperty.java:96)

        at ognl.SimpleNode.getValue(SimpleNode.java:192)

        at ognl.ASTTest.getValueBody(ASTTest.java:49)

        at ognl.SimpleNode.getValue(SimpleNode.java:192)

        at ognl.Ognl.getValue(Ognl.java:335)

        at ognl.Ognl.getValue(Ognl.java:310)

        at org.apache.tapestry.binding.ExpressionBinding.resolveProperty(ExpressionBinding.java:201)

        ... 62 more

What does it say? You go figure:)

JavaRss.com

junfeng — Sun, 10 Oct 2004 05:26:00 GMT

I come cross this web site (http://www.JavaRss.com) when reading newsgroup Comp.Lang.Java.Adcocacy.

This is an impressive web site for aggregated Java information.

Any similar web site for .Net?

Should we put apphack in .Net 2.0?

junfeng — Sun, 10 Oct 2004 05:20:00 GMT

AppHack is a terminology used in AppCompat. Basically AppCompat detects a specific application, and applies an AppHack if necessary.

One typical AppHack is to lie about the OS version number, due to applications use the wrong logic to check the minimum OS requirement.

I only have Whidbey Beta 1 in my home machine. I need it to write samples for my blog. I don't need .Net 1.1 to run .Net 1.1 applications, because if mscoree.dll can't find .Net 1.1 on my machine, it will automatically use Whidbey. (So which CLR will my app use? )

Well, only if I can install the application.

RssBandit is a popular RSS reader written by Dare Obasanjo & Co. And that is what I am using for reading blogs.

Dare is nice enough to provide a MSI package for RssBandit.

The problem is, the RssBandit MSI package checks for .Net 1.1, and refuses to install when it does not find .Net 1.1, even though I have Whidbey beta 1 installed and RssBandit should run happily under Whidbey Beta 1.

Do we need a version AppHack for RssBandit?