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Sara Ford's Weblog

My adventures embracing open source on CodePlex and at Microsoft

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    • Did you know... All author proceeds go directly to sending Hurricane Katrina survivors to college.

      Microsoft Visual Studio Tips book

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August 2008 - Posts

Did you know… How to load only specified symbols when you want to? - #302
Continuing with yesterday’s tip, there’s another option to configure when and how symbols are loaded. Above the option to load symbols when the dialog closes, there’s an option to load only the symbols specified in the Symbol File Locations when you load Read More...
Did you know… You can cache symbols locally to disk? - #301
And here we go… beyond the #300 mark… Under Tools – Options – Debugging – Symbols, there’s this checkbox Whenever I use a symbol server, meaning that I’m loading symbols from somewhere that isn’t on my machine, like a UNC share, I do two things: Uncheck Read More...
Did you know… How to delay loading symbols? and it’s Go Sara Go time - #300
To celebrate this #300 tip, can i get 300 “Go Sara Go” comments? It’ll really make me happy. Poems always appreciated =D In May 2007, when Rob Caron and I put together the game plan for Tip of the Day, I agreed I would do the series for a year, ending Read More...
Did you know… How to load symbols from the Modules window? - #299
When you use Tools – Attach to Process, you’ll see the Modules window pop up. From here you can right-click and choose “Load Symbols” From here the Find Symbols dialog box pops up, asking you to provide the location of the .pdb file. Actually, you only Read More...
Did you know… How to hide or show the Script Debugging Disabled warning message? - #298
Internet Explorer has an option to disable script debugging. If you try to debug your javascript, and this option in IE is enabled, you’ll get the following warning message: If you want to hide (or show) this warning, go to Tools – Options – Debugging Read More...
Did you know… How to show or hide the “No Debugging Information” warning? - #297
If you try to debug an application that you do not have symbols for, or if you’ve disabled the option “” you get the following error message. If you want to prevent this warning from showing up (or need to get it back), go to Tools – Options – Debugging Read More...
Did you know… You can debug an executable that isn’t a part of a Visual Studio project without using Tools – Attach to Process? - #296
And yet another, “I would have never thought to do that” feature in Visual Studio. There’s the standard Tools – Attach to Process dialog that allows you to attach and debug any process currently running on your machine. But if you’re trying to debug an Read More...
Did you know… How to debug your optimized code? - #295
I kinda gave a sneak peek at this option in Tip #290 , but here’s the real use, if I understood the explanation correctly. Your production code is set to use optimizations, but you need to debug it. If you check this option, it will disable your optimizations Read More...
Did you know… How to disable the “the source file is different from when the module was built” warning dialog - #294
Sometimes you have different source code files from the version that built your code. Ideally you want the sources to be the same, so you know exactly what is going on with your code. but it happens that you know the particular method hasn’t changed or Read More...
Southern United States Speaking Tour – 7 cities in 6 days
Back in late April, before I started on the book, before I started on the TechEd breakout session, and way before I even thought to start on the OSCON talk (in other words, before I realized I would not be sleeping this summer) I wanted to do something Read More...
Did you know… How to highlight the entire source code line when either the a breakpoint is set or the line is the current statement - #293
Hooray!!! A tip that’s more IDE-centric than debugger-centric! Under Tools – Options – Debugging – General, there’s the option “Highlight entire source line for breakpoints and current statement.” When checked, you’ll see the entire line highlighted, Read More...
Did you know… Why you may want to enable source server support? - #292
Continuing down the list of Tools – Options – Debugging – General settings, there’s the Enable Source Server Support option. According to the documentation , Tells the Visual Studio debugger to get code from the SrcSrv source server (srcsrv.dll), which Read More...
Did you know… What warning message is suppressed by the Warn If No User Code On Launch option? - #291
Continuing the discussion around Just My Code, you may have noticed on the Tools-Options-Debugging-General page the checkbox “Warn if no user code on launch” and might be wondering how to get into this state. Let’s say in your solution you have a console Read More...
Did you know… How to optimize your code for a build? - #290
in yesterday’s tip , i explained what is and isn’t your code. One of the ways to make your code not yours (okay, it’s technically non-user code, i’m having way too much fun on this play on words) is to optimize it. For C#, go to the Project Properties Read More...
Did you know… what is just your code? - #289
Under Tools – Options – Debugging – General, you’ll see the option “Enable Just My Code” Of course, your code is your code, unless it isn’t your code. Who knows? What I do know is what happens when you check or uncheck this checkbox. But first, let’s Read More...
Microsoft Visual Studio Tips Book Helps Hurricane Katrina Survivors Rebuild Lives
I am very proud to announce the Amazon pre-sale of my first book Microsoft Visual Studio Tips .  Here you’ll find the best 251 tips from the Tip of the Day series , categorized and edited into a reference book with me as your narrator. But wait, Read More...
Did you know… How to show External code? - #288
You may have noticed from time to time the [External Code] appear in the call stack.  Until someone showed me how to show the external code, i didn’t think you could view it!  i would always think, “okay thanks for taunting me.” In the example Read More...
Did you know… What unwinding the call stack on unhandled exceptions does? - #277
Under Tools – Options – Debugging – General, after you’ve chosen to enabled the exception assistant, you’ll have the option to unwind the call stack on unhandled exceptions, as shown below: The default is to have it checked… but when it is unchecked, Read More...
Top 5 Myths and Facts about CodePlex
Yesterday was an incredibly fun day for me.  Wanted to break up the endless series of IDE tips and tricks posts with a little something different… On the CodePlex team blog , I wrote down the Top 5 Myths and Facts about CodePlex : Myth #1:  Read More...
Did you know… you can copy the exception details with one click from the exception assistant? - #276
Under the View Details is a link to copy the detail directly to the clipboard, as shown below: For this particular example, i get the following details copied to the clipboard: System.DivideByZeroException was unhandled   Message="Attempted Read More...
Did you know… You can examine the exception object from the exception assistant? - #275
There are a few options on the exception assistant that allow you to example what happened.  The first of these is the View Details link at the bottom. Clicking the View Details link will pop open a dialog box for viewing the exception thrown. Technorati Read More...
Did you know… You can disable the Exception Assistant? - #274
The exception assistant is the piece of UI that pops up whenever you hit an exception.  For example, the image below shows the exception assistant for a division by zero error.  I studied math in college and learned how to divide by zero.  Read More...
Did you know… You can use Breakpoint Filters to break the right process - #273
Conditional breakpoints are for breaking at the expression level, when a particular condition is true, like x=5.  But what if you have multiple instances of the same app running?  How do you set to break the instance you want? The answer is Read More...
Did you know… How to show the disassembly automatically or not at all? - #272
Under Tools – Options – Debugging – General, there’s an option to "Show Disassembly If Source Is Not Available.” Not surprisingly, this is the option you see when you try to step into code when the sources are not available.  If this option Read More...
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