While building a new Exchange 2003 server I was installing Service Pack 2 and came across an interesting issue: Setup failed while installing sub-component Exchange ActiveSync with error code 0xC0070643 (please consult the installatoin logs for a detailed description). You may cancel the installation or try the failed setup again. Digging into the installation logs I see it's trying to install MSXML: [18:52:22] Calling MSXML installer with command line: "msiexec /i msxml3.msi /q reboot="ReallySuppress""[18...

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Most server administrators separate their content from their system data (at least I think they do :) ). Content that grows will from time-to-time get by the monitoring process and bring a server to a halt because there is insufficient space on the sytem drive to continue. As I built up another test server image I had a desire to delete the c:\wmpub\wmiislog folder which Windows Media Services leaves behind. From explorer you can't delete this folder because it is in use. But what is using it? After...

Development machines here use a delayed signing for building binaries. Only during the build process on the build server does a public/private key pair get used for signing assemblies. When using the unit testing features of Visual Studio 2005 we are prompted to provide a key for re-signing an assembly after instrumentation has been applied. If we provide the public key it will fail. If we provide the public/private key pair it will work. Has anyone else managed to get this working? Here's what I'm...

I really liked the original exception management block put out by Microsoft. The reason is because it included all the information relating to an exception - not just the Message property. It made production debugging a breeze. Now with ASP.NET 2.0 and Health Monitoring something similar has been created but it doesn't quite cover all the details. I first ran into this in an application where I had created a custom exception, ArgumentFormatException, and passed along two additional properties. After...

So it's time to actually deploy a real anti-virus vendor here at the office. We've run out of our free one year trial of CA e-Trust. So we closed our eyes, and of the vendors which support all of the stuff we need (ISA Server, SharePoint, Exchange, Windows) we threw darts. Symantec got the dart and what a ride it has been. First was the challenge of testing the client installation. Got to love the developers for forgetting that processes can hang and the user needs to be informed during installation....

I love the new TryParse methods in the .NET Framework 2.0. It's too bad that not all types have a TryParse method. There was a piece of feedback posted on MSDN about implementing one for Guid values. Here's one I threw together for Guid values. Feedback always appreciated: .csharpcode { font-size: xx-small; color: black; font-family: Courier New , Courier, Monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode...

Are you a developer interested in improving your .NET skills? Then this is the event to attend. The Toronto Code Camp promises to be the biggest and best community owned event we've ever had in Toronto, Canada. This free one day seminar is designed as a series of intensive code related demos and technical sessions to guide the developer to the next skill level. The continuing goal of Code Camps is to provide an intensive developer-to-developer learning experience that is fun and technically stimulating....

I've always been puzzled as to why the Web Site Administration tool shipped with ASP.NET 2.0 didn't seem to function nor error out when I had a brand new application being developed on my workstation where SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition is installed. The ASP.NET 2.0 machine configuration has a pre-defined connection string for providers which is tied to the default SQL Server 2005 Express Edition configuration that ships with Visual Studio 2005. I never installed the Express edition because the...