dddon's Q&A profile

• SQL Server UPDATE-Cannot shut down VS after using report designer

  Routinely when I use BIDS to work on a report design, I cannot close BIDS because I get a message box that says: Microsoft Visual Studio cannot shut down because a modal dialog is active. Close the active dialog and try again. Of course, there is no visible dialog open. I actually have to terminate the process from task manager. I do not get this problem when using SSIS or SSAS. Only SSRS. Any Ideas Thanks! BobP Myself and a number of colleagues are having the same error come up. We are only able to shutdown the visual studio by going to task manager. Still trying to find the cause, but if anyone else knows anything more ...Show All

• Software Development for Windows Vista The UAC Nightmare

  I'm beginning to reach the conclusion that the current implementation of the UAC in Vista is, IMO, a nightmare that creates more problems than it solves. If Microsoft wants developers - and users - to embrace the UAC (instead of just turning it off altogether) then it better come forward with a LOT MORE information and support than it is currently providing! If it doesn't, I will begin to suspect Microsoft only added the UAC so it can tell Windows users 'well, we added the option to secure Windows - you're the ones turning it off' and therefore wash its corporate hands. I would really hate to see this happening. To name just a few of the problems the UAC brings to us developers: 1 - Applications that require Admin privileges are bloc ...Show All

• Visual Studio 2008 (Pre-release) Iterating through App Resources

  Again, I am quite new to .NET & WPF so please be patient... I am trying to figure out different ways in which resources can be stored and accessed in a WPF project. Method 1: Adding a folder to the Project and adding resources to this folder example: add folder named "images". add 2 images to folder, "image1.png" & "image2.png". These images can then be accessed in XAML like: <Image Source="images/image1.png"/> Method 2: Adding resources to the project using the resource manager, i.e. goto the project properties and select the "Resources" tab and add a couple images : "image3.png" and "image4.png". This method creates a "Re ...Show All

• Smart Device Development VS 2005 vs. Platform Builder

  Is VS 2005 a complete replacement for Platform Builder i.e. what if anything do I need Platform Builder for No, It's not. Platform Builder is the tool you need to design and build your 'own' Windows CE OS for a custom hardware device. This includes tasks like selecting features you want in your OS design, writing device drivers and related thing. Read more about Platform Builder here ( http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms905511.aspx ) and about Windows Embedded CE in gerneral here ( http://www.microsoft.com/windows/embedded/eval/wince/default.mspx ). Hope this helps Michael ...Show All

• Gadgets Anyone done this?

  So now that we have the wonders of the gadgets in vista, has anyone figured out a way to make a gadget that will monitor the CPU usage on a different machine (ie a server) So long as you have enough rights on both the host and server, you should be able to do this though WMI. I would have thought there is a CPU usage indicator within WMI. Short of that, you'd have to write an ActiveX COM to get the info through the perfmon DLL's ...Show All

• SQL Server Changing Cube source in a EXCEL pivot table

  Hi I have developed a cube on a "test" server - using Excel 2003 as teh front end. All is well with the cube an dI now want to point Excel to the "production" server. I have modified the .oqy file to point to teh new server but Excel does not seem to use this - unless I start over and import data. is there anyway of pointing to a different server (teh database/cube names are the same - I did an Archive and Restore to move teh database over) thanks Steve Another technique, which was mentioned on the public SQL OLAP Newsgroup, is to save the pivot table as an XML file. Then you can find and edit the connection string (search for the server/DB/cube names), and re-open and save ...Show All

• Game Technologies: DirectX, XNA, XACT, etc. Do most SDKs do grapics, such as 3D?

  As far as Managed Direct X, and Visual C# Studio Express,with XNA, do those have a way of creating the actual graphical interface for the game, such as 2D or 3D, or do I need Adobe Photoshop, or Maya, or some other program I currently havn't been able to download them because I am temporarily on dial-up internet, which also makes me not want to do too much looking aroudn, due to long loading times. Thanks for any help you can give me. DirectX  and GS Express are basically tools for creating the code (and some other things indirectly like data) for games, not the graphics. You'd have to create the graphics yourself or get someone else to do it. For 2D stuff you can get as basic as using Paint. For 3D stuff there are free mode ...Show All

• Visual Studio 2008 (Pre-release) Custom Window

  Starting to learn WPF so plz bear the newb question. For the login form of one of my WinForms applications, I used a custom window with rounded edges. I did this by creating a graphics path and setting the form's region to it in the Paint event. Now I'm migrating this app to .NET as an exercise in WPF, and hopefully to use as a proof of concept. Question is, is there a way to do custom windows with XAML Chris You thing this http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa358516.aspx example There is only one tooltip window, wihout resizing mode :-( I need classic resize mode on the border .. Thx ...Show All

• Software Development for Windows Vista MSDTC error : Import of MSDTC transaction failed: Result Code = 0x8004d00e.

  Hi everyone! I suppose you've allready heard of this error, I've searched for answers on many other forums and groups but I didn't find a clear answer. So, for something to begin with - I am working on a VB 6.0 - 3 layered application and I get the error when the business layer is trying to persist some data. The broplem is that the transaction is not persisted - the application hungs and returns the "server busy" error. The wole application is blocked after this - when trying to save some data i keep getting this error. The persistent objects MTS transaction mode is set to "Requires transaction" and the component security levels are set to process level, the authentication level is None, and the ...Show All

• Microsoft ISV Community Center Forums Projects, objects & modules

  I started learning VBA in MS Word yesterday. I have some programming experience in C++ and Java. I am trying to understand how the environment is structured and what Projects, Objects and Modules represent. For example I recorded a few macros using the macro recorder and then opened the VB Editor to see what was created. I notice that under "Project" are 3 folders. One is named "Microsoft Word Objects". Within this folder is what looks like a file named "This Document". What does "Project" represent What does "This Document" represent What is the difference between "This Document" and the "Project&q ...Show All

• Visual Studio Express Editions Get PDF paper size?

  Is there a way to get the paper size of a PDF file   For example, if I have a PDF file called MyReport.pdf, is there a way to determine what the paper size is (8 1/2 x 11, 11 x 17, legal, etc.) without opening it in Acrobat Reader   Is that info embedded in the file somewhere   Thanks for any help... Yes it is embedded in the file: but you will have to work through the PDF File Format to find it (if you want to open the file in binary mode). The long way round would be to read these: http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/pdf/index_reference.html There may be someone out there with a control which wrappers a lot of the things you may want to do to a PDF document: do a Google sear ...Show All

• Visual C++ ctime/time.h

  Hi, I'm new to C++, but am writing my current project in C++ using VS2005. I want to use the POSIX clock_gettime function, like this: #include "time.h" void foo( void ) { timespec curr_time; clock_gettime(CLOCK_REALTIME, &curr_time); } This fails, not recognizing timespec, or clock_gettime, or CLOCK_REALTIME, even though the same code will compile fine using another development tool/compiler. As an alternative I tried: #include "time.h" void foo( void ) { time_t = time(NULL); } but this produced a linker error. How is it possible that gettin the current time is this hard If someone can help me I would really appreciate it. The POSIX option is my top choice and the time_ ...Show All

• Architecture Architecture for a DAL

  When I say DAL I mean a physical layer that manages connections. I had a though yesterday. Many people call methods on a class representing the DAL. And they receieve data back from it to populate thier business classes. I realize there are many different forms of this solution. ( I was a contactor and I saw good examples and nightmares, along with "what the ..." designs ) So I was thinking this. What instead of having classes I call I create delegates that represent all of the work a DAL would do and consumers only called these delegates. This would have many benefits by examining this. What I want to know is this. Is this an idea with merit or am I going down a path with a dead end I'd like some thoughts ...Show All

• SQL Server SQL Query

  I have a query that i created which searches all logs to see what users did on the website for the COMPUTER account. SELECT u.ID, u.LastName, u.FirstName, u.Company, ua.AccountID, wsl.SessionBegan, wsl.ServerName, wal.Activity FROM [User] u INNER JOIN UserAccount ua ON u.ID = ua.UserID INNER JOIN wwwSessionLog wsl ON u.ID = wsl.UserName INNER JOIN wwwActivityLog wal ON wsl.SessionID = wal.SessionID WHERE (ua.AccountID = 'COMPUTER') AND (wsl.ServerName = 'www.test.com') AND (wsl.SessionBegan > DATEADD(Month, - 6, GETDATE())) ORDER BY ua.AccountID What i would like to do is the following reformatting: LAST Name | First Name | ACCOUNTID | Aug 06 | Sep 06| Oct 06| .... | Jan 06| Feb 06 The activity should be ordered by t ...Show All

• .NET Development Serial Communications question using System.IO.Ports

  I have rewritten some old legacy vb6 code using Vs2005 and .net 2.0 framework. The application needs to send two types of commands to a quality measurement device let us call it the bcs. I developed an object of type Array List so that I could foreach through the list and send each command to the device. My trouble comes when I attempt to parse the data. If I just let the foreach loop do its thing the output ends up looking something like this; E1F1G531E5000 If each command was <cr> terminated this would be a no brainer and I wouldn't care about the stacking of multiple commands in the buffer but reply responses from the device are not control character terminated and are of varying length. The only identifier is that each param ...Show All