Head_Hurts's Q&A profile

• Game Technologies: DirectX, XNA, XACT, etc. My first game... Asteroid Defense.

  In this game you are a ship protecting a planet from incoming asteroids. Controls: 360 controller: Left Joystick -- Move ship left and right. A -- Shoot Right or Left Trigger -- Change Weapon. Keyboard Left and Right Arrow Keys -- Move ship left and right. Up and Down Arrow Keys -- Change Weapon Space -- Shoot The weapon you are using is shown in the top left corner. The stronger the weapon you use, the less points you get for destroying an asteroid. Levels progress at timed intervals and more and more asteroids come down. You lose when one of them reaches the planet. Screenshot: http://www.rocketsoft.gm-school.uni.cc/uploads/ADScreen.JPG Game File: http://www.rocketsoft.gm-school.uni.cc/uploads/AsteroidDefense1.1.rar All in ...Show All

• Software Development for Windows Vista Architectu System.Transactions vs EnterpriseService

  Hi, I'm a little bit confused with this new System.Transactions namespace. I was able to understand its propose, but it looks like it is the replacement for EnterpriseService (ServicedComponent) when all you want from COM+ is the transaction coordination. I'm about to start a new project and I have to decide how to architect the components. I'd like to know if is possible to use only single assemblies without all the COM+ stuffs (packages, registration, etc). My environment: .NET 2.0, Win2003, SQL 2000 and Oracle 9i. Thanks, David Hi Avner, Juval Lowy's "Introduction to System.Transactions" might be of help for your question: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx f ...Show All

• Visual Studio Express Editions how to convert Date to Integer

  I have 2 DateTimePickers and one is used for arrival date and other one is pick-up date. To find out delayed days I want to take away arrival date from pick-up date but the problem is it says you cannot convert date to integer. I would be appericiated if you can help me with this problem. DateTime.Subtract() subtracts two dates. So does Date.Subtract(). It produces a TimeSpan instance, use any of its properties to measure the difference. The Ticks property is the most accurate but you'll probably want to use something like TotalSeconds or TotalDays. The VB.NET DateDiff() function produces a Long value (not Integer). For example: Dim diff As Integer = CInt(DateDiff(DateInterval.Second, d1, d2)) ...Show All

• Visual Studio 2008 (Pre-release) Re-arrange z-order of Windows in an Application

  Hello all,Does anyone know of the simplest way of re-arranging the z order of Windows in a WPF application. I want to create and show a Child Window of my MainWindow, but I want it to appear behind it (slightly offset). I can kind of get the desired effect if I do not set the Owner property and use the Topmost property on the MainWindow, but I need this so that both Windows come back into view when alt tabbing from another app.Cheers,Richard Hi Richard, unfortunately, WPF does not currently support specifying z-order on Window objects. A possible workaround for your scenario is to hook up ContentRendered event on your Child Window object and inside the event handler, then call Activate() method on the Main ...Show All

• .NET Development Question: ctype(NamedObject, NamedObject.gettype) VB2005

  I've got code in which several functions each create a different type of Object and then each passes the Object to the PrepareObjectForDisplay function, which then formats the Object, adds it to a Control and displays it. At the moment, at the end of PrepareObjectForDisplay, I have a set of If/ElseIf lines to get the function to add the Object to the Control. I would prefer to have a simple line, or couple of lines, that could fetch the Object's Type and then cast the Object back to its own Type, without the need to have all of these checks for specific different types. The thread title shows more-or-less the sort of thing I'm aiming to have, but that particular syntax doesn't seem to work and I can't find the correct alternative. ...Show All

• Game Technologies: DirectX, XNA, XACT, etc. Bug in Release Mode

  I've just attempted to run my XNA game in Release mode after a lot of testing in Debug mode, and as soon as I run I get a very strange error saying that a certain object is null-reference. Now I debug this error a bit and I find that when running the program in Release mode, Draw() is called before *any* call to Initialize() Or LoadGameContent(). This seems absurd to me, not only because it's the wrong order, but because it works fine in Debug mode. I have no clue what I'm doing wrong, because it's a standard Windows XNA game project. Any ideas, please If you create a standard Windows XNA game and put a line like this: System.Diagnostics.Trace.WriteLine(System.Reflection.MethodBase.GetCurrentMethod().Name) ...Show All

• SQL Server Saving a package to the package store vs. SQL Server?

  There must be a difference, but I don't know what it is. Can someone please explain the advantages and disadvantages of each method Thanks in advance.   Sean Schade wrote: Also, packages stored within MSDB are not managed by the Integration Services service.  Is this correct No, this isn't correct. They are both managed by the Integration Services service. Ok.  I just discovered that I was correct and you're incorrect. Packages stored within MSDB are not managed by the SSIS service.  I stopped and disabled the SSIS service, and was still able to store a package within MSDB.  However, it isn't possible to manage packages stored within MSDB through SQL Server Mangement Studio ...Show All

• SQL Server xp_delete_file

  I created a maintenance plan to remove files older than 2 weeks. The plan executes successfully, but does not work. I notice in the log that the single quotes are doubled. I ran one command which worked, but others did not. Is there a problem with the command Here is a copy of the log: Microsoft(R) Server Maintenance Utility (Unicode) Version 9.0.1399 Report was generated on "SQL". Maintenance Plan: Clean Up Backup Files Duration: 00:00:12 Status: Succeeded. Details: Cleanup Master (SQL) Maintenance Cleanup on Local server connection Cleanup Database Backup files Age: Older than 2 Weeks Task start: 9/12/2006 7:34 AM. Task end: 9/12/2006 7:34 AM. Success Command:EXECUTE master.dbo.xp_delete_file 0,N''F:\SQLBackup\master'',N''ba ...Show All

• Visual Studio Team System Requirements?

  Do people track requirements as work items Is that the way we should do it Thanks that helps. I was just wondering if there was another mechanism. Also if you used word documents, they are not versioned if you do attachments right So do people instead use links Of course then you have to make sure you keep all of the files organized and don't break the links to have traceability. We currently use Rational Requisite Pro which basically puts things in word format, so our product managers are used to putting things in word. So trying to figure out if people use word on their requirements and how they keep the versioned traceability of changes. Thanks ...Show All

• Microsoft ISV Community Center Forums ADO Recordsets

  I have a routine in Excel, which pulls data in from a SQL Server database into two ADO Recordsets using two seperate queries. These recordsets contain only 1 field, being customer ID, each with in excess of 65,000 records. I need to compare these two recordsets to establish how many customer IDs are present in one, but not the other and vice versa. Is there some clever way of looping I could use to achieve this The only other thing I can think of is a local query within my module on the two datasets, but is this possible Cheers for any help! Keith Hey man, Oh you have access to the tables... that helps. Generally SQL Server tables are protected and access to the data is through store ...Show All

• Visual Studio Team System Refresh MS project file upon open

  Hello everybody, Has somebody written a macro which asks to refresh the MS project file upon open If I forget to and click later on publish, the actual values in msvs (eg the completed work) will be overwritten with the values given in the MS project file. Or even a better solution: Refresh a list of MS project files by selecting them within a folder, right click and refresh. That would be best ;) Kind regards, Henk Hi, Thanks for the replys. Yes I am interested in that macro. A macro that prompts a dialog box on opening a project file would be best. So you can choose to refresh or not, but cannot forget! My problem is to publish changes in the plan without refres ...Show All

• Software Development for Windows Vista WorkflowChanges in July CTP

  I want to execute a plug-in activity at runtime. With plug-in activity I mean an activity that was created using an embedded workflow designer and which was compiled programmatically. Based on a parameter passed to my workflow I want to load the activity into my flow at runtime. So I started writing code that uses the WorkflowChanges class to insert the activity at runtime. I could not get it to work though. I've written code that successfully changes a workflow from the "outside" before, and that was quite easy. But in this scenario I want to change the workflow from inside itself. I looked at the sdk docs on the web and it says at this http://windowssdk.msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.workflow.componentmode ...Show All

• Windows Forms Launch Conditions - Registry Search problem

  I have setup a setup project to install my application and wanted to add a launch condition to test for the existence of a dependent application, I created a file and registry launch condition and the file search works correctly but I can not get registry search to work at all, I would prefer to use registry search as it is more certain than the location of a file which might have another install location other than [ProgramFilesFolder]. The dependent application is Apple iTunes and has a registry key at HKLM\SOFTWARE\Apple Computer, Inc.\iTunes. I have set the Root to vsdrrHKLM. I have tried several variations on the RegKey value and none work: SOFTWARE\Apple Computer, Inc.\iTunes "SOFTWARE\Apple Computer, Inc.\iTunes" SOFTWARE\Apple Comp ...Show All

• SQL Server SQL Server 2005 merge replication without a hard coded password

  Hi. I've looked all over MSDN, newsgroups and the web but I can't find the answer to a problem that I am having. The application that I am working on used both transactional and merge replication. I want to avoid hard coding passwords into an application that kicks off the pull replication on the client machine. The client machines are all using SQL Server 2005 Express. The other machine is running SQL Server Standard. The passwords and login details are specified in the subscription properties in the Management Studio. A fragment of the code is posted below. The transactional sychronization works fine without having to specify any passwords - however the merge replication does not work if both of the passwords are not specified. priv ...Show All

• Visual Basic How to not get combobox SelectedIndexChanged be executed on load

  Hello, As what the subject line is.... What is the method to not allow combobox SelectedIndexChanged to be executed on load... and only make it to be executed when a "USER" changes the selection value. Thanks Why not set the handler for the event to nothing, load the control, then set the handler to the routine you want to handle the event, a lot simpler than watching booleans and also reduces execution time as the handler is not executed for each add. Try: [code] RemoveHandler cboTerm.SelectedIndexChanged, addressof cboTerm     With Me.cboTerm             .DataSource = Me.MiscDataTableTableAdapter.GetDataByTerm ...Show All