nickwilliams's Q&A profile

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

  I am in a huge rush right now. Between VS2003 and VS2005 they moved where you choose whether you compile in Debug or Release mode. Where is it now I have manually added the drop-down box to the tool bar, but it's grayed out. This is extremely frustrating and critical to testing DirectX stuff. The Solution Configurations and Solution Platforms listboxes seem to be permanently grayed in VC# Express, and the method I mentioned above seems to be the only way I can find to set the Build Configuration in the version I'm using. But maybe there's something wrong with my installation too. ...Show All

• Windows Live Developer Forums Livecall.exe backgound process

  I have been using Windows Live Messenger for months and today I clicked on the livecall button option. I closed the livecall window and never made any changes but now whenever I open Live Messenger it automatically loads the livecall.exe process which stays resident and uses 17-18MB of ram. This process is just a resource hog as I don't use the service at all and can find no way to set Live Messenger to not load this process upon startup. Can anyone tell me how to tell live messenger to not load this process on startup anymore I am using Windows Live Messenger version 8.1.0178.00 on XPSP2. To get rid of this pesky RAM-hog, the secret is: 1) move the livecall.exe, the softphone.dll's (x 3) and the pcsexe ...Show All

• .NET Development difficulty accessing Excel spreadsheet via ODBC

  trying to access a spreadsheet on a network share. ODBC connection string: "Driver={Microsoft Excel Driver (*.xls)};DriverId=790;DefaultDir=\\sdi-fs2\Bypass\4ANAMEDONOTDELETE;DBQ=\\\sdi-fs2\Bypass\4ANAMEDONOTDELETE\0e89da37-180c-4214-af37-632cce8dc476.xls" Produces the following error: ERROR [HY000] [Microsoft][ODBC Excel Driver]General error Unable to open registry key 'Temporary (volatile) Jet DSN for process 0x7b4 Thread 0xabc DBC 0x348274 Excel'. ERROR [IM006] [Microsoft][ODBC Driver Manager] Driver's SQLSetConnectAttr failed ERROR [HY000] [Microsoft][ODBC Excel Driver]General error Unable to open registry key 'Temporary (volatile) Jet DSN for process 0x7b4 Thread 0xabc DBC 0x348274 Excel'. ERROR [HY000] [Microsoft][ ...Show All

• Game Technologies: DirectX, XNA, XACT, etc. Change World Matrix

  Is there any way to change the world matrix of an effect while rendering without another call to DrawIndexedPrimitive. I have a large VertexBuffer and don't want to stop drawing, change Matrix and start rendering again if not necessary. Thanks Look up the hardware instancing methods (SetFrequency, SetFrequencyOfIndexData and SetFrequenceOfInstanceData). They allow you to avoid repeatedly setting effect parameters by setting the data into a second vertex buffer and rewriting your effect code in such a way that the world matrix, or whatever else you decide to pack into the data, is pulled from that input vertex data. Ironically enough, the way it's implemented in the current release is (according to the docum ...Show All

• SQL Server Help - How do I create a new instance

  Hi Guys Im new to SQL and I need to create a new instance Help hi, you need to install (and not create) a new instance if no other instance has been already installed.. If you install a SQLExpress instance, by default a named instance named SQLExpress will be installed... it's actual full name will be <ComputerName>\SQLExpress to do that, just run the SQLExpress installer.. if you like to "play" with the advanced options, you can modify the instance name (or install a default instance as well, if not already installed), if remote connections will be enabled (network protocols are disabled by default), modify (if required) the collation settings for sort order and comparations, allow standard S ...Show All

• Visual Studio 2008 (Pre-release) How to remove control box from Window?

  <Window x:Class="MyWindow" xmlns=" http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation " xmlns:x=" http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml " Title="Test" Width="518" Height="502" ResizeMode="NoResize" Icon="{x:Null}" Name="window" SizeToContent="WidthAndHeight" > I have defined a Window using the above code. However I don't see a way to remove the ControlBox (upper left) from it. In Windows Forms it was Form.ControlBox. I do want to keep the title bar and the close X on the right. I just don't want the control box showing. Any ideas Frankly it seems like a bad oversight that I can control a titl ...Show All

• Visual C++ COM/ATL App Method Return/Pass defined types

  Alright, I am not by any means an expert C++ programmer, so please bare with me. I have created a com object that will be implemented within C#, the reason for this com object is to create a persistent object of another library. My situation is this. I have the complete com object created, but would like to add additional supporting features, i.e.: An object that is defined within the C++ com object, such as a struct containing an int, a wchar_t*, and a boolean value. I would like to be able to utilize the object type from within C# to store the object rather than have a new object type in C#. I have seen this done in many cases, but just have no clue where to find such direction for supporting this. I would also like the come objec ...Show All

• Visual C# Foreach problem -->

  I am using an OpenFileDialog. OFD.InitialDirectory = Environment . SpecialFolder .MyDocuments.ToString(); if (OFD.ShowDialog() == DialogResult .OK) { //I need a FOREACH statement here// } Now, I need to open multiple files and put them in a list view. How can I do this I have tried foreach (OFD.FileName file in OFD.FileNames) {}, but I need a TYPE. >> I have tried foreach (OFD.FileName file in OFD.FileNames) {}, but I need a TYPE OpenFileDialog.FileNames returns a string[] so what you want there is just foreach(string file in OFD.FileNames) { listView1.Add(file); } However, it's possible that what you actually want is something like: listView1.DataSource = OFD.FileNames ...Show All

• .NET Development How do I control Windows service application from external program?

  Hello, I hav a task of creating Windows service which has some GUI for configuration data used by service. So I plan to have 2 projects in solution - Windows service itself and frontend manipulation program. How do I attach from within a program to Windows service and how do I call events inside Windows service to reread configuration file once changes are made Thanks, G I need to pass information to service like location of configuration file, CustomCommand will not be able to accomplish that becouse I can pass only integers, and I don't want to go through IPC or remoting stuff since it's so much complicates the project. Is there any other easy alternative, I really need just to tell service wher ...Show All

• Game Technologies: DirectX, XNA, XACT, etc. Collision of Rotated Sprites

  Ok. I realise collision detection has been discussed quite alot, but after doing a fair bit of searching through the forums and the web, I still can't find a solution to my problem. I am working on a arial view car game (remember GTA 1 and 2 ) and I am at the point where I need to handle collisions. Most people seem to be using BoundingBoxes, which would work fine in a few situations, but in my case, drawing an axis aligned box around my rotating car would be far too inacurate. I realise that the boundingbox class does not allow rotation as mentioned in this forum, so I am wondering if anyone is aware of an alternative solution. I could solve the problem by creating a series of rotated square alpha images for my car to use when rotating, ...Show All

• Windows Forms Q on Toolstrip container, making toolstrips stay where you put them!

  Hi there I have a toolstrip container on a form, with menus and 3-4 toolstrips (one for file, record operations, and one specific to the form that is open) My problem is that I can arrange them neatly, and on the same line, FFFFRRRR, where "FFFFF" = file toolstip and "RRRR" = Records nav. I run it, and the item is rendered properly. Once I close the solution and re-run it, the Second toolbar flops to the next line and sits out about a 1/2 inch from the left. Is this normal Do I have to provide some means for it to stay where I put it, or programattically force it to stay where it belongs I wonder if there are settings I am missing, these toolbars and strips are vexing. Thanks! ...Show All

• Game Technologies: DirectX, XNA, XACT, etc. Setting project up to be cross platform

  Hello Any advice on what's the best practice for setting up your game to run on both PC and Xbox Even better if there could be an included example of this. I'd like to develop my game on the PC and only running the 360 version periodically. In the past I've set up seperate builds so I'd have a release\debug versions for PC, PS2 and Xbox1. I've seen posts mentioning creating one solution with two projects in and then adding the source to the other project as a link. I have my project like this but I find I'm having to add any new source files twice, once to the PC version and once to the 360 version. The same goes for any data I decide to add. This doesn't seem the best way of dealing with it so has anybody come acros ...Show All

• Windows Forms Formatting a cell in a datagrid

  I have a database column which contains int32 values for IP Addresses. I want to display the values in my datagridview column in dotted-decimal format (e.g. &HC0A80001 = 192.168.0.1), and input them the same way. Does anyone know how to format the data on the fly when the datagridview is filled Does anyone know how to hook the cell contents and convert it to an int32 on input before .NET throws an exception because the input isn't numeric Thanx, JimT Thanks for your help. It's what I was trying to do, but not very well. I changed your code a little to make sure it handled invalid IP Addresses. It works beautifully. My problem when I tried to do this was that I was handling the wrong event. ...Show All

• SQL Server Parameters for OLEDB Oracle Source Query

  Provider cannot derive parameter information and SetParameterInfo has not been called. (Microsoft OLE DB Provider for Oracle) I am getting the above error while opening the parameter box at OLEDB source for Oracle using SQL command option at Data Access Mode Can you any one please help me in this regard and trouble shoot this problem.. You could try using an expression instead of parameters: http://blogs.conchango.com/jamiethomson/archive/2005/12/09/2480.aspx -Jamie ...Show All

• .NET Development Spontaneous Uninstalls

  Hi: This is a bit wierd...we have a number of .net applications (2003) that use crystal reports. Recently (and very intermittenly), some of the applications will be in use and they will spontaneously uninstall themselves. We reinstall and they run fine...no errors thrown. My search on the internet hasn't turned anything up and I was curious if anyone had any thoughts. Thanks! f_red Crystal Reports has been a bug-fest for many years. But, spontaneous uninstall How can you tell that CR (or the app) uninstalled ...Show All