Galin Iliev's blog

Software Architecture & Development

Skypeout and .NET

As a typical geek I am spending my vacation playing with new technologies. Today I discovered something very interesting: Skypecast(https://skypecasts.skype.com/skypecasts/home ). This is like conference call but it is public (with option to be hidden). I think this is nice idea and could be next extension of our virtual world.

I decided to create new room where .Net geeks can freely discuss … well.. whatever they want J. I think this way we can easily help each other in solving tough problems we meet all the time in our job.

You can join by calling +99001110022186965 from skype or press here(skype:+99001110022186965). And the fun doesn’t stop here. You can add this number as contact in your list and easy dial it whenever you want to enter in room J

I will be glad if we expand this room.

Note: You will need Skype 3.0 to join

VS 2005 SP1 is here. Go and get it....

The SP1 for Visual Studio 2005 with over 2200 bug fixes (yay) is here, however, don't just go installing without checking out the release notes file first. It includes warnings like: the install takes a loooooooooong time, requires a lot of hard drive space and has a lot of “features” that might be a little confusing. Here are some of the points from the Release Notes, but definitely read through the entire thing  in advance of installing or like many others who just got so excited and clicked the install button only to get very frustrated, you might find yourself dragging your sorry butt to the local watering hole to ease the pain.

Quoting from the Release notes:

Service pack installation takes longer than the original product installation:
Installing Visual Studio 2005 SP1 takes longer than installing the original release version because the SP1 installation is much like a product installation, but with additional installation tasks. Installation time depends on which product is installed and the computer’s configuration.

Installation requires significant disk space:
Disk space equal to that taken by the original product installation may be needed to install a service pack. If you have more than one Visual Studio product installed, you will need disk space for each service pack installation. You can find an estimate of the required disk space on the download page for the service pack.

Visual Studio 2005 SP1 tries to install multiple times:
The service pack will run multiple times if you have multiple Visual Studio products installed on your computer. Do not start the installation more than once.

Dialog boxes are partially hidden during installation:
This problem occurs if you move the Configuring … dialog box away from the center of the screen. Subsequent dialog boxes are centered on the Configuring … dialog box. If the Configuring … dialog box is near the corner of the screen, larger dialog boxes that display later may be partially off the screen.

Visual Studio 2005 SP1 will not install immediately after a Visual Studio compilation:
You cannot install Visual Studio 2005 SP1 until the debugger service closes.
To resolve this issue, do one of the following:
• Finish compilations that are in progress and wait for the debugger service to close. This could take up to ten minutes.
• Use the Task Manager to end all instances of the mspdbsrv.exe service.

Team Foundation Server prerequisites:
You must install the update from KB article 919156 (
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/919156) before you install Visual Studio 2005 SP1. This update makes sure that the server does not process client requests during the installation of SP1.

Uninstallation of Visual Studio 2005 Web Application Projects required:
Follow these steps to install Visual Studio 2005 SP1 if you have Visual Studio 2005 Web Application Projects installed:
1. Uninstall the Visual Studio 2005 Web Application Projects (
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/asp.net/aa336618.aspx) add-in.
2. Install Visual Studio 2005 SP1.

Virtual PC on Windows Vista

Yesterday I had interesting experience: I was trying to run Virtual PC/Server on Windows Vista.
After installing full IIS on Vista and turnning off UCA :) installation went smoothly. I copied esixting VHD with Windows XP SP2 on it and attached to newly created vurtual machine.

According Web-based manager and CPU meter Guest OS was started but... I see only black screen on remote client. From this point on I tried bunch of install/deinstall and so on. My friend Marto told me about existing beta of Virtual PC 2007 and I decided to give a shot.

After patiently register and download the installation package I installed it ... and ... can you imagine ... same nasty black screen.

As this is VPC 2007 is beta there is posts with bugs I looked at bug list. Lucky enough I found similar post which describe same problem and says...  the problem is gone after restart or two.

I restarted my machine and THAT"S IT - IT WORKS :)

Probably I should mention I did all these efforts on laptop. Since I have the laptop I have used mainly hibernate feature and it is restarted only when MSI, OS or some software rewuire restart.

It is amazing how I forgot how good old restart resolves many many problems. I have been working with windows since windows 3.1 and used to know about magic of restart. Right now I am restarting less and less (and resintsalling my working machine very rarely)

WPF/E CTP is out

Microsoft released the first CTP for WPF/E. “WPF/E” is the Microsoft solution for delivering rich, cross-platform, interactive experiences including animation, graphics, audio, and video for the Web and beyond. Utilizing a subset of XAML (eXtensible Application Markup Language)-based Windows Presentation Foundation technology, “WPF/E” will enable the creation of content and applications that run within multiple browsers and operating systems (Windows and Macintosh) using Web standards for programmability. Consistent with Web architecture, the XAML markup is programmable using JavaScript and works well with ASP.NET AJAX. Broadly available for customers in the first half of 2007, “WPF/E” experiences will require a lightweight browser plug-in made freely available by Microsoft. The CTP contains the WPF/E plugin itself and SDK There is a Macintosh version as well Links: WPF/E Downloads WPF/E Dev Center