I downloaded the Orcas Visual Studio Beta 1 VPC from MSDN yesterday and stitched all of the zip files together, and launched it.  Ran into the dreaded: “E:\VPC\TimeBombedBase\Base01.vhd” could not be found message.  If you run into the same thing, you can find others with the same issue easily enough. The solution is to ...

This is all from last month, but I’ve been busy so it’s been in my queue.  Sorry for the late “news”: Microsoft acquired TeamPlain, makers of TeamPlain Web Access for connecting to TFS via a browser.  TeamPlain will be free to anybody with a TFS CAL.  Full announcement. Patterns and practices announced the ...

I had an issue with VS2005 For DB Pros (the Data Dude SKU) where every time I would build my solution (or that project), VS2005 would simply die.  This was on Vista.  After looking for the answer, I contacted Gert Drapers who informed me of the fix — install the RTM of SQL 2005 SP2 (or just the XMO redist) and the problem’s ...

Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 Update for Windows Vista Beta Now available, this update fixes a bunch of issues with VS2005 (with SP1) running on Windows Vista.

How do you like to set up your source control for a project?  My personal preference is sort of a work in progress, and I do not have a great deal of experience with branching and versioning, so my design doesn’t take this into account, but I would like to hear what approaches work well for others.  Here is a very simple ...

Today I came into work and my build/source control server, which I thought I remembered installing the RTM of TFS Workgroup Edition, was complaining that my license had expired.  When this happens, the error message looks something like this: ''TF30072: The Team Foundation Server trial period has expired or its license is otherwise invalid. ...

In the latter half of the keynote there was one small piece for developers, showing off Expression Interactive Designer (which integrates nicely with ASP.NET and VS.NET) and the new Visual Studio 2005 Team System For Database Professionals, which they have about 4,000 cds with the first CTP bits on them that will be handed out later today.  ...

I only mentioned the Made In Express Contest a few minutes ago and now I see there is a contest for Microsoft Atlas, their new AJAX / Web 2.0 framework. You have a chance to win an XBOX 360 premium and Windows Mobile 5.0 smartphones! What is it? This contest is all about creating awesome Mash-up applications using “Atlas” technology. Nothing ...

ASP.NET now supports something called Web Deployment Projects, which are an add-in for Visual Studio 2005 that is currently still in beta.  You can download the installer from here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/asp.net/reference/infrastructure/wdp/ I recently took them for a spin with a site of mine.  The key benefit I was after was the ...

Every now and then some high profile personality, perhaps one who once had close ties to Microsoft, about how .NET is really a total failure.  How it's clear that it isn't going anywhere.  That, as proof of these assertions, Microsoft cannot even manage to use it for its own products, so why should we?  Personally I think these ...