John Stagich's Blog

Microsoft .Net Developer

Vista: Creating a Password Reset Disk

clock April 29, 2008 06:34 by author johnstagich

I was doing some maintenance on my laptop this week, and one of my tools suggested creating a Password Reset Disk.  I did not know the feature even existed.  Anyway, it seems like a good idea.  It is simple to do, and you can use multiple types of media (SD Disk, Thumb Drive, CD, etc.) to store the file that is created: userkey.psw.  Here are a few links that show you how to create and use the Password Reset Disk.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/930381

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/102005-reset-user-account-password.html  (See Method Four)

John



Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) Adventures

clock April 28, 2008 07:19 by author johnstagich

Last week I noticed high processor usage on my laptop.   (I was using Process Explorer http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx to monitor my system.)  The culprit was an application called TrustedInstaller.exe.   I did some research and found a page on Scott Hanselman’s  blog  that described a similar situation: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/MSMPENGEXETrustedInstallerexeSearchIndexerAndSLSVCEXEAt100CPUOnMyVistaMachines.aspx.   It suggested upgrading to Vista Service Pack 1 to fix the problem.

Ok, I go to upgrade: Control Panel->Security->Check for Updates, and I find no SP1 upgrade.  What is the deal?   After doing some more research, it turns out that one of my optional updates that I had not installed was not so optional.   I needed to upgrade my Conexant HD Audio driver.  Here is the link where I found that information:  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948343.   I installed the Conexant HD Audio driver, and still no sign of SP1 when I check for updates.  I then install all of the remaining optional Windows Vista updates (not the Windows Ultimate Extras and not the Windows Vista Ultimate Language Packs) and restart my laptop.  I check for updates again and FINALLY the SP1 upgrade appears.  An hour later, Vista Service Pack 1 is successfully installed on my PC.  

I then get into my Visual Studio 2008 IDE and notice that I cannot debug my application.  I get the following error:  Unable to start debugging on the web server. Unable to connect to the web server. Verify that the web server is running and that incoming HTTP requests are not blocked by a firewall.

I do some more research and find that I need to start the World Wide Web Publishing service.  For some reason, it is not started.  That fixed the debugging problem in the Visual Studio 2008 IDE.   Here is the link where I found that information:  http://forums.asp.net/p/1235884/2302214.aspx#2302214

To date, I have not had any other issues with Vista SP1, and it did seem to fix the problem with the TrustedInstaller.exe application consuming enormous amounts of CPU time. 

John



Web Application Troubleshooting Tools

clock March 29, 2008 13:50 by author johnstagich

 

Here are some useful and free tools for Web Application troubleshooting: 

  1. IE Developer toolbar (allows editing of loaded pages)  http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=e59c3964-672d-4511-bb3e-2d5e1db91038&displaylang=en 
  2. Fiddler (inspection of HTTP and HTTPS request traffic) http://www.fiddler2.com/fiddler2/  
  3. Firebug add on for FireFox (allows monitoring of page load times, file sizes, etc). http://www.getfirebug.com/ 

John



Ajax Control Toolkit Problem with VS 2008: Grayed Out Controls

clock February 25, 2008 19:58 by author johnstagich

Back in January, I had a problem adding the Ajax Control Toolkit to my Toolbox with Visual Studio 2008.  The Ajax Controls where grayed out after executing a show all (right mouse click inside Toolbox, select Show All).  My solution: I unplugged my Microsoft Wireless mouse.  After unplugging my mouse, the Ajax Controls appeared.  For more information, follow this link http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=2694733&SiteID=1, which contains a posting of my solutiion.

I also did some follow-up research, another possible fix is to make sure your solution is pointing to the 3.5 .Net framework.

John



About the author

I am the owner of Stagich Software Consulting.  Stagich Software Consulting specializes in developing Microsoft .Net/Microsoft SQL software applications.

 

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The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view in anyway.

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