If you run IIS on Windows XP, and you test your applications with it, you will suffer from the maximum connection limit of 10 users sooner or later. It can be altered to 40, but that’s a not so documented feature. Download MetaEdit from Microsoft, and change the inner-settings of IIS. The MaxConnections can be found under LM\W3SVC.
After releasing WiX to the public (permalink), Microsoft has now released WTL, the Windows Template Library, to SourceForge as Open Source as well. Although it is a set of C++ libraries, the initiative should appeal to other developers as well.
Getting started with WTL
A comparison between WTL and MFC
“Old” 7.1 download from Microsoft
The Open Source version of .NET has reached the beta stadium. Mono beta 1 it is labeled. Read the Release Notes or go to their Download page.
One of the big things about this release, is that it supports generics in both the C# compiler and the virtual machine. Also Mono has a Global Assembly Cache now and a gacutil-like tool to manage the GAC. Beta 1 contains preview functionality (alpha stage) of System.Windows.Forms as well.
If you need a free IDE to develop Mono programs (or .NET programs, whatever you like to call them), you can use MonoDevelop. It’s currently only at version 0.3, but it gets the job done. It has Code Completion, Class Management, an integrated debugger and built-in Help.
It so happened I installed version 0.31 (the previous version) yesterday, and played around with it. The executables it generates (executed on Linux or other non-Windows platforms within Mono) execute perfectly on Windows without calling Mono. I haven’t tested any difficult programs yet, but this is great.
Apache for Win32 with Mono will release us from IIS while maintaining .NET compatibility and without loosing our favorite Windows programs.
Omar has a trick to get around Windows File Protection (not being able to replace files because they are “in use”, but actually are being protected for update by the OS). At least he can replace Notepad.exe with the brilliant Notepad2.exe (first renamed to Notepad.exe). It is tricky business, so follow instructions with care (and after reconsideration).
If you’re into developing with/for Microsoft, you can’t miss this one: MSDN Magazine May 2004.
I tried ouau here at work, and we’re using Office 2002/XP. It finds the correct Office version, I’m able to make changes to the blocked extensions, which I can verify by restarting the program: it finds the new settings. But the new registry-setting resort no effect: right-click and send-to-mail-recipient of a unblocked extension (e.g. .EXE) still results in Outlook saying that the attachments are potentially unsafe. What’s going on here? Something to do with (group)policies?
Update: I think I already know: Exchange administrators can add/remove Level 1 and/or Level 2 extensions within the Exchange-server settings. This can not be overruled by the Outlookclient. So, I guess I’ll have to find another way to test other Office versions.
Microsoft must have gone bonkers! After opening up the source to WiX, they are now giving away the commandline tools for Visual C++. How about that?
Er zijn al een tijdje verhalen (of geruchten, zoals ze meestal genoemd worden) dat Microsoft ook aan de Shared Source of Open Source community zou gaan deelnemen. Wel, het is nu echt zo. WiX, de Windows Installer XML, is beschikbaar via SourceForge. Frank Arrigo (MSDN) blogt erover.
Gisteren kreeg ik de gratis Microsoft Visual Basic .NET Resource Kit, inclusief de 60-dagen trialversie van VB.NET Professional. Op DVD. Binnenkort eens kijken wat je daarmee kunt maken. Op de CD (resource kit) staat in ieder geval een kant-en-klare applicatie TaskVision, een soort webdriven projectmanagement-tooltje. Best geinig.