Installing VS 2005 into a Virtual PC VM

by | Nov 4, 2005 | Development

I’m sure all of you thoroughly read the README of any product before you install it, so you already know this.

It is a pain to install VS 2005 in a Virtual PC due to limitations of Virtual PC itself. If you have a physical DVD, you cannot use it to directly install VS 2005 in the VM. If you mount an ISO file into Virtual PC, you also cannot use it to install VS 2005. Virtual PC 2004 SP1’s mounting capability only extends to 2.2 GB volumes.

Instead, you need 1) CDs, or 2) you need to copy the DVD or ISO to your local hard drive, share the folder into the VM, and install from there. Or, a third option is to mount the ISO with any third party ISO mounting software, share the drive into the VM, and install from the shared drive.

How to Crash the DB Tuning Advisor in SQL Server 2005 RTM — Take 2

by | Nov 4, 2005 | General

As a follow-up to my earlier post about crashing the SQL Server 2005 Database Tuning Advisor, I later discovered that the .NET exception stack trace was logged to the Application event log.

My suspicions were correct: it is a threading bug, and it turns out that the steps are even simpler:

  1. Start the Database Engine Tuning Advisor
  2. Drop down the “Server name” listbox and choose “Browse for more…”
  3. Click the Network Servers tab
  4. Click the Cancel button
  5. Wait a few seconds … until the application crashes…

The background discovery thread tries to access the TreeView control in the browse dialog, which no longer exists since you closed it. Oops. I’m not sure how this one got past QA. I passed the info on to friends in the SQL Server group, and probably ruined their days.

VS 2005 and SQL 2005 Together

by | Nov 4, 2005 | Development

Many developers will want to install SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition and Visual Studio 2005 on the same PC. (Note: This applies to any version of SQL 2005.) If you install SQL 2005 first and choose to install the BI Development Studio, you are actually installing a stripped-down version of Visual Studio 2005 called Visual Studio 2005 Premier Partner Edition.

You’ll find when you run the Visual Studio 2005 install that you are unable to change the install path. The help will tell you it’s due to dependencies on VS 2005 Premier Partner Edition, but doesn’t indicate how or where you got that. Now you know!

It’s also interesting to note that SQL 2005 includes no less than three variants of the Visual Studio 2005 IDE codebase. One is SQL Server Management Studio, another is the Database Engine Tuning Advisor and the third is the aforementioned VS 2005 Premier Partner Edition. At some point in the VS 2005 development cycle, the SQL 2005 group took a cut of the IDE code and made it their own. The most similarities are in Management Studio, but if you compare it with the VS 2005 IDE you’ll notice slightly different menu items and behaviors.

I assume that the development groups had a good reason (release date??) to diverge these huge IDE codebases, but it seems like they created a mess for themselves.

How to Crash the DB Tuning Advisor in SQL Server 2005 RTM

by | Oct 29, 2005 | General

SQL Server 2005 is arguably the most important release of SQL Server in Microsoft’s history. It has been through numerous public test releases in addition to extensive internal testing.

Yesterday I had a chance to install the RTM version and start poking around through the final client apps. Unfortunately, I found a repeatable way to crash one of them, the Database Engine Tuning Advisor, within the first hour!

Here are the steps, which assume you’re executing them locally on a SQL 2005 machine:

  1. Start the Database Engine Tuning Advisor
  2. Drop down the “Server name” listbox and choose “Browse for more…”
  3. Click the Network Servers tab
  4. Immediately click back to the Local Servers tab, double-click Database Engine, click your server name and the OK button
  5. Drop down the Authentication listbox
  6. Wait a few seconds … until the application crashes!

This was discovered and repeated on Windows Server 2003 SP1 and SQL 2005 RTM.

Just a guess, but I’m thinking they start a server discovery thread when you go into Network Servers, and if you don’t wait for it to finish and go back to another place in the UI, the discovery thread does something bad when it finishes. The joys of multithreading.

Post #1 — The First, or the Last?

by | Oct 28, 2005 | Personal

Thanks for visiting! My name is Thomas Abraham. I’m a long-time Microsoft technology expert in both development and systems engineering, covering everything from C/C++ to COM to C#/VB.NET to Exchange Server and ISA Server. For about as long as I’ve been in the technology business, I’ve been deeply involved in both sides of the house. I can talk C++ one minute and firewall installation the next.

I suppose some background is in order:

After leaving behind years of BASIC in the Apple II world, I made the jump to PCs in 1990 and picked up the C language in MS-DOS. That led to C++ in MS-DOS and a few years later to Visual C++ for Windows. Over the following years I worked with MFC, ATL, COM, COM+/MTS and more in all kinds of cool, high-performance GUI and service apps. During the same time period, I spent countless hours in systems engineering for my employers’ IT departments, implementing and maintaining everything from Raptor firewalls to Exchange installations.

In January 2002, the development side of my world changed as I switched to .NET 1.0 working with Microsoft Business Solutions. Soon after, in June 2002, I co-wrote the book “VB.NET Solutions Toolkit”, published by Wrox Press. I still often miss C++, but 95% of my development work since 2002 has been in .NET, both C# and VB.NET.

I’ve resisted the blog craze for a long time, but I just need an outlet for all of my “Did you know/remember XYZ?” thoughts. There is SO much to know as a Microsoft developer these days, that no one can keep even 20% of it in memory at once. I think it’s helpful to have a place to go not only for new knowledge, but also for reminders of things that you might have forgotten.

We’ll see where this goes. Thanks for reading.

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