Visual Studio – LockTar’s Blog

Best Visual Studio extensions and applications

05/12/201405/12/2014 Ralph Jansen Leave a comment

The list of tools beneath are tools that I use every day! Some are extensions for Team Foundation Server but also extensions for Visual Studio, awesome Nuget packages or general tools.
It are the best Visual Studio extension and applications that I could find.

Visual Studio Extensions

EnterpriseLibrary.Config
This is a handy tool for your Enterprise Library packages. With this tool you can edit your config with an interface.
GhostDoc
I use the free version of this but you also have a payed version of this. With this tool you can generate your summaries above your code. It will also generate documentation for parameters, properties, field, methods etc.
NuGet Package Manager
I think there is no explanation needed for this…
Target Framework Migrator
With this extension, you can change all (if you want) your projects to a specific version of the .NET Framework with just one click.
Team Foundation Server Power Tools
Extra handy things for getting some information out of your TFS server.
Web Essentials
Handy tools for developing web applications. This allows you to minify and bundle your Javascript code and gives you other things like intellisence for extra languages in Visual Studio.
Wix Toolset
There is no MSI installer anymore in Visual Studio 2012. You can still use Wix to create your MSI installers.
Recent workitems
Show a list of last 5 associated workitems in your pending changes window
Last workitem
Select your last associated workitem
AutoMerge
AutoMerge your changeset over branches in TFS.
Code Review Checkin policy
A checkin policy for checking you have requested a code review.
DevExpress CodeRush
Faster coding and shortcuts in Visual Studio
My History
Your last history items like workitems or changesets
Sandcastle
Help file generator for your code.

Applications

TFS Team Project Manager
Manage your TFS team projects.

NuGet packages

StyleCop
Create defaults for your team about documentation and code formats.
StyleCop Checkin Policy
My own checkin policy for validating your StyleCop rules.
Ninject
Very easy dependency container for fast building applications.
CuttingEdge.Conditions
Small syntax for creating validation of your objects.
NBuilder
Generate test data based on your own POCO class.
AutoMapper
Map your classes from type A to B with just own line of code.

How to fix the CA0053 error in Code Analysis in Visual Studio 2012

15/08/201306/11/2013 Ralph Jansen Leave a comment

I upgraded one big Team project with a lot of different solutions (to separate stuff) to Visual Studio 2012. The custom Code Analysis gave me an CA0053 error on the build server. So I searched for the problem and came to this great blog post: How to fix the CA0053 error in Code Analysis in Visual Studio 2012. This solved my problem. I removed all the tags CodeAnalysisRuleDirectories and CodeAnalysisRuleSetDirectories. This was enough. Now Visual Studio 2012 would get the latest Code Analysis dll’s.

When queued another build, I still got the same error. This was not in all solutions so it had something to do with the solution file or with some of the projects inside it. After removing the project one at the time (after each try the build succeeded) I did a reset of the solution file so that was the same. At the end, all projects where the same and I still got the error. I then searched for a difference between solutions files.

There was the solution, the version of the file format was different and the Visual Studio version was different.

I think that I know what the cause of the problem is. Because we have a lot of different solution files (with overlapping projects in it), all the upgrades to Visual Studio 2012 where already done. Because they where already done, no file change was done so the format file version wasn’t migrated to the Visual Studio 2012 version. The custom ruleset in the projects where searching for the Visual Studio 2012 dll’s but the solution was build in Visual Studio 2010 on the build server because of the different format version.

Hopefully this fix will help someone. Let me know!

Update 11/06/2013:

We upgraded our solution to VS2013 and the Custom Code Analysis didn’t work again. So I builded the custom rules in VS2013 and used that version of the DLL. Now the clients worked again. When I started a CI build, the build failed with the CA0053 error. It seems that the build server has (in my opinion) a bug that it uses the format version of your solution file -1 to determine the Visual Studio version. Visual Studio 2013 uses the same format version as VS2012 (version 12) so you will end up with VS2012 on the build server. But because we have builded the custom rules against VS2013, the buildserver wont recognize the rules. The solution is to add the /p:VisualStudioVersion=12.0 parameter by the “MSBuild Argurments” in your CI build definition.

Use Config Transforms when Debugging your web application

27/06/201316/05/2014 Ralph Jansen 6 Comments

Config Transforms are a great way to adjust your publish strategy. You just right click your web.config file and click “Add Config Transforms”. In that way you get the transform files of your configuration options.

In our company, we are working with a website that has multiple versions for different customers. So it is the same website only the config is changed. The config includes all kind of security settings. When we are developing we want to use the config of the specific “brand” of the website. How to accomplish this without?

SlowCheetah is a nice extension for visual studio that gives that option for WinForms projects but not (yet) for Web Applications. See the issue for this feature:
https://github.com/sayedihashimi/slow-cheetah/issues/39

For now I found this solution:

Create your transforms as you want.
Create a new config file with the name web.template.config
Copy everything from your web.config file to the new web.template.config
Create new config files for temp for your transforms. So if you have the transforms Debug and Release, you should create temp files for them. Call them web.dev.{Configuration}.config. So this would be web.dev.debug.config and web.dev.release.config. Place the config files in the root of your project just like your standard web.config.
Copy everything from your transform files to the temp files.
Add a target file to the root of your project location. Don’t do this in Visual Studio but just in Windows Explorer. Give it the following name: {Projectname}.wpp.targets
Past the code beneath in the targets file.
Delete your “old” web.config in Windows Explorer (not in Visual Studio)
Restart Visual Studio and open your project. The solution explorer says now that you don’t have a web.config but you see the config transforms as childs. Ignore the alert that the file is missing.
Rebuild your project and your done. The new web.config is generated on your drive. (if you hit refresh in the solution explorer, the alert is gone). Just change your Configuration at the top of Visual Studio and your config is changed.

Notes
Remove your web.config file from source control otherwise you will get check outs.

Screenshots

Contents of targets file

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Project ToolsVersion="4.0" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">

  <PropertyGroup>
    <PrepareForBuildDependsOn>
      $(PrepareForBuildDependsOn);
      UpdateWebConfigBeforeBuild;
    </PrepareForBuildDependsOn>
  </PropertyGroup>

  <!-- This target will run right before you run your app in Visual Studio -->
  <Target Name="UpdateWebConfigBeforeBuild">
    <Message Text="Configuration: $(Configuration): web.dev.$(Configuration).config"/>
    <TransformXml Source="web.template.config"
              Transform="web.dev.$(Configuration).config"
              Destination="web.config" />
  </Target>

  <!-- Exclude the config template files from the created package -->
  <Target Name="ExcludeCustomConfigTransformFiles" BeforeTargets="ExcludeFilesFromPackage">
    <ItemGroup>
      <ExcludeFromPackageFiles Include="web.template.config;web.dev.*.config"/>
    </ItemGroup>
    <Message Text="ExcludeFromPackageFiles: @(ExcludeFromPackageFiles)" Importance="high"/>
  </Target>
</Project>

Update
An optional thing that you can do is, grouping your config files beneath the template config just like that standard web.config and his transforms. The dev configs are dependent upon the template so let’s place them there. To do this is easy. Unload your project and find your dev configs. You will see something like this:

<Content Include="web.dev.{your configuration}.config" />

Change this in:

<Content Include="web.dev.{your configuration}.config">
  <DependentUpon>web.template.config</DependentUpon>
</Content>

Repeat this for all your dev transforms. After that, save the file and reload your project.
You can also use the Visual Studio extension VSCommands. right click the files that you want to group, hit group items and select your base config file.

TFS connection Value cannot be null

25/02/201314/05/2013 Ralph Jansen Leave a comment

In our company, we are upgrading from TFS 2010 to TFS 2012. So to test everything we have a clone of the TFS server.

To test the clone I had to switch my connection to the different servers. After hitting the “Connect” button I got a “Value cannot be null.” exception. It said that also that: “Parameter name: baseUri” was the problem. After contacting a colleague of me, he said to delete the cache of the TFS server on my computer. After doing that, the connection worked as it suppose to work.

You can find the cache in the following folder: C:Users<yourusername>Local SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftTeam Foundation2.0Cache

Minification and Bundling in MVC 4 RC

06/06/201206/06/2012 Ralph Jansen Leave a comment

Asp .NET MVC 4 Release Candidate is out. One of the features that is included is called the minification and bundling feature. This was already there in the beta but in the release candidate version it has changed.

Why should we use it

The reason why we should use the bundling and minification feature is performance. The features increases your loading performance of your website. Every time you reference a JavaScript (like jQuery or your own), or CSS file in your page, the browser makes a call to the server. This is done for each separate reference. Each referenced file has included all the comments and spacing in your file. This makes the file larger then when we should delete those spaced. The bundling and minification feature does this for us.

How does it work

In your Global.asax the CSS and JavaScript files are Bundled with BundleConfig.RegisterBundles(BundleTable.Bundles); line.

Reference the files in your page.

When you run the application and use Fiddler to view the calls to your server, you still see all the files called separately.

This is because the Bundling and Minification feature by default only work when your not in debug mode. This handy because then you could debug with all the whitespaces in your files and have the performance in the production environment.

See the difference in your production environment:

Force Bundling and Minification

You can use the BundleTable.EnableOptmizations override but the best way for a little test is to remove the debug=”true” attribute in your web.config.

Browser caching

When the feature is active, the browser will cache the files. When you add or change some JavaScript or CSS code, the files are generated again and the version number in the references are updated. In that way, the browser knows that there is a new version and your website wont brake.

MissingManifestResourceException solution

08/02/201208/02/2012 Ralph Jansen Leave a comment

Every time I edited a C# file in my solution, I had an error called “Could not find any resources appropriate for the specified culture or the neutral culture. Make sure "UI.Web.Mvc.Properties.Resources.resources" was correctly embedded or linked into assembly "UI.Web.Mvc" at compile time, or that all the satellite assemblies required are loadable and fully signed.”. The error said that the Resource file wasn’t setup correctly. The strange thing about it that my colleagues didn’t got the error and when I cleaned up the web application mvc project and builded the project again, the site worked correctly. Cleaning and building after each edit is a huge consuming of you time so I needed a fix for this.

After searching for some time I found the difference between my laptop and the laptops of my colleagues. They had the Dutch version of Windows 7 Enterprise and I had the English version. The project is by default Dutch and we are still developing so in the solution we only had the Dutch version of the resource file. When I ran my project, the culture is set to the host and after that, it looks to the culture of the browser. My host is English so I couldn’t find any English resource. Why It worked correctly after a clean, I don’t know. Can you tell me?

I fixed the error by adding the English version of the resource file. Just copied the Dutch version and added “en” to the name. Simple fix, big irritations and a hope useless time… It’s now time to hurry up and finish the baby :-)

Enable Code Analysis for all projects in the solution

30/05/201130/05/2011 Ralph Jansen Leave a comment

I needed a trick to enable code analysis for all my projects. I know you can set the rules in the “Analyze/Configure Code Analysis for Solution” window but didn’t find a way to enable or disable the CA for all the projects in one action. So I created a macro to do this. The macro could also change your target framework if you like. That is nice when you upgrading your project from framework 3.5 to 4.

Imports System
Imports EnvDTE
Imports EnvDTE80
Imports EnvDTE90
Imports System.Diagnostics

Public Module ProjectUtilities

    Private Class ProjectGuids
        Public Const vsWindowsCSharp As String = "{FAE04EC0-301F-11D3-BF4B-00C04F79EFBC}"
        Public Const vsWindowsVBNET As String = "{F184B08F-C81C-45F6-A57F-5ABD9991F28F}"
        Public Const vsWindowsVisualCPP As String = "{8BC9CEB8-8B4A-11D0-8D11-00A0C91BC942}"
        Public Const vsWebApplication As String = "{349C5851-65DF-11DA-9384-00065B846F21}"
        Public Const vsWebSite As String = "{E24C65DC-7377-472B-9ABA-BC803B73C61A}"
        Public Const vsDistributedSystem As String = "{F135691A-BF7E-435D-8960-F99683D2D49C}"
        Public Const vsWCF As String = "{3D9AD99F-2412-4246-B90B-4EAA41C64699}"
        Public Const vsWPF As String = "{60DC8134-EBA5-43B8-BCC9-BB4BC16C2548}"
        Public Const vsVisualDatabaseTools As String = "{C252FEB5-A946-4202-B1D4-9916A0590387}"
        Public Const vsDatabase As String = "{A9ACE9BB-CECE-4E62-9AA4-C7E7C5BD2124}"
        Public Const vsDatabaseOther As String = "{4F174C21-8C12-11D0-8340-0000F80270F8}"
        Public Const vsTest As String = "{3AC096D0-A1C2-E12C-1390-A8335801FDAB}"
        Public Const vsLegacy2003SmartDeviceCSharp As String = "{20D4826A-C6FA-45DB-90F4-C717570B9F32}"
        Public Const vsLegacy2003SmartDeviceVBNET As String = "{CB4CE8C6-1BDB-4DC7-A4D3-65A1999772F8}"
        Public Const vsSmartDeviceCSharp As String = "{4D628B5B-2FBC-4AA6-8C16-197242AEB884}"
        Public Const vsSmartDeviceVBNET As String = "{68B1623D-7FB9-47D8-8664-7ECEA3297D4F}"
        Public Const vsWorkflowCSharp As String = "{14822709-B5A1-4724-98CA-57A101D1B079}"
        Public Const vsWorkflowVBNET As String = "{D59BE175-2ED0-4C54-BE3D-CDAA9F3214C8}"
        Public Const vsDeploymentMergeModule As String = "{06A35CCD-C46D-44D5-987B-CF40FF872267}"
        Public Const vsDeploymentCab As String = "{3EA9E505-35AC-4774-B492-AD1749C4943A}"
        Public Const vsDeploymentSetup As String = "{978C614F-708E-4E1A-B201-565925725DBA}"
        Public Const vsDeploymentSmartDeviceCab As String = "{AB322303-2255-48EF-A496-5904EB18DA55}"
        Public Const vsVSTA As String = "{A860303F-1F3F-4691-B57E-529FC101A107}"
        Public Const vsVSTO As String = "{BAA0C2D2-18E2-41B9-852F-F413020CAA33}"
        Public Const vsSharePointWorkflow As String = "{F8810EC1-6754-47FC-A15F-DFABD2E3FA90}"
    End Class

    ” Defines the valid target framework values.
    Enum TargetFramework
        Fx40 = 262144
        Fx35 = 196613
        Fx30 = 196608
        Fx20 = 131072
    End Enum

    ” Change the target framework for all projects in the current solution.
    Sub ChangeTargetFrameworkForAllProjects()
        Dim project As EnvDTE.Project
        Dim clientProfile As Boolean = False

        Write("——— CHANGING TARGET .NET FRAMEWORK VERSION ————-")
        Try
            If Not DTE.Solution.IsOpen Then
                Write("There is no solution open.")
            Else
                Dim targetFrameworkInput As String = InputBox("Enter the target framework version (Fx40, Fx35, Fx30, Fx20):", "Target Framework", "Fx40")
                Dim targetFramework As TargetFramework = [Enum].Parse(GetType(TargetFramework), targetFrameworkInput)

                If targetFramework = ProjectUtilities.TargetFramework.Fx35 Or targetFramework = ProjectUtilities.TargetFramework.Fx40 Then
                    Dim result As MsgBoxResult = MsgBox("The .NET Framework version chosen supports a Client Profile. Would you like to use that profile?", MsgBoxStyle.Question Or MsgBoxStyle.YesNo, "Target Framework Profile")
                    If result = MsgBoxResult.Yes Then
                        clientProfile = True
                    End If
                End If

                For Each project In DTE.Solution.Projects
                    If project.Kind <> Constants.vsProjectKindSolutionItems And project.Kind <> Constants.vsProjectKindMisc Then
                        ChangeTargetFramework(project, targetFramework, clientProfile)
                    Else
                        For Each projectItem In project.ProjectItems
                            If Not (projectItem.SubProject Is Nothing) Then
                                ChangeTargetFramework(projectItem.SubProject, targetFramework, clientProfile)
                            End If
                        Next

                    End If
                Next
            End If
        Catch ex As System.Exception
            Write(ex.Message)
        End Try
    End Sub

    ” Change the target framework for a project.
    Function ChangeTargetFramework(ByVal project As EnvDTE.Project, ByVal targetFramework As TargetFramework, ByVal clientProfile As Boolean) As Boolean
        Dim changed As Boolean = True

        If project.Kind = Constants.vsProjectKindSolutionItems Or project.Kind = Constants.vsProjectKindMisc Then
            For Each projectItem In project.ProjectItems
                If Not (projectItem.SubProject Is Nothing) Then
                    ChangeTargetFramework(projectItem.SubProject, targetFramework, clientProfile)
                End If
            Next
        Else
            Try
                If IsLegalProjectType(project) Then
                    SetTargetFramework(project, targetFramework, clientProfile)
                Else
                    Write("Skipping project: " + project.Name + " (" + project.Kind + ")")
                End If
            Catch ex As Exception
                Write(ex.Message)
                changed = False
            End Try
        End If

Return changed
End Function

    ” Determines if the project is a project that actually supports changing the target framework.
    Function IsLegalProjectType(ByVal proejct As EnvDTE.Project) As Boolean
        Dim legalProjectType As Boolean = True

        Select Case proejct.Kind
            Case ProjectGuids.vsDatabase
                legalProjectType = False
            Case ProjectGuids.vsDatabaseOther
                legalProjectType = False
            Case ProjectGuids.vsDeploymentCab
                legalProjectType = False
            Case ProjectGuids.vsDeploymentMergeModule
                legalProjectType = False
            Case ProjectGuids.vsDeploymentSetup
                legalProjectType = False
            Case ProjectGuids.vsDeploymentSmartDeviceCab
                legalProjectType = False
            Case ProjectGuids.vsDistributedSystem
                legalProjectType = False
            Case ProjectGuids.vsLegacy2003SmartDeviceCSharp
                legalProjectType = False
            Case ProjectGuids.vsLegacy2003SmartDeviceVBNET
                legalProjectType = False
            Case ProjectGuids.vsSharePointWorkflow
                legalProjectType = False
            Case ProjectGuids.vsSmartDeviceCSharp
                legalProjectType = True
            Case ProjectGuids.vsSmartDeviceVBNET
                legalProjectType = True
            Case ProjectGuids.vsTest
                legalProjectType = False
            Case ProjectGuids.vsVisualDatabaseTools
                legalProjectType = False
            Case ProjectGuids.vsVSTA
                legalProjectType = True
            Case ProjectGuids.vsVSTO
                legalProjectType = True
            Case ProjectGuids.vsWCF
                legalProjectType = True
            Case ProjectGuids.vsWebApplication
                legalProjectType = True
            Case ProjectGuids.vsWebSite
                legalProjectType = True
            Case ProjectGuids.vsWindowsCSharp
                legalProjectType = True
            Case ProjectGuids.vsWindowsVBNET
                legalProjectType = True
            Case ProjectGuids.vsWindowsVisualCPP
                legalProjectType = True
            Case ProjectGuids.vsWorkflowCSharp
                legalProjectType = False
            Case ProjectGuids.vsWorkflowVBNET
                legalProjectType = False
            Case ProjectGuids.vsWPF
                legalProjectType = True
            Case Else
                legalProjectType = False
        End Select
        Return legalProjectType
    End Function

    ” Sets the target framework for the project to the specified framework.
    Sub SetTargetFramework(ByVal project As EnvDTE.Project, ByVal targetFramework As TargetFramework, ByVal clientProfile As Boolean)
        Dim currentTargetFramework As TargetFramework = CType(project.Properties.Item("TargetFramework").Value, TargetFramework)
        Dim targetMoniker As String = GetTargetFrameworkMoniker(targetFramework, clientProfile)
        Dim currentMoniker As String = project.Properties.Item("TargetFrameworkMoniker").Value

        If currentMoniker <> targetMoniker Then
            Write("Changing project: " + project.Name + " from " + currentMoniker + " to " + targetMoniker + ".")
            project.Properties.Item("TargetFrameworkMoniker").Value = targetMoniker
            project.Properties.Item("TargetFramework").Value = targetFramework
        Else
            Write("Skipping project: " + project.Name + ", already at the correct target framework.")
        End If
    End Sub

    Function GetTargetFrameworkMoniker(ByVal targetFramework As TargetFramework, ByVal clientProfile As Boolean) As String
        Dim moniker As String = ".NETFramework,Version=v"
        Select Case targetFramework
            Case ProjectUtilities.TargetFramework.Fx20
                moniker += "2.0"

Case ProjectUtilities.TargetFramework.Fx30
moniker += "3.0"

Case ProjectUtilities.TargetFramework.Fx35
moniker += "3.5"

Case ProjectUtilities.TargetFramework.Fx40
moniker += "4.0"

End Select

        If clientProfile Then
            moniker += ",Profile=Client"
        End If

Return moniker
End Function

    ” Writes a message to the output window
    Sub Write(ByVal s As String)
        Dim out As OutputWindowPane = GetOutputWindowPane("Change Target Framework", True)
        out.OutputString(s)
        out.OutputString(vbCrLf)
    End Sub

    ” Gets an instance of the output window
    Function GetOutputWindowPane(ByVal Name As String, Optional ByVal show As Boolean = True) As OutputWindowPane
        Dim win As Window = DTE.Windows.Item(EnvDTE.Constants.vsWindowKindOutput)
        If show Then win.Visible = True
        Dim ow As OutputWindow = win.Object
        Dim owpane As OutputWindowPane
        Try
            owpane = ow.OutputWindowPanes.Item(Name)
        Catch e As System.Exception
            owpane = ow.OutputWindowPanes.Add(Name)
        End Try
        owpane.Activate()
        Return owpane
    End Function

    ” Change the code analysis value for a project.
    Function ChangeCodeAnalysis(ByVal project As EnvDTE.Project, ByVal isCodeAnalysisEnabled As Boolean) As Boolean
        Dim changed As Boolean = True

        If project.Kind = Constants.vsProjectKindSolutionItems Or project.Kind = Constants.vsProjectKindMisc Then
            For Each projectItem In project.ProjectItems
                If Not (projectItem.SubProject Is Nothing) Then
                    ChangeCodeAnalysis(projectItem.SubProject, isCodeAnalysisEnabled)
                End If
            Next
        Else
            Try
                If IsLegalProjectType(project) Then
                    SetCodeAnalysis(project, isCodeAnalysisEnabled)
                Else
                    Write("Skipping project: " + project.Name + " (" + project.Kind + ")")
                End If
            Catch ex As Exception
                Write(ex.Message)
                changed = False
            End Try
        End If

Return changed
End Function

    ” Sets the code analysis for the project to the specified value.
    Sub SetCodeAnalysis(ByVal project As EnvDTE.Project, ByVal isCodeAnalysisEnabled As Boolean)
        Dim currentCAValue As String = project.ConfigurationManager.ActiveConfiguration.Properties.Item("RunCodeAnalysis").Value

        Dim targetCAValue As String
        If isCodeAnalysisEnabled Then
            targetCAValue = "True"
        Else
            targetCAValue = "False"
        End If

        If currentCAValue <> targetCAValue Then
            Write("Changing project: " + project.Name + " from " + currentCAValue + " to " + targetCAValue + ".")
            project.ConfigurationManager.ActiveConfiguration.Properties.Item("RunCodeAnalysis").Value = isCodeAnalysisEnabled
        Else
            Write("Skipping project: " + project.Name + ", already at the correct Code Analysis value.")
        End If
    End Sub

    Sub EnableOrDisableCodeAnalysisOnAllProjects()
        Dim project As EnvDTE.Project
        Dim clientProfile As Boolean = False

        Write("——— Enable or Disable Code Analysis on all projects ————-")
        Try
            If Not DTE.Solution.IsOpen Then
                Write("There is no solution open.")
            Else
                Dim codeAnalysisInput As String = InputBox("Enter 0 for disabling or 1 for enabling code analysis:", "Enabled", "0")

                Dim isCodeAnalysisEnabled As Boolean
                If codeAnalysisInput = 0 Then
                    isCodeAnalysisEnabled = False
                ElseIf codeAnalysisInput = 1 Then
                    isCodeAnalysisEnabled = True
                Else
                    Throw New InvalidOperationException("Wrong input. Only 0 or 1 is allowed")
                End If

                For Each project In DTE.Solution.Projects
                    If project.Kind <> Constants.vsProjectKindSolutionItems And project.Kind <> Constants.vsProjectKindMisc Then
                        ChangeCodeAnalysis(project, isCodeAnalysisEnabled)
                    Else
                        For Each projectItem In project.ProjectItems
                            If Not (projectItem.SubProject Is Nothing) Then
                                ChangeCodeAnalysis(projectItem.SubProject, isCodeAnalysisEnabled)
                            End If
                        Next

                    End If
                Next
            End If
        Catch ex As System.Exception
            Write(ex.Message)
        End Try
    End Sub
End Module

Change Target Framework version for all the projects in the solution

24/03/201115/05/2013 Ralph Jansen Leave a comment

Today I migrated an old project from Visual Studio 2008 to Visual Studio 2010 and with that, I changed the Framework to version 4.0. This is currently the newest .NET Framework. The solution contains a lot of different projects so the challenge was to convert all the target frameworks to the 4.0 version.

There are a couple ways to this:

Change every project by hand. (Open the properties of every project and select the target framework that you want);
Edit the project files by hand in notepad;
Use the macro of Scott Dorman.

The macro of Scott can be found here. Just place the macro on the right place on your pc and execute it. After you executed the macro a popup is shown with the question to which target framework you want to migrate. Choose your framework and press OK.

That’s it!!! Safes a lot of time!!

Update:
You can execute a Macro in the Tools->Macros->Macros Explorer window.

Final release Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1

14/03/201115/05/2013 Ralph Jansen Leave a comment

The final release of Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 (SP1) is available to download. You can find the download here.

Default browser VS2010 Add-in

03/01/201115/05/2013 Ralph Jansen Leave a comment

Last weekend I was working on a MVC 2 application. When I started the application my default browser (Google Chrome) came up. I actually wanted to change my browser for this application to Internet Explorer because the connectivity between IE and Visual Studio 2010 is much better than with Chrome.

The problem is that you can’t choose for the option “Browse With” in a MVC Application. This is because the controller is deciding which view should start. To fix this problem, I found an add-in for VS2010 that you can switch your default browser on the fly from your toolbar. In that way, you can switch easier between your installed browsers. See the screenshot below.

You can download the add-in by following the link below.
http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/bb424812-f742-41ef-974a-cdac607df921

Update:
If you get a popup on the startup of your Visual Studio Instance with the text: “The bits have expired, please download an updated version from http://www.wovs.com”, you have to download the new version. To do this, follow the steps on this website: http://blog.wovs.com/2010/10/how-to-update-currently-expired.html
Search in the online extension manager for “Default browser switcher”.