Using Remote Desktop with Dual Monitors

Not sure how I've managed without this before, but was frustrated trying to use Visual Studio via RDP on a single monitor. Had a quick Google and discovered the /span switch for MSTSC. So now I can run "mstsc /v:machinename /span" and we have RDP across dual monitors!

Source: Using Remote Desktop with Dual Monitors

Visual Studio 2010 Productivity Power Tools

I'm one of those sad enough to enjoy the 'Tabify' feature in the Visual Studio 2010 Productivity Power Tools! Tidies up your code by changing spaces to tabs at the click of a button...

Get it here: http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/d0d33361-18e2-46c0-8ff2-4adea1e34fef

VS2010 Debugging BreakPoints, DataTips, Import/Export

Some great tips from ScottGu to improve debugging productivity in VS2010...

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2010/04/21/vs-2010-debugger-improvements-breakpoints-datatips-import-export.aspx

Create a Setup Project for a Windows Service

With a Windows Service created in VS:

1. On the File menu, point to Add Project, and then choose New Project.
2. In the Project Types pane, select the Setup and Deployment Projects folder.
3. In the Templates pane, select Setup Project.

Add the Windows Service exe to the setup project:

1. In Solution Explorer, right-click Setup, point to Add, then choose Project Output. The Add Project Output Group dialog box appears.
2. ServiceName is selected in the Project box.
3. From the list box, select Primary Output, and click OK.
4. A project item for the primary output of ServiceName is added to the setup project. Now add a custom action to install the ServiceName.exe file.

Add a custom action to the setup project:

1. In Solution Explorer, right-click the setup project, point to View, then choose Custom Actions. The Custom Actions editor appears.
2. In the Custom Actions editor, right-click the Custom Actions node and choose Add Custom Action. The Select Item in Project dialog box appears.
3. Double-click the application folder in the list box to open it, select primary output from ServiceName (Active), and click OK. The primary output is added to all four nodes of the custom actions: Install, Commit, Rollback, and Uninstall.
4. Build the setup project.

Visual Studio 2010 - A Few Nice Features

Having just returned from the Guathon 2010 in Glasgow I was eager to try out a few of the quick to learn new features in Visual Studio 2010 that were demonstrated. Here are some quick one's to try out:

• ALT + mouse selection - the new Box Selection, now with Multi-Line Editing
• IntelliSense now supports Pascal Case
• TAB, TAB - ASP.NET, HTML, JavaScript Code Snippet Support
• CTRL + , - “Navigate To…” searching in Visual Studio
• Right-click, View Call Hierarchy - Call Hierarchy Navigation
• Right-click, Generate Sequence Diagram - Generating sequence diagrams on the fly
• Architecture > Generate Dependency Graphs - Dependency Graphs and DGML
• Pinning Watched Variables -Visual Studio 2010 Debugging Tips

Picked up so many more new features to try in out in VS2010, ASP.NET 4, ASP.NET MVC2 and Silverlight 4 so there's more to come...

Windows Service Post-Build Events

sc stop ServiceName
%WinDir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.21006\InstallUtil.exe /u "$(TargetPath)"
%WinDir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.21006\InstallUtil.exe "$(TargetPath)"
sc start ServiceName

GAC Deploy Pre and Post Build Events

I keep forgetting these (or more that I don't want to remember them...) so thought I would put them here:

Pre-Build Event
"$(FrameworkSDKDir)bin\gacutil.exe" /u $(TargetFileName) /f

Post-Build Event
"$(FrameworkSDKDir)bin\gacutil.exe" /i $(TargetFileName) /f