Category: How-to

Fix for IE crash when opening docs in SharePoint

We use Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for sharing and collaborating betweenimage departments at work; it’s been working fine except when IE (both v6 and v7) would, most of the time, crash when opening a document, i.e., IE would just exits abnormally.

After some investigation, I found that the issue seems to happen when you have multiple versions of Office installed. At the moment, my machine still has some Office2k3 remnants, such as the Office11 folder under Program Files; however, I use Office2k7 full-time.

Anyway, here’s what you can do/try to resolve those crashes:

1. Go to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office12.

2. Rename OWSSUPP.DLL to OWSSUPP.DLL.bak.

3. Run Microsoft Office Diagnostics, under Start > Microsoft Office > Microsoft Office Tools.

Hope this helps.

Open command prompt in a specific folder

I had to find another way to open the command prompt in a specific, working folder, and the Windows Key + R, type cmd keystroke was no longer efficient. Thankfully, there’s a way around this – two ways, actually…so here they are:

Method #1 – Add a Registry Key

  1. Open regedit. (If you don’t know how to do this, I wouldn’t suggest you do this then.)
  2. Navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT > Folder > Shell.
  3. Create a new key and call it Open command prompt (type whatever you’d like as this is what will be shown as the “menu” option).
  4. Create a sub key and name it CMD Here.
  5. Set the command default value to cmd.exe /k cd %1.

Method #2 – Add via Windows Explorer

  1. Open Windows Explorer.
  2. Go to Tools > Folder Options.
  3. Navigate to the File Types tab.
  4. Select File Folder under the File Types.
  5. Go to Advanced, then click New.
  6. Fill out the fields as show below then hit OK.

After you’ve followed either method #1 or #2, you should get the option to right-click on a folder an open it in the command prompt.

Take it easy and get back to work! =0)

CLR has been unable to transition from COM context for 60 seconds

I was debugging an inherited multi-project WinForms application (from my co-worker and friend, Genaro Quismorio) today and came across this error twice (below), which was frustrating, annoying and very unproductive. This error occurred while stepping through a breakpoint [Debug.Break] in my WinForms code while looking for a bug.

One fix I found on Google was to go to Debug > Exceptions > Managed Debug Assistants (MDA), and then unchecking the ContextSwitchDeadlock option; I didn’t have this option under VS.NET 2005 Team Edition for Software Testers. Unfortunately, this setting is not global across projects, which means that I have to set it every time for each project.

Managed debugging assistants (MDAs) are debugging aids that work in conjunction with the common language runtime (CLR) to provide information on runtime state. The assistants generate informational messages about runtime events that you cannot otherwise trap.

A little more research around the Internet spectrum landed me on this article (on the MSDN website), which basically shows you how to globally turn off MDA. There are apparently two-and-a-half ways to do it: registry key, an environment variable, or application configuration settings.

Registry Key

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoft.NETFramework]
"MDA"="0"

Environment Variable

1. Add COMPLUS_MDA (this overrides the registry key).

  • 0 – Deactivates all MDAs.
  • 1 – Reads MDA settings from ApplicationName.mda.config.
  • managedDebugger – Explicitly activates all MDAs that are implicitly activated when a managed executable is started under a debugger.
  • unmanagedDebugger – Explicitly activates all MDAs that are implicitly activated when an unmanaged executable is started under a debugger.

If there are conflicting settings, the most recent settings override previous settings:

  • COMPLUS_MDA=0 disables all MDAs including those implicitly enabled under a debugger.
  • COMPLUS_MDA=gcUnmanagedToManaged enables gcUnmanagedToManaged in addition to any implicitly enabled under a debugger.
  • COMPLUS_MDA=0;gcUnmanagedToManaged enables gcUnmanagedToManaged but disables those MDAs that would otherwise be implicitly enabled under a debugger.

Application Configuration Setting

To enable the use of an application configuration file for configuring MDAs, either the MDA registry key or the COMPLUS_MDA environment variable must be set (this is why I said two-and-a-half ways). Simply create a .config file of format ApplicationName.mda.config; for example, notepad.exe.mda.config.

<mdaConfig>
  <assistants>
    <marshaling>
      <methodFilter>
        <match name="*"/>
      </methodFilter>
      <fieldFilter>
        <match name="*"/>
      </fieldFilter>
    </marshaling>
  </assistants>
</mdaConfig>

That’s it. You can read more about it here. Hope this helps you somewhat.

Submitting bugs through BugzScout

I was tasked to develop a proxy-like web interface wherein our company’s Marketing group didn’t have to go to Fogbugz directly.  To facilitate this, I wrote an ASP.NET Web Application that submits/POSTs to Fogbugz’s supplied ScoutSubmit.asp.

image

FogBugz is a complete project management system for software teams. Designed by Joel Spolsky of Joel on Software fame, FogBugz helps you make better software by tracking, prioritizing, and coordinating the thousands of small tasks a development team has to do. FogBugz is web  based, so everyone on the team always sees the whole picture. Feature requests, customer email, bugs, even high level design discussions are instantly searchable and trackable.

Just in case you need to develop one yourself, here’s the link [on Fogbugz’s website] on how to do it.

Import your OS X address book contacts into Gmail

Have you ever wondered how to do this, well…look no further as I’ll show you.  It’s simple really.  All you have to do is download AddressBook2CSV Exporter from Antonio Lore‘s website.

image

After installing it, simply do the export, and then import into Gmail, which basically needs a CSV file; however, be forewarned…if some fields are empty, it may not look pretty after the import.  It’s easily fixable though.

“Till the next.