Jack @ ASP.NET

Crash Symptom

If you are encountering frequent VS 2010 crashes when you are typing in the editor while Intellisense is popping up and/or being dismissed then you are running into this issue.

Why does the crash happen?

The most common cause of the crash happening is that you are running a machine that:

• Is a Tablet PC (even if you aren’t using the pen)
• Has multi-touch screen drivers enabled
• Has an external input device like a pen or Wacom tablet
• Has a screen-reader enabled

It turns out that a late fix right before the RC shipped modified a UI input code path that unfortunately exposed this bug.

Patch Now Available

Please apply it if you are encountering any crashes with the VS 2010 RC, or if you have a tablet, multi-touch, screen-reader or external devices attached (including Wacom tablets, phones/ipods, and others that connect via USB).

Download: http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/Downloads/DownloadDetails.aspx?DownloadID=26662

The Currently installed programs list in the Add or Remove Programs tool lists all of the Windows-compatible programs that have an uninstall program or feature. Occasionally, a program may not be removed completely, and the registry key that is used to display the program in the Currently installed programs list remains. In this situation, you may need to manually remove the program from the Currently installed programs list in Add or Remove Programs. To do this, follow these steps.

1. Click Start, and then click Run.
2. In the Open box, type regedt32, and then click OK.
3. In Registry Editor, locate the following registry key:

   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall

4. In the left pane, click the Uninstall registry key, and then click Export on the File menu.
5. In the Export Registry File dialog box that appears, click Desktop in the Save in list, type uninstall in the File name box, and then click Save.
6. Each key listed under Uninstall in the left pane of Registry Editor represents a program that is displayed in the Currently installed programs list of the Add or Remove Programs tool. To determine which program that each key represents, click the key, and then view the following values in the details pane on the right:

   DisplayName: The value data for the DisplayName key is the name that is listed in Add or Remove Programs.
   -and-
   UninstallString: The value data for the UninstallString key is the program that is used to uninstall the program.

7. After you identify the registry key that represents the program that you removed but which is still displayed in the Currently installed programs list of Add or Remove Programs, right-click the key in the left pane of the Registry Editor window, and then click Delete.
   Click Yes in response to the "Are you sure you want to delete this key and all of its subkeys?" message.
8. On the File menu, click Exit to quit Registry Editor.
9. Click Start, click Control Panel, and then click Add or Remove Programs.
   In the Currently installed programs list, verify that the program whose registry key you deleted is no longer listed.
10. Do one of the following:
    • If the program list is not correct in Add or Remove Programs, double-click the Uninstall.reg file that you saved to your desktop in step 5 to restore the original list of programs in the registry.
      -or-
    • If the program list is correct in Add or Remove Programs, right-click the Uninstall.reg file on your desktop, and then click Delete.

There are feature in IE8 (some of which are in older Internet Explorers as well) that have been around but never got the attention it deserved. I am going to go threw some of the futures that you may not know about below.

ctrl+Q: See a thumb nail view of all your Tabs simply by hitting control Q on your keyboard (Ctrl+Q). Seeing how most people are visual this will allow you to work quicker and more efficient.

Click on the tab you want or press Control Q again to go back to the tab you were on.

Close the tabs by clicking on the “X” in the upper right hand corner.

Right click to see what other options you can do with the tab.

Full screen: IE8 comes with only a favorites bar and an area for the tabs, however some people like to install different tool bars that may clutter the top of there browser. Hit the “F11” key on your keyboard to toggle the page in and out of full screen.

Move the mouse to the top of the screen to see the rest of the browser the scroll bar is till on the right.

Alt+Tab will move you through windows while Ctrl+Tab will move you through tabs.
Ctrl+W will close your tab while
Ctrl+T will open a new tab.
And of course you can use the above Ctrl+Q to see all your tabs.

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Improved Zoom: With enhanced resolution and readability, Zoom allows for automatic scaling of a page’s content while maintaining the site’s intended layout. You can read very large or very small pages more clearly without having to scroll back and forth.

Press Ctrl+Mouse Role (if your mouse has this ability) to zoom in or out.

If your mouse does not do this Press Ctrl++ and Ctrl+-. (Control and Plus or control and Minus) With this feature and the last who will ever needs glasses anymore.

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Tab Grouping: Tab Grouping makes it easier to stay organized while browsing multiple webpages. Tabs that are opened from other tabs now have the same visual representation, and you can save time by closing a set of related tabs as a group by simply right-clicking. You also can right-click on a tab to close tab groups, ungroup a single tab, clone a tab, re-open a previously closed tab, or even open a new tab all together.

Home Tabs: In the morning when you open up your browser instead of opening up one tab with one Web site, open up as many as you want.

Go to the Tools->Internet Options and in the “Home Page” section type in the URL of each site you want to open in a separate tab on a separate line.

Suggeste d Sites: If you love that site, try this one. That’s the idea behind Internet Explorer 8’s new Suggested Sites feature. At your request, Internet Explorer 8 can use your browsing history to suggest other sites you may like or find useful. It’s another way that Internet Explorer 8 helps you utilize the web to its full potential.

This is a simple WebSlice. Simply click to find out what other things may interest you you.

Smart Address Bar: Internet Explorer 8 helps you find where you want to go as you type the address of your desired website.

By using Windows Search for faster performance and a richer return of information, the Smart Address Bar offers useful suggestions from your browsing history, favorites, and feeds.

Type single words into the Smart Address Bar, and they will be matched to simple domain names, making web surfing fast and efficient.

In Private Browsing: Stop worrying about your information being stored on a Public computer. With industry-leading security features like InPrivate, you can browse and shop confidently using Internet Explorer 8, wherever you go on the web, knowing you have control over the protection of your personal information. Safety, trust, and reliability has always been IE’s number one concern.

Domain Highlighting: When you visit a site, its domain is highlighted in the Address Bar. This helps alert you to websites that are imposters of trusted sites, This will reduce the chance of compromising your personal information.

Take a look next time and make sure the site you want is the site you are on.

.Cross Site Scripting Filter: Check out the command bar (picture) for all the different safety  controls you have command over. Stay safer online and help protect yourself from malicious software running on compromised websites with the Cross Site Scripting Filter.

Compatibility View: Are some sites that you are going to looking weird, this is because the site you are visiting has not been updated in a while. Now you can easily display websites that were designed for older browsers. Simply press the Compatibility View button if you see display problems on a website like misaligned text, images, or text boxes

The Terminal Services Manager tool, Tsadmin.exe, is the main administration tool used to manage existing Terminal Services sessions, users, and processes which are connected to, or running on the Terminal Services server. The Terminal Services Manager tool can be used to manage a single Terminal Services server, or multiple Terminal Services servers. The administrative tasks that can be performed using the Terminal Services Manager tool are listed below:

• View information on existing Terminal Services servers, users, and any connected or running sessions and processes.
• Connect to sessions, and disconnect from sessions.
• Terminate existing sessions and processes
• Log off users from sessions.
• Send messages to users and sessions.
• Monitor users, sessions, and processes

The Actions menu on the Terminal Services Manager window contains various options which enable you to perform different tasks or actions for users, sessions and processes. The Actions menu options, and the permissions required to perform these actions are listed below:

• Connect: The Connect option can be used only from a session, and it enables a user to connect from a session to a different session. The required permissions is Full Control, or User Access
• Disconnect: This Action menu option disconnects the user from the existing session. The session is however saved, and applications still continue to run. The required permission is Full Control.
• Send Message: The Send Message option enables a user to transmit a message to a single session, or to all sessions. The required permission is Full Control, or User Access.
• Remote Control: This option enables a user to utilize the existing session to examine or control the session of another user. The required permission is Full Control.
• Reset: This option is used to immediately end a session. All unsaved user data is lost. The required permission is Full Control.
• Status: This option can be used to display information on a particular session. The required permission is Full Control, or User Access
• Log Off: The Logoff option can be used to log off a user from a session. The required permission is Full Control.
• End Process: This option can be used to end a process in a session. The required permission is Full Control.

The bad news is that only 52.7% of the users has .NET Framework 3.5 installed on their PCs, but as you can see from the table they become more and more very fast:

	Mar-08	Jun-09	Aug-09	Oct-09
Dot Nothing	28.12%	25.60%	25.53%	21.40%
.NET 1.0	2.59%	0.60%	0.40%	0.30%
.NET 1.1	23.22%	13.00%	8.41%	7.70%
.NET 2.0	27.41%	23.20%	23.02%	11.60%
.NET 3.0	17.67%	14.40%	10.01%	6.30%
.NET 3.5	0.99%	21.82%	32.63%	52.70%

Advance Notification for the October 2009 Security Bulletin Release

For October we are releasing 13 bulletins (eight critical and five important), addressing 34 vulnerabilities, affecting Windows, Internet Explorer, Office, Silverlight, Forefront, Developer Tools, and SQL Server. Most of these updates require a restart so please factor that into your deployment planning.

Among the updates this month, we are closing out two current security advisories:

· Vulnerabilities in SMB Could Allow Remote Code Execution (975497)

· Vulnerabilities in the FTP Service in Internet Information Services (975191)

Usually we do not go into this level of detail in the advance notification but we felt that it is important guidance so customers can plan accordingly and deploy these updates as soon as possible.

The target to release the October security updates is next Tuesday Oct. 13 at 10:00 a.m. PDT (UTC -8). Check back here at that time for a more detailed overview of the updates (including an overview video), our risk and impact summary and our deployment prioritization guide. More information about the upcoming security updates can be found here in the ANS.