Cannot edit sourcefiles in Visual Studio - Solution

I just upgraded to Visual Studio 2015 Enterprise from Visual Studio 2013 on my Windows 8.1 Surface Pro 3 machine. When trying to fix that VS2015 should always open up as administrator by using the "troubleshoot compatibility" context option on devenv.exe and then raise permissions I suddenly found myself with the compiler error option when starting ANY of my IIS applications. 

I had to both uninstall VS2015 and then restore a previous system restore point to be able to get my applications to work again but I was struck with another odd thing. I couldn´t edit my source code. The solution was to clear the Resharper cache and restart Visual Studio. 

Jquery: Prevent doubleclicks on button

A simple way in Jquery to prevent a button to be clicked more than once but still allow it to proceed to server-side handling is to add the following Jquery function:

  var clicked = false;
  // Disable saveÅterfört button when clicked once  
     $("#ctl00_Main_btnSaveAterfort").click(function () {
       if (clicked === false) {
         clicked = true;
         $('#ctl00_Main_btnSaveAterfort').trigger('click');
         $(this).attr('disabled', true);
       }
     });

How to recover from a single user mode database

If the SQL Server database you are working with are set to single user mode, it accepts only one active connection. You might not be able to access the database at all.


1. First you must ensure that there are no other active connections to the database. You could find out by running this SQL:

select d.name, d.dbid, spid, login_time, nt_domain, nt_username, loginame

  from sysprocesses p inner join sysdatabases d on p.dbid = d.dbid

 where d.name = 'dbname'

go

2. Then use the spid and kill that connection with

kill <spid>

3. Lastly, you could set the database to multiuser with this command:

ALTER DATABASE <database name>
SET MULTI_USER;

Windows 8.1 - Error Connecting to VPN

Error 850: The Extensible Authentication Protocol type required for authentication

When replacing my old work computer to the Surface Pro 3 I had to setup my VPN connections from scratch again. After following my usual instructions I still couldn´t connect but received the above error message.

The solution turned out to be to check the "Microsoft CHAP Version 2..." in the properties of the VPN connection as detailed in this more detailed post.

Windows uptime and last boot date

In my work I sometimes encounter problems that are related to servers having been rebooted without my knowledge. To find out when a windows machine was last rebooted, you have several options to choose from. The quickest way to find out how long the server has been running since last reboot is to go to the task manager. 

On a Windows 2008 machine you find the uptime since last reboot in the performance tab:

In Windows 8 it looks a little bit different but could be found at the same place:

This works well if it happened recently but say you would like to know the exact date when the windows machine was rebooted, you could take help from Systeminfo:

systeminfo | find /i "Boot Time"

Example:

Make sure a windows service is really removed

Sometimes when I uninstall a service with Topshelf everything reports back as normal but the service could still be seen in the services pane.

An alternative way to force a removal of a service is to use:

I was then given the message:

 "The specified service has been marked for deletion" with FAILED 1072

The service was still visible in the services pane even though I refreshed it.

The problem was that I had task manager (with the process view) running. After having closed task manager I re-run the above code and then got the message "The specified service does not exists as an installed service" with failed 1060. After a refresh it was not removed from the services pane. 

Case closed!

Windows service: The service cannot accept control messages at this time

So I had just updated a windows service with some errorhandling so that a mail will be sent if the service crashed or was stopped or shutdown. When I tried to manually stop the service both from the services gui or from a command prompt I was greeted with:

Error: 1061 The service cannot accept control messages at this time 

No matter what I did I always got the same message. I waited and I don´t remember if I even rebooted the computer but the only way in which I could take control of the service again was to manually choose end task for the process in windows task manager.

Enable function keys as default in Surface Pro 3

While setting up my development environement with Visual Studio 2013 in my Surface Pro 3 I got annoyed that in order to use the function keys like F9 for setting breakpoints etc, I had to press the fn + F9. One workaround to that is to press

fn + capslock

that enables the function keys to work as expected by default. Just press fn + capslock to restore it back to what it was.

VS 2013 - ASP.NET installation issues

When I replaced my laptop to a Surface Pro 3 I had to manually set up my development environment for all customers I work for. This is a one time installation that I am only doing every other year and so I have forgot all traps that one could fall into when doing a first time installation. 

Here is my "unexpected" problems that occurred and how I solved them

• One of the obvious problems was that I had trouble compiling my projects in Visual Studio 2013. The solution to this was to make a one time configuration so that Visual Studio is always run as administrator. 

In Windows 8, you have to right-click devenv.exe and select "Troubleshoot compatibility".

1. select "Troubleshoot program"
2. check "The program requires additional permissions"
3. click "Next", click "Test the program..."
4. wait for the program to launch
5. click "Next"
6. select "Yes, save these settings for this program"
7. click "Close"

• When trying to run my web application I got this error....

"configuring web for asp.net 4.0 failed. 

you must manually configure...."

This was solved by running the command prompt as administrator and executing the following:

Restarting visual studio and compiling solved the problem

• The third problem occurred with the following problem shown for my website:

The solution for this was to ensure that ASP.NET 4.5 was checked under Internet Information Services\World Wide Web Services\Application Development Features in Windows Features like below: