microsoft

Linking two Office documents

Problem: I have two spreadsheets that each serve different purposes but contain one particular piece of data that needs to be the same in both spreadsheets. This piece of data (one of the columns) gets updated in spreadsheet A but needs to also be updated in spreadsheet B. Goal: A solution that would somehow link these two spreadshe...

Vista or XP for Dev Machine

I am about to get a new PC from work, and it will include the option to have either Vista Business as the OS, or a downgrade to XP Pro. Aside from a tiny bit of testing, I have never used Vista, but overall I have heard many more bad reports than good regarding Vista. I don't think that hardware will be an issue (Intel Core Duo T9300, 4G...

Why are MSDN subscriptions less expensive in the US?

The Economist famous Bic Mac index is an informal way of measuring the purchasing power parity between currencies. Perhaps we should create the equivalent MSDN index. A Visual Studio Team System Developer MSDN Premium 1 year subscription (without taxes) costs: USA, $5469 UK, £3670, $7256, 33% more EU, €5855, $9119, 67% more Norway, NOK...

Is it worth it to get MS Certified?

How important is it to get a MCPD, MCTS, etc? What is the best way to get certified? ...

How can I create virtual machines as part of a build process using MSBuild and MS Virtual Server and/or Hyper-V Server Virtualization?

What I would like to do is create a clean virtual machine image as the output of a build of an application. So a new virtual machine would be created (from a template is fine, with the OS installed, and some base software installed) --- a new web site would be created in IIS, and the web app build output copied to a location on the virt...

What is needed to get Delphi back on top?

Delphi 2011 is on the horizon, which is the 14th release since Turbo Pascal became Delphi in 1995. Despite continued innovation it has not returned to its level of popularity before the Inprise fiasco. Many developers with Delphi backgrounds are moving to C# and many Delphi legacy applications are being rewritten in C#, despite the f...

Best way to license Microsoft software as an independent developer

I've recently switched from being an employee of a small consulting company to being an independent consultant and as time goes on I will need to upgrade Windows and Visual Studio. So what is the most affordable way to go about this for a small time developer? My previous boss suggested I get a TechNet Plus subscription for OS licenses,...

What exactly is Microsoft Expression Studio and how does it integrate with Visual Studio?

My university is part of MSDNAA, so I downloaded it a while back, but I just got around to installing it. I guess part of it replaces FrontPage for web editing, and there appears to be a video editor and a vector graphics editor, but I don't think I've even scratched the surface of what it is and what it can do. Could someone enlighten m...

What versions of Visual Studio can be installed concurrently?

Are there any conflicts with having any combination of Visual Studio 2003, 2005 and/or 2008 installed? I noticed a related question here but wanted a more general answer. ...

MS hotfix delayed delivery.

I just requested a hotfix from support.microsoft.com and put in my email address, but I haven't received the email yet. The splash page I got after I requested the hotfix said: Hotfix Confirmation We will send these hotfixes to the following e-mail address: (my correct email address) Usually, our hotfix e-mail is deliver...

How do I check the active solution configuration Visual Studio built with at runtime?

I would like to enable/disable some code based on a custom solution configuration I added in Visual Studio. How do I check this value at runtime? ...

What is a good dvd burning component for Windows or .Net?

I'd like to add dvd burning functionality to my .Net app (running on Windows Server 2003), are there any good components available? I've used the NeroCOM sdk that used to come with Nero but they no longer support the sdk in the latest versions of Nero. I learned that Microsoft has created an IMAPI2 upgrade for Windows XP/2003 and there...

What is WPF?

I have seen lots of questions recently about WPF... What is it? What does it stand for? How can I begin programming WPF? ...

What is the best winform UI component set?

I've been looking for a commercial winform UI component set for a while now. I've looked at most of the big players out there and I think I'm going to spend my cash on the Developer Express DXperience package. It's not cheap, but does a lot of great things like integrated printing and reporting, a good spell checker implementation, etc...

Whither Managed Extensibility Framework for .NET?

Has anyone worked much with Microsoft's Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF)? Kinda sounds like it's trying to be all things to all people - It's an add-in manager! It's duck typing! I'm wondering if anyone has an experience with it, positive or negative. We're currently planning on using an generic IoC implementation ala MvcContrib fo...

MSDN subscriptions on the cheap?

As a long time MS developer, I find MSDN to be an invaluable resource. However, when tinkering at home I am not able to play with the best latest technologies and the different offerings coming from Redmond as I cannot justify paying such a hefty price for what is essentially a pastime. The Express editions are great, but fall flat whe...

What is .MSPX?

I've noticed a lot of microsoft sites have the *.MSPX extension. While I'm very familiar with ASP.NET, I've not seen this extension before. Does anyone know what this identifies? ...

Windows Powershell book - any good experiences?

Hi betatester-fellows :) ! I'm currently looking for a recommendable book about psh which seems to be very a feature rich new shell. Therefore I'm looking for some kind of pragmatic documentation, aiming a little deeper. I'm using Unix Shells like zsh since ages, but Scripting on MS was never very effective. Until now. I'm interested in...

Who leads the team for C# development in Microsoft?

Who leads the team for C# development in Microsoft? ...

Handling Information overflow

Almost everyday I see new stuffs coming out of Beta or CTP releases from Microsoft. It used to be exciting but the list of products and technologies is getting bigger and bigger everyday. WPF, WF, Silverlight, Powershell, SSIS, SSDS, EF, LINQ, WCF, Data Services, XAML, Asp.Net AJAX, Asp.Net MVC blah blah.. Since I am in a Technical rol...