Access Denied Error When Installing Windows XP SP3

I’ve had the “Access Denied” error on two machines when I tried to install Windows XP SP3.  The real bummer is it happens about halfway through the installation, and you’ve invested a pretty good amount of time just getting to that point.

I’m not sure what causes the error, but since both machines were development machines, it may be connected to the use of aspnet_setreg or similar security measure.  At the day job, the network guys have installed SP3 on over 125 other machines without incident.

The fix discussed below worked on both my machines:

http://blog.malwareteks.com/correct-access-denied-error-while-installing-windows-xp-sp3-release-candidate-2/

Be prepared

Free SQL Server 2008 E-Book

I wasn’t aware books have beta versions too!  At any rate, it’s free for now, warts and all.

Free e-book offer: Introducing Microsoft SQL Server 2008 by Peter
DeBetta, Greg Low and Mark Whitehorn Reviewed by Kathleen Atkins,
project editor, Microsoft Press

Peter DeBetta, the principal author of this book, welcomes readers to
the soon-to-be-released SQL Server 2008. An MVP for SQL Server and a
holder of many other credentials and longstanding SQL Server experience,
DeBetta (with his coauthors) offers in this electronic beta book a
discerning view of the new version of SQL Server.

DeBetta and his coauthors-Greg Low and Mark Whitehorn, who are also
database experts, consultants, developers, and writers-divide their
discussion of SQL Server 2008 into seven topics: Security and
Administration, Performance, Type System Enhancements, Programmability,
Storage, Enhancements for High Availability, and Business Intelligence
Enhancements. In each of these chapters, the authors describe new or
improved features. They could not address every additional capability of
or improvement in SQL Server 2008, however, because their view (and thus
their readers’ view) into the product is an early one. Given the goals
of the book-to introduce and explore the product in a preliminary way,
both conceptually and practically (with sample code)-readers will find
plenty to interest them.

For example, database developers might be very glad to know that T-SQL
remains part of the product, and is, as yet, “still most often the best
choice for retrieving and manipulating data.” CLR integration has been
improved since SQL Server 2005 and the new product introduces system CLR
types, but “T-SQL is still not going anywhere.”

Because Peter DeBetta hopes to be the first technical book author on The
New York Times’ bestseller list, he recommends Introducing Microsoft SQL
Server 2008 to everyone. But the people who really ought to read it are
those who want to begin using the new and improved tools in SQL Server
2008.

Register to download the free e-book, Introducing Microsoft SQL Server
2008 <
http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9318707>.

Almost Native Subversion Support from Codeplex

This is awesome news:

CodePlex is now offering server support for SvnBridge, the tool that enables TortoiseSVN to talk to Team Foundation Server. Support for Subversion has been our number one requested feature, and by hosting SvnBridge, our users can now use their favorite Subversion client with any project.

Starting today, TortoiseSVN will just work as illustrated below, no extra software is necessary to work with CodePlex.

Kudos to the CocePlex team!  Who says Microsoft doesn’t listen to feedback, or make an effort to support open source tools?  Bah!

The SvnBridge client wasn’t bad, but it was kind of a pain to have to start it to check out or commit changes.

Full story at http://blogs.msdn.com/codeplex/archive/2008/09/14/codeplex-launches-support-for-tortoisesvn.aspx.

DotNetSlackers Article: Easy XML to SQL with Linq

My latest DotNetSlackers article was published today: Easy XML to SQl with Linq.

Transferring data between partner companies is pretty routine, and XML is one of the common formats that data are transferred in. One of the more common destinations for the XML data is a SQL Server database. In the past, XML was difficult to work with, but the .NET framework improved XML parsing greatly. Linq to XML has made XML handling absolutely painless, and Linq to SQL makes entering the data just as easy.

This example isn’t meant to say this is the only way to transform XML into SQL, because like all things .NET, there are several ways to do this. This method may or may not work depending on your circumstances.

This article is based on my real world experiences using Linq-to-SQL, Linq-to-XML and the XML extensions in VB.NET to rapidly develop transformations of XML data into SQL Server databases.  This is an extremely common scenario in many businesses, and I wanted to highlight how easy it is.

MSDN Developer Freedom Roadshow Is Coming To Pittsburgh

Not sure how this one slid by me, but the MSDN Developer Freedom Roadshow is coming to Pittsburgh on September 19, 2008.  Since it’s being held at the MS offices, registration is limited to capacity (roughly 4 dozen or so).  The program looks to be very interesting, especially the morning half:



The Fundamentals of Liberty: Web Development Basics


Want to take advantage of the cool stuff that you can do with ASP.NET, but not sure where to start? Whether you’re a Windows programmer who hasn’t ventured into the web world yet, or coming from classic ASP or similar scripting languages, this session is for you. In this session, we’ll provide an overview of the .NET framework’s powerful web development features, from ASP.NET and its Web Forms programming model, to basic web services, to give you a foundation you can use to jump-start your web development efforts.


The Framer’s Intentions: What’s New in .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 for Web Developers and ASP.NET MVC


In the first part of the session we will look into new features for web development that are introduced in the .NET framework 3.5 SP1 — ADO.NET Entity Framework , ASP.NET Dynamic Data, and ADO.NET Data Services. In the second part, we will introduce the ASP.NET MVC framework, which enables you to easily implement the model-view-controller (MVC) pattern for Web applications. This pattern lets you separate applications into loosely coupled, pluggable components for application design, processing logic, and display. A key benefit of ASP.NET MVC applications it that they provide clean URIs that can also be accessed in a RESTful manner.


More information and sign up at http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?culture=en-US&EventID=1032388335