Category Archives: .NET

Running Cropper on a 64-bit OS

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I use Cropper as my primary screen capture utility.  Unfortunately, it will not run on Windows Vista 64-bit (it causes a Bad Image Exception), despite it being built on the .NET Framework.

Having discovered this, I thought “surely, I could not be the only individual who has ran into this issue” and headed to the Cropper Issue Tracker where, lo and behold, I found this item.  The fix turns out to be quite simple: Change the platform from ‘Any CPU’ to ‘x86’, recompile and then replace the installed assemblies.  This fix will also work on Windows XP 64-bit.

The installation directory is <drive>\Program Files (x86)\Fusion8Design\Cropper.  You will need to replace not only the assemblies in this directory, but also those in the plugins sub-directory.

OpoDatCtx is Not My Friend

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Earlier this year, I began work on a project on which I recommended Microsoft Synchronization Services for ADO.NET for use as our synchronization solution.   Our application is a desktop (WinForms, no WPF -  maybe more on that decision later) application that needs obtain and work with both reference data and bi-directional data (i.e. data created/updated by the user or the server).  The database we are exchanging data with happens to be Oracle, so a solution leveraging SQL Server Merge Replication was out.

Given that my Oracle skills were, at that time, rusty at best, I thought I would check out the example that Rafik posted for using Sync Services with Oracle.  Fair enough.  Once I got it working as-is, and before I began writing code against our database, I thought I would verify that it worked with ODP.NET. 

Why ODP.NET?  We were looking to leverage some of the capabilities available in that provider vs System.Data.OracleClient.

I changed out my references, made the necessary code changes and attempted to run.  Shortly after I invoke a sync, I receive the following error:

Type ‘Oracle.DataAccess.Types.OpoDatCtx’ in Assembly ‘Oracle.DataAccess, Version=2.111.6.20, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=89b483f429c47342′ is not marked as serializable.

My initial reaction was to wonder what I had done incorrectly, or had forgotten to do.  I checked the code. Thrice.  Nothing missing. Stymied, I posted to the Sync Services for ADO.NET forum with suspicions that OpoDatCtx was internal to ODP.NET.  Sean Kelly from Microsoft replied to my query.  In sum, Sync Services was only ever intended for use use against Microsoft-implemented/shipped ADO.NET providers.

As (thank you, Reflector), OpoDatCtx is (as I suspected) an internal type and one I could not convert, this meant I had two option:

1) Return to using System.Data.OracleClient and deal with any ‘shortcomings’ compared to ODP.NET.
2) Dump Sync Services so that we could use ODP.NET, but roll all the sync code from scratch.

As you might have guessed, I chose option 1, and Sync Services is working swimmingly against Oracle.

Missing VS2005 Item Templates (er, most of ‘em)

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While at the Day of .NET, I discovered that I had an issue – my item templates were missing from Visual Studio (except for the PowerShell templates).  Interesting (and damned frustrating, too).  The first thing I did was shut down all devenv.exe, launch a VS command prompt and run devenv /installvstemplates.   Upon completion, I launch devenv to only be disappointed.  I had to run off to my session, and one thing led to another, so I didn’t get back to it until tonight.   I had the genius (ha!) idea to uninstall the PowerShell templates.   This just consisted of deleting what was in C:\Users\<username>\Documents\Visual Studio 2005\Templates\ItemTemplates\Visual C#   and \Visual Basic  as well as C:\Users\<username>\Documents\Visual Studio 2005\Templates\ProjectTemplates\Visual C# and \Visual Basic.

 Voila!

Now, to figure out what happened so I can put my beloved PowerShell templates back.   It’s rather late (0249, EDT), so I’m off to bed and more later as I sort this issue.

Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 – released!

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Visual Studio® 2005 Team Suite SP1
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=22&p=1&SrcDisplayLang=en&SrcCategoryId=&SrcFamilyId=&u=%2fdownloads%2fdetails.aspx%3fFamilyID%3dbb4a75ab-e2d4-4c96-b39d-37baf6b5b1dc%26DisplayLang%3den

Visual Studio® 2005 Team Foundation Server SP1
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=22&p=2&SrcDisplayLang=en&SrcCategoryId=&SrcFamilyId=&u=%2fdownloads%2fdetails.aspx%3fFamilyID%3da9ab638c-04d2-4aee-8ae8-9f00dd454ab8%26DisplayLang%3den

Visual Studio® 2005 Express Editions SP1
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=22&p=3&SrcDisplayLang=en&SrcCategoryId=&SrcFamilyId=&u=%2fdownloads%2fdetails.aspx%3fFamilyID%3d7b0b0339-613a-46e6-ab4d-080d4d4a8c4e%26DisplayLang%3den

A co-worker noted that you may need to follow the workaround detailed in KB925336 to get it to install successfully. (thanks, Matt!)