Adventures of a Code Thaumaturgist

This last weekend I finally got the VS (Visual Studio) 2017 Version 15.2 upgrade working! It only took 16 days and tons of futzing (assuming futzes have mass). I'm not going to divulge the double top secret solutions here because I posted them on the MS VS website at this link: https://developercommunity.visualstudio.com/content/problem/56762/unable-to-upgrade-to-vs-2017-community-152.html?childToView=62345#comment-62345 I've got my issue solved, but I don't know how to indicate that on the forum post. Any help? Anyway, I've been slow to post this success announcement because I've been coding my little heart away. Now I can start posting about the stuff I intended to when I created this blog - my adventures with (mainly) C# MVC! I'll post again soon!

I find it interesting that 20% of the readers (or at least, people who've hit one of my posts online) are using a Windows OS and the other 80% aren't. And 0% (yep, zero percent) are using IE to access these pages. My photography blog  has been up a few years (since January 2014) and it's a bit different: 50% Windows and 19% IE. In both cases Chrome is the #1 browser.

Digging Deep One of the last communications I had from Raja at Microsoft on my issue at Visual Studio Developer Community regarding my inability to get VS 2017 v15.2 running was that their InstallCleanup app (read about it here as part of the installation issues) shouldn't have registry issues: "the installCleanup tool does not fail for registry and file removal" I pointed out to Raja that the log file generated from the InstallCleanup.exe tool had multiple entries of this line: Removing File Associations: Deleting Keys...   Failed - Requested registry access is not allowed. I was trying to go a bit deeper on my own tonight (since it's been a few days since I've heard anything more from MS) and ran a Process Monitor that was tracing registry access events where access is denied. The trace captured 175 times that InstallCleanup.exe was denied access to a registry key, such as this: "7:25:46.2909199 PM","InstallCleanup.exe",...

The Back Story I've been doing some programming at home (or trying to) since this last February of 2017. During that time I'm grown to dislike the keyboard that came with my HP PC. I've had it for quite a  few years but that's not the issue. I just have never liked how flimsy it felt, missing the old, sturdier keyboards I used in the 80's. The old IBM electric typewriter quality action. Sure, the newer "stock" keyboards might be quieter and have less travel and may be great for laptops, but I miss the old school sound and feel. In addition, the HP keyboard has it's INS , DEL , etc., keys in a weird configuration, squeezed in between the QWERTY and the NUM PAD rather than the more typical ANSI layout . I use an ANSI layout keyboard at work and am used to, and prefer the layout of, the  INS ,  DEL , etc., keys in their 2 rows of 3 keys. In with the new Das Keyboard Das Keyboard Prime 13 With just a bit of research online I decided to get ...

Perseverance Slide Rock State Park, Arizona (I wanted a picture of something positive in this blog post!) Besides my Logitech mouse issue I've also still been working on getting Visual Studio 2017 CE (Community Edition) installed at home but I haven't made any progress. The MS representative pointed me to a cleanup tool and it's log file, which I've tried many times amongst my other guess work. In a default installation on a Win7/64 bit OS, the cleanup tool is at:     C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\Installer\resources\app\layout\InstallCleanup.exe And the log file is at:     %Temp%\dd_cleanup_YYYYMMDDHHMMSS.log The log file had a section with a number of lines (actually, about 50 lines) that pointed me in one direction and gave me hope: Removing File Associations: Deleting Keys...   Failed - Requested registry access is not allowed. When I first installed VS 2017 CE version 15.0, I could not create a solution from a te...

The following tale pertains to my Microsoft Windows 7 PC. I'm sure it's pretty much the same for a Windows 7 laptop. I don't know if any of this applies to Windows 8 or higher. Out with the old  As part of my adventure in installing the driver for my new Logitech Marathon Mouse M705  that I posted about in my previous post , I was made aware of a potential issue when installing a new USB device. I am not a real PC hardware guy, as you may surmise... I'm going to point to and refer to one of the many websites I came across while trying to figure out my mouse problems, this page from "How To Geek" at: https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/remove-old-drivers-after-upgrading-to-new-hardware/ Remnants Every time you install a new USB device that requires a driver (and what doesn't?), that driver is installed on the USB port you plugged the device into. If you later plug that same device into a different USB port on your same PC (or lapto...

The Wonderful Logitech Wireless Marathon Mouse M705 I picked up one of these for my work PC in March, 2017. I didn't know how I'd like it because the description talks about the "Hyper-fast scrolling" - a free-wheeling wheel. After it arrived and I installed it, I still wasn't sure how I liked it. You can spin the wheel and it just goes and goes. A co-worker of mine tried it and he instantly liked it. I have a similar looking Logitech mouse at home, but it's older and doesn't have the free-wheeling wheel. It has a "ratcheting" wheel like most mice. I found that, after a week or two of having the M705 at work, I was trying to use the hyper-fast scrolling at home and had got to where I decided I needed another M705 at home. I really like the way it handles! A new mouse in my house I ordered a second copy from Amazon  for about $20. Note that the Amazon price fluctuates. As I'm writing this, the price on Amazon is $27.42. Also note ...

Can't update VS 2017 Community to version 15.2 I've gotten nowhere with installing this update. I've been looking at tons of stuff on the web (okay, I'm really not sure how much a webpage weighs) and trying it but to no avail. I have had VS 2017 installed since a day or two after it was released (I didn't have any of the release candidate versions installed). When I started this update I lost my internet connection in the middle of the process and haven't been able to recover yet. Unsuccessful Steps In the last couple of hours today, here's what I've tried with no luck: Uninstall GIT ( https://developercommunity.visualstudio.com/content/problem/2812/install-of-git-holds-up-install-but-list-of-progra.html ) Uninstall Microsoft visual Studio through Control Panel > Programs and Features. Uninstall Failed. Deleted contents of these folders  C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\*.*  (https://developercommunity.visualstudio....

I'm off to a great start. Just like swimming with sharks. I have recently started some studies on Microsoft MVC 5 at home. I first installed the Visual Studio 2015 Community Edition but when VS 2017 CE was released on March 31, 2017, I installed it. I've been using it almost daily since. Note: I am using VS 2017 Professional at work. On May 10, 2017 Microsoft released the version 15.2 (26430.04) update. Last night I decided to install it - I was hoping for a quick install. Instead, I lost my internet connection and the update failed. I spent the rest of the night trying to repair the damage and still haven't fixed it. After resetting my modem and router I tried the installer again but it didn't work. The install log says the RPC call failed. I don't know why it works for part of the installation process and then fails. I found a lot of suggestions online and have tried a lot of them so far, including deleting the installation folders. After each step I...

Initialization Yep, another software developer blog. What makes my blog different is the URL. About Me I have been programming to one extent or another since about 1980 when I started using BASIC on a TRS-80 Model 1. Yep, as of now, that's about 259 dog years. And it feels like it at times. I started my education in programming in 1983 as part of my electronics engineering degree program. I started working full time as a software engineer in 1997 but I did some amount of programming at every job I had between 1981 and 1997. This included charting and statistical software for hardware that interfaced to the PC, an inventory system, an RV parts sales and repair catalog, an inventory database (from scratch - not using any off the shelf database application) for tracking secret materials for the U.S. Navy, a submarine location, course, and speed estimation program, employee scheduling system for the State of Oregon, and more little projects. In 1997 I created a WANG wo...