Software engineer notes

Import-Module Azure fails

2020-01-10T16:38:00.004+00:00

Import-Module : The specified module 'Azure' was not loaded because no valid module file was found in any module

Download the latest PowerShell SDK from here.

Delete all node_modules folders recursively

2020-01-09T14:45:00.003+00:00

In bash

List
find . -name "node_modules" -type d -prune -print | xargs du -chs

Delete
find . -name 'node_modules' -type d -prune -print -exec rm -rf '{}' \;

Delete all bin/package folders

List:
find . -path "*/bin/package" -type d

Delete
find . -path "*/bin/package" -type d -prune -print -exec rm -rf '{}' \;

node-gyp build errors

2019-12-03T14:04:00.002+00:00

If you get npm errors like:

node_modules\crypt3\crypt3.cc(5,10): fatal error C1083: Cannot open include file: 'unistd.h': No such file or directory node_modules\crypt3\build\crypt3.vcxproj

Error: `C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Enterprise\MSBuild\Current\Bin\MSBuild.exe` failed with exit code: 1

There are so many articles about resolving node-gyp errors. The one that worked for me and the easiest is

npm install --global --production windows-build-tools

From:
https://github.com/nodejs/node-gyp#on-windows

https://github.com/Microsoft/nodejs-guidelines/blob/master/windows-environment.md#compiling-native-addon-modules

The file is locked by NET Core Host error

2019-10-07T17:40:00.001+01:00

Error MSB3027 Could not copy "obj\Debug\netcoreapp3.0\Project.Tests.dll" to "bin\Debug\netcoreapp3.0\Project.Tests.dll". Exceeded retry count of 10. Failed. The file is locked by: ".NET Core Host (35124)" Project.Tests C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Enterprise\MSBuild\Current\Bin\Microsoft.Common.CurrentVersion.targets 4206

Open task manager, find the Visual Studio process, like in the image below.
Locate the sub process .NET Core Host and terminate it.
This solved the building problem with me.

It could appear separately as well

The reasones why i changed my mac book pro to a windows lapop

2018-04-20T14:25:00.002+01:00

Everybody loves MacBooks, i was curious and happy to get a MacBook with touch bar at work, but once i got it, my hate to it started and built up and was increasing day after day.

I finally decided to ex-change it with a windows laptop for the below reasons:

Gets very hot most of the time, with just chrome and slack running.
Keyboard is awful, key press distance is very little, noisy as well.
Touch bar means that i need to do 2 steps for simple tasks like changing the volume or brightness.
Touch bar place makes it easy to touch its buttons unintentionally, i found myself touching the mute button or the Siri multiple times when pressing the backspace button.
The Siri button is really annoying, i have disabled it and still it comes up with a pop every time it is touched.
Touch pad is too big, lots of times my hand was resting on it while i was using it.
I heard it is very stable, but mine was crashing every couple of days. Lots of times i start it to find that it is actually restarting instead of resuming from sleep.
Mostly annoying: I need my USB ports, not every thing is Type C. I had a hard drive that i couldn't connect, simply because i left the converter at my office. In addition to USB headphones, etc...
OSX lacks lots of simple tasks, coming from a windows. I had to do some tweaks to have some of them. Like: Locking the machine with keyboard shortcut, arranging windows and moving between different screens with keyboard shortcut, Minimising windows, etc...
I wasn't able to login multiple time after woking form sleep.
Software updates were very frequent and always asking for restart.

What i liked:

Display is amazing.
Speakers are amazing.
Touch pad gestures are nice.

Importing all pfx certificates in a folder

2017-07-21T22:58:00.001+01:00

Assuming all pfx have the same password

forfiles /p "E:\Certificates" /m *.pfx /c "cmd /c CERTUTIL -f -p "password" -importpfx @file"

Sort the odd numbers in array

2017-07-11T22:20:00.002+01:00

Given an array of numbers, it is required to sort ascending odd numbers but even numbers must be on their places.

ex:
{ 5, 3, 2, 8, 1, 4 } should give { 1, 3, 2, 8, 5, 4 }
{ 5, 3, 1, 8, 0 } should give { 1, 3, 5, 8, 0 }

Algorithm:
define sorted list
define another list to save the odd number indexes
Iterate through the array for each item
if item is even skip it
if item is odd:
add it to the sorted list
add the item index to indexes list
loop through the indexes list, for each index
save the item from the sorted list into the the numbers array at the that index

Note: the sorted list should support duplicate items

Example implementations

Using a list

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.UnitTesting;

namespace sortOdd
{
public class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
CollectionAssert.AreEqual(new int[] { 1, 3, 2, 8, 5, 4 }, Program.SortArray(new int[] { 5, 3, 2, 8, 1, 4 }));
CollectionAssert.AreEqual(new int[] { 1, 3, 5, 8, 0 }, Program.SortArray(new int[] { 5, 3, 1, 8, 0 }));
CollectionAssert.AreEqual(new int[] { }, Program.SortArray(new int[] { }));
}

public static int[] SortArray(int[] array)
{
var result = new int[array.Length];
List<int> sortedOdd = new List<int>();
var indexes = new List<int>();
for (int i = 0; i < array.Length; i++)
{
if (array[i]%2 == 0)
result[i] = array[i];
else
{
int index = sortedOdd.BinarySearch(array[i]);
if (index < 0)
sortedOdd.Insert(~index, array[i]);
else
sortedOdd.Insert(index, array[i]);
indexes.Add(i);
}
}
for (int i = 0; i < indexes.Count; i++)
{
result[indexes.ElementAt(i)] = sortedOdd.ElementAt(i);
}
return result;
}
}
}

Using sorted list

using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.Linq;

using Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.UnitTesting;

namespace sortOdd

{

public class Program

{

static void Main(string[] args)

{

CollectionAssert.AreEqual(new int[] { 1, 3, 2, 8, 5, 4 }, Program.SortArray(new int[] { 5, 3, 2, 8, 1, 4 }));

CollectionAssert.AreEqual(new int[] { 1, 3, 5, 8, 0 }, Program.SortArray(new int[] { 5, 3, 1, 8, 0 }));

CollectionAssert.AreEqual(new int[] { }, Program.SortArray(new int[] { }));

}

public static int[] SortArray(int[] array)

{

var result = new int[array.Length];

var sortedOdd = new SortedSet<int>(new DuplicateKeyComparer<int>());

var indexes = new List<int>();

for (int i = 0; i < array.Length; i++)

{

if (array[i]%2 == 0)

result[i] = array[i];

else

{

sortedOdd.Add(array[i]);

indexes.Add(i);

}

for (int i = 0; i < indexes.Count; i++)

{

result[indexes.ElementAt(i)] = sortedOdd.ElementAt(i);

}

return result;

}

public class DuplicateKeyComparer<TKey>:IComparer<TKey> where TKey : IComparable

{

public int Compare(TKey x, TKey y)

{

int result = x.CompareTo(y);

if (result == 0)

return 1;

return result;

}

Level order traversal in spiral form

2017-07-10T13:38:00.003+01:00

Printing tree in spiral form, or a zigzag form

would print 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Algorithm

printSpiral(tree)
  set level = tree root
  while level contains nodes
     printLevel(level, ltr)
     set level = getNextLevel(level)
     ltr == !ltr

Function to get next level

getNextLevel(level)
set nextLevel as empty list
foreach node in level
     if(node.left!=null) nextLevel.add(node.left)
     if(node.right!=null) nextLevel.add(node.right)

Function to print all nodes at a given level

printLevel(level, ltr)
if(!ltr)
    reverse level
foreach node in level
    print node.data

Example code in Java

package com.algorithms.treespiral;

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Collections;

public class Main {
    /* Driver program to test the above functions */
    public static void main(String[] args)
    {
        BinaryTree tree = new BinaryTree();
        tree.root = new Node(1);
        tree.root.left = new Node(2);
        tree.root.right = new Node(3);
        tree.root.left.left = new Node(7);
        tree.root.left.right = new Node(6);
        tree.root.right.left = new Node(5);
        tree.root.right.right = new Node(4);
        System.out.println("Spiral order traversal of Binary Tree is ");
        tree.printSpiral(tree.root);
    }
}

class Node
{
    int data;
    Node left, right;

    public Node(int d)
    {
        data = d;
        left = right = null;
    }
}

class BinaryTree
{
    Node root;

    /* print spiral order traversal of a tree */
    void printSpiral(Node node)
    {
        boolean ltr = false;
        ArrayList<Node> layer = new ArrayList<>();
        layer.add(node);
        while(layer.size() != 0)
        {
            printLevel(layer,ltr);
            layer = getNextLevel(layer);
            ltr = !ltr;
        }
    }

    /* gets the next layer in the tree */
    ArrayList<Node> getNextLevel(ArrayList<Node> node) {
        ArrayList<Node> nextLayer = new ArrayList<>();
        for (Node n:node) {
            if(n.left != null)
                nextLayer.add(n.left);
            if(n.right != null) {
                nextLayer.add(n.right);
            }
        }
        return nextLayer;
    }

    /* prints tree level taking direction into account */
    void printLevel(ArrayList<Node> node, boolean ltr) {
        if (ltr != true) {
            Collections.reverse(node);
        }
        for (Node n:node) {
            System.out.print(n.data + " ");
        }
    }
}

IIS problems

2017-06-21T13:58:00.001+01:00

Some commands to help troubleshoot windows hosted web applications

URL reservations:

netsh http show urlacl
netsh http delete urlacl url=https://+:443/
netsh http add urlacl url=https://+:443/ user=everyone

Firewall

netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="IISExpressWeb" dir=in protocol=tcp localport=443 remoteip=any action=allow

Certificates

Show certificates
netsh http show sslcert ipport=0.0.0.0:44347

delete cert
netsh http delete sslcert ipport=0.0.0.0:44347

Add cert
netsh http add sslcert ipport=0.0.0.0:44347 certhash=d4e23174e12ec96e8d3b7cacf7a4f83da9c08e12 appid={214124cd-d05b-4309-9af9-9caa44b2b74a}

Network
netstat -a -n -o | findstr 443
netstat -ab | findstr 443

Apppool
Look at the app pools status
c:\Windows\System32\inetsrv\appcmd.exe list apppools

Check event viewer

In my case i found the following error
An error occurred while using SSL configuration for endpoint 127.0.0.1:443. The error status code is contained within the returned data.

Git tips

2017-06-12T13:43:00.002+01:00

git config push.default current
Pushing to the server with he same branch name automatically

Some usefull aliases
git config --global alias.co checkout
git config --global alias.br branch
git config --global alias.cob checkout -b
git config --global alias.st status
git config --global alias.unstage 'reset HEAD --'
git config --global alias.df 'difftool'
git config --global alias.mf 'mergetool'

DateTime parsing in .NET

2017-06-04T23:32:00.000+01:00

Good percentage of bugs and test failures comes from the way date is parsed.
Popular example, a unit test is created, runs on local machine without any problems, then on the test agents, sometimes it passes, and other times fails.
Usually this happens when there is a date stored in UTC for example, then we parse it without specifying date kind, which may change the time value in some cases.

Example below for different ways to parse date, and the effect of that on a time comparison.
Whenever the parsed date kind is local, and the time is adjusted, the comparison is not as we expect.
In the below examples, i am comparing the dates checking if less than 8:40 and expecting all to be true. Some of the them the comparison was giving false, due to time adjustment.

namespace DateParsing
{
using System.Globalization;
using System.Xml;

class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
Parse("2017-06-01T08:33:49Z");
Parse("2017-06-01T08:33:49");
Parse("2017-06-01T08:00:00.0000000Z");
ParseByFormat("2017-06-01 08:33:49", "yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss");
Console.ReadKey();
}

private static void Parse(string dateString)
{
Console.WriteLine("========== input string is: {0} ===============", dateString);
var date1 = DateTime.Parse(dateString);
PrintDate(date1, "Using parse, no date style");
var date2 = DateTime.Parse(dateString, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, DateTimeStyles.AdjustToUniversal);
PrintDate(date2, "Using parse, Adjust to universal style");
var date3 = DateTime.Parse(dateString, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, DateTimeStyles.AssumeUniversal);
PrintDate(date3, "Using parse, Assume universal style");
var date4 = XmlConvert.ToDateTime(dateString, XmlDateTimeSerializationMode.Utc);
PrintDate(date4, "Using XmlConvert, SerializationMode UTC");
}

private static void ParseByFormat(string dateString, string format)
{
Console.WriteLine("========== input string is: {0} ===============", dateString);
var date1 = DateTime.ParseExact(dateString, format, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);
PrintDate(date1, "Using parse exact, no date style");
var date2 = DateTime.ParseExact(dateString, format, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, DateTimeStyles.AdjustToUniversal);
PrintDate(date2, "Using parse exact, Adjust to universal style");
var date3 = DateTime.ParseExact(dateString, format, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, DateTimeStyles.AssumeUniversal);
PrintDate(date3, "Using parse exact, Assume universal style");
var date4 = XmlConvert.ToDateTime(dateString, format);
PrintDate(date4, "Using XmlConvert, SerializationMode not specified");
}

static void PrintDate(DateTime date, string format)
{
DateTime x = new DateTime(2017, 06, 01, 08, 40, 00);
Console.WriteLine("Date is {0}, date kind is {1}, {2}", date, date.Kind, format);
Console.WriteLine("{0} < than {1} is {2} ", date, x, date < x);
}
}
}

========== input string is: 2017-06-01T08:33:49Z ===============
Date is 01/06/2017 09:33:49, date kind is Local, Using parse, no date style
01/06/2017 09:33:49 < than 01/06/2017 08:40:00 is False
Date is 01/06/2017 08:33:49, date kind is Utc, Using parse, Adjust to universal style
01/06/2017 08:33:49 < than 01/06/2017 08:40:00 is True
Date is 01/06/2017 09:33:49, date kind is Local, Using parse, Assume universal style
01/06/2017 09:33:49 < than 01/06/2017 08:40:00 is False
Date is 01/06/2017 08:33:49, date kind is Utc, Using XmlConvert, SerializationMode UTC
01/06/2017 08:33:49 < than 01/06/2017 08:40:00 is True

========== input string is: 2017-06-01T08:33:49 ===============
Date is 01/06/2017 08:33:49, date kind is Unspecified, Using parse, no date style
01/06/2017 08:33:49 < than 01/06/2017 08:40:00 is True
Date is 01/06/2017 08:33:49, date kind is Unspecified, Using parse, Adjust to universal style
01/06/2017 08:33:49 < than 01/06/2017 08:40:00 is True
Date is 01/06/2017 09:33:49, date kind is Local, Using parse, Assume universal style
01/06/2017 09:33:49 < than 01/06/2017 08:40:00 is False
Date is 01/06/2017 08:33:49, date kind is Utc, Using XmlConvert, SerializationMode UTC
01/06/2017 08:33:49 < than 01/06/2017 08:40:00 is True

========== input string is: 2017-06-01T08:00:00.0000000Z ===============
Date is 01/06/2017 09:00:00, date kind is Local, Using parse, no date style
01/06/2017 09:00:00 < than 01/06/2017 08:40:00 is False
Date is 01/06/2017 08:00:00, date kind is Utc, Using parse, Adjust to universal style
01/06/2017 08:00:00 < than 01/06/2017 08:40:00 is True
Date is 01/06/2017 09:00:00, date kind is Local, Using parse, Assume universal style
01/06/2017 09:00:00 < than 01/06/2017 08:40:00 is False
Date is 01/06/2017 08:00:00, date kind is Utc, Using XmlConvert, SerializationMode UTC
01/06/2017 08:00:00 < than 01/06/2017 08:40:00 is True

========== input string is: 2017-06-01 08:33:49 ===============
Date is 01/06/2017 08:33:49, date kind is Unspecified, Using parse exact, no date style
01/06/2017 08:33:49 < than 01/06/2017 08:40:00 is True
Date is 01/06/2017 08:33:49, date kind is Unspecified, Using parse exact, Adjust to universal style
01/06/2017 08:33:49 < than 01/06/2017 08:40:00 is True
Date is 01/06/2017 09:33:49, date kind is Local, Using parse exact, Assume universal style
01/06/2017 09:33:49 < than 01/06/2017 08:40:00 is False
Date is 01/06/2017 08:33:49, date kind is Unspecified, Using XmlConvert, SerializationMode not specified
01/06/2017 08:33:49 < than 01/06/2017 08:40:00 is True

string.Format with params trap

2017-05-31T12:39:00.000+01:00

Lately i have seen this code

static void LogError(string error, params object[] details)
{
var message = string.Format(error, details);
Console.WriteLine(message);
}

The code compiles and runs without problems, and if p is passed as a single string, would work fine. If someone knows that it should be a single string.
If someone else is using the same method he might fall into a trap assuming that the params is optional, which would also compile but would give exception during runtime.

Ex:
static void Main(string[] args)
{
var message = "Error occurred, details: {0}";
LogError(message, "details");
LogError(message);
}

static void LogError(string error, params object[] details)
{
var message = string.Format(error, details);
Console.WriteLine(message);
}

It would compile and run, but would give an error

An unhandled exception of type 'System.FormatException' occurred in mscorlib.dll

Additional information: Index (zero based) must be greater than or equal to zero and less than the size of the argument list.

Another developer might assume that he can pass multiple params, which would only take the first one and ignore the others

Ex:
static void Main(string[] args)
{
var message = "Error occurred, details: {0}";
LogError(message, "details");
LogError(message, "details", "more details ");
}

static void LogError(string error, params object[] details)
{
var message = string.Format(error, details);
Console.WriteLine(message);
}

Would output:
Error occurred, details: details
Error occurred, details: details

Registering all ocx files

2017-05-31T12:20:00.001+01:00

I had an old app that is using windows controls ocx libraries, like comctl32.ocx, comdlg32.ocx And others
The program was complaining about missing comctl32.ocx, then i did register it with the below command, running it in elevated command prompt

regsvr32 c:\Windows\SysWOW64\comctl32.ocx

Starting the app again it complained about another missing ocx.

In that case it might be better to register all the ocx files in the SysWOW64 folder by running the below command

forfiles /p "c:\Windows\SysWOW64" /m *.ocx /c "cmd /c regsvr32 @file"

Namespace and extending twitter bootstrap

2017-01-16T15:07:00.003+00:00

Using customized bootstrap styles can sometimes conflict with other bootstrap styles that are not customized, for example this could happen if you have a frame and you are loading a web component inside of it inside a page.

Possible solution to avoid conflicts is to namespace twitter bootstrap

Lets take example html with bootstrap styling

<html>
<head>
<title>My Twitter Bootstrap example</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="bootstrap.css">
</head>
<body>
<ul class="nav nav-pills" role="tablist">
<li role="presentation" class="active"><a href="#">Home <span class="badge">42</span></a></li>
<li role="presentation"><a href="#">Profile</a></li>
<li role="presentation"><a href="#">Messages <span class="badge">3</span></a></li>
</ul>
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script src="js/bootstrap.min.js"></script>
</body>
</html>

To namespace bootstrap styles:
Create a new less file, and paste the below inside. "mybt" below is the custom namespace i am using

.mybt {
@import "bootstrap-3.3.7/less/bootstrap";
}

After that compile this less file
lessc mybt.less mybt.css

And now after referencing mybt.css the html would use mybt and the bootstrap styles like below

<html>
<head>
<title>My Twitter Bootstrap example</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="mybt.css">
</head>
<body>
<ul class="mybt nav nav-pills" role="tablist">
<li role="presentation" class="mybt active"><a href="#">Home <span class="mybt badge">42</span></a></li>
<li role="presentation" class="mybt"><a href="#">Profile</a></li>
<li role="presentation" class="mybt"><a href="#">Messages <span class="mybt badge">3</span></a></li>
</ul>
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script src="js/bootstrap.min.js"></script>
</body>
</html>

Another option is to extend bootstrap styles
to extend it, create new less file with below:

@import "bootstrap-3.3.7/less/bootstrap";

.my-nav:extend(.nav) {}
.my-nav-pills:extend(.nav-pills) {}
.my-badge:extend(.badge) {}

Extending will work if you have only few styles that you are using.

Setup Blocked By Group Policy

2017-01-08T23:00:00.001+00:00

I was trying to setup my printer, cannon MG3650 on my computer, everything was going well, setup has finished, but i wasn't able to print.
I opened printers, to find the status of the printer as following "Setup Blocked By Group Policy"
Searching online i found couple of posts to change the group policy and how to check the resultant policy.
I checked the group policy setting by doing the below
Start > Run, type in gpedit.msc and press OK. Go to Computer Configuration > Administrative templates > System > Device Installation > Device Installation Restrictions
Made sure that all was not configured.
I then checked the resultant policy
Start > Run, type in rsop.msc and there the device restriction was set as enabled.
I searched on how to change this policy, couldn't find a place to change it.

Then i looked into the registry. by doing Start > Run, type in regedit and press Ok. I found the below key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\DeviceInstall\Restrictions

And i found a key inside called DenyUnspecified

I removed this key, then checked the resultant policy, the restriction wasn't enabled. Repeated the printer setup again, and this time it finished successfully and it worked fine after.

Custom cast support for objects

2016-12-16T22:06:00.000+00:00

We are working with Hashtables a lot in a project, where we need to convert objects into hashtable and from hashtables

A way to do this is by adding custom casting in the class to the class type, and to add a method to convert to hashtable.

Example

   public class MyClass
    {
        public string Name;
        public int Id;
        public string Description;

        public static explicit operator MyClass(Hashtable hashtable)
        {
            MyClass mt = new MyClass();
            mt.Description = hashtable["Description"].ToString();
            mt.Id = int.Parse(hashtable["Id"].ToString());
            mt.Name = hashtable["Name"].ToString();
            return mt;
        }

        public Hashtable ToHashtable()
        {
            var hashtable = new Hashtable();
            hashtable["Name"] = "name";
            hashtable["Id"] = 1;
            hashtable["Description"] = "description";
            return hashtable;
        }
    }

Then simply we can do something like:

Hashtable hashtable = myClass.ToHashtable();

And

MyClass casted = (MyClass) hashtable;

Example usage:

        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            MyClass myClass = new MyClass
            {
                Description = "description",
                Id = 1,
                Name = "name"
            };

            Hashtable hashtable = myClass.ToHashtable();
            Console.WriteLine("Hashtable: ");
            Console.WriteLine(hashtable["Name"]);
            Console.WriteLine(hashtable["Id"]);
            Console.WriteLine(hashtable["Description"]);


            MyClass casted = (MyClass) hashtable;
            Console.WriteLine("MyClass: ");
            Console.WriteLine(casted.Id);
            Console.WriteLine(casted.Description);
            Console.WriteLine(casted.Name);

            Console.ReadKey();
        }

Error CA2000 call System.IDisposable.Dispose on object

2016-12-14T12:50:00.000+00:00

My code looked like

this.client.Setup(mock => mock.PostAsync(It.IsAny<IEnumerable<ids>>())).Returns(Task.FromResult(new HttpResponseMessage(System.Net.HttpStatusCode.OK)));

and i was getting the below style cop error

Severity Code Description Project File Line Suppression State
Error CA2000 In method 'MyMethod()', call System.IDisposable.Dispose on object 'new HttpResponseMessage(HttpStatusCode.OK)' before all references to it are out of scope. Catalog.Common.UnitTests code.cs 72 Active

To overcome this, if it is in single method, you can suppress the error

[SuppressMessage("Microsoft.Reliability",
                 "CA2000:DisposeObjectsBeforeLosingScope",
                 Justification = "Your reasons go here")]

OR you can change the code to be like below

this.client.Setup(mock => mock.PostAsync(It.IsAny<IEnumerable<ids>>())).Returns(Task.Run(() => { return new HttpResponseMessage(System.Net.HttpStatusCode.OK); }));

Recovering partition after initializing by mistake

2015-03-11T22:00:00.000+00:00

I recently re installed windows, i have 2 drives, i have removed the second drive to keep the data safe.
After the installation i have connected my hard drive. I didn't find the drive appearing in file explorer. When i opened Computer Management-> Disk Management, i received message saying that the drive is not initialized, so i followed the steps to initialize it, thinking that this will restore the drive and the data, then i found that the drive now has the state of un-allocated and the next available options is to create volumes, then i realized that i may have destroyed my data.
Looking online i found some forums talking about something similar and that MiniTool Partition wizard have recovery wizard that can recover the drive
http://www.sevenforums.com/hardware-devices/288692-disk-1-unknown-not-initialized-unallocated.html

I gave it a try, downloaded the free tool from http://www.partitionwizard.com/download.html, then selected the drive, started the recovery wizard, did the quick scan, and voila, the partition was recovered. That was really great tool that saved my data.

Remote desktop connection: Authentication error has occurred (Code: 0x80004005)

2015-01-18T23:11:00.001+00:00

Usually i connect to my other machine without any problems, one time suddenly i was receiving this error:

Authentication error has occurred (Code: 0x80004005)

And here is my experience with it, searching for it found this post saying that it could because of third party software or antivirus. Then i remembered that sometimes when i had fiddler open on my machine, i get authentication errors from outlook and some other clients that are unable to connect with the server on secure connections, i figured out that this could be the reason, that i have fiddler open in my machine and it is blocking the authentication.

So i needed to shut down fiddler on my remote machine, i remember that PsTools allows executing commands on remote machine, Then i found this article on steps to run PsKill to kill process on remote machine.

All i needed to do is:
- Download PsTools, then extract it
- Start command prompt in elevated mode (run as administrator)
- Go to PsTools extracted folder on run the command

pskill.exe \\MachineName -u username -p password Fiddler

Should take some time and come back with

Process Fiddler killed on MachineName

Trying to remote connect to my machine after that, worked as usual.

Windows 8 apps opening problem

2014-12-17T22:48:00.000+00:00

On my work PC i had this issue, domain account on windows 8, and whenever i tried to open any of windows 8 apps, it is opened and disappears and the window is not displayed.
When i searched i found lots of articles taking about windows apps issues, but all didn't help. I found helpful articles when i searched with the error i found in event viewer like:

Activation of app windows.immersivecontrolpanel_cw5n1h2txyewy!microsoft.windows.immersivecontrolpanel failed with error: This app does not support the contract specified or is not installed. See the Microsoft-Windows-TWinUI/Operational log for additional information.

I found the solution in couple of articles

I can't open any Windows 8 apps including PC Settings and Store
Fix Windows 8.1 Cannot Launch “PC Settings” or “Store” Problem

Running the below commands solved the problem

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register $Env:SystemRoot\camera\AppxManifest.xml

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register $Env:SystemRoot\FileManager\AppxManifest.xml

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register $Env:SystemRoot\ImmersiveControlPanel\AppxManifest.xml

Enabling remote desktop on remote computer

2014-10-20T13:53:00.000+01:00

I went home and forgot to enable remote desktop on my PC at my office, luckily i found couple of articles that is talking about enabling remote desktop remotely.

I followed the steps from here and did a restart for the remote machine, but it didn't work, then i figured that since i did it through registry, firewall rules wasn't updated to allow it, while if i enabled remote desktop connections through the UI, it is updated automatically.

I found another article that has the same steps plus updating the firewall to enable remote desktop connections with a command line that is executed remotely. Another article for opening the firewall for remote desktop connections from command line.

The only thing that i have done extra is that i started the elevated command prompt for "psexec", the normal one didn't do the job.

Brief of the steps:
1- From the registry, connect to the remote computer
2- Change the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\fDenyTSConnections from 1 to 0
3- Restart the remote machine by shutdown -m \\MachineName -r
4- Update the firewall rules on the remote machine by downloading psexec and running the below from elevated command prompt
psexec \\remote_machine_name cmd
Then after it connects
netsh advfirewall firewall set rule group=”remote desktop” new enable=Yes

.NET C#: Running command line in CMD and waiting for it to finish

2014-06-26T12:44:00.000+01:00

I had a script that i should call with command line interface, then other tasks that should be done after that.
I used the Process and ProcessStartInfo as below, but the problem i had is that the script was taking some time, and the program execution was failing after that since the script is not finished yet.

using (Process process = new Process())
{
var startInfo = new ProcessStartInfo("cmd")
{
RedirectStandardInput = true,
RedirectStandardOutput = true,
WindowStyle = ProcessWindowStyle.Normal,
UseShellExecute = false,
CreateNoWindow = false
};

process.StartInfo = startInfo;
process.OutputDataReceived += (sender, e) => Console.WriteLine(e.Data);
process.Start();
process.StandardInput.Write("script"+ process.StandardInput.NewLine);
process.Close();
}

I wanted to make sure that the program execution waits till the script finishes.So instead of using Close method, i added WaitForExit, and i am manually sending exit command to the command line after the script finishes, like below

using (Process process = new Process())
{
var startInfo = new ProcessStartInfo("cmd")
{
RedirectStandardInput = true,
RedirectStandardOutput = true,
WindowStyle = ProcessWindowStyle.Normal,
UseShellExecute = false,
CreateNoWindow = false
};

process.StartInfo = startInfo;
process.OutputDataReceived += (sender, e) => Console.WriteLine(e.Data);
process.Start();
process.StandardInput.Write("script"+ process.StandardInput.NewLine);
process.StandardInput.Write("exit" + process.StandardInput.NewLine);
process.WaitForExit();
}

This worked for me and the program execution waited till the script finishes.

Clicking problems with IE and Selenium

2014-06-18T11:04:00.000+01:00

We were facing couple of problems with selenium tests running on IE, when running the tests locally, we don't have these issues. After adding more logs to the code, i found that sometimes it is failing after sending the click event in different steps.

Looking online for similar issue, i found that there are clicking issues with IE, as sometimes the element being clicked on will receive the focus, but the click will not be processed by the element.

https://code.google.com/p/selenium/wiki/InternetExplorerDriver#Browser_Focus

To workaround this, i am setting the focus manually to the browser using the below line of code

Driver.SwitchTo().Window(Driver.CurrentWindowHandle);

tcl: dumping tablelist data

2013-12-22T13:22:00.001+00:00

For the tablelist widget I created a function to dump the table content to a file

proc dumpTableListToFile { tree { file preview.txt } } { 
    set rowCount [$tree size]
    set file_writer [open $file  w+]
    for { set i 0 } { $i < $rowCount } { incr i } {
	set rowData [$tree get $i]
	puts $file_writer $rowData 
    }
    close $file_writer
}

parameters:

tree, is the table widget, file is the file name, optional.

tcl: find widget recursively

2013-12-16T17:14:00.001+00:00

I was doing some testing for multi container application, and same widget could exist in different containers and could have variable parent name, I created a function to find the widget recursively by the last portion of the widget name
The function I initially created

proc findWidgetByName { wname {widget .mainwindow} } {    
    set pattern "*.${wname}" 
    #puts $widget    
    set all "[winfo children $widget]" 
    foreach child $all  { 
        #puts "$child" 
        if { [winfo viewable $child] && [string match $pattern $child] } { 
                #puts $child 
                return $child            
        } else { 
            return [findWidgetByName $wname $child]        
        } 
    } 
    return 0 
}

Testing the above function, it was taking the first child in each “for loop” and returning without checking other childs, with the help of my colleague, we changed it to working version

proc findWidgetByName { wname {widget .mainwindow} } {    
    set pattern "*.${wname}" 
    #puts $widget    
    set all "[winfo children $widget]" 
    foreach child $all  { 
        #puts "$child" 
        if { [winfo viewable $child] && [string match $pattern $child] } { 
                #puts $child 
                return $child            
        } else { 
            set x [findWidgetByName $wname $child]        
            if {  $x !=0 } { 
            return $x ;            
            } 
        } 
    } 
    return 0 
}

When using for loops with recursion we need to put some condition when to break the for loop execution
I have created also another version to find widgets by label, in case of buttons or labels

proc findWidgetByLabel { label {widget .mainwindow} } {       
   2:     set all "[winfo children $widget]"

    foreach child $all  {
        #puts "$child"
        if {([winfo class $child]== "Label" || [winfo class $child]== "Button" ) && [winfo viewable $child] && [$child cget -text]==$label } {
                #puts $child
                return $child            
        } else {
            set x [findWidgetByLabel $label $child]        
            if {  $x !=0 } {
                return $x ;            
            }
        }
    }
    return 0
}

Same can be applied to find widget by any property