January 13rd, I expressed rather bad opinion about Windows 7 (beta those days). Today, after most of post-RC builds (currently with 7260) on work machine I would way with big confidence – Microsoft learned from beta errors and now it works almost like it should work for RTM.

Installation

Installation takes less and less from build to build (this is 7th I’m checking). With 7260 it took about 15 minutes. All hardware devices (including Intel AMT, PM45 and LM5) were found and installed correctly. Shortly after the installation it installed a bunch of security and device driver updates. Looks like Microsoft has no issues with Intel anymore (or they just decided to build drivers by itself).

Hybrid graphic cards still not supported. Also it not seemed that it will be supported toward RTW. However Windows 7 correctly decided to use discrete card, rather then on-board once BIOS settings were set to prioritize it.

Taskbar

It still sucks, but you will accustom to it. From the beginning it looks like it takes all valuable space on your desktop, but shortly after you’ll see that it somehow comfortable to use it (it is really depends how you working. Lately I changed a bit a way I’m doing things [this why you cannot see me in Live Messenger anymore], thus it become rather good for me). Here how it looks for me now

Yes, it is Chome on this bar and this why:

‘Coz Internet Explorer become worse and worse

The only good thing I found about IE8 shipped with W7 is it has support for Windows 7 taskbar. However even this fact cannot defense against its suckness. It slow, buggy, has not enough functionality and absolutely annoying. I love Firefox, but it has too much functionality for me those days. Once I used to open it, I loss at least a half of hour for twittering, reading rss, etc. With Google Chrome is it not an issue, because this is nimble program with only one functionality – browse internet pages.

My last BSoD

Since the last time, I had no BSoDs. Also WDM not eating 999.9 CPU hours anymore (like it did in idle Vista). Also I had no compatibility issues. Everything worked as expected on my machine. The only issue I had is IE, that decided not to die and stuck as running windowless process. You know how it is when any icon on taskbar stops to do anything, just becoming red when you click on it.

Conclusion

Do it. Upgrade your OS as soon as possible and have a fun.

We’re hiring! (Israel residents only)

Lead Software Development Engineer in Test

We are looking for strong Software Development Engineer in Test who is passionate about UI and internal API usage to test rich client applications. Responsibilities would include developing test strategies, writing unit tests, UI automation, custom msbuild scripts, performing problem isolation and analysis, communicating with developers in support of debugging and investigation.

My group takes both individuals and teams success seriously, and looking for the right person to join our team, which is development, rather than test team. What my group is doing?

The AutOS group is responsible for delivering of the system you’ll have inside your next electric vehicle, one of the most important applications we have at Better Place for providing a consistent, transparent and fluent experience for a driver every day. Currently the application is used for energy management, navigation, infotainment, road safety and many other aspects of enhancing your future driving. Come explore the exciting opportunities on AutOS team developing cutting edge tools, facing all customers for all Better Place EVs. Become a member of the outstanding team that strives for engineering excellence in improving the life of all of us. AutOS team is using latest technologies and innovations to make sure delivery of the best possible experience for a driver.

Qualification

Solid programming ability in managed programming using the .NET Framework (C#) with some experience in WPF or Silverlight.
Solid technical knowledge in Information Technology field, including hardware capabilities and performance evaluation and tests.
Strong problem solving and troubleshooting skills.
Knowledge of Team Foundation Server and MSBUILD scripting.
2+ years experience in software testing, including designing and developing automation infrastructure.
Strong test aptitude.
Good communication skills and ability to work closely in a development team environment.
BA/BS or MS degree in Computer Science or equivalent field experience is required.

You think, that you want such job? Send me your CV, couple of word about yourself and why you want and able to work with me at Better Place to tamir@khason.biz with “Lead SDET application” in subject. (if you do get get an answer from me within a week, your mail is in spam, so you should resent it by using contact form here)

Have a nice day and be good people.

Related posts:

1. Windows 7 – dry run or why Intel does not like Microsoft
2. Programming for Windows 7
3. Windows 7 beta is available for download

First of all let’s define what we want to get from debugger in VS

Term	What it actually does
Step Into	Steps into immediate child (that is what F11 does for standard VS layout)
Step Over	Skips to any depth (that is what F10 does)
Step Deeper	Steps into bypassing code, using certain attribute
Run Through	Steps into, but only one level. All lower lavels will be Stepped Over

Now, when we have our set of terms, we can learn what JMC means. It is not famous whisky brand or another car company. It Just My Code option, checked in or out in “Option” dialog inside Visual Studio

Next turn is for attributes, there are four (I know about) attributes, related to debugger and used by me for efficient programming: DebuggerHidden, DebuggerNonUserCode, DebuggerStepThrough and DebuggerStepperBoundary. We will use only three first. DebuggerStepperBoundary is the most secret attribute, which is related to debugging only in multithreaded environment. It used to avoid delusive effect, might appears when a context switch is made on a thread within DebuggerNonUserCode applied. Other words, when you need to Step Through in Thread A and keep running at the same time in Thread B.

So let’s see the effects occurred when using those debugger attributes in case, you are trying to Step Into place, this attribute applied or set a Breakpoint there. When Just My Code (JMC) is checked all those attributes behaviors the same – they Step Deeper. However, when JMC is turned off (as in my picture) they begin to behavior differently.

As you can see, in this case

• DebuggerNonUserCode respects both for F11 (Step Into) and Breakpoints
• DebuggerStepThrough respects only for Breakpoints
• DebuggerHidden does not respects at all – just like when JMC is checked.

Bottom line: if you want people to manage whether to enter or not into your hidden methods – use DebuggerNonUserCode attribute. If you prefer them not to even know that those methods exists, use DebuggerHidden. If you want them to be able to put Breakpoints and stop on them, but keep running without explicit action – use  DebuggerStepThrough

Have a nice day and be good people.  Happy other developers friendly debugging.

Small bonus: To visualize your struct, class, delegate, enum, field, property or even assembly for user debugger, you can use DebuggerDisplay attribute (you need to put executable code into {} for example (“Value = {X}:{Y}”)]

Thanks to Boris for deep investigation

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2. Visual Studio snippet designer
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CRC – Cyclic Redundancy Check is an algorithm, which is widely used in different communication protocols, packing and packaging algorithms for assure robustness of data. The idea behind it is simple – calculate unique checksum (frame check sequence) for each data frame, based on it’s content and stick it at the end of each meaningful message. Once data received it’s possible to perform the same calculating and compare results – if results are similar, message is ok.

There are two kinds of CRC – 16 and 32 bit. There are also less used checksums for 8 and 64 bits. All this is about appending a string of zeros to the frame equal in number of frames and modulo two device by using generator polynomial containing one or more bits then checksum to be generated. This is very similar to performing a bit-wise XOR operation in the frame, while the reminder is actually our CRC.

In many industries first polynomial is in use to create CRC tables and then apply it for performance purposes. The default polynomial, defined by IEEE 802.3 which is 0xA001 for 16 bit and 0×04C11DB7 for 32 bit. We’re in C#, thus we should use it inversed version which is 0×8408 for 16 bit and 0xEDB88320 for 32 bit. Those polynomials we’re going to use also in our sample.

So let’s start. Because CRC is HashAlgorithm after all, we can derive our classes from System.Security.Cryptography.HashAlgorithm class.

public class CRC16 : HashAlgorithm {
public class CRC32 : HashAlgorithm {

Then, upon first creation we’ll generate hashtables with CRC values to enhance future performance. It’s all about values table for bytes from 0 to 255 , so we should calculate it only once and then we can use it statically.

[CLSCompliant(false)]
public CRC16(ushort polynomial) {
HashSizeValue = 16;
_crc16Table = (ushort[])_crc16TablesCache[polynomial];
if (_crc16Table == null) {
_crc16Table = CRC16._buildCRC16Table(polynomial);
_crc16TablesCache.Add(polynomial, _crc16Table);
}
Initialize();
}

[CLSCompliant(false)]
public CRC32(uint polynomial) {
HashSizeValue = 32;
_crc32Table = (uint[])_crc32TablesCache[polynomial];
if (_crc32Table == null) {
_crc32Table = CRC32._buildCRC32Table(polynomial);
_crc32TablesCache.Add(polynomial, _crc32Table);
}
Initialize();
}

Then let’s calculate it

private static ushort[] _buildCRC16Table(ushort polynomial) {
// 256 values representing ASCII character codes.
ushort[] table = new ushort[256];
for (ushort i = 0; i < table.Length; i++) {
ushort value = 0;
ushort temp = i;
for (byte j = 0; j < 8; j++) {
if (((value ^ temp) & 0×0001) != 0) {
value = (ushort)((value >> 1) ^ polynomial);
} else {
value >>= 1;
}
temp >>= 1;
}
table[i] = value;
}
return table;
}

private static uint[] _buildCRC32Table(uint polynomial) {
uint crc;
uint[] table = new uint[256];

// 256 values representing ASCII character codes.
for (int i = 0; i < 256; i++) {
crc = (uint)i;
for (int j = 8; j > 0; j–) {
if ((crc & 1) == 1)
crc = (crc >> 1) ^ polynomial;
else
crc >>= 1;
}
table[i] = crc;
}

return table;
}

The result will looks like this for 32 bits

        0x00, 0x31, 0x62, 0x53, 0xC4, 0xF5, 0xA6, 0x97,
        0xB9, 0x88, 0xDB, 0xEA, 0x7D, 0x4C, 0x1F, 0x2E,
        0x43, 0x72, 0x21, 0x10, 0x87, 0xB6, 0xE5, 0xD4,
        0xFA, 0xCB, 0x98, 0xA9, 0x3E, 0x0F, 0x5C, 0x6D,
        0x86, 0xB7, 0xE4, 0xD5, 0x42, 0x73, 0x20, 0x11,
        0x3F, 0x0E, 0x5D, 0x6C, 0xFB, 0xCA, 0x99, 0xA8,
        0xC5, 0xF4, 0xA7, 0x96, 0x01, 0x30, 0x63, 0x52,
        0x7C, 0x4D, 0x1E, 0x2F, 0xB8, 0x89, 0xDA, 0xEB,
        0x3D, 0x0C, 0x5F, 0x6E, 0xF9, 0xC8, 0x9B, 0xAA,
        0x84, 0xB5, 0xE6, 0xD7, 0x40, 0x71, 0x22, 0x13,
        0x7E, 0x4F, 0x1C, 0x2D, 0xBA, 0x8B, 0xD8, 0xE9,
        0xC7, 0xF6, 0xA5, 0x94, 0x03, 0x32, 0x61, 0x50,
        0xBB, 0x8A, 0xD9, 0xE8, 0x7F, 0x4E, 0x1D, 0x2C,
        0x02, 0x33, 0x60, 0x51, 0xC6, 0xF7, 0xA4, 0x95,
        0xF8, 0xC9, 0x9A, 0xAB, 0x3C, 0x0D, 0x5E, 0x6F,
        0x41, 0x70, 0x23, 0x12, 0x85, 0xB4, 0xE7, 0xD6,
        0x7A, 0x4B, 0x18, 0x29, 0xBE, 0x8F, 0xDC, 0xED,
        0xC3, 0xF2, 0xA1, 0x90, 0x07, 0x36, 0x65, 0x54,
        0x39, 0x08, 0x5B, 0x6A, 0xFD, 0xCC, 0x9F, 0xAE,
        0x80, 0xB1, 0xE2, 0xD3, 0x44, 0x75, 0x26, 0x17,
        0xFC, 0xCD, 0x9E, 0xAF, 0x38, 0x09, 0x5A, 0x6B,
        0x45, 0x74, 0x27, 0x16, 0x81, 0xB0, 0xE3, 0xD2,
        0xBF, 0x8E, 0xDD, 0xEC, 0x7B, 0x4A, 0x19, 0x28,
        0x06, 0x37, 0x64, 0x55, 0xC2, 0xF3, 0xA0, 0x91,
        0x47, 0x76, 0x25, 0x14, 0x83, 0xB2, 0xE1, 0xD0,
        0xFE, 0xCF, 0x9C, 0xAD, 0x3A, 0x0B, 0x58, 0x69,
        0x04, 0x35, 0x66, 0x57, 0xC0, 0xF1, 0xA2, 0x93,
        0xBD, 0x8C, 0xDF, 0xEE, 0x79, 0x48, 0x1B, 0x2A,
        0xC1, 0xF0, 0xA3, 0x92, 0x05, 0x34, 0x67, 0x56,
        0x78, 0x49, 0x1A, 0x2B, 0xBC, 0x8D, 0xDE, 0xEF,
        0x82, 0xB3, 0xE0, 0xD1, 0x46, 0x77, 0x24, 0x15,
        0x3B, 0x0A, 0x59, 0x68, 0xFF, 0xCE, 0x9D, 0xAC

Now, all we have to do is to upon request to lookup into this hash table for related value and XOR it

protected override void HashCore(byte[] buffer, int offset, int count) {

for (int i = offset; i < count; i++) {

ulong ptr = (_crc & 0xFF) ^ buffer[i];

_crc >>= 8;

_crc ^= _crc32Table[ptr];

}

}

new public byte[] ComputeHash(Stream inputStream) {

byte[] buffer = new byte[4096];

int bytesRead;

while ((bytesRead = inputStream.Read(buffer, 0, 4096)) > 0) {

HashCore(buffer, 0, bytesRead);

}

return HashFinal();

}

protected override byte[] HashFinal() {

byte[] finalHash = new byte[4];

ulong finalCRC = _crc ^ _allOnes;

finalHash[0] = (byte)((finalCRC >> 0) & 0xFF);

finalHash[1] = (byte)((finalCRC >> & 0xFF);

finalHash[2] = (byte)((finalCRC >> 16) & 0xFF);

finalHash[3] = (byte)((finalCRC >> 24) & 0xFF);

return finalHash;

}

We done. Have a good time and be good people. Also, I want to thank Boris for helping me with this article. He promised to write here some day…

Source code for this article

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2. Read and use FM radio (or any other USB HID device) from C#
3. Quick how to: Reduce number of colors programmatically

First of all, you should understand, that this book is about how it possible (for this book author) to write four programs (with awful user interface) using different classes from System.Threading namespace to perform tasks, rather then what is multithreaded programming and how to achieve best performance by utilizing multiple CPU power. Your own programs will not run faster after reading this book, but you’ll probably know (if you did not know before) how to use BackgroundWorker, Thread, ThreadPool, AutoResetEvent and WaitHandle classes. Also, there is a small chapter about thread context switching for UI thread delegates invocation and parallel extensions.

There are some technical misconceptions and errors in this book. But it is not the major problem of it. The problem is that while reading this book I question myself whom this book aimed at? Language style is somewhere between blog chatting (better then mine) and MSDN style documentation. I admit I don’t know quite how to categorize this, the author writes in a style that is just bizarre (even more bizarre then mine in this blog ) Overall, it sounds like I’m reading a conversation between two beginner-level programmers trying to explain one each other why they are using certain coding convention in C#.

Another half of this 395 pages book is just copy-paste stuff from Visual Studio (including it default tabulations and indentations). Here one of representative examples of such copy/paste

// Disable the Start button
butStart.Enabled = false;
// Enable the Start button
butStart.Enabled = true;

…

// Some very useful property, which used as private member for another public property
private int priVeryUserfulProperty;

public int VeryUserfulProperty
{
   get
   {
      return priVeryUserfulProperty;
   }
   set
   {
      priVeryUserfulProperty = value;
   }
}

Verdict: Not very exemplary introduction to some classes inside System.Threading namespace for fellow students who like to read blogs, rather then books and documentation and do not want to understand how it works under the hoods, but write something and forget it.

3- of 5 on my scale. This book is not all bad, though, but apparently suitable for very specific audience, which definitely excludes me.

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2. Programming for Windows 7
3. For all those, who have problems with running WPF Performance Profiling tool – Microsoft cares

• Silverlight 3 SDK beta 1
• If you do not want to install full SDK, you can install only runtime for Windows or Mac. Then, you can read documentation online. You do not need it, if you’re going to install
• Silverlight 3 tools beta 1 for VS2008 SP1. After you have all this, go to the official Silverlight web site and start working.
• If you re “in” .NET RIA Services, you can download March ‘09 preview of it also to use with new Silverlight. It also makes sense to read about what is it in Brad’s blog.
• Also new Silverlight toolkit was released with SL3 support and a bunch of new up/down controls, LayoutTransformer, Accordion and TransitioningContentControl.
• Microsoft Expression Blend 3 Preview. It includes SL3 and WPF3.5 SP1 support, but excludes SketchFlow by now.

To learn more about Silverlight 3.0 and Blend 3.0, you can see first day keynotes at mix 09, Rollup of what’s new in Silverlight 3 by Joe Stegman. This includes offline mode support by Mike Harsh. I’ll write another separate post for this topic, due to the fact, that I’m a desktop guy, so wary about the future of WPF.

To learn more about how to use new Expression Blend, it worth to see this session by Pete Blois. Another good sessions are also wrapped for you by Scott Hanselman.

After we done with all web stuff, let’s speak about a client

• Microsoft MultiPoint SDK. Do you want to use multitouch in your application? This SDK provides you with ability to use up to 250 individual mouse devices simultaneously. And yes, it works with Windows XP SP2 too
• Internet Explorer 8 for Windows XP x32, XP x64, Vista x32, Vista x64
• In case, that you do no have Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008, you can download 30-day evaluation virtual hard disk of Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008 Enterprise and see how it works .
• Also a small present for my old friends (from my military consulting era) – WPF and Silverlight APIs for GIS engine of ESRI. Have a fun!

That’s all by now, going to write a review for new book and will publish it soon (probably even before, you’ll finish with all those downloads and readings). So, stay tuned and be good people.

Related posts:

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2. Programming for Windows 7
3. Developers academy 3 – vote your choice

• Southridge, which comes from Redmond team
• Order Manager, which comes from Swiss DPE team

Both labs include WPF ribbon and DataGrid, Southridge also come with M-VV-M design sample and some other interesting features. As for me, it seemed, like some parts of those labs can be easily used “as-is” for production level applications, like it was done with SCE starter, which turned into TimesReader (by the way, it has free version again).

For those, who still trying to consider what to use for their next killer app, I propose to read following article from Jordan, which compares between Silverlight and Flash. And then see composite application guidance to use Prism for Silverlight development. Here the video of it usage by Adam Kinney from Channel 9

Have a nice day and be good people

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2. Line-Of-Business vs. Beautifulness or two dogmas comparison as exemplified by two Twitter applications
3. Arabic and Hebrew languages bidirectional support for Silverlight 2.0 beta 2

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First of all, you have to read a source image

using (var img = Image.FromFile(name)) {
var bmpEncoder = ImageCodecInfo.GetImageDecoders().FirstOrDefault(e => e.FormatID == ImageFormat.Bmp.Guid);

Then create your own encoder with certain color depth (32 bits in this case)

var myEncoder = System.Drawing.Imaging.Encoder.ColorDepth;
var myEncoderParameter = new EncoderParameter(myEncoder, 32L);
var myEncoderParameters = new EncoderParameters(1) { Param = new EncoderParameter[] { myEncoderParameter } };

Then save it

img.Save(name.Replace(”.png”, “.bmp”), bmpEncoder, myEncoderParameters);

It it enough? Not really, because if you’re going to loose colors (by reducing color depth), it makes sense to avoid letting default WIX decoder to do this, thus you have to find nearest base colors manually. How to do this? By using simple math

Color GetNearestBaseColor(Color exactColor) {
Color nearestColor = Colors.Black;
int cnt = baseColors.Count;
for (int i = 0; i < cnt; i++) {
int rRed = baseColors[i].R – exactColor.R;
int rGreen = baseColors[i].G – exactColor.G;
int rBlue = baseColors[i].B – exactColor.B;

int rDistance =
(rRed * rRed) +
(rGreen * rGreen) +
(rBlue * rBlue);
if (rDistance == 0.0) {
return baseColors[i];
} else if (rDistance < maxDistance) {
maxDistance = rDistance;
nearestColor = baseColors[i];
}
}
return nearestColor;
}

Now, you can either change colors on base image directly

unsafe {
uint* pBuffer = (uint*)hMap;
for (int iy = 0; iy < (int)ColorMapSource.PixelHeight; ++iy)
{
for (int ix = 0; ix < nWidth; ++ix)
{
Color nc = GetNearestBaseColor(pBuffer[0].FromOle());

pBuffer[0] &= (uint)((uint)nc.A << 24) | //A
(uint)(nc.R << 16 ) | //R
(uint)(nc.G << 8 ) | //G
(uint)(nc.B ); //B
++pBuffer;
}
pBuffer += nOffset;
}
}

Or, if you’re in WPF and .NET 3.5 create simple pixel shader effect to do it for you in hardware. Now, my colleague can do it himself in about 5 minutes . Have a nice day and be good people.

Related posts:

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2. Capturing and streaming sound by using DirectSound with C#
3. Audio CD operation including CD-Text reading in pure C#

Following the paint of Nikolai Bogdanov-Belsky “Counting in their heads”. This painting is dated 1895.

As you can see at the painting, peasant kids trying to solve following exercise mentally:

(10² + 11² + 12² + 13² + 14²) / 365

This is not very simple exercise, especially when should be solved without your favorite calculator. However, when I was 4th grade I learned to square two-digit numbers mentally (my, and I think, yours too): First, find the nearest multiple of ten, by raising or lowering your number, then add and remove the rest to each of numbers and add the square of oddment. For example

45 * 45 = (45+5) * (45-5) + (5 * 5) = 50 * 40 + 25 = (5 * 4) * 100 + 25 = 20 * 100 + 25 = 2000 + 25 = 2025
14 * 14 = (14+4) * (14-4) + (4 * 4) = 18 * 10 + 16 = 180 + 16 = 196

So, now it can be solved easily:

10² = 100
11²= (11+1) * (11-1) + 1 = 12 * 10 + 1 = 121
12²= (12+2) * (12-2) + 4 = 14 * 10 + 4 = 144
13²= (13+3) * (13-3) + 9 = 16 * 10 + 9 = 169
14²= (14+4) * (14-4) + 16 = 18 * 10 + 16 = 196

And so on… but wait, 100+121+144 already equals 365, which is our denominator. Next sequence will bring us 169+196, which is also 365. So the answer to this black board brain teaser is 2.

However, it can be rather complicated to calculate 86² for instance:

86² = (86 + 4) * (86 – 4) + (4 * 4) = 90 * 82 + 16…

Let’s try another way – multiple the difference between the number and 25 by 100, then add the square of the difference or excess of the number and 50. For example

86² = (86 – 25) * 100 + (86 – 50)² = 61 * 100 +  36² = 6100 + (36 – 25) * 100 + (50 – 36)² = 6100 + 1100 + 14² = 7200 + 196 = 7396

Isn’t it really simple and fun to calculate squares of numbers?

Bonus: how to calculate multiple of two digit numbers with the sum of its unity digits equals to 10?

1. Multiply first digit of the first number by 10
2. Add 1 to first digit of second number and multiply the result by 10
3. Multiply results of step 1 and step 2
4. Deduct second number and the result of step 1
5. Multiply second digit of the first number by the result of step 4
6. Add results of steps 3 and 5

Looks complicated? Let’s make it easier. Assuming that first number is X = 10x + z and second number is Y = 10y + (10 – z), the formula for quick multiplication calculation is: 100 * x * (y + 1) + z * (Y – 10 * x). For example:

96 * 84 = 100 * 9 * (8+1) + 6 * (84-10 * 9) = 100 * 9 * 9 + 6 * (84 – 90) = 8100 – 6 * 6 = 8100 – 36 = 8064
37 * 93 = 100 * 3 * (9+1) + 7 * (93 – 10 * 3) = 3000 + 7 * 63 = 3000 + (100 * 6 * 1 + 3 * (7 – 60)) = 3000 + 600 – 3 * 53 = 3600 – 159 = 3441

Have a nice day and be good people. Also, throw out all hardware calculators and uninstall all software

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Until now there are 15 possible .NET frameworks can be installed on client’s machine. Here the table of possible and official supported versions, as appears in Q318785

All of those versions are detectible by queering specific registry keys. However, in some cases, you need to load mscoree.dll and call “GETCOREVERSION” API to determine whether specific version of .NET is installed. You can read more about it in MSDN.

So it’s really simple to write small C++ application (or PowerShell applet), that queries registry and invoke your managed application. How to do this? You can either read about it in outstanding blog of Aaron Stebner, who is Project Manager in XNA platform deployment team or attend my session next week to learn do it yourself. We’ll speak about nifty ways to do it also.

Anyway, by now, you can use small stand alone program, I wrote a while ago, that will tell you all versions of .NET frameworks installed in target machine without any prerequisites. It can be run even from shared network location

Download whoooot.exe (13K) >>

See you next week.

PS: Do not forget to download and install the new version of Visual Studio Snippet Designer, which is extremely useful tool by MVP Bill McCarthy, you’ll need it later next week…

Have a nice day and be good people.

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