Vista is stupid

Two things I noticed today. First of all, if I copy a file onto a memory stick, it checks if there's enough space for the file BEFORE working out if it's going to be overwriting an existing file. So it tells me I don't have enough space, until I manually delete the old copy that I wanted to overwrite.

The other thing, which has annoyed me forever, is that the details view in explorer seems to always default to a view that's designed for media files, even if there are none in the folder. So when I do a search, I get a view that shows me Artist, Album, Genre, as if the only thing I'd ever search for is mp3s. I was searching for a .cfg file, as it happens. The date the file was modified, which is to me the thing I need most when I search for a file, as I'll often find many copies and want the latest one, is not there. Sure, I can right click and add it, and I do, EVERY TIME, but why not remember my preference, or give me a sane preference, based on the type of files found perhaps ?

Let it go....

I am working with SQL Server Compact. I've opened my database in the management console. Now I find that even after I disconnect, I cannot delete the database file in question. I close the Management Console, and I can delete the database. Surely if I disconnect from the file, the program shouldn't keep the file open, but apparently it does. This is not the first time I've had this sort of issue. If I close a file, then I'm telling you I want it back. Is that so hard ?

More Vista misery

Did I mention this before ? I have reinstalled Vista using the CDs that came with the computer. It's as fresh as it gets. The control panel does not work, it appears then disappears. I can run the control panel items if I know their names, but the control panel itself is simply gone.

Windows search is useless

So, one of the worst things about vista is the new search in folders, which doesn't return any matches even when you know they exist. I'm not sure what the logic is there. We recently had a bug report where one video in our app would not play with the WMP control, and the WMP control default view was changed. I fixed the latter issue, but still cannot repro the former on XP. In my attempts to do so, I ran every Windows update available ( I usually never run them because they have broken my PC more often than any malware ever has ). So, today I right click on a folder and choose search and a new dialog appears. I vaugely recall 'windows search' being on that upgrade list....

The new dialog tells me I cannot search the folder I want to as it is 'not indexed'. Funny, I used to be able to just search my hard drive. And there's no UI to help you, you have to go and read the help, then open a dialog, then work out how to add the folder you want to search to the index. Nice one, that makes like SO much better. Well worth the update.

Having indexed my source code folder ( which happens instantly, it seems and therefore seems like something that I could have been asked instead of being told I just plain can't search my own file system ), I now find that the search cannot find the files I want. I KNOW there's some files there that match my search, I just can't see the one I want. A bit more digging and I find out that the actual UI is just a mess. There's a text box, whose purpose I am not sure of, but if I type my term in there, it searches and tells me there were no matches. Maybe it searches the desktop and the UI under searches where I wanted to search ? Either way, yet another piece of totally useless UI and an update that makes things worse, not better.

Stop the presses. There's a button at the bottom called 'search companion'. The 'companion' is the old search, the one that actually works. So if you've accidentally installed this mess, just push that and you'll get a working search again.

SQL Server crash

I just started SQL Server, connected to my SQL Server Compact DB, and got a null reference error. My SQL Server 2008 is now showing me the connection dialog, but there are no options in it. Here's the error that I was shown:

See the end of this message for details on invoking
just-in-time (JIT) debugging instead of this dialog box.

************** Exception Text **************
System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
at Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.UI.ConnectionDlg.LoginControl.UpdateInstanceLabel()
at Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.UI.ConnectionDlg.LoginControl.Sync(UIConnectionInfo ci)
at Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.UI.ConnectionDlg.ConnectionDialog.DoOneTimeInitialization()
at Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.UI.ConnectionDlg.ConnectionDialog.OnVisibleChanged(EventArgs e)
at Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.UI.VSIntegration.ShellConnectionDialog.OnVisibleChanged(EventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmShowWindow(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.ScrollableControl.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.ContainerControl.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Form.WmShowWindow(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Form.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)

How is this remotely possible ? It sure isn't acceptable. Here is the dialog box:




On top of this, my SQL Server 2005 ( my default instance ) just up and died a week or so ago. I've spent far too long on google, and I can't work out how to make it work, if I start the service, it just stops. I've googled the errors in the logs, but I've had no luck. I've basically given up on it at this point, if I need any of the data, I assume I can import it in to SS2008 from the files on my file system still...

Burning CDs or, why can't it just remember my preference ?

I am burning some installer DVDs using Vista. I put in a DVD, and it prompts me how I want to use the disc. I choose to burn with the file system. EVERY TIME I do this, it selects to do it using a format that lets me add files as I go, despite my EVERY TIME selecting to do a 'master' burn so it's more likely to work on other machines. And of course, it HIDES the options, which is why I forget from time to time that they exist. I have to expand the list and select the same option EVERY time, or I lose a disc and some time.

I've lost several discs to forgetting this little wrinkle. Why can't it just remember that I have NEVER willingly burned a DVD this way, I've only ever done it accidentally, pressed cancel, found that cancel does nothing, and waited to throw the disc out ? It's bad enough that search in Vista is fundamentally useless, that UAC makes the machine unusable ( and I can't turn it off b/c I need to use it to test for our vanilla users ), and so on, but surely Microsoft, who make their living on average products that copy other ideas but improve the UI, can make a UI that remembers how I like to burn DVDs ?

NotYetImplimentedException

This is just a little thing, and it's something that has since been fixed, but it kind of illustrates the lack of communication or thought between different parts of Microsoft teams. When I became an MVP, I was almost immediately whisked to a Microsoft summit. I believe VS2005 was in development at the time. During the summit, the person in charge of the VS IDE gave a presentation. I asked her at the time why it is that visual studio will create stub methods on a right click, so I can do

myClassInstance.NewMethod();

then right click and create a stub to then navigate to, to add this method, and the default method would throw a generic exception. The point being that a 'NotYetImplimentedException' existed in the framework and is what should be thrown here. She 'took a note'. However, this was not rectified in 2005 ( although I did get sent a nice paperweight that says 'thanks for helping us improve Visual Studio 2005', the fact is that not one bug I reported was corrected ). I believe it was fixed in VS2008, but the point is not so much that they didn't immediately make a tiny change to a product in development to make it act in a sane manner, it's the fact that they didn't do what I was suggesting in the first place. Like the issue with Visual Studio not working in Vista without setting it up to run as admin, or any number of other issues we all encounter, the problem is that the teams at Microsoft don't seem to talk to one another, don't seem to care about using the framework as a whole consistently, and don't seem to care about how their product will work in relation to the rest of the Microsoft product base.