Friday, July 29, 2011

Listening better….

From Julian Treasure’s TED talk: 5 ways to listen better:

The acronym RASA to help you become a better listener:

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Receive: Pay attention to the person talking

Appreciate: Making noises that lets the speaker know that you are listening and receiving their message (oh! ok! yes!)

Summarize: Saying “So….”

Ask: Ask questions afterwards

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Sql scripts: SetVar, :r and spaces in file paths

Had some issues getting a SqlCmd variable working with the :r SqlCmd command.

Here is how I got it working finally:

:setvar databaseScriptFolder "C:\My Folder\"
:r $(databaseScriptFolder)"test script.sql"

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

.Net 4 web-apps not working under IIS7

If your .Net 4 web-apps fail to load, or you do not get .Net 4.0 options for websites under IIS7, then it maybe because your .Net 4.0 installation has been corrupted and it probably just needs to be repaired.

Here is one symptom: Under ISAPI and CGI restrictions for the IIS web-server, Asp.Net v4.0.xxxx does not show up.

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Here is a simple command to run the repair:

%windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\SetupCache\Client\setup.exe /repair /x86 /x64 /ia64 /parameterfolder Client /norestart

It took about 15 minutes to complete on my machine.

And after the repair, all the enteries showed up:

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Monday, July 25, 2011

Determining which website is running under which W3WP process

Or this post could be named “where is IISApp.Vbs script go in IIS 7?”

If you look at the Windows Task Manager, you may see multiple w3wp.exe processes running:

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So how do you determine which one is running which website? In IIS 6, one would use the IISApp.vbs script to get that info. In IIS 7, there is a new executable called AppCmd.exe. This file can be typically found under the “c:\windows\system32\inetsrv” folder.

To determine which W3Wp.exe process is hosting which website, simply run the following command: AppCmd list wp

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Monday, July 18, 2011

Windows 7 Service Pack 1 Installation Problems?

I kept getting an installation error with Windows 7 Service Pack 1 with an error code of: 8024200D.

I tried the Windows Update Readiness Tool multiple times, as well as restarted my computer multiple times. None of that helped.

Finally, I found the download page, from where you can download the entire installation package (http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=5842). After downloading the almost 1GB package, I was able to finally get SP1 installed successfully.

The installers based on your platform are (you need to validate that you have a genuine copy of Win7):

windows6.1-KB976932-IA64.exe
windows6.1-KB976932-X64.exe
windows6.1-KB976932-X86.exe

More info: Steps to take to make the SP1 install go smoothly: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2505743