Troubleshoot Installshield installs

You can use Windows Installer logging to figure out what's going on with that pesky InstallShield installation.

1. Open/run regedit and navigate to the following path:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Installer
2. Add the following string value to the Installer directory: Logging
3. Add the following data/value to the Logging string value: voicewarmup

   The letters in the value field can be in any order. Each letter turns on a different logging mode. Each letter's actual function is as follows for MSI version 1.1:
   v - Verbose output
   o - Out-of-disk-space messages
   i - Status messages
   c - Initial UI parameters
   e - All error messages
   w - Non-fatal warnings
   a - Start up of actions
   r - Action-specific records
   m - Out-of-memory or fatal exit information
   u - User requests
   p - Terminal properties
   + - Append to existing file
   ! - Flush each line to the log

Once the registry change is made your new installer logging will show up in your Temp directory (temp is defined by the temp system variable). The log in the directory will have a name that starts with the letters MSI and will be followed a random number.

Remote Desktop Won't Maximize

I work from home quite a bit, so I use my much smaller laptop screen through RDP. Sometimes the next morning when I go to work and try to use RDP again, the window wants to stay at the size of my laptop screen instead of the size of my work monitor's screen. Pressing the maximize button makes it the max size of the laptop screen, and you can't un-maximize and drag it larger.

In the My Documents folder, there is a file called Default.rdp. If you delete it, it removes the "default" settings for your resolution and you can maximize again. Hooray!

How to remove something from Add/Remove Programs

This is documented in Microsoft kb 314481 here:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314481
but in case it ever moves....

The Currently installed programs list in the Add or Remove Programs tool lists all of the Windows-compatible programs that have an uninstall program or feature. Occasionally, a program may not be removed completely, and the registry key that is used to display the program in the Currently installed programs list remains. In this situation, you may need to manually remove the program from the Currently installed programs list in Add or Remove Programs.

Remove the program's entry from here:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall

How to easily download artifacts from Hudson

You can download all the files from the last successful build in one big zip folder by adding the following string after the jobname:
/lastSuccessfulBuild/artifact/*zip*/archive.zip

So if the job is "x" and located here:
http://washbuild:8080/job/x

then you can download all the artifacts at
http://washbuild:8080/job/x/lastSuccessfulBuild/artifact/*zip*/archive.zip

Looking at security settings in Windows

Recently, I needed to check out the security settings for certain folders in Windows. When I right-clicked on the folder, there was no "Security" tab.

You can get that tab to show up by going to Folder Options and de-selecting "Use Simple File Sharing" in the list.

Easy hex to char converter

You can type the hex code into Wordpad, and then hit ‘Alt-X’ to change it to its Unicode equivalent.

Neat-o.

DBISQL and its quirky command line

Using Sybase's dbisql tool to run database schema updates is an everyday part of my job. One would think that it's an everyday part of the job of many people who have to maintain and upgrade databases.

As such, I was expecting dbisql to be a robust tool that would understand input on the command line and parse it in a useful manner. However, apparently no one at Sybase has ever had to run a script through dbisql using a fully qualified path.

The command READ file1>>& file2 runs the contents of file1 and echoes the commands into file2.

The command READ c:\program files\xx\file1 doesn't work.

The command READ file1>>& c:\program files\file2 doesn't work.

The command READ "c:\program files\xx\file1", nor any variation with quotes thereof, doesn't work.

So, off to do some text parsing and substitution, to find every instance of "c:\program files" and replace it with "c:\progra~1"......