Friday, September 18, 2009

Windows 7 and Visual Studio SLN files.... uggh

My 2003 server VM went out the other day at work so I figured I try out the new Windows 7 that I've been hearing so much goodness about.

I downloaded the ISO and began the install (installing within Fusion). I left to go get a drink thinking it would take no less than an hour. I came back to my desk and was very nicely surprised to see that the install had finished. I think this was the fastest Windows install I've ever done.

Another nice thing I've noticed so far is how much easier it is on my system. Before 2003 was always using some of my cpu doing whatever it is that it does. 7 on the other hand lets my system idle at around 3.5% (running in Fusion). It also seems snappier as well. So far I was really quite impressed, well first impressions anyway.

Then some ugliness started shining through. The "Yes I really really really do want to run this application" UAC stuff isn't as bad as it is in Vista, but it's still pretty annoying at best. I began loading my work projects over and tried to double click a web solution. Well, it threw up about 4 dialogs that I had to click whatever on to make them go away. These where all UAC related dialogs. I then set VS to always run as administrator, so much for the UAC protection eh. Then all seemed to be good in the world, until I tried to double click the solution again. I watched as the little loading spinner briefly popped up and then went away. Then I waited... and waited... Nothing, no error message, no UAC.... NOTHING. So I took the option to always run as admin off and I was back to where I started.

I found this 'feature' according to MS
That is quite frankly, stupid.
I guess you can set .sln files to always load with VS2008, or whatever, and that fixes it. But it's just kinda ugly. The sad thing is that the bug was reported back in 2007 so I don't think it will be resolved any time soon.

I guess I'll hope that I love everything else about it and that nothing else is wrong..

10 comments:

BlackTigerX said...

a debugger is an advanced application that shouldn't be allowed to run just like that on your machine, so that's not so bad, you can always just start VS in admin mode and open your solutions from there

check out even the small details like paint or the calculator

Justin Wilson said...

I can set it to always run as admin. Then simply click VS. It loads up as admin and then I can load the SLN no problem.

I can't however double click the SLN and then have it still honor the fact that VS is set to always run as admin.

It's simply busy work to always load VS then navigate through the file-manager to find the SLN and then load it.

Setting up the .sln extension to always load with a particular version of VS allows it to work as intended, just seems like a sad work-around.

Justin Wilson said...

Saweeet!

If anyone else runs across this annoyance here is an answer

http://www.pluralsight.com/community/blogs/matt/archive/2007/05/21/47446.aspx

it's about half way down in the comments...

Basically you just set the 'VSLauncher.exe' application to always run as admin as well as VS.
UAC will still pop up so it should be safe :)

'VSLauncher.exe' is found in
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\MSEnv\

Paul Fox said...

Or just disable UAC. =) I was going to live with it in W7 because it is much better than Vista, but this problem made me disable it.

http://foxsys.blogspot.com/2009/08/windows-7-user-account-control-uac-drag.html

=( Would have loved to leave it on, but they make it so hard...

Justin Wilson said...

Yes, I was on the verge of just turning off UAC, as you had done, until I found the fix/hack with the VSLauncher.exe.

Although the UAC is still very annoying I haven't disabled it quite yet. But I haven't been using Win7 for as long as you so maybe once I notice a few other issues, or I get sick of clicking 'yes I really really want to do this' all of the time, I too will turn off the little tattletale.

Kamagra said...

Windows 7 is very fast and dynamic, it's a very useful operating system with updating center, which you can update immediately, what is SLN by the way???

Justin Wilson said...

@Kamagra

A .sln file is a Visual Studio solution file (for software development).

Most other mainstream OS's are also fast and have some kind of `update center` as well.

cialis price said...

Thanks for a marvelous posting! I seriously enjoyed reading it, you can be a great author

discount viagra said...

That is very good comment you shared.Thank you so much that for you shared those things with us.Im wishing you to carry on with ur achivments.All the best.

viagra reviews said...

Thank You a ton for writing such a wonderful piece of information. Keep sharing such ideas in the future as well. This was actually what I was looking for, and I am glad to came here! Thanks for sharing the such information with us.