I recently had the need to use IISExpress on Windows 8 to provide a demo server to a number of Surface RT clients. I found this took me longer than I expected. It might be me but the documentation did not leap out. So as a summary this is what I had to do, let us say for example that I want to serve out …

Just completing the second reinstall of Windows 8 on my Lenovo W520 in 10 days due to my new SSD failing and needing to be replaced. To try to ease the process I though I would try putting on the miscellaneous tools I use such as 7Zip, Filezilla etc. using Chocolatey. I have to say first impressions are good, one …

Today at Build 2012 it was announced that https://tfspreview.com has RTM'd as Team Foundation Service on https://tfs.visualstudio.com. Up until now there has been no pricing information, which had been a barrier to some people I have spoken to as they did not want to started using something without knowing the future …

We have an internal Nuget Server we use to manage our software packages. As part of our upgrade to TFS2012 this needed to be moved to a new server VM and I took the chance to upgrade it from 1.7 to 2.1. The problem Now we had had a problem that we could publish to the server via a file copy to its underlying Packages …

If you are looking for a nice introduction to the new features of Visual Studio 2012, I can heartily recommend Richard Banks 'Visual Studio 2012 Cookbook'. This book covers a wide range of subjects including the IDE, .NET 4.5 features, Windows 8 development, Web development, C++, debugging, async and TFS 2012. This is …

After applying SP1 to a SharePoint 2010 farm we found we were unable to run any macros in an Access Services site, it gave a –4002 error. We had seen this error in the past, but the solutions that worked then did not help. As this site was critical, as a workaround, we moved the site to a non-patched SP2010 instance. …

[Also see http://blogs.blackmarble.co.uk/blogs/rfennell/post/2013/01/22/More-on-HDD2-boot-problems-with-my-Crucial-M4-mSATA.aspx] I have just reinstalled Windows 8 (again) on my Lenovo W520. This time it was because I moved to a Crucial m4 256Gb 2.5” internal SSD as my primary disk. There is a special slot for this …

I seem to have been doing a lot of presenting lately, and the next few weeks are similarly busy. As a one-stop shop to plug them all, here is a list of upcoming events I will be presenting, co-presenting or supporting: VMUG Leeds, 25th October 2012 I am co-presenting with the marvellous Andy Fryer on a range of content …

A video has just be uploaded that I did on the new unit testing features in Visual Studio and TFS 2012. This is quick 10 minute introduction to some of the material I will be covering at DDDNorth next weekend. Hope you find it useful

For most developers the ability to drive applications with just the keyboard is as much instinctive as it is productive and Windows 8 allows it. Following on from my previous post this post covers how to navigate and use the touch interface of Windows 8 with the Keyboard The key to effective Windows 8 keyboard mastery …