WCF: custom tool error when adding a service reference in Visual Studio 2008

When adding a service reference in Visual Studio 2008, I came across a weird error. The reference was created successfully, but when I tried to build the project (a c# class library project), I always get a custom tool error ("the global element ... was defined in both ... and ..."). Thus I could not compile. Everything I tried didn't work. After reloading Visual Studio I got another error (Class ... is already defined in another namespace).

I finally solved this problem by deleting the Visual Studio project, creating a new project and adding the same service reference a second time.

I don't really know, what caused this error, but maybe it has something to do with changing the namespace or the service reference name after the first creation.

How to remove a WebPart from SharePoint page with errors

I just ran into the problem that I added a WebPart to my SharePoint page that causes an error. With this error I'm not able to remove the WebPart from the page because I cannot access the administration page.

I found some working hints in Coskun Cavusoglu's blog.

So just add ?contents=1 to your url and you'll be redirected to the managing mode of the page. Another way would be to call /_layouts/spcontnt.aspx?&url=[relative url to the page with errors].

Solved WiX v3 - votive problems

I now solved my wix v3 votive problems with newer builds of wix. The problem was that from a specific wix build on, the standard configuration was changed from any cpu to x86 and any cpu was not longer supported. I used my old .wixproj without change in newer version without discovering any problems.

When I changed to 3.0.4220.0, the TFS source control was not working any longer for the wix project itself but also causes the automatic checkout of items in other project types to not work.

After changing all any cpu references to x86 in my .wixproject everything worked fine.

It's really weird that this caused the TFS source control to not work correctly anymore.

Btw this is reproducable, so it's not just a hazard that it works now.

Visual Studio Developer Clinic

If you ever get the chance to go to the Visual Studio Developer Clinic at Microsoft in Redmond use it! It's a fantastic event. You'll get to know a lot of people working on all the stuff, we're complaining about ;-) And they know that it's painful to work with it and they know really great hacks.

IzPack now supports InstallerRequirements

The current trunk version of IzPack now supports the so called installer requirements. This means that it's now possible to define requirements for being able to start the installation. E.g. if a certain user has to start the installer, this will be checked by using a UserCondition with an installer requirement. If the condition is not fulfilled, a message will be shown and the installer exits.

WiX v3 - votive problems

The newest weekly build of WiX v3 3.0.4220.0 causes some problems in Visual Studio 2008 if you're using the votive integration.
In my installation, votive reproducable causes problems with sourcecontrol integration. I'm using the TFS Client. After installing votive, automatic checkout while editing is not working anymore in any project. In the votive project itself, almost every button for TFS is disabled.

Hope the next version of WiX is better, as WiX is a fantastic installer generator for the windows world.

Article Flexible installations with IzPack in Java Magazin 07.08

I published an article about flexible installations with IzPack 3.11 in the current issue (07.08) of Java Magazin. Full quellcode for a sample project is included.