While I usually like to detach, copy/rename, then reattach development databases, for online databases I often need to refer to these SQL commands: BACKUP DATABASE MY_DATABASE TO DISK=‘C:\SQLBACKUPS\MY_DATABASE_BACKUP20111117a.BACKUP’ RESTORE FILELISTONLY FROM DISK=‘C:\SQLBACKUPS\MY_DATABASE_BACKUP20111117a.BACKUP’ RESTORE DATABASE MY_DATABASE_NEW FROM DISK=‘C:\SQLBACKUPS\MY_DATABASE_BACKUP20111117a.BACKUP’ WITH   MOVE ‘MY_DATABASE_Data’ TO ‘C:\PRODUCTION_DATA\MY_DATABASE.MDF’,   MOVE ‘MY_DATABASE_Log’ TO ‘C:\PRODUCTION_DATA\MY_DATABASE.LDF’

The Delphi IDE Fix Pack from Andy Hausladen in truly incredible.  At work we have a very large Delphi project (core application has about 3.9 million lines of code) and using the Delphi IDE was painfully slow—doing a ‘Find Declaration’ would lock the IDE for minutes.  After installing the IDE Fix Pack the IDE is […]

At work we’re upgrading to the latest release of Microsoft Exchange and I needed to change the server address within Outlook. To start with, one cannot change the Microsoft Exchange server from Outlook—the field is read-only.  The solution is to run the Mail control panel applet.  However, Mail tool is only available under the View […]

Just go to the start menu and type msconfig and this very handy form appears: which can be used to determine how windows boots, which OS to start with (if you have a multi-boot system), all services that are installed, a quick launcher for a number of useful tools and most important a fast way […]

In file explorer go to Control Panel\System and then select Advanced system settings which will bring up System Properties.  Go to the Advanced tab and select Startup and Recovery Settings… Then select the desired Default operating system:

Rather than watching the keynote using the HTML5 embedded video player, here is the presentation in Silverlight.

Thanks to Scott Hanselman’s excellent post a Guide to Installing and Booting Windows 8 Developer Preview off a VHD (Virtual Hard Disk), I now have a very useable touchscreen tablet. Kudos to Microsoft for a very good job with the tablet usability–the side swiping gestures are intuitive and work well.  And the same keyboard in  […]

While pressing F2 takes one to the HP Advanced Diagnostics System Manager, to get to the Startup Menu repeatedly press Esc during the tablet’s boot procedure.  The Startup Menu has these options: F1 System Information F2 System Diagnostics  (same as pressing F2 while booting) F9 Boot Device Options F10 BIOS Setup F11 System Recovery

The .iso for the Windows Developer Preview can be downloaded from: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/br229516 While it felt a bit like an early Christmas in September, getting the gift unwrapped was challenging.  I could not get the OS to run in VMWare (7.1.4) or Microsoft Virtual PC.  So I turned to Bing and found a link to other’s […]