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Though released nearly a decade ago, Visual Basic 6 still remains a cornerstone for the IT department of many companies. With so many line of business applications, many no longer with source code, in use, upgrade paths to Windows Vista and Server 2008 needs to be considered carefully. The make the upgrade somewhat easier, Microsoft has committed to an "It Just Works" policy for VB 6 applications.
Task Scheduler is an useful addition to Windows Vista and the upcoming Windows Server 2008. This is a quick lesson on how to use the Task Scheduler from managed code.
This dialog provides a framework that covers most dialog scenarios while maintaining consistency across applications. But it also introduces a new problem in that it is not backwards compatible with Windows XP. Hedley Muscroft tackled this problem by creating a wrapper/emulator for the Task Dialog.
With the release of Service Pack 2, SQL Server 2005 finally has full support on Vista. This includes SQL Server Express, which had serious difficulties running on the new operating system. Several new features are also included in this release.
Windows assessment numbers are expected to be very useful for comparing computers in the store or for identifying performance bottlenecks in systems you already own. Other possible uses include altering an application's behavior depending on the system's capabilities. But using them from managed code isn't exactly easy, especially when you have to deal with raw pointers.
XML Paper Specification, or XPS, is a new XML-based format for creating formatted documents. Seen as a direct competitor to Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF), it is one of the more controversial features in Windows Vista. Because it touches so much of the Windows infrastructure, it is expected to affect all users in one way or another.
The Java vs. NET war is over. In this article, Ted Neward looks at how we can leverage the strengths of each together, such as using Microsoft Office to act as a "rich client" to a Java middle-tier service, or building a Windows Presentation Foundation GUI on top of Java POJOs, or even how to execute Java Enterprise/J2EE functionality from within a Windows Workflow host.
Microsoft has a tough decision. They can either concentrate on the next version of Visual Studio, with features such as LINQ, or they can ensure Visual Studio 2002/2003 works Vista.
