None of the selected features can be installed or upgraded. Setup cannot proceed since no effective change is being made to the machine. To continue,

While installing Microsoft SQl 2005 you may face this message...

TITLE: Microsoft SQL Server Setup------------------------------
None of the selected features can be installed or upgraded. Setup cannot proceed since no effective change is being made to the machine. To continue, click Back and then select features to install. To exit SQL Server Setup, click Cancel.
For help, click: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink?LinkID=20476&ProdName=Microsoft+SQL+Server&ProdVer=9.00.1399.06&EvtSrc=setup.rll&EvtID=SQLSetup90&EvtType=28108
------------------------------BUTTONS: OK------------------------------
To solve this problem:
To get around this issue, run the setup.exe from the SQL installation source from your Run command with the parameter SKUUPGRADE=1 or UPGRADE=1.
For more ref
Hope this helps you people! CodeProject

How to register a windows service

After creating a windows service application, many of the people will try to run the service directly. But this is absolutely not possible until we register the service.

To register the service, first we need to add a Installer to the service. To do this open the service in the GUI mode,right click on the panel and select Add Installer. This will install the project installer file to the project.

Now open the visual studio command prompt and type the following command

installutil myprojectassembly.exe

This will register the windows service.

To check it, open run and type Services.msc. Now you can find your service in the listed services.

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Stop a windows service forcibly

If you want to stop a windows service forcibly, first you need to know the PID of that process.

To know the PID open command-prompt and type the following command

sc queryex servicename

Now we can get the PID of the process. After getting it, to kill the process we need to type the following command

taskkill /F /PID pid

That's it. Now you can see the success message on the screen.

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Visual studio c# compiler could not be created.

Problem: I got a problem when i am installing VS 2008 sp1. It was suddenly failed and after that my visual studio does not properly and was unable to load previous projects. Giving an error "c# compiler could not be created"

Solution:

I found in my registry

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VCSExpress\9.0\Packages

that there are 5 registry entries (class GUIDs) with key 'SkipLoading' set to DWORD value 0x00000001

I changed the value to 0x00000000 and now C# 2008 Express is working as expected ;-)))

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SQL Express 2005 Configuration Manager - Cannot connect to WMI provider

Problem: Cannot connect to WMI provider.You do not have permission or the server is unreachable. Note that you can only manage SQL Server 2005 servers with SQL Server Configuration Manager.
Access is denied. [0x80070005]

Solution: C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Shared>mofcomp "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Shared\sqlmgmproviderxpsp2up.mof"

When it says done you should be fine!

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Problem creating ER diagrams

Question: Database diagram support objects cannot be installed because this database does not have a valid owner. To continue, first use the Files page of the Database Properties dialog box or the ALTER AUTHORIZATION statement to set the database owner to a valid login, then add the database diagram support objects.

Answer:

When the database does not have a valid owner, the database dialog displays the owner as the logged in user. (This issue will be fixed in SP1.)

The "no valid owner" issue usually comes up when databases are owned by SQL-authentication logins and are upgraded, detached/attached to another server, or restored from backup to another server. The SID (a large number) doesn't match any existing login on the new server, so the owner name remains whatever it was on the old server, but it is marked invalid. Explicitly setting the owner to a valid principal on the server solves the problem.

There is also a known issue when the UI tries to install the database support objects on databases where the compatibility level is set to 80 (SQL Server 2000). The installation fails and the UI incorrectly reports that the database has no valid owner. Setting compatibility level to 90 (SQL Server 2005) before installing the diagram support objects solves this problem. (This issue will also be fixed in SP1.)

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Padding issue in firefox

Problem : There is a problem the way the div elements with padding displayed in firefox and IE.

Solution :

Mozilla supports its own variation of this declaration:

-moz-box-sizing: border-box;
-moz-box-sizing: content-box;
-moz-box-sizing: padding-box;

IE8 uses a similar variation:

-ms-box-sizing: border-box
-ms-box-sizing: content-box;

.panel {
-moz-box-sizing:border-box;
box-sizing:border-box;
width:153px !important; /*moz width*/
width:151px; /*IE width*/
}

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