Rogue msiexec processes after installing VS2010

I need to give big props to Mebyon Kernow for his blog post here with the answer to this problem.

After installing VS2010 on my HP Mini, i noticed the cpu usage constantly sitting at 50+%. Upon looking at thr process manager, i saw that there were two rogue msiexec processes working hard and chewing up cpu cycles. As the HP Mini is a netbook, constant work on the cpu chews up battery life. A quick google* turned up the aforementioned blog post. Ten minutes after adding the appropriate folder, the msiexec instances finished their business and disappeared.

The answer in Mebyon's post was quite simple, and finding it meant i didn't have to think too hard for myself.

* I actually used Bing, but saying "a quick bing" doesn't have the same zhoosh as saying "a quick google".




Keywords: VS2010, rogue process, msiexec

SourceSafe history report - from the command line

Sometimes it is really useful to be able to do a history report on your SourceSafe archive. For instance, what check-ins did the developer called X make between 1 June 2009 and 30 June 2009?

Surprisingly it can be tough to search out the exact info you need to make this work effectively. Having this sort of reporting is also really helpful when putting together release notes, especially if developers use the 'comment' feature when checking items in, and mention specific bug cases (you are using a bug tracking product, aren't you?).


Here is how you do it. Open up a command prompt. Then you need to set an environmental variable called SSDIR, this is so the following commands know what repository we will be working with. To do this type the path to the folder containing the srcsafe.ini file of the repository:

C:>set SSDIR=c:\Program Files\Sourcesafe\

Note the trailing slash, and note that the filename itself is not included. Then you need to navigate to the folder where sourcesafe is installed:

C:>cd C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual SourceSafe

Then we use ss.exe to generate the history report. This particular command gives me all the files that were checked in between 0900 on the 1st July and 0900 on the 30th July.

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual SourceSafe>ss history "$/Projects/My Project" -Oc:\history.txt -R -vd30/07/09;09:00a~01/07/09;09:00a

Breaking down the command line arguments:

Command option	What it means
history	ss.exe can be used for many things - we are telling it to do a history report.
"$/Projects/My Project"	Path to the project i want reported on in the SourceSafe repository pointed to by SSDIR.
-Oc:\blah.txt	-O means output, and then i specify the file i want the data outputed to.
-R	This is the recursive flag, IOW it means do all projects (folders) under the project specified as the start point.
-vd	This is the bit that limits the date. In my case the dates are in real english format (dd/mm/yy), not US format. The later date is listed first. The tilde (~) indicates that it is a range. The time is included with the date by separating it with a semi-colon, and the AM/PM is indicated by using either 'a' or 'p'.

This gives me a nice little text file called history.txt that i can scan through (or programmatically parse), it looks a little like this:

**********************
Label: "1.0.0.635"
User: Builder Date: 31/07/09 Time: 5:02p
Labeled
Label comment: Automated Build of Version 1.0.0.635

***** AssemblyInfo.cs *****
Version 29
User: Builder Date: 31/07/09 Time: 5:02p
Checked in $/Projects/My Project/Properties
Comment: Automated Build of Version 1.0.0.635

***** GridView.cs *****
Version 41
User: Shane Date: 16/07/09 Time: 4:27p
Checked in $/Projects/My Project/Controls/GridView
Comment: case 12345, changed how a column was rendered






Keywords: sourcesafe, history report, command line