Caleb has sort of let the cat out of the bag... Introducing My.Vista. There are over 7,000 new API's in Windows Vista.  Some of them are immediately obvious while others are deep beneath the surface.  I rather enjoy digging around in Windows API land, however, many people don't care to do this so this area is usually off limits ...

I need to run it through it's paces, but I now have a VS2005 macro that will, whenever I successfully build a release mode project, package the project folder into a zip file named [ProjectName]_src_v[OutputAssemblyFileVersion].zip.  And it doesn't require anything additional to be installed on the machine.  And it's not ...

I applaud this guys enthusiasm, however, his discovery/technique is something I would strongly urge you to avoid.  There are two major reasons for this:Doesn't work as a "regular user".Will cause you MAJOR support issues as Windows Vista gains momentum.  See reason #1.I've been using a similar technique in ...

A couple of days ago a noticed this article, downloaded the code, thought about it for a bit and realized that although he had a great idea... I had a few problems with the implementation.  I really distaste the idea of "unsafe" code unless there is absolutely no way around using it... and even then I'd probably choose to ...

IntroductionThere are a lot of new features in Windows Vista.  In this installment, we’ll explore the WinSAT (Windows System Assessment Tool) API.  (The Windows Experience Index in the Vista UI is part of WinSAT.) The Vista SDK defines it as: Windows System Assessment Tool (WinSAT) assesses the performance characteristics and ...

According to Brad Abrams, the Windows Forms documentation team published a new whitepaper about how to create a great layout using the new features of the WinForms in .NET 2.0... meaning you don't have to create the same old “grey” applications everyone has come to know and love. ;-) I've read through it and it's got some great ...

Obviously I've been pretty swamped with work and everything else... including working on XboxFriends.  Here is an image that demonstrates the ToolTip control that is included with Visual Studio 2005 utilizing the information in this article to display a snapshot of information that can add a lot of bang for the buck. Yes! That is a ...

There are a couple of options available for signing your ClickOnce application: When the signing options screen appears (which it does whenever you save a manifest file using MageUI.exe), you'll probably be tempted to use one of the “stored certificates”.  This is probably OK if you never plan on switching machines or changing ...

Now that I'm running Vista (Beta 2), I'm obviously doing development in that environment as well.  A couple of things that I've noticed (and, honestly, haven't dug too deeply just yet... so these are initial impressions) is the following: 1. To get the cool “glowing” active command button effect, you need to set the FlatStyle of ...

by Cory Smith Introduction ToolTips can be used in a variety of ways to provide additional information to the user.  Now, understand, sometimes the usage of these can be abused and misused.  However, used correctly, ToolTips can improve the UI of your application tremendously. What will this article do for you? I'm going to state up front that ...