Dot Net Rookie Mistakes

Includes such rookie problems as:
My freaking breakpoint doesn't work!
"Find" doesn't find what I'm looking for! and the famous Bypass Proxy for Local Addresses Gotcha.

My freaking breakpoint doesn't work!

Maybe the configuration settings are set to 'Release' instead of 'Debug'.

This normally leads to about two hours of frustration as a dot net rookie desperately beats their head against the keyboard. But it's a lesson that once learnt, is retained for life.

I can't get this freaking tool window to dock properly!

Patience is a virtue... Slow down and try again. You'll get the hang of it. And if it's any consolation, tool window docking is made far more intuitive in Whidbey (Visual Studio .net 2005).

I've released a windows executable to someone else and it doesn't work!

First thing it may be of course is that the .Net framework is missing from their machine. If that's the case, I'm sure a clever kid like you would find it in no time. No, I want to write about a slightly more interesting problem.

If you realise a tool onto a shared drive, or a server drive, you may get a security exception, something like this:

Unhandled Exception: System.Security.SecurityException: Request for the permission of type System.Security.Permissions.EnvironmentPermission, mscorlib, Version= 1.0.3300.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b76a5c461734e019 failed. etc.

If that's the case you may need to log on to the server in question and use the Microsoft .Net Framework Configuration utility (in the control panel/administrative tool). You may have to grant the necessary permission to the assembly in question. (You can also use the "Microsoft .Net Framework Permissions Wizard" to achieve the same result.)

"Find" (F3 or Ctrl-F) doesn't find what I'm looking for!

Find no longer lets you search the entire project. To do this, instead use 'Find in Files' [Ctrl-Shift-F]. C++ Developers have been doing this for years.

Another gotcha with 'search' is that unless you select 'Search hidden text' it won't search inside any collapsed regions (ie. #Regions that are hidden).

Source safe keeps showing me the wrong version of my project!

When dealing with branched versions of projects in source safe, they will sometimes (often?) hold onto the wrong server bindings, which basically means that although you want to work on one version, you keep getting shown another. If left untreated, This is of course configuration management Death. To fix this in Visual Studio .Net, go to: "File|Source Control|Change Source Control|Server Bindings"

ASP.net works fine at home - but when ever I try to run an application at work, I get a 404 error! God mother freakin damnit!

Okay - chill out on that language you nasty geek. This is often caused by failing to check the 'Bypass proxy for local addresses' checkbox in your browser (under Options|Connections|Settings|Lan Settings|Proxy Server).

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