Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Unzipping/extracting MSI files

Not that often but sometimes I need to extract some dlls from msi packages. msiexec provides all the functions which are needed as described here.

Usually I’m working using the command line

msiexec /a foo.msi /qb TARGETDIR="C:\TEMP\Foo"

but sometimes it’s helpful to have a context menu entry like this.



To add the Extract MSI entry to the context menu you’ve to add it to the registry, details here or use gist below. The second gist shows how a .bat file which can extract all msi’s in a folder can look like.

Friday, March 8, 2013

VS2012.2 – tips and tricks–team explorer shortcuts and patterns

With the upcoming Visual Studio 2012 Update 2 and Visual Studio Tools for Git support for Git source control is coming to visual studio.

For this the Visual Studio team has adopted some parts of VS2012 new Team Explorer UI to make it easier to connect to different repositories in a quicker way.

Like in my previous shortcuts and patterns post I’ve tried to adapt the existing pattern to support the new Visual Studio Tools for Git extension.

Team commands shortcuts
View.TfsTeamExplorer SHIFT + ALT + V, T
View.TfsSourceControlExplorer SHIFT + ALT + V, S

Pattern for “classic” Team Explorer commands: SHIFT + ALT + T

Team Explorer commands shortcuts
Team.TeamExplorerSearch STRG + รค
TeamFoundationContextMenus.Commands.GoToHome SHIFT + ALT + T, H
TeamFoundationContextMenus.Commands.GoToBuilds SHIFT + ALT + T, B
TeamFoundationContextMenus.Commands.GoToWorkItems SHIFT + ALT + T, W
TeamFoundationContextMenus.Commands.GoToPendingChanges SHIFT + ALT + T, P
TeamFoundationContextMenus.Commands.GoToMyWork SHIFT + ALT + T, M
TeamFoundationContextMenus.Commands.GoToWebAccess SHIFT + ALT + T, A

Pattern for Editor/SourceControl: SHIFT + ALT + S

TFS Editor/SourceControl commands shortcuts
File.TfsHistory SHIFT + ALT + S, H
File.TfsAnnotate SHIFT + ALT + S, A
File.TfsCompare SHIFT + ALT + S, C
File.TfsUndoCheckout SHIFT + ALT + S, U

Pattern for Git Team Explorer commands: SHIFT + ALT + T

Team Explorer commands shortcuts scope
Team.Git.GoToGitBranches SHIFT + ALT + G, B global
Team.Git.GoToGitChanges SHIFT + ALT + G, G global
Team.Git.GoToGitCommits SHIFT + ALT + G, C global
Team.Git.OpenCommandPrompt SHIFT + ALT + O, P Team Explorer
Team.Git.OpenFileExplorer SHIFT + ALT + O, E Team Explorer
Team.Git.Push SHIFT + ALT + G, P Team Explorer
Team.Git.ViewHistory SHIFT + ALT + G, H global