Using LINQ with SQL Server Compact Edition

I was trying to use MS Access with one of the applications I was writing for a non-profit organization but thought about the security of the database file. That being said, I opted to use SQL Server Compact Edition as it is just a small application that requires a database. This would enable the database to be embedded with the application and minimize the need to configure a database engine as a service, like how you would do with SQL Server Express. Since I wanted to use LINQ, I was quite surprised when the Design Surface threw an error saying that the data provider for SQL Server Compact was not supported. Good thing there's SqlMetal. I use SqlMetal to automate generation of DBML files for multiple SQL Server databases. Eventhough the Design Surface does not support SQL Server Compact, you can simply import the generated DBML file in your Visual Studio project. You can generate the DBML file for the SQL Server Compact database by running the SqlMetal command below:

SqlMetal /dbml:northwind.dbml northwind.sdf

Run the Windows SDK tool <drive>:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\SqlMetal.exe against your generated sdf file. Make sure you navigate to the folder containing the SDF file, typically the Visual Studio project folder. You can also generate the .vb or .cs code depending on your preference

Check out this blog post from the SQL Server Compact Team on using LINQ with SQL Server Compact

Another one-liner in Windows PowerShell

I did mention that I have been trying to convert my VBScript files to PowerShell scripts due to ease of coding. One of them happened to be a script that iterates a folder containing logs, reads the contents of the log files and appends them to a text file (I was actually trying to consolidate all the RADIUS logs for parsing and storage in a database). In VBScript, here's how it is written

Const ForReading = 1
Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set folder = objFSO.GetFolder("d:\a")
Set outfile = objFSO.CreateTextFile("d:\testout.txt")

for each file in folder.Files
Set testfile = objFSO.OpenTextFile(file.path, ForReading)
Do While Not testfile.AtEndOfStream
line=testfile.ReadLine
'write to a single output file
outfile.writeline(line)
Loop
testfile.close
Next

outfile.close
Set objFSO = Nothing
Set folder = Nothing
Set outfile = Nothing

Here's how you can do it in PowerShell - with the cmdlet aliases

ls d:\a\ gc ac d:\testout.txt

This should be more than enough reason to learn PowerShell as a system administratior. More to come

Renaming your domain controller hostname

This is not really recommended if you think about it. How many of you eventually decided that one day, you need to rename your domain controller? I bet no one. But there are unusual cases where you do not have any other choice but to do it.

That's what happened to me when I was building my virtual image of a Windows Server 2003 domain controller. I accidentally plugged in my automated installation CD. To my surprise, the installation has generated a random name for my machine. Although I could demote the domain controller, change the hostname, and promote it back, it would be very time consuming with all those reboots and manual steps. Searching thru Google gave me this site which recommends the use of the Netdom.exe tool. You do need to install the Windows Support Tools to use this tool. To change the hostname of the domain controller, open the command prompt associated with the Windows Support Tools. Then, run the following command

netdom computername oldhostname.domainname /add:newhostname.domainname

Although there are other instructions mentioned in the article, I only needed this command. After rebooting the server, I ran dcdiag.exe (Domain Controller Diagnostics Tool) and netdiag.exe(Network Connectivity Test Tool in the Windows Support Tools command prompt to validate the connectivity to the domain controllers. Knowing that you have the right tools available would make life a bit easy for any professional - whether in IT or not

Windows Update Explained

For those who administer or manage WSUS or simply do patch management, here's a documentation from TechNet written by the Windows Update Product Team to better understand updating behavior and what Microsoft is trying to do with Windows Update. While I rely so much on the WindowsUpdate.log file and/or the WSUS reporting feature to troubleshoot patch deployment issues, it's best to understand what is happening under-the-hood to get a better picture