Pinter Computing – Page 66 – Knowledge Base for IT Professionals, Teachers and Astronauts

Merging in Git with four panels in Windows

Git is a great repository for small and large projects. It is easy to create and merge branches to separate code for the features you work on. To make merging easier you can use a free 4 panel merging tool, Perforce P4Merge.

Download

Download the Perforce P4Merge Visual Merge Tool from https://www.perforce.com/downloads/integrations
Select the operating system of your computer and click the Download button.

Install Perforce P4Merge

Double click the downloaded EXE file
Unselect the Administration tool
Leave the server as is, we will not use it
Just click OK, the address is not important for us
Click Next again on the Client Configuration page
On a Windows machine P4Merge will be installed at C:\Program Files\Perforce. Git cannot access P4Merge if the path contains a space character, so once the installation is done move the Perforce folder to the root of the C: drive.

Add the Perforce P4Merge settings to the Git config file

To use the same tool in every repository navigate to C:\Users\[YOUR USER NAME] and open the .gitconfig file.
If you already have [merge] and [mergetool “p4merge”] entries update them, if not, add the following lines. Even on Windows machines you have to use forward slashes (/) in the path for Git to understand it.
```
[merge]
```
```
  tool = p4merge
```
```
[mergetool "p4merge"]
```
```
  cmd = "C:/Perforce/p4merge" "$BASE" "$LOCAL" "$REMOTE" "$MERGED"
```
```
  keepTemporaries = false
```
```
  trustExitCode = false
```
```
  keepBackup = false
```

Solve merge conflicts

If you use the Git command line merge the branches. Git is case sensitive.
- Change to the target branch
  - ```
  git checkout master
```
- Merge the changes from the feature branch
  - ```
  git merge Feature
```
- If there is a merge conflict type
  - ```
  git mergetool
```
- Git will display the name of the file that caused the merge conflict
  - ```
  $ git mergetool
```
```
  Merging:
```
```
  Test1.txt
```
```
  Normal merge conflict for 'Test1.txt':
```
```
    {local}: modified file
```
```
    {remote}: modified file
```
```
  Hit return to start merge resolution tool (p4merge):
```
- Hit Enter and the P4Merge opens with four panels
  - The left (Local) panel shows the changes in the current (target) branch,
  - The middle panel shows the original (Base) version of the file before both changes,
  - The right panel shows the coming changes (Remote) that were made in the branch you are merging from,
  - The bottom shows the result of the merge.
- Change the file to resolve the conflict and click the Save button to save the result.

Merging is safe, because Git creates backup copies of all three version of the file in the same folder. If there are multiple files with merge conflicts Git will open the merge tool for each of them one-by-one.

Add the changes to the next commit
- git add .
Commit the changes
- git commit -m “Merged with P4Merge”

How to delete a folder from Git, but not from the local disk

I have accidentally included a folder in my Git repository, that I don’t want to include in source control. I wanted to remove it from the Git index, but not from the local hard drive.

The solution is the following command

git rm -r --cached myFolder

If the folder name contains spaces enclose it in quotes "my folder"

This will remove the folder from the Git repository, but leave it on the local drive.

Visual Studio 2015 is very slow on Windows 10

When I have upgraded Windows 7 my computer to Windows 10 I have also installed Visual Studio 2015 professional. From the first moment Visual Studio 2015 was very slow. My computer was freezing all the time.

I have read many articles about the slowness of Visual Studio 2015, but I cold not find anything that helped, so I have decided to switch back to Windows 7. Unfortunately after the downgrade process my computer did not boot anymore. Finally I had to reinstall Windows 7 and all my applications. Luckily all my files were on the hard drive, so I did not lose anything.

Since that, I have found the following recommendation at http://stackoverflow.com/questions/31760339/visual-studio-2015-slow

Uncheck [Tools->Options->General->Automatically adjust visual experience based on client performance]
Uncheck [Use graphics acceleration if available]
You can leave [Enable rich client visual experience] checked

Sooner or later I will have to bite the bullet and install Windows 10 again, hopefully by that time Microsoft corrects this very serious problem, or I will try these steps to make it work.

NUnit in Visual Studio 2015

To use NUnit in Visual Studio 2015

Create a unit test project and download NUnit from NuGet

Start Visual Studio 2015 and open or create a solution
In your solution create a new class library for your unit tests
Right click the unit test project and select Manage NuGet Packages
Type NUnit into the search field
Install
- NUnit
- NUnit Test Adapter
- NUnit Runners

Create unit tests

Run the unit tests

DynDns update error

On Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 the Dyn Updater cannot update the IP address if you set the IPv-4 Configuration to Automatic during installation. The log contains the following error messages:

daemon – WARNING – Unable to get IP addresses for …dyndns.org, will retry later.

frontend – WARNING – API request failed. Status: 500 Method: ipaddress.get

frontend – WARNING – API error: Error connecting to checkip.dyndns.org. Please verify your internet connection and try again.

To make the Automatic IPv-4 Configuration setting work

Open a web browser and get the current IP address by navigating to http://checkip.dyndns.com/
Open the Dyn Updater,
- Select the host you want to fix,
- Click the Configure Selected Hosts button.
- Select Static Address for the IPv4 Configuration,
- Enter the current IP address,
- Click the OK button.
- Select the item again and click the Refresh Host List button.
- Select the item again and click the Configure Selected Hosts button.
- Select the Automatic IPv-4 Configuration and click the OK button.

Value was either too large or too small for a UInt32 error message when checking files into TFS

When you try to check-in or shelve files in Microsoft Team Foundation Server (TFS) sometimes the following error message appears:

Value was either too large or too small for a UInt32.

Cause:

There is an unsaved file in the IDE.

Solution:

Click Save All in the tool bar and try to check-in the files again.

No Entity Framework provider found for the ADO.NET provider with invariant name ‘System.Data.SqlClient’

When one of the projects in your solution is referencing the Entity Framework to access a database the Entity Framework NuGet package is added to that project. In the Visual Studio IDE your application may work fine, but when you deploy it to the test or production server the following error message may appear:

Exception Type: System.Data.Entity.Core.MetadataException
Exception: Schema specified is not valid.
Errors: [YOUR_DATABASE].ssdl(2,2) : error 0152: No Entity Framework provider found for the ADO.NET provider with invariant name ‘System.Data.SqlClient’. Make sure the provider is registered in the ‘entityFramework’ section of the application config file. See http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=260882 for more information.

To resolve the problem add the Entity Framework NuGet package to the main project of your application:

In the Solution Explorer right click the main project,
Select Manage NuGet Packages… in the context menu,
On the left side of the NuGet manager select Online, Microsoft and .NET,
On the right side enter EntityFramework into the search field and hit Enter,
In the middle click Install in the EntityFramework box.

How to add a new table to an existing Microsoft SQL Server replication publication

To add a new table to an existing MS SQL Server publication

Remote desktop into the database server, or a server in the same domain of the database server
Start Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
Connect to the database with ComputerName\SQLServerName
If there is only one instance of Microsoft SQL Server on the computer the two names are usually the same, but still both are needed, otherwise you get the following error message:SQL Server is unable to connect to server…
Additional information:
SQL Server replication requires the actual server name to make a connection to the server. Connections through a server alias, IP address, or any other alternate name not supported. Specify the actual server name, …\… (Replication.Utilities)
Right click the Local Publication
Select the Articles page
Uncheck the “Show only checked articles in the list” check box to see the not replicated tables
Select the tables you want to add to the replication
Click OK

Error creating a Scheduled Task on Windows Server 2008 R2

When the “Run whether user is logged on or not” option is selected in the General tab of the Create Task window the Task Scheduler has to save the password of the selected user.

During the save the following error message appears:

Task Scheduler

An error has occurred for the task <task name>. Error message: The following error was reported: A specified logon session does not exist. It may have already been terminated.

To enable the Task Scheduler to save the password of the selected user, disable the Network access: Do not allow storage of passwords and credentials for network authentication security policy of the server:

Click the Start button of the Start Menu and enter SECPOL.MSC into the Search programs and files text field
On the left side select Security Settings | Local Policies | Security Options
On the right side double click the Network access: Do not allow storage of passwords and credentials for network authentication policy
Select the Disabled radio button and click OK

Enable File Level Authentication or set SSL requirements in IIS 7 and 7.5

In Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2 the Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager looks different from the IIS 6 version.

To set file level attributes, like authentication, SSL requirement, follow the steps below:

Start Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager
On the left side select the application you want to administer.
At the bottom of the middle pane select the Content View tab to view the files of the application.
In the middle pane right click the file you want to administer and select Switch to Features View in the drop down menu.
In the middle pane double click the Authentication, SSL Settings, or any other icon you want to make changes to.