Pinter Computing – Page 72 – Knowledge Base for IT Professionals, Teachers and Astronauts

How to remove Windows 8 and install Windows 7 on a Dell inspiron 7000 series laptop

If you want to remove the preinstalled Windows 8 from a new Dell inspiron 7000 series (7537) laptop you need an external USB DVD drive and a Windows 7 DVD. You can buy the LG external USB DVD drive for $40 at Best Buy, and the Windows 7 at Amazon.

The first step is to turn off UEFI in the BIOS and enable the legacy boot. This will allow the computer to boot from the Windows 7 DVD.

To enter the BIOS

Turn off the laptop
Press the power button and continuously tap the F12 button to open the boot menu
In the Other Options section of the boot menu select Setup

Turn off the UEFI boot mode in the BIOS

In the BIOS setup select Boot on the top of the screen
Press Enter on the Secure Boot option and select Disabled
Press Enter on the Load Legacy Option Rom and select Enabled
Press Enter on the Boot List Option and select Legacy

Save the BIOS settings

Select Exit on the top of the screen
Select Exit Saving Changes and press Enter
Press Enter on Yes to save the changes

The computer will automatically try to restart and displays a message that “Operating system not found”

Keep the power button pressed to force it to shut down

Boot from the Windows 7 DVD

Insert the Windows 7 DVD into the DVD drive
Start the computer with the power button and continuously tap the F12 button to open the boot menu
If there is a + sign next to the CD/DVD/CD-RD Drive option select it and press Enter
If there is no plus sign next to it turn off the computer with the power button and try to start it again while tapping the F12 key

Install Windows 7

The computer will boot from the Windows 7 DVD
Select Install, Advanced installation
Delete all partitions on the hard drive
Create one partition (Windows will create another 100MB system partition for itself)
Select the large partition as the destination of Windows 7

Enjoy the last usable Windows version.

How to disable Sticky Keys in Windows

When you press the Shift key five times Windows turns on a feature called Sticky Keys to help people to type with one hand. Sometimes this can cause inconvenience when you want to use two hands and just pressed the Shift key too many times.

To turn off this automatic feature in Windows 7

In the Control Panel select Ease of Access Center
Select the Make the keyboard easier to use link
In the Make it easier to type section select the Set up Sticky Keys link
In the Keyboard shortcut section uncheck Turn on Sticky Keys when SHIFT is pressed five times
In the Options section uncheck Lock modifier keys when pressed twice in a row

windows 7 disable sticky keys

How to remove Windows 8 and install Windows 7 on a Sony VAIO SVF15N17CXB laptop

If you want to remove the preinstalled Windows 8 from a new Sony VAIO laptop you need an external USB DVD drive and a Windows 7 DVD. You can buy the LG external USB DVD drive for $40 at Best Buy, and the Windows 7 at Amazon.

The first step is to turn off UEFI in the BIOS and enable the legacy boot. This will allow the computer to boot from the Windows 7 DVD.

To enter the BIOS

Turn off the Sony VAIO laptop
Press the small “Assist” button between the Delete button and the display to turn on the computer and display the VAIO Care Menu
In the VAIO Care Menu select Start BIOS Setup

Turn off the UEFI boot mode in the BIOS

In the BIOS setup select Boot on the top of the screen
Press Enter on the Boot Mode option and select Legacy

Save the BIOS settings

Select Exit on the top of the screen
Select Exit Saving Changes and press Enter
Press Enter on Yes to save the changes

The computer will automatically try to restart into Windows 8

Keep the power button pressed to force it to shut down

Boot from the Windows 7 DVD

Start the computer with the “Assist” button
Insert the Windows 7 DVD into the DVD drive
In the VAIO Care Menu Menu select Start from Media (USB device/optical disc)

Install Windows 7

The computer will boot from the Windows 7 DVD
Select Install, Advanced installation
Delete all partitions on the hard drive
Create one partition (Windows will create another 100MB system partition for itself)
Select the large partition as the destination of Windows 7

Enjoy the last usable Windows version.

How to use your Skype account in Windows 8.1

When you click the Skype tile on the Windows 8.1 start screen the “modern” Skype application opens. It forces you to abandon your Skype user name and password and use a Microsoft account to log in.

There is a way to use the regular Skype desktop application on Windows 8.1

Open the web browser and navigate to http://www.skype.com/go/getskype-full
This link will download the latest full desktop Skype application
Save the appication
When the download completed select Run to install the Skype desktop application
Log in with your regular Skype account name an password

To add the full Skype desktop application to the Windows 8.1 start screen

Click the down arrow at the lower left corner of the Start screen
The page will display all of your installed applications in alphabetical order
Scroll to the right to see the Skype for Desktop icon in the Skype section
Right click the Skype for Desktop icon
At the bottom of the page select Pin to Start
Move the Skype for Desktop application icon the desired location on your Start screen

To remove the “modern” Skype application icon from the Start screen

Right click the “modern” Skype application icon on the Start screen
At the bottom of the screen select Unpin from Start

To place the Windows 8.1 “modern” Skype icon back to the Start screen

Type Skype into the search field
Right click the Skype icon
Select Pin to Start

How to add tooltip to a Windows Form

In Windows Form applications the tooltip functionality is not built into the controls as in HTML objects.

To add tooltip to your controls on Windows Forms

Open the Windows Form in the designer
Drag the ToolTip control from the Common Controls section of the Toolbox to the form. The ToolTip control will be placed at the bottom margin of the design surface outside of the visible area of the form.
A new item appears in the Misc section of the property list of the form controls (buttons, textboxes, etc): ToolTip on toolTip1
Enter the text there you want the users to see when they hover above the control.

How to add a DataGridView to a Windows Form

To display data in a DataGridView on a Windows Form

Add a new form to the Win Form Application project
Drag a BindingSource from the Toolbox to the form

The bindingSource object appears below the form

Rename the Binding Source
- Select the bindingSource1 object below the form
- Press F4 to display the Properties
- Change the Name property to reflect the purpose of the object

Select the DataSource item in the Data section and click the Add Project Data Source… link

The name is misleading. At this step we are not selecting the source of the data, we are selecting the object that describes the data row. The DataGridView will generate the columns based on the object we will select here.

To load the data from a class select Object as the Data Source Type and click Next

Select the object that describes the data row you want to display

Drag a DataGridView from the Toolbox to the form

Select the small arrow at the upper right corner of the DataGridView to open the Tasks dialog
Click the down arrow next tot the Choose Data Source list
Select the Binding Data Source that you added to the form

Click the Edit Columns link to set the visibility of the columns

To hide a column set the Visible attribute in the Appearance section to False

To load data into the DatGridView add the following code to the constructor of the form. In this example the GetUsers() method returns an array of UserView objects
```
// Load the data into the DataGridView
bindingSourceUsers.DataSource = _business.GetUsers();
```
To hide the row selector column on the left side of the data add the following to the constructor of the form. This option is not included in the property sheet of the DataGridView, so we have to set it in the code.
```
dataGridView1.RowHeadersVisible = false;
```

How to test SOAP web services from outside of the server with a web browser

SOAP web services that accept primitive type arguments (string, int, etc.) can be tested from a web browser.
For security reasons this feature is disabled if the web browser runs on another machine. To enable testing the SOAP web services in the test environment from another machine add the following to the system.web section of the Web.config file:

<webServices>
    <protocols>
        <add name="HttpPost"/>
        <add name="HttpGet"/>
    </protocols>
</webServices>

DbArithmeticExpression arguments must have a numeric common type

The Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 Entity Framework database query does not support the subtraction of two dates to calculate TimeSpan.

For example the following statement will throw a runtime error:

site.VisitFrequencySec < ((TimeSpan)(dtNow - site.LastVisitDate)).TotalSeconds)

To solve the problem create a computed database column to calculate the difference between the dates and use the computed value for comparison.

Column definition:

[SecondsSinceLastVisit]  AS (datediff(second,[LastVisitDate],getdate()))

Now you can use the computed column in the C# Entity Network comparison.

site.VisitFrequencySec < site.SecondsSinceLastVisit

The underlying provider failed on Open

When you get the following error message in Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 check the inner exception.

System.Data.Entity.Core.EntityException was unhandled
HResult=-2146233087
Message=The underlying provider failed on Open.
Source=EntityFramework

The inner exception gives you detailed information on the real cause of the error. Most of the time the inner exception is the following:

InnerException: System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException
       HResult=-2146232060
       Message=Cannot open database “…” requested by the login. The login failed.
Login failed for user ‘…’.
       Source=.Net SqlClient Data Provider
       ErrorCode=-2146232060

Check the rights of the user. Most likely the specified user does not have access to the database.

The Entity Framework provider … could not be loaded

When you create a new Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 project that uses the Entity Framework you may get the following error message:
The Entity Framework provider type ‘System.Data.Entity.SqlServer.SqlProviderServices, EntityFramework.SqlServer’ registered in the application config file for the ADO.NET provider with invariant name ‘System.Data.SqlClient’ could not be loaded. Make sure that the assembly-qualified name is used and that the assembly is available to the running application. See http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=260882 for more information.

Add the EntityFramework NuGet package to the Data Access project that accesses the database and the Web Application or Web Service project that calls the project
- Right click the project in Solution Explorer
- Select Manage NuGet Packages…
- On the left side select Online
- On the right side enter EntityFramework into the search field
- Click Install next to the EntityFramework package
Make sure your app config file contains the following lines:

<entityFramework>
  <defaultConnectionFactory type="System.Data.Entity.Infrastructure.LocalDbConnectionFactory, EntityFramework">
    <parameters>
      <parameter value="v11.0" />
    </parameters>
  </defaultConnectionFactory>
  <providers>
    <provider invariantName="System.Data.SqlClient" type="System.Data.Entity.SqlServer.SqlProviderServices, EntityFramework.SqlServer" />
  </providers>
</entityFramework>

Your project should contain a reference to EntityFramework.SqlServer.dll
Add the following line to the constructor of the class that accesses the database

var type = typeof(System.Data.Entity.SqlServer.SqlProviderServices);

Add the System.Data.Entity reference to the project accessing the database