The following sample code demonstrates putting WMI WQL queries into a DataSet and displaying it in a datagridview.

This could become the basis of a really powerful system management utility. 

 

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Data;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Text;
using System.Windows.Forms;

using System.Management;

namespace WMIForm
{
    public partial class Form1 : Form
    {
        public Form1()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }

        private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            WMIQuery(“SELECT * FROM Win32_Service”);           
        }

        private void WMIQuery(string query)
        {
            SelectQuery qry = new SelectQuery(query);

            DataSet ds = new DataSet();
            DataTable Table = ds.Tables.Add(“WMI”);

            ManagementObjectSearcher ms = new ManagementObjectSearcher(qry);
            ManagementObjectCollection mc = ms.Get();

            Boolean loaded = false;

            foreach (ManagementObject mo in ms.Get())
            {
                if (!loaded)
                {
                    foreach (PropertyData prop in mo.Properties)
                    {
                        Table.Columns.Add(prop.Name);
                    }
                    loaded = true;
                }
                DataRow row = Table.NewRow();
                foreach (PropertyData prop in mo.Properties)
                {
                    row[prop.Name] = prop.Value;
                }
                Table.Rows.Add(row);
            }

            dataGridView1.DataSource = Table;
        }

        private void GoButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            WMIQuery(QueryTextBox.Text);
        }
    }
}

The following can easily be turned into a lightweight maintenance screen:

        private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            _Conn = new SqlConnection(“My Connection String”);
            _Adapter = new SqlDataAdapter();
            _Adapter.SelectCommand = new SqlCommand(“execute wsp_my_select_all”, _Conn);
            _Builder = new SqlCommandBuilder(_Adapter);
            _DS = new DataSet();
            _Adapter.Fill(_DS);
            dataGridView1.DataSource = _DS.Tables[0];
            dataGridView1.Columns[0].Visible = false;
            dataGridView1.Columns[“rowversion”].Visible = false;   
        }

        private void SaveBtnClick(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            //Do something useful with any exceptions here
            _Adapter.Update(_DS, _DS.Tables[0].TableName);
        }

When you are developing a product that has a live version, yet you wish to perform enhancements to the application.  How do you cope with the version control (you do use version control…) of fixes or enhancement to the live version.

The solution here is to use a branch.  The branch must be from the labelled point (you do label/checkpoint builds) used for the live build.  The trick is to keep the branches as small as possible and keeping as few maintained. It adds complexity to the development task but allows development to continue. Only create the branch at the point that you need to make changes.

This is a link to a work around to the reentrant issue on a win forms DataGridView.

The reentrant issue raises it’s head when changing data in a DataGridView. InvalidOperation exceptions get raised a random time after the grid is changed. This implies that the DataGridView uses threads in the background yet it’s public methods are not thread-safe.

In order to solve this you should use the best practice of subclassing the UI controls and put the fix there.

Theoretically you should subclass all controls (see here) – but if pushed for time just do the complex ones (how many times will you bugfix a label?) or the subset that you use frequently – any app will mostly use 10 or so basic controls.

Interop tools toolkit (integrates VB.NET into VB6).

VB6 C# Interop forms toolkit. 

This tool allows the integration of a C# Form into a VB6 Application. 

This will help with the migration if we have problems. 

Here is a page of project management links.

 

This is an artile on Multi project planning.